by Dani Collins
“I’m extremely well connected.” His mouth quirked as though that was an understatement. “I received it an hour ago, so I haven’t read all of it. You’re still in Mongolia. My sense is that it gets worse before it gets better.” He grew somber.
Various accounts of her story had been excerpted in the news when she was first freed. Throughout her recent four years at university, while writing the book, she had read aloud sections in class or circulated them for feedback. She was used to a reaction of sheer disbelief or dismay that she wasn’t more disparaging of the people who’d held her.
Giovanni only waited patiently for her to respond.
“I think we’ve established that loss is as bad as it gets,” she murmured.
“True,” he agreed in a grave tone. “Is that why you wanted to write it? As an homage to your father? I’d heard of him, but only vaguely as a travel writer. I had no idea he’d been such an avid blogger. And so political.”
Something in that leading statement caused her a brief flashback to those early days of arriving in America, when government types had interrogated her incessantly. Giovanni was the son of an ambassador, she reminded herself. His interest was likely ingrained from his early life observing the highest level of world governments, not suspicion that she was a cog in such things.
“Pappa didn’t take sides so much as document blatant injustice when he came across it. His true interest was culture and history and the beauty of nature that we too often overlook. That’s what his fans wanted from him—escape from the clamor and nonsense of their own lives into the reassurance that we’re all part of the same human fabric. And yes, there was a part of me that wanted to give his readers his final chapter. They did, after all, pay for my upkeep most of my life.”
They still did. Many of his books had gone into reprint after the story of his death broke. She was his sole beneficiary.
“I imagine they feel invested in you, being his companion through all his adventures.”
“You’ll laugh, but I honestly had no idea how famous he was. My publisher told me to join social media to promote my book, and my phone exploded. I hadn’t even read any of his books cover to cover until I was at university. Why would I need to? I was there. And in the places we visited, he was only seen as a nosy tourist.”
His attention was fully on her as though he examined and weighed every word she spoke. It was disconcerting, causing her to blush with self-consciousness.
“Now that I’ve started my own blog, and realize how much work it is to find interesting content, I realize why he exploited me so shamelessly.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not really. He was always very good about asking which photos he could post or whether he could quote something I’d said. He would flag pages in his manuscript and let me veto anything I felt was too personal or didn’t reflect well on me. I rarely pushed back because it never occurred to me that people even read what he wrote or cared about me. At best, I imagined they were reading for snippets of history and odd mishaps like arguing with a donkey on a muddy track. I didn’t realize they came to believe they knew me, not until I was brought to America and the reporters wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Why America? You’re Swedish, aren’t you?” Again, she had the flickering sense she was being debriefed, but this was how her life had gone since her father’s death. Her notoriety gave people the impression they had a right to ask personal questions.
“I have distant relations in Sweden, but we only returned to renew our passports. My mother died when I was four and my father took me with him on his travels.”
“He educated you himself?”
“He was a teacher in a previous life.” She nodded. “He enrolled me in local schools at different times, mostly for language and socialization. You must know a little about that sort of upbringing?” She tried to bat the conversation in his direction.
“I do,” he said after the briefest of pauses. “While my father was alive, we lived wherever he happened to be assigned. I resented being uprooted every year, forced to say goodbye to my latest batch of friends, then having to assimilate into a new culture. Above anything, I wanted to stay in one place. Be careful what you wish for,” he said with an ironic nod at his chair.
“Is New York your home now?”
“My complex business interests keep me traveling. I have many homes.”
“You’ve become your father,” she teased.
“It appears that way.” He said it lightly, but his face smoothed to unreadable and he sat back, popping the fragile bubble of connection they’d briefly shared.
The wine arrived, distracting her from examining her distinct impression that he didn’t want to talk about himself. Giovanni ordered appetizers and they clinked glasses.
“How did you come to settle in New York instead of Sweden? School?”
“You could read the book to learn all this. You didn’t have to buy me dinner,” she pointed out.
“I want the raw data, not the polished prose. Unless you’d rather not talk about it?” That penetrating gaze of his made her heart stall each time it landed on her. There seemed to be a degree of challenge in it, as though refusing to talk would be seen as a sign of weakness or guilt.
“I don’t mind,” she lied.
She’d told her story enough times it was something she could usually do while holding herself at a distance so the facts didn’t hurt too much to revisit. With him, however, her typical confidence was butting up against a level of self-assurance she had never encountered. She felt overpowered, which made her defenses shaky. She had to remind herself that she didn’t need his approval for any reason, but it didn’t stop her from wanting it and she didn’t understand why.
