Her expression is still wary. “What did you send me?” she asks. “What was in the package?”
I gesture to the untouched drink in front of her. “Take a sip.”
She drinks, and a look of startled surprise fills her face. “Daniel,” she says softly. “What is this?”
I slide the bottle over her way. It’s a bottle of Five Lakes, a small brand of vodka that’s very hard to find outside of Russia. From reading Bailey’s blog posts, I know that this particular brand is one of the things she misses about Siberia. It took all weekend to locate a dozen bottles in Moscow and fly them to New York. After all that effort, FedEx just stuck a delivery notice on her door, and it’s probably languishing in one of their pick-up centers. This has to be the textbook definition of irony.
“You found this in New York?”
“Moscow.”
“This weekend?”
I smile at her. “Yes, Bailey.”
“You read my blog?”
I can’t quite make out her tone. Is she angry? “I did.”
She digests that silently, then she turns to Sebastian. “Why did you eat at Piper’s restaurant?”
He’s been silent so far, watching the two of us. Now, he answers Bailey’s question. “I have a very unstable chef at one of my restaurants, and I’ve been hearing good things about your friend’s cooking. I thought I might eat there and look for a replacement at the same time, in a low-key kind of way.”
She finally cracks a smile. A small one, but at least she’s not frowning any more. “Sebastian, you do know that people recognize you, don’t you? There’s no low-key way for a two-Michelin-starred chef to eat in a restaurant in the city.”
“I’m beginning to realize that,” he replies. He takes a sip of his vodka and looks up. “Hey, this is good,” he says to me. “Nice work, Daniel. Appropriate big gesture.”
“Big gesture?” I stifle the urge to kill Sebastian as Bailey looks at us with a curious look.
“Daniel here,” Sebastian teases, unabashed, “goes for the big, dramatic gesture.”
Ignoring Sebastian’s amusement, I give Bailey a serious look. “I screwed up, but it won’t happen again. As multiple people have pointed out to me, I’m not the only one that stands to lose if this thing between us becomes public knowledge. That is, if you are still interested in pursuing it…” I hesitate, almost holding my breath waiting for her answer. I’m not the only one. Sebastian is waiting expectantly too.
She surveys the two of us. “Tell me what you want,” she says finally. “This situation isn’t typical for me. Billionaires and celebrities don’t stumble into my world. Hot guys aren’t interested in me, and as you already know, I don’t have wild, crazy sex. I don’t know how to navigate all of that.”
I kiss the pulse that beats nervously in her wrist. She’s not as calm as she appears. Neither am I. “I find everything about you fascinating, and I’d like to get to know you better.”
“Me too,” Sebastian says from his corner.
“Both of you at the same time? That wasn’t a one-time thing?”
“Is that bad?” Sebastian asks, his words a challenge in her direction as I brace myself for her answer. There are a lot of women out there who think they want to try a threesome, and some of them even will. A longer commitment to something so unorthodox? That’s a rarity. “Can you handle something outside the norm?”
She looks intrigued. “I’m a cultural anthropologist. Outside the norm is my bread and butter.”
“Is that a yes?”
“No more big gestures, Daniel. If I do this, it isn’t because of how rich you are.”
“If I thought the reason you were here was my money, we wouldn’t be doing anything.”
She smiles. “Thank you for noticing. And Sebastian? Be nice to Piper.”
“Yes ma’am.”
It’s far too early to talk about serious relationships or the future, or where this thing between the three of us is headed, but there’s one thing I need to make clear. “While we are dating,” I tell her, “I’d like us to be exclusive.”