Losing Charity

Losing Charity - 3

I return to the table, taking hobbled little steps in my too-high heels because, honestly, this dress, the Sarvacci, is a little too short and a little too tight for walking with anything like a natural stride.

As if walking naturally is remotely the point of a dress like this.

Peter sits, I see, with perfect posture, alert, casually surveying the room like he owns the place.

For all I know, he does.

His hands are clasped before him on the table. He isn't fidgeting or checking his phone or eyeing any of the numerous glamour girls prowling the bar area. Though several, I note, send hungry glances his way.

Sorry, girls. He's with me.

Yeah, I would never ever have the nerve to say that out loud.

Models eat here, or pretend to. Real models you recognize from magazine covers and lipstick commercials, not the pretend Instagram kind. Models and movie stars and heiresses and socialites and Wall Street trophy wives and all the other fizzy, flighty, famous, fashionable people who can not only afford Barbat, but can actually get a reservation at Barbat in this decade. The women in this room are just wow. I'm drooling — at the outfits, mostly — but Peter isn't even window shopping in my absence. At least not that I can tell.

Does he only have eyes for me, this Mr. Peter Sutaf?

It seems unlikely.

But I'll go with it.

"Miss me?" I say, as I return to the table.

Peter stands as I approach. A crisply-pressed waiter materializes from nowhere to pull out and push in my chair, then vanishes with a silent nod of acknowledgement of my softly spoken thanks.

Peter sits, smiles that charming smile, says, "Every minute you were gone was an eternity."

Cornball, right? But the way he says it, I believe it.

"Eternity is a long time," I say.

He smiles, as if at some secret joke, and says, "You have no idea."

His teeth are perfect. Perfectly straight. Perfectly white. If he weren't sitting right in front of me, I would think they were Photoshopped.

I laugh my appreciative girlish laugh and reach for my wine. Peter lifts his glass as I raise mine and gazes into my eyes as he drinks along with me.

So blue, those eyes.

Like lakes.

Deep lakes.

Deep mountain lakes seen out the window of a private jet.

Which, he owns one.

He mentioned it in passing. Not in an obnoxious I own a jet—be impressed, be very impressed way. Casual, like it wasn't something he even thought about any more than I would think about a pen or a pair of socks or something trivial like that.

Also, a Mediterranean island.

That came up too. This island his family owns.

In Greece, I think.

Or Turkey. I forget.

Doesn't matter.

They own an island.

An. Island.

That he flies to in his jet. That is his.

But I digress.

It isn't that I'm into him because of his money.

I'm not that shallow.

I'm into him because of his looks. Ha.