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“Stop worrying about your behavior around me.” Chase sipped his wine. “Pretend I’m not your boss tonight.”
“But you are, and we do need to discuss the proposals.”
“Do you still truly believe it’s all business tonight?”
“What else would this be?” I switched my gaze from his eyes to the lit candle at the center of the table.
“This is me attempting to court you.” He set his glass down.
My response was a nervous intake of breath.
Is he seriously going to come on to me like that?
Our waiter approached the table. “Chef Gabe prepared an amuse-bouche for your delight.”
He set down two plates. Each had a tiny square of toast with a slice of foie gras, sun dried tomato, and some type of oil drizzled on top.
“You know what amuse-bouche means?” I asked after the waiter left. It was my sad attempt at changing the subject, but I thought I spied interest in Chase’s eyes.
“No. What does it mean?”
“It means mouth amuser.”
Chase directed his concentration to his plate. A grim expression spread across his face. “What’s the brown stuff?”
“Foie gras,” I said with surprise. “You’ve never heard of it?”
“I’ve seen a lot of this stuff at parties and events, but I never ate it.” He turned the plate around and analyzed the amuse-bouche some more.
“Oh, just try it. It’s usually duck or goose liver, except in order to get a high quality foie gras they force feed and fatten up the animal.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes. It does suck for the goose and duck, but it’s delicious.”
He pushed his plate to me. “You can have mine.”
“Absolutely not. Let’s eat it together.” I returned his plate to him and picked up my amuse-bouche.
He followed.
“I’ll count down and then you just sling it in your mouth.” I thought I heard him whimper, but wasn’t sure. “Okay. One. Two. Three.”
He popped it into his mouth.
Cheating, I kept mine on my plate and waited for his response, hoping he would love the foie gras as much as I did. He chewed with his eyes closed and his face crumpled into wrinkles like a little kid eating cold Brussels sprouts, but after a few seconds he began to nod.
His eyes opened. His lips formed into a pleased grin. “You did it again, Jasmine. You’ve introduced another tasty new food to me this week. This is possibly the twelfth new thing I’ve enjoyed since you’ve been working for me.”
“Great.” I popped mine into my mouth and savored the rich, buttery texture. A tremor of pleasure rippled through my body.
A tiny moan escaped my lips.
Chase clutched the edge of the table. His amused look shifted to a hungry one. “Do that again.”
I finished chewing. “Do what?”
“I love that noise you made and that expression. I want to see it again.”
