Volkan led her back to the table, helping her into her chair. He knelt at her feet and took her hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I can’t allow someone like him to think he has a chance with you. From the moment he saw you, he was sneaking glances and looking for an opportunity to speak to you. I had to show him his place. I wouldn’t have dropped him.”

Volkan was delusional. The waiter hadn’t given her a second look.

“You weren’t in control,” she argued, gazing at him as though he were a snake about to strike. “It’s the same thing you did in the apartment hallway with my roommates, and again at the bar with my friends. You lose control and threaten people.”

He squeezed her hands in an almost painful grip. “You don’t know me well enough to know when I’m in control and when I’m not. You need to trust me when I tell you, I wouldn’t have dropped the waiter.” He paused, then added, “Not in front of you.”

Now that she believed. If she hadn’t been there… she couldn’t say for sure what Volkan would have done.

Volkan returned to his seat and lifted his spoon as though nothing had interrupted their evening. When he noticed she wasn’t eating, he said, “Pick up the spoon, Yasmin.”

“I’m not hungry.” And she wasn’t. She hadn’t had much of an appetite before Volkan’s insane display of jealousy, but now it was completely gone.

He set his spoon down, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and stood, holding his hand out. “Then we’ll go home.” The gleam in his eyes told her what would happen when they got back to the penthouse.

She swallowed and looked up at him. “I’ll eat.”

He gave her a dark smile. “I thought as much.” Then he sank back into his chair and continued eating.

With a shaking hand, Yasmin followed suit, eating her soup in silence. Swallowing was made difficult by the lump in her throat.

A new server, a woman, showed up at their table, whisking their empty soup dishes away and placing plates filled with roasted vegetables and salmon with a creamy dill sauce in front of them. Volkan ate with gusto, as though nothing about their evening was disturbing to him.

Yasmin couldn’t quite pull off the same level of calm acceptance. She ate only a couple bites of her salmon and vegetables. She stopped drinking as the Champagne now tasted sour on her tongue. She was thinking about their night ahead.

She caught Volkan watching her as she fidgeted with her napkin.

“You’re nervous.”

There was no point in denying the charge, so she nodded.