Victor comes around to my side of the car and I loop my arm through his again as he walks me inside.

The restaurant is two stories with a balcony upstairs overlooking the bottom floor. The conversation all around me sounds like a constant humming, but it’s not so packed that every table is full. Other than the voices, it’s quiet in here with low lighting and semi-dark walls to create a tranquil atmosphere. Victor pulls me alongside him gently as we follow the waiter to a circular-shaped booth with shiny black leather seats near the back. I sit down first and then Victor slides in next to me.

The waiter presents us with two leather-bound menus, but before he can place mine fully on the table in front of me, I sweep my hand toward it, waving it away with a look of boredom. “I won’t be eating,” I say as if food might somehow ruin my path to enlightenment. “But I will be having wine.”

The waiter looks at the menu in his hand and then back at me briefly, appearing confused.

Victor gives me a look which I can’t quite place, but I know it’s not a good one. He opens his menu and after studying it for a moment, hands it back to the waiter and says, “La Serena Brunello di Montalcino.” The waiter nods, takes the menu, which is apparently the wine menu and I’m about to die from embarrassment, and he walks away.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Victor’s eyes lock on me warningly. It takes me a second, but I understand what I’m doing wrong and wipe that embarrassed look off my face fast, straightening my back against the seat and crossing my legs beneath the table. I set my purse on the table at my right.

This staying in character is stuff harder than I thought, but now that I’ve already screwed up twice within minutes, I’m more determined than ever to get it right.

In seconds, I fully become Izabel Seyfried.

I reach into my purse and pull out a compact mirror and a tube of rose-colored lipstick and begin applying it at the table. I make sure to stare at myself a lot, turning my head subtly at different angles and gently pursing my lips.

“Put the lipstick away,” Victor says as the rich a**hole and not the man I know.

I glare softly at him and do as he says, but take my time about it.

The waiter comes back to our booth with a bottle of wine and with both hands puts it into Victor’s view. Victor visually inspects it and then nods to the waiter, who then pulls the cork and places it on the table in front of Victor. He inspects that, too, and while I’m quietly wondering why so much effort is being put into this on both of their parts, I say nothing and pretend not to care. The waiter pours a small amount into Victor’s glass first and then takes a step back. Victor swirls the wine around in the glass for a moment and then brings it to his nose and sniffs it before taking a sip. After Victor approves, the waiter fills my glass first and then Victor’s.

I don’t look the waiter in the eyes because like the valet, he’s not worthy of my precious attention.

Victor declines food for the both of us and the waiter leaves our table.

“I never enjoy this city when I come here,” he says, taking a sip of his wine.

I fit my fingers delicately around the swell of my glass and do the same, afterwards placing it carefully back on the table.

“Well, I personally would prefer New York, or France,” I say, having no idea where I’m going with this.

“I didn’t ask you what you’d prefer.” He doesn’t look at me.

He sets his glass down.

“Why bring me out with you then?” I ask, cocking my head. “I was only trying to engage you in conversation.” I look away, crossing my arms over my chest.

Victor looks right at me. “Izabel, don’t sit with your arms crossed like that. It makes you look like a stubborn child.”

Slowly, my arms fall away and I fold my hands together within my lap, straightening my back.

“Come here,” he says in a gentler tone.

I slide over the few inches separating us and sit right next to him.

His fingers dance along the back of my neck as he pulls my head toward him. My heart pounds erratically when he brushes his lips against the side of my face. Suddenly, I feel his other hand slip in-between my thighs and up my dress. My breath hitches. Do I part them? Do I freeze up and lock them in place? I know what I want to do, but I don’t know what I should do and my mind is about to run away with me.

“I have a surprise for you tonight,” he whispers onto my ear.

His hand moves closer to the warmth between my legs.

I gasp quietly, trying not to let him know, though I’m positive he definitely knows.

“What kind of surprise?” I ask, my head tilted back, resting in his hand.

Just then another couple walks up to the table, a tall blonde-haired woman with mile-long nak*d legs and an even taller man with his hand around the back of her waist.

Victor stands up to greet them. I stay right where I’m at, staying in character, yet at the same time not really having to pretend to be disappointed by their presence because I was enjoying the moment with Victor before we were interrupted; for a few minutes I had forgotten why we were even here.

“Aria,” the woman introduces herself.

“A pleasure,” I say with obvious distaste.

She sits down on the other side of the rounded booth. The man takes the outside seat after her, just as Victor sits.

“It has been a while, Victor,” the man says with an accent that I can’t place.

How do they know each other?

“Yes, it has, my friend,” Victor says as he gestures for the waiter.

The waiter comes right over and takes the man’s wine order.

“Izabel,” Victor says, “this is my old friend Fredrik from Sweden. He’ll be running my offices in Stockholm when the expansion goes into effect next month.”

“Oh, I see,” I say, taking another sip of my wine, sizing ‘Aria’ up as I look at her over the rim of my glass.

Her br**sts are practically busting out of the top of her dress and I feel inadequate all of a sudden. But I don’t let it show. I am the most beautiful and most important girl in the room, I remind myself. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that her double-D’s dwarf my C’s or that she’s quite beautiful and has the most magnetic blue eyes I’ve ever seen on a woman before.

I round my chin proudly and look away from her.

“What is my present, Victor?”

Victor’s lips lengthen subtly and he places his glass back upon the table.

“Fredrik and Aria, of course,” he says. “You’ve been so good lately and I’ve been neglecting you while away in Sweden that I wanted to celebrate you tonight.”

Fredrik smiles seductively across the table at me with his lips pressed to the rim of his glass. He is gorgeous, with dark wavy hair and strong cheekbones.

“Couldn’t we celebrate alone?” I ask, giving Fredrik no more of my attention. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Surely you don’t mean for me to f**k them.”

Victor’s smile is openly sly but secretly proud by how easily I caught onto the plan.

I just hope it doesn’t go farther than this table…

His hand moves away from between my legs and he places both arms upon the table, bent at the elbows.

“No, of course not,” he says and that surprises me. “I would never share you, you know that.”

Aria smiles at me, continuously trying to make eye contact which makes me want to look at her less. Fredrik’s left hand disappears underneath the table and probably between her thighs like Victor had his between mine just seconds ago.

“Victor tells us,” Fredrik leans forward just a bit and lowers his voice, “that you prefer an audience. Aria and I would very much like to watch. If that is something you’d be willing to allow.”

I’m not sure when the act ended for me, but right now I’m struggling to swim my way through feelings of lust and pleasure to find my way back into the real world. For a long few seconds I don’t say anything at all. All I can think about is Victor having his way with me and Fredrik and Aria watching as he does it. I’m suddenly tingling between the legs. But I’m ashamed of my own thoughts and try to force them out of my mind.

“Izabel?” I hear Victor say.

I snap back into the moment, not entirely sure anymore how I’m supposed to act. Maybe Victor should’ve prepared me better by giving me the particulars of important details like this. I fumble over my thoughts, using my wine glass as a distraction as I finger the stem with my right hand all while still trying to exude this self-possessed personality of Izabel Seyfried that I’m not exactly feeling anymore.

“I would like that,” I say. But then I glance coldly at Aria and add, “But not her. Only Fredrik.”

Aria’s face falls and then twists faintly into something bitter.

Victor’s expression remains standard and I take that as a secret sign of his approval for my decision to exclude her.

Before I lose my confidence, I keep the dialogue flowing.

“You should’ve known better than to invite her, Victor.”

He touches my wrist upon the table.

“Very well,” he says and then looks to Fredrik. “Meet us at my hotel in two hours. Alone.”

Aria goes to stand up and she angrily gestures for Fredrik to move out of her way so she can remove herself from the booth. He stands and steps over to the side, but when he reaches out to help her she pushes his hand away and snaps at him, “Get the f**k away from me,” and she trots off on her six-inch heels away from the table.

It’s odd how I actually feel bad about ‘hurting her feelings’ regardless of the nature of the situation.

Fredrik sits back down and the mood at the table changes as he and Victor start talking about this company expansion to Sweden that I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. What confuses me even more is how fluent the fictional conversation about such a fictional thing goes on between them. It seems as if they discussed this entire scenario at length and even had time to rehearse before we all came here. But I’ve been with Victor the entire time and he hasn’t had an opportunity to go over something like this at length with anyone other than me. Fredrik seems to know more about what’s going on than I do.

And quite frankly, that ticks me off a little.

“I’m ready to go,” I say icily both as Izabel and Sarai.

“We’ll leave when I’m ready,” Victor says.

“But I want to go now,” I snap. “I don’t like this restaurant. It’s too f**king dark. I feel like I’m in a dungeon.” I take my purse from the table and go to stand up.

Victor grabs my arm and pushes me back into the seat.

“I said we’ll leave when I’m ready. And stop talking or you can sit on your knees underneath the table between mine.”

I swallow hard, a look of shock consuming my features. Seeing Fredrik in my peripheral vision, I gather my composure quickly.

I set my purse back on the table and relent to Victor fully.

And once again, I’m trying to swim my way out of my dirty thoughts.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO