Wedding Night with a Stranger by Anna Cleary Read Free Book Online Page B

Withchagrin she noticed that her chair was positioned to face Sebastian’s.
    The head waiter deposited her napkin on her lap and presented her with her menu, while the other waiter fluttered to fill her water glass, offer her hot rolls.
    She barely knew what she said to them. Questions clamoured in her head as Sebastian’s dark satanic presence dominated the space. Had the man somehow guessed she’d be coming here after all and arranged this with the restaurant staff?
    But how could he have known? Did he have some sort of diabolical clairvoyance?
    The head waiter retreated, along with his small entourage. Almost at once a wine waiter advanced, who hovered, exerting polite pressure for her to make a choice. Conscious that this was something she’d never had to do herself before, she opened the wine menu and skimmed page after page of unfamiliar Australian and New Zealand names, hypersensitive to the unnerving presence of her neighbour.
    She could feel his eyes on her, boring into her brain as if he knew, damn him, how distracting his presence was, how little she really knew about wine. Out of cowardice she considered rejecting it altogether, then noticed a bottle of red on the neighbouring table, its cork removed.
    Allowing the wine to breathe, her uncle would have pronounced with approval.
    Pride and prudence warred in her chest, and pride won the day. If Sebastian Nikosto could order wine, so could Ariadne Giorgias.
    Still, she’d hardly ever been the person at the restaurant table who’d made the selection, except on a couple of lunch occasions with her girlfriends. Praying she didn’t make a fool of herself, she murmured the most familiar name on the list.
    The waiter’s brows rose. ‘Veuve Cliquot. Excellent choice, miss.’
    The man whisked away, and she was left to face Sebastian alone. She held her menu up before her face, self-consciously aware he was now leaning forward with his arms folded on the table, watching her like a cougar poised to spring.
    She felt a spurt of annoyance. His firm, masculine mouth—on another man she might have even considered it stirring—was gravely set, but there’d been a very slight flicker in one corner as if a smile was willing to break out. Except there was nothing to smile at. For goodness’ sake, the man had just been rejected in marriage. Couldn’t he accept it with dignity?
    She was just winding up to say something to challenge him, when the waiter came back with a champagne flute, and presented a bottle with a yellow label for her approval.
    As she’d seen her uncle do countless times, she nodded. The man set the glass before her, then without spilling a drop worked off the cork with deft fingers, and poured her a foaming taste.
    As coolly as possible, considering she was under scrutiny, she swirled it in the glass, sniffed it, then took a small sip.
    The buoyant liquid foamed its way to her stomach like a potent wave.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, her eyes watering a little as the waiter topped up her glass. To crush any suspicions Sebastian Nikosto might have that she wasn’t completely at ease and self-assured, she raised the sparkling liquid casually to her lips for a further sip. Bubbles shot up her nose and she couldn’t prevent a sneeze. In the desperate grab for tissues, she reached blindly for her purse and accidentally knocked over her water glass.
    Oh, Theos. Aflood the size of Niagara Falls swamped her side of the table.
    The waiter snapped into emergency mode, fussing over the pool with a napkin, helping her move out from the table to avoid the drips, enquiring if she was all right, if there was anything wrong with the champagne, trying to insist despite her protests that he must summon someone to change the table linen.
    Shut up, she wanted to scream, burningly aware of Sebastian Nikosto’s attentive face observing and listening to it all. Get lost.
    ‘No, no, it’s all right, ’ she hissed at all his mopping and tsking over the sodden spot.