Summer Games by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

expression on his face and a wicked glint in his eyes.
    “Adventurous,” she said firmly, refusing him the satisfaction of being trusted.
    “There’s a lot to be said for adventure.” His smile matched the gleam in his eyes.
    “Then let’s just say I’m hungry enough to eat anything.” When she heard her words, she winced and wished she had bitten her tongue.
    “An adventurous woman,” he agreed blandly. “You came to the right man.”
    Cord took Raine’s menu and set it on top of his own, which he hadn’t bothered to open.
    The waiter materialized as though summoned by a king.
    Cord spoke to him in a sliding, sing-song language. After a discreetly startled reappraisal of his client, the waiter began scribbling ideographs on his pad. When Cord finished, the waiter made a few recommendations. Cord took two and discarded the others.
    The wine steward came over. They conferred over the list in two languages, neither of which was English.
    Watching, listening, Raine smiled with a mixture of amusement and appreciation. Cord reminded her of her father, a man at home in several tongues and utterly fluent in the oldest language known to man—power.
    When Cord was finished with the wine list, Raine saluted him silently.
    He gathered her hand into his and watched her expression closely. “No inherited wealth, just the best education Uncle Sam and experience could provide.” He smiled slightly and added, “The steward was polite enough not to wince at my French accent.”
    “Inherited wealth only means money, not the brains to use it. And there’s nothing wrong with your accent,” she said, defending him instantly.
    “Tell that to a Parisian.”
    “You can’t tell anything to a Parisian.”
    Cord’s dark pupils dilated. “The queen is very kind to her soldier,” he said softly.
    He lifted Raine’s hand to his lips. For an instant he savored her sweet-smelling skin with the hidden tip of his tongue. The caress was so casual, yet at the same time so intimate, that she could barely control the shiver that went through her.
    “I’m not a queen,” she whispered through suddenly dry lips, “and you’re hardly a common soldier.”
    He simply looked at her, making no effort to conceal the hunger in his eyes, a hunger reflected in the slow movement of his thumb over her fingertips. When the wine arrived, he went through the ritual of tasting it almost indifferently, not even releasing her hand.
    Yet she was certain that if the wine had been inferior, he would have noticed and sent it back instantly. Cord Elliot wasn’t a man to accept second best in anything.
    The wine was both delicious and unfamiliar, a Fumй blanc that exactly balanced the exotic meal. There was shrimp paste broiled on narrow strips of sugarcane, tiny crepe-like wrappers containing a miniature leaf and crisp julienne of marinated vegetables, very small meatballs simmered in a piquant sauce, and shrimp that tasted like rainbows and melted in her mouth.
    There were other dishes, too, temperatures hot and cold and tepid, tastes sweet and vinegar and salt, flavors and textures and colors combined in endless array, a feast for the eyes as well as the mouth.
    The meal arrived with sterling silver chopsticks and a lemon-scented fingerbowl. Raine watched Cord, ate the appropriate foods with her fingers, and used the fingerbowl as she would after any meal. The chopsticks, however, baffled her. The cuisines she was familiar with would have used a tool shaped like a chopstick to skewer and broil chunks of meat, not to eat anything as tiny and elusive as rice.
    “Like this.” He took her hand and positioned her chopsticks correctly. “Keep them almost parallel to the plate, instead of vertical, as you would a fork. Now, hold the bottom one steady and move the top one. Or vice versa. I’m not a purist. Whatever gets it done.”
    As the meal progressed, she became more skilled with the slippery sticks, but still lost about one out of three tidbits. It