Page 124 of My Dark Horse Prince

I don’t like it.

“The spiced chicken with adžika, then,” Danils says.

Not two minutes after she leaves, she returns, a smudge of something across her forehead. “I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head. “This is so strange, but a wind gust blew a bunch of leaves and trash through a window and it landed right in the pepper sauce,” she says.

“You’re kidding,” Danils says. “How could that happen?”

She shrugs. “I’m so sorry. Can we try just one more time?”

“You like borscht,” I say. “Right?”

I know Grigoriy likes it, so he’s unlikely to ruin something he’ll want to eat himself.

“Why don’t you order that, and the šašlik, like me,” I say. I glare over Danils’s shoulder at Grigoriy.

“Sure, sure,” he says. As the waitress is walking away, he says, “After this, we can head over to Cafe Imbir. I know you love their cake.”

“Do they still have that orange cake? The one with the mousse topping?”

“Just last week, I saw it through the glass.”

“I’ve been craving that, actually,” I say. “I can’t believe you checked on it.”

“Every time I see it, it reminds me—” His glass, for no apparent reason, topples over, spilling water all over him. Danils leaps to his feet, and I realize it all landed on his crotch.

I can’t help it. I laugh. But I clap my hand over my mouth the very second I do, so hopefully he doesn’t realize I’m laughing.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I wonder if this table’s uneven.”

“Maybe I should head to the bathroom,” he says, “and see if I can clean this up.”

“Good luck,” Grigoriy snickers. “Once he comes out of there, everyone will assume he wet himself.”

The second Danils is gone, I round on Grigoriy, gripping the back of my chair. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “I was hungry.”

I roll my eyes so hard, I worry they’ll pop out and fall to the floor. “You followed me here.”

“So what if I did? Isn’t Latvia a free country?”

“I’m here on a date,” I hiss. “And I can hardly pay attention—”

“Don’t look now,” Grigoriy says. “I think your pee-pants prince is on his way back.”

I spin around so fast it wrenches my neck.

And there’s no one there.

I’m going to kill him. I turn back again. “Do not call him pee pants, and do not do anything else, or I swear, I will—”

“What?” He leans closer. “What will you do?” He lifts both eyebrows, his eyes dancing.

“Just, don’t do anything else, okay?”

“But it’s so hard,” he says. “He’s trying his very best to impress you, and he’s just so. . .what’s the word?”

This time, it is Danils coming back. I see him out of the corner of my eye.

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