Page 84 of Ricardo

She notices.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Sharing?”

“Making it impossible to dislike you.”

“I did not realize you were trying.”

“I like to keep my options open.”

“Wise.”

Her laughing eyes lift to mine over the rim of her glass.

The door opens again.

This time, both of us turn toward it like guilty people.

The server enters with the soup and her sandwich, my branzino behind him on a second tray. He places everything carefully, oblivious or pretending to be, and Julia busies herself with her napkin as if it requires such intense concentration.

I have to look down at my plate.

I am a grown man.

I have negotiated with criminals, financiers, politicians, and men who smiled while planning to betray me.

And this woman, with her Coke and her fries and her fury, is making me behave like I am half my age and out of practice.

The server leaves again, leaving us alone.

Chapter Nine

Julia

I pick up a fry when the server walks out because I need something to do with my hands.

We are alone, and, now that my anger has drained out of me, I'm suddenly nervous.

Ricardo cuts into his branzino with the kind of precision that really shouldn't be as interesting as it is.

Unfortunately, everything about him is interesting. Especially here.

At the office, there are barriers. People, desks, Mario. The constant pressure of professional etiquette and appearances.

Here, there is only the soft clink of silver against porcelain, the faint murmur of other diners somewhere beyond the private room, and Ricardo’s undivided attention.

As we speak about nothing at all in a way that feels way too intense for such casual conversation, I can feel the way he watches me. The way he pays attention to everything about me: how I hold my glass, how I sit, how I drag a fry through ketchup.

Outside the tall windows, the green of the course has changed.

A few minutes ago, sunlight lay over the eighteenth green in clear gold strips. Now the light coming in is duller, the green of the grass less bright. Clouds have gathered over the far line of trees.

It makes the whole experience even more intimate.

I glance toward it.

“Looks like rain,” I say.