by Dani Collins
“I’m quite sure you’ll get me into trouble.” It was supposed to be a joke, but the truth sent a skip through his chest. “Oriel.”
She laughed, and of course it was the sparkling kind that was heady as champagne bubbles. “I’ll try not to. Vijay.”
Spending more time with her was a terrible idea, but as he held her hand, the noise around them dimmed, and all he saw was her. It was like taking a hit of a potent drug.
The bartender broke the spell, asking for her order. Oriel requested white wine and slid onto the stool Vijay had vacated.
“Thank you for fixing my fan. It seems perfect now.”
He’d had to sneak around the maid’s schedule, but as he subtly drank in her scent, he had no regrets about being inconvenienced.
“You didn’t want to eat at the hotel?” Ironically, he had avoided the restaurant there out of concern he would run into her. He set his elbow on the bar, pleased that the crowded space meant he had to stand so close that her knee brushed his thigh.
“It caters to tourists. I wanted to treat myself to something more inspiring. It’s my birthday. Are you also celebrating? Did your meeting go well?”
“It did, but I’m just having a beer.” He would find somewhere else to eat. This was madness, even talking to her again. “Happy birthday,” he said as her wine arrived.
They saluted with their drinks, and her spine softened as she sipped.
“Long day? What do you do?” He already knew, but he liked that she had to lean close to him to be heard over the din.
“Model. I’ve been at a casting call for hours. They were whittling it down, so I had to keep doing my thing as more higher-ups were called in.” She lowered a pair of invisible sunglasses and made an O of her mouth.
He didn’t care what the sunglasses looked like. He’d buy them and the car that went with it. “Did you get it?”
“Who knows, but it went well enough that it’s another reason to celebrate. Only one, though.” She tilted her glass. “I have an early call for a photo shoot tomorrow. Then I’m on a plane back to New York.”
“You live there?”
“Paris, but I spend a lot of time in New York. Actually, I spend a lot of time on airplanes.” She sipped again. “You? I assume your maintenance work is a side gig while you get your company off the ground? Why Milan?”
Damn. He had implied that he had moved here.
“It’s a temporary thing.” He considered how to stick as close to the truth as possible. “We’re based in Mumbai, but hoping to expand. I came to Milan because my sister is involved with a man I believe is trying to take advantage of her.”
“Oh?” Her expression cooled.
“I can see you judging me.” He pointed the mouth of his bottle at her. “Brothers are allowed to be protective, especially when I raised her and she’s all I have.”
He hadn’t meant to reveal that, only to keep her from labeling him as some sort of patriarchal, honor-obsessed throwback.
“You lost your parents?” Her expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
“When I was fourteen, yes. She was ten.” He drank the last of his beer, trying to rinse away the pall of anguish, old and more recent, that their deaths still left in his throat. “Our grandmother lived with us, but she was quite frail and passed a year later.”
“That must have been a very difficult time.” Her brow wrinkled with compassion. “No wonder you’re so close and protective of her. Does your sister live here?”
“Mumbai. What about you?” He quickly flipped it so he wouldn’t have to dissemble any more than he already had. “Do you have siblings?” Everything online said she was an only child, but he might as well have it straight from her.
“No. I always wished for a brother or sister, but my mother—” She hesitated. “Maman is very wrapped up in her career. She has every right to be. She’s a famous soprano. Estelle Fabron?”
He shrugged, feigning unfamiliarity with the name. He only knew it from the mention in Oriel’s profile anyway.
“Madame Estelle is beloved in the opera world. Especially here.” She kept leaning in to speak against his ear. Her breath tickled, and he was damned close to turning his head and capturing her mouth with his own. “She casts a long shadow. It’s refreshing to speak to someone who has never heard of her.”
Her lips were right there, ripe and tempting. He looked into her eyes, and she was staring at his mouth. Are we doing this, my beautiful goddess?
The hostess appeared to say their table was ready. He was not ready to let her go, but his beer was finished.
“Join me,” Oriel invited.
It was the moment when Vijay should have insisted he was only here for the one drink, but he couldn’t make himself say good-night. Once he used the DNA test to vanquish Jalil, he would continue his life as programmed. It was highly unlikely he would ever see Oriel again. Surely there was no harm in buying her dinner and spending another hour in her company?
Now he was lying to himself as well as her. Or at least feeding himself weak rationalizations, but he waved her to follow the hostess and held Oriel’s chair before he took the one opposite.
Oriel opened her menu, but glanced over it at him. “I’d like to buy you dinner. As I said, I’m celebrating, and you did suffer that injury from fixing my fan.”
Her glance touched the nick above his brow, which was visible because he’d removed the bandage as soon as it stopped bleeding.
When her gaze dropped to the menu, she bit her lips again.
The prices were on the high side even for Italy. It struck him that she thought he might struggle to afford one meal, let alone two.
