“I reserved the whole place,” he said, sounding bored as he opened the menu.
“Why?”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.” He closed the menu. “What would you like?”
With a sigh, she opened her menu. It was written in English and French. This place was entirely too coldly elegant, she thought. Looking out the window with longing, Eve saw locals and tourists thronging a colorful street market.
Outside in the hot Greek sun, she saw people smiling at each other, eating at outdoor cafés, bartering goodnaturedly in the flea market.
The waiter came and took their order, speaking flawless English with a slightly British accent. After he departed, a different waiter brought them drinks. She took a sip of orange juice, then leaned forward with her elbows on the table.
“All right, Talos,” she said quietly. “Tell me why we’re really here.”
His eyes were dark as they fixed on her. “This past summer, I almost lost my business,” he said in a low voice. “A document was stolen from my penthouse which suggested I might be cheating my stockholders of a great deal of money. Of course, I wasn’t. But it cast the company’s finances in a sordid light.”
She stared up at him, shocked. “That’s terrible! Did you find out who did it?”
He looked at her, his eyes glittering. “Yes.”
“I hope you put them in jail!”
He took a sip of black coffee. “That’s not my style.”
“But what does that have to do with me—and this restaurant?”
“This is the last place I ever saw you, Eve. Before your accident.”
She frowned, shaking her head. “Right before I left for my stepfather’s funeral?”
“You left me long before that. Almost three months ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you recognize this table?”
She looked down at it. “No. Should I?”
“The last time I saw you, you were sitting here with Jake Skinner. Having breakfast with him, just hours after I’d made love to you.”
“What?” she gasped.
His hands clenched on the white linen tablecloth. “Kefalas was following you—”
“Following me?” she gasped.
“Protecting you,” he corrected. “During the one day I had an unbreakable appointment. He phoned me and I dropped everything. I rushed here like a fool to demand an explanation. You tried to laugh it off as nothing.”
She thought of the American tycoon whom she’d met at the party. “So that’s why you wanted me to dance with him,” she said quietly. “To trick me?”
“I wanted to make you remember betraying me.”
She shook his head. “I don’t!”
“You disappeared from the city. The next morning, I woke to discover my company’s name splashed across the newspapers, and my phone ringing incessantly with calls from press and angry stockholders. Skinner gave the document to the press. But the one who first stole it from my house—” he leaned forward, his eyes black and hard “—was you.”
She drew back in shock. “Me!”
“And so I’ve been waiting for you to remember. Every place I’ve taken you, every memory I’ve hoped to reignite, was so you could tell me why.”