Alexio had done this many times before—for business meals in his apartment as well as for women—but tonight it felt different. Sidonie was looking at everything with such wide eyes.
‘I presumed you were joking earlier about being a vegetarian.’
Alexio lifted the platter’s lid to reveal confit duck dumplings and saw Sidonie’s eyes gleam with anticipation. It had a direct effect on his body, and he wondered if she would have that same hungry look when they made love.
She had the grace to glance at him sheepishly. ‘I had you figured for a chest-beating carnivore who would be horrified at the thought of watching me chew a lettuce leaf for half an hour.’
Alexio held Sidonie’s chair out for her so she could sit down, and said in a low, throaty voice as she did so, ‘I had a vegetarian option lined up just in case...but don’t you know by now that nothing you could have said would have put me off?’
He was rewarded by pink cheeks when he took his own seat opposite her. He raised his glass of white wine and she took hers. ‘Yiamas.’
Sidonie repeated the Greek phrase. They both took a sip of their drinks and Alexio dished out the starter.
* * *
‘Don’t you know by now that nothing you could have said would have put me off?’ Alexio’s softly delivered words still echoed in Sidonie’s head. The steel behind them...
He had just taken their dessert plates into the kitchen and Sidonie was standing on the small terrace which hugged the side of the building, leaning on the railing, with the Thames moving beneath her feet somewhere in the dark.
In all honesty she couldn’t have recalled, if asked, what they’d just eaten except to know that it had been exquisite. She’d been too mesmerised by her charismatic dinner companion and how easily the conversation had flowed. Like on the plane, once they’d started they hadn’t stopped. Every now and then a tiny jolt of electric shock had run through her at the realisation of where she was and with whom... She’d met him only hours before... She should be back in Dublin, reorganising her life...
She still wanted to cringe when she thought of the way Alexio had looked her up and down when she’d arrived downstairs in her jeans and T-shirt, acutely conscious of how tatty she must look. The fact that he was equally dressed down had been little comfort, because she’d almost melted on the spot at seeing him in the faded hip-hugging jeans and white shirt. He epitomised cool, laid-back elegance.
To give him credit, he hadn’t made her feel uncomfortable. Just hot and bothered...
She heard a noise in the kitchen and turned round to see Alexio putting plates in a dishwasher. She shook her head wryly. Who would have believed it?
She walked back in to help. He stood up tall.
‘Coffee? An after-dinner liqueur?’
Sidonie put the last plate in the dishwasher and closed the door. She’d made a decision during dinner—a momentous one. It had been helped by the direct way he’d informed her earlier that he wasn’t ‘into relationships’. Well, neither was she. Not when she faced such a huge upheaval in her life, and not when she had responsibilities. And certainly not when the man was Alexio Christakos and so far out of her league it wasn’t funny.
During dinner Sidonie had recalled the name of a favourite perfume of her mother’s: Ce Soir ou Jamais. Tonight or never. This evening felt all too ephemeral. She wanted to seize the moment, live it fully. She wanted this man with a hunger she knew was rare. Once in a lifetime.