“You might have seen in the book’s acknowledgment the mention of my father’s editor? Oliver was instrumental in getting me out of North Korea. It’s why the US took over negotiations from the Swedish officials. Oliver worked tirelessly for two years to learn whether I was alive, locate exactly where I was, and petition for my release. He brought me into his home afterward.”
“Because he felt responsible for sending you and your father there?”
“It was my father’s choice to go. No, Oliver regarded himself as a surrogate father after such a long friendship with Pappa. He and his wife, Barbara, continue to be very kind to me, but I was nineteen when I arrived. I didn’t want to be a foster child or a houseguest.” Not again. “I had several offers for ghostwriters to tell my story, but Oliver suggested I write the book myself, as part of a creative writing degree. I had some money from my father’s estate for tuition, Oliver made some calls to his alma mater. I thought university would be a good way to integrate into Western society, that I would meet people my age and expand my mental horizons.”
“Oh? How did that go?” Giovanni’s mouth pursed knowingly. “I’m guessing your horizons were already stratospheres beyond your peers.”
“Pizza, sex, binge drinking... That’s all they cared about.” She sighed. “The people who had traveled hadn’t really traveled. They had spent summers on a yacht in the Greek islands or went on a spring break rager through the Caribbean. Even my instructors seemed stunted, hammering at me to draw a thicker line between black and white. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t angrier. They made me angry, trying to force me to rewrite my own experience to fit the narrative they thought it should have.”
“It’s a sensational story. Why wouldn’t you sensationalize it for profit?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t possibly have affection for the people who had held me. That would make them people.”
She waited for the questions that usually came when she got this far, the ones that probed for salacious details. Had she been mistreated or assaulted? What horrible things had she done to survive?
“Were you not given an advance for your book? Why are you working i
n catering?”
That almost sounded as though he was more interested in how she’d come to meet him at the hotel last night than how she’d been pried from the clutches of a notoriously uncooperative government.
“I used my advance as a down payment on a small flat, but I have a mortgage and living expenses. Oddly enough, a creative writing degree isn’t at the top of HR managers’ wish lists.” She shrugged. “So I tutor ESL students, and a friend got me in with this catering company. Once I get my book tour out of the way, I’ll start a teacher certification program.”
“You want to shape young minds?”
“Open them, at least.” She made a more determined effort to steer the conversation in his direction. “May I ask you a question?”
“Never married and currently uninvolved,” he said promptly, maintaining his intense stare, though it held a shadow of self-deprecation at what he was implying.
“I wish I could say the same,” she threw back, deadpan.
His face abruptly fell with shocked dismay.
She burst out laughing.
* * *
“I didn’t expect you to be so gullible.” Freja’s laugh was so merry, her expression so incandescent, he was spellbound.
Giovanni’s only thought should have been to question how his team had missed something as vital as romantic associations, but her remark had prompted a far more visceral reaction. Involved? No. He wanted her for himself.
Which was not only an uncharacteristic thrust of unjustified jealousy, it was the sort of emotional reaction he had trained himself not to have. The fact she had so easily slid past his well-fortified shields against any sort of manipulations, intended or otherwise, told him exactly how dangerous she was.
He tried to neutralize all of that firepower of hers with some heat of his own.
“You’re nothing like I expected.” He picked up her hand and brought it to his mouth to drop a kiss in her palm. “Which is why I have such a strong disinclination to share you.”
She blushed, and he felt her hand twitch in nervous reaction, but she left it trustingly in his. Her brow pulled into a small frown. “You’re possessive?”
“I’m Sicilian, bidduzza. I’m incapable of being anything else.”
Each breath he drew was laden with the scent of her—spring and berries and something sweet like almond cookies. He wanted to continue nuzzling along her wrist, but contented himself with tracing his thumb along her love line.
This isn’t real, a voice in his head reminded him. She might not be as innocent as she projected. Even more concerning, she might be, in which case he definitely shouldn’t allow himself to sink into any sort of involvement with her.
How was he to know either way if he didn’t spend time with her, though? It was a convenient rationalization for pursuing a woman he couldn’t have. What the hell was he going to do?
“What was your real question?” he prompted, still caressing her palm with his thumb.
“Do you still fence?”
Ah, yes. He had confirmed that small detail, at least. An online search had unearthed a passage from one of Hugo Anderson’s earliest books about his “young companion,” as her father had referred to her, taking fencing lessons from an Olympic hopeful. For weeks after, every stray piece of driftwood had become a weapon until a nasty sliver had forced her to find other amusements.
“These days I stay fit in ways that allow me to watch the market numbers or take a conference call. Fencing requires complete focus.”
“And world domination via cell phone apps doesn’t?”
“That was dumb luck,” he said with uncharacteristic frankness—and a hint of disparagement that she leaped on with an incisive frown.
“What do you do with your downtime, then? Inspire me. My pastimes are all very tame.”
He scratched his cheek, stalling. “You don’t yearn to fill your time with the obvious? Marriage and a family?”
She let her mouth hang open before she accused, “Sexist.”
“How is that sexist? Many people want those things, gender notwithstanding.”
“Do you?”
She wasn’t afraid to put him on the spot. It was as annoying as it was refreshing. Given his wealth and position, most people jumped at his every whim, rarely challenging him on his opinions or what he did with his life.
His response to her question should have been a quick and firm no. He’d buried any youthful assumptions that he would one day have a family when he’d buried the one he’d had. Part of that reaction had been bitterness. Lately it was simply a matter of priorities. Close relationships of any kind were a vulnerability he couldn’t afford.
But he had a sudden vision of her in his bed, gaze sleepy and filled with infinite possibilities. His heart lurched in warning. Or was it masculine craving?
“Marriage isn’t a priority for me,” he said in an implacable signal. “I’ve always been focused on other things. My physical health, athletic training, my education. My investments.” Not to mention unraveling multinational conspiracies and political corruptions without getting himself further maimed or killed in the process.
“Same.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been focused on my book and finding my feet. In many ways, I feel as though I’m still waiting for my life to start.” She looked at the hand still in his warm grip. “This is the first date I’ve been on in ages. The handful of friends I made at school have moved on to careers and other things. I know a lot of people, but I’ve always moved around so much, I’ve never connected deeply with anyone.”
Her thumb tentatively caressed the backs of his fingers. His hair damned near stood on end, the sensation caused such an acute reaction in him.
At the same time, the wistful yearning in her voice reverberated off the steel shields he’d erected around his heart, making her words echo inside him as though they were his own. He had an overpowering urge to mute that inner vibration with the press of her body against his.
All his good sense flew out the window. Before he realized what he was saying, his voice rumbled from the depths of his chest.
“Come home with me.”
“Now?” Her pupils dilated and a visible quake went through her, one that leaped so quickly onto the suggestion, his honed instincts of self-preservation tingled in warning, but a responsive ripple of pleasure rolled through him. How could he resist her when this was how they reacted to one another?
Don’t let her see how desperate you are, he cautioned himself.
While his mouth affirmed, “Right now.”
CHAPTER TWO
“THIS IS SOMETHING I’m still getting used to,” Freja admitted nervously as they left the elevator into his penthouse. Recessed lighting kept the lounge dim enough that the view of the city lights was like a carpet of stars beyond the darkened windows. She trailed her hand over the buttery leather of the overstuffed sofa. “I thought Oliver and Barbara lived like kings in their two-bedroom walk-up. This...”
There were no words for the kind of expansive luxury surrounding her. Until moving to New York, she’d only seen this sort of wealth in historic palaces. Catering had sent her into a few high-end hotels and penthouses, but even those paled next to what appeared to be a mansion atop a skyscraper. The floors were a gleaming hardwood, the drapes silk, the art on the walls a colorful mix of modern impressionists. Beyond the value in such things, the real luxury was in how the entire space was tastefully customized for a man who moved in a wheelchair instead of on two feet.
Something introspective shadowed his expression as he hung her jacket. He paused.
“When I asked you here, I was only thinking that I wanted to be alone with you. I didn’t consider the way you’ve been forced to live in the past.” His mouth pulled with consternation. “If you have second thoughts—I hope you feel comfortable here, but leave anytime if you don’t. Or we can go bac
k to the restaurant.” He turned to regard her as though she were a complex puzzle he was trying to solve.
“I like to believe I’m a good judge of character.”
She had believed it until meeting him, at least. He was hard to read, though. She continued to finger the soft leather of the sofa, soothed by its texture as she considered his contradictions. Bold enough to state what he wanted, compassionate enough to anticipate her hidden apprehensions. Open about his attraction, completely closed off in other ways.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I thought you were planning to attack me.”
His expression eased into a smoldering one that pulled her insides tight with anticipation. “Only in a very sensual sense, bidduzza. And with your explicit consent, of course.” He rolled forward. “Come. Sit,” he invited, nodding at the sofa.
She hesitated behind it.
His expression cleared, but his mouth tightened briefly. “That’s fine,” he said evenly. “I presumed you’d have questions.”
“I do, but not—