Wasn’t this an awkward position to be in? Very few women he dined with had ever paid for themselves, let alone bought him a meal. Irrationally, he was insulted by her offer. There was a snobbery to the move that got under his skin—which was his personal baggage coming around on the carousel. He doubted she was trying to offend him.
“If one of us pays for the other, it makes this a date,” he pointed out. “If this was a date, especially our first date, I would pay. Yes,” he replied in answer to the way her brows lifted. “I’m that sort of man.”
Her mouth pursed to hide a smile. “Split it down the middle then? Since we’re sharing a table out of convenience? How do you feel about sharing dishes?”
“Depends what you like.”
“I like everything.” The look she sent him had to be from her stock of smoldering expressions for a camera. Even so, it went into him like a spear, straight to the tightening flesh between his thighs.
He was definitely paying for dinner.
Once they ordered, he said, “You seem to be traveling alone, but I should have asked. Is there anyone you usually dine with?” He had overheard her conversation about appearing with that action star. It had sounded like an innocuous photo op, and his research said she was single.
“I travel too much to date seriously. You?” She subtly braced herself.
“I would not have allowed you to kiss this mouth if it belonged to someone else. Yes,” he said as her jaw went slack. “I’m also that sort of man.” Blunt. Possessive in a reciprocal way. He offered monogamy because he expected it.
Her chin came up. “Did I kiss you?”
“You absolutely did.”
“I didn’t hear you objecting. Perhaps speak more clearly next time.”
“Will there be a next time? I’m delighted to hear it.”
She hid her smile with her wineglass, indignant but also amused. “Do all the hotel guests receive such personal treatment?”
“Definitely not. You’re an exception.”
“Hmm.” She relaxed and recrossed her legs, bumping his shin beneath the table.
He reflexively caught her ankle between his calves, just long enough to have her startled gaze flash into his so he co
uld watch that haze of sensual awareness come into it.
* * *
He released her as quickly as he’d caught her, leaving Oriel breathless.
She didn’t believe in fate or destiny, but she was astonished to have bumped into him this way. She had glanced at the menu on the way to her audition, but hadn’t had time to make a reservation. For a moment after she arrived, she had thought she would have to settle for room service after all.
Now she was enjoying an Indian-Italian fusion of tandoori duck, curried gnocchi, and tikka masala ravioli with a man she’d been thinking about all day.
He was an intriguing man. Educated and confident and quick-witted, but difficult to read. She wanted to ask him more about how he had come to be working at the hotel, but it sounded as though he was only doing it to make ends meet while he pursued bigger things, maybe paying for his expenses while he was here.
“Tell me about your security business,” she invited.
“Most of the credit goes to my sister. She wrote specialty software, and I matched it to the right components. We literally began with one customer at a time, tailoring it to each client’s needs. It’s grown to the point that we’re close to partnering with a bigger company. Those talks are highly confidential, so I can’t say more.”
“Sounds like a big break. Good luck. I hope it goes well.”
“Thanks. How did you get into modeling? What was your big break?”
“Nepotism,” she said wryly. “My mother hoped I would have more vocal talent, but she’s a once-in-a-generation unicorn, and I’m adopted, so...”
His brows went up. Most people reacted with curiosity when she offered that information.
“It’s public knowledge.” She brushed away having revealed such a personal detail. “Maman’s career was taking off. She didn’t want to interrupt it with a pregnancy, but they wanted a family. Adoption was their perfect solution.”
Perhaps perfect wasn’t the best word. They had approached parenting wholeheartedly, but babies were demanding, and they never found the right time to adopt a second one. They claimed to be fulfilled by the single daughter they had, but Oriel had a twisted, illogical sense that if she’d been different, more winsome maybe, they would have wanted another.
“While I was growing up, Maman hired teachers for me in every type of classical instruction, but I was no prodigy. The closest I came was being scouted for a pop band.”
“That suggests you have musical talent.” He was looking at her the way he had when he’d stood outside her hotel room door. Penetrating. Collecting hidden data. “Have you tried acting?”
It was nice to have a man look beyond her face and want to know more about her, but this level of attention was disconcerting. She wasn’t sure why.
“I can do many things reasonably well—dancing and singing and playing piano. I don’t have Maman’s level of talent, though, so I couldn’t bring myself to go into performance arts. I would always be compared to her. Papa is an academic, very intelligent, but I’ll never win prizes for literature or physics. I thought I was destined for mediocrity, but the summer I turned fifteen, one of Maman’s costume designers asked if I wanted to model some of his designs at his show. It was the first thing I’d found where the bar wasn’t already set impossibly high by someone in my family. With modeling, I’ve been able to grow into my own version of success.”
That sense of carving out her own space and rising through the ranks soothed the part of her that struggled to feel good enough. She knew her angst stemmed from her adoption, and it wasn’t entirely fair of her to harbor that sense of rejection. From what she knew of her birth mother, the young woman had been in a very difficult position. She’d had an affair with a married man of a different race and didn’t feel she could keep the baby that resulted, not without losing all the other pieces of her life.
Oriel didn’t resent her for giving her up. Her birth mother had chosen carefully, and Oriel lived an extremely privileged life, but it didn’t seem to matter how often she reminded herself of that. She still suffered this bereft sense of having been cast off simply because she was mixed race.
They went on to talk about things. As they finished dessert, she asked the server to split the bill, but Vijay had taken care of it while she had visited the powder room.
“I thought—”
“It’s your birthday,” he said dismissively. “And you barely ate.”
Oriel ran miles every day to keep her figure trim, largely because she had a healthy appetite. Even so, “That was a lot of carbs for a woman who is going to be in a bikini tomorrow.”
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her with smoky admiration.
The potency of this man! She sold seduction for a living and had never experienced anything like his ability to make her swoon with a softly spoken word or a half-lidded glance.
“I...um—” Control yourself, Oriel. “I wouldn’t have been able to sample all of these dishes if I’d dined alone, so thank you. This was a nice surprise.” Beneath the table, she was aware of the toe of her shoe resting next to his. “I guess this is a date now?”
“I guess it is.” His smile was only a tiny bit smug.
They finished their drinks and made their way outside.
“Do you dare be seen walking me to the hotel?” she asked.
“I dare anything.” His mouth twisted with irony.
“Oh, you’re that sort of man,” she teased.
“And this.” He offered his crooked elbow.
She tucked her hand through it as they ambled the few blocks that were bustling with tourists heading out to dine or enjoy the theater.
As they passed a recessed stoop, Oriel spun herself into it, tugging him in with her.
“Would you like to know what sort of woman I am?”
“If you tell me you’re the sort who makes love in public, I may have to adjust what kind of man I am.” He set his forearms on the door on either side of her head, caging her into the shadowed space created by his wide shoulders.
“Ha. Sorry to disappoint. I’m only the kind who doesn’t like that awkward moment wondering if a man will kiss her. I’d rather make it happen. If it’s going to.”
“I noticed that about you already.” He let the tip of his nose playfully brush hers.
“Are you still banging on about how I took advantage of you?” She let her hands rest on his rib cage. “Cry for help. See if someone will rescue you.”
“Help,” he said faintly, flashing his teeth. “I’m helpless to resist this woman.” His lips touched a corner of hers.
She shivered and slid her hands to the backs of his shoulders. She tried to chase his lips, but he switched to kissing the other side of her mouth.
“I don’t usually kiss strangers,” she whispered.
“Nor I.”
“You don’t feel like a stranger, though,” she admitted, perplexed by how true that was. “It feels like we’re...” Lovers.
That’s what she was thinking. Maybe she said it aloud, because he groaned and covered her mouth with his.
She had been waiting throughout their meal for him to kiss her again. Waiting and waiting.
She sighed with relief and stroked her touch across the landscape of his back, encouraging him to press her into the door, delighting in the way he devastated her with his kiss.
Had she thought she was in control this morning? He had been toying with her, letting her think so. This man knew how to ravage in the most tender way possible, claiming and plundering and pulling her very soul from her body.
At the same time, he gave. Oh, he generously venerated her mouth, silently telling her she was the most precious thing he’d ever tasted. The most exquisite.
Their lips made soft, wet noises while an ache panged in her throat. A sob of surrender. She softened under the press of his heavy body, wanting his weight. W
anting his hard, flat chest compressing her swollen breasts. She wanted to feel his steely thighs naked against hers, bracing hers open. She wanted the unforgiving ridge that was bulging behind his fly to fill her...
“Vijay...” Her hands went down his back, urging him to press into her mound. “Come to my room.”
With the same attitude of superhuman strength he’d exhibited this morning, he dragged his head up and sucked in a breath. He straightened so he wasn’t touching her at all.
“You have an early morning,” he recalled with a ragged edge to his otherwise stern voice. “We should end this here.” He looked away into the street.
“Should? Or is that what you want?” she asked through a tight throat.
He muttered something under his breath. “Believe me, Oriel. I want to come to your room. But it’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” She hooked her finger in the waistband of his jeans to keep him from retreating further. “We’re single. I don’t know when I would have another evening free like this.”
“And it’s your birthday?” He spoke lightly, but there was a note of cynicism in his tone that made her drop her hand away from his jeans.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He caught her hand. “Except you’re flying to New York tomorrow. I won’t be here by the time you come back. I have my own work commitments.” His thumb stroked across the back of her knuckles. “I don’t have one-night stands. I don’t think you do, either.”
“That’s not what this would be, though, would it? I mean, you’re right. I’m married to my career right now, but this isn’t a hookup. It’s... I’ve met someone I really like. I want to hang on to what little time we have together.”
He swore again and gathered her up, swooping his mouth down to crash across hers. She tasted the conflict in him and poured herself into the kiss, enticing. Pleading, maybe.
When he lifted his head, they were both panting. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest, her fingertips felt as though they bounced where they rested on his pec.
She started to take his hand and lead him back onto the sidewalk, but hesitated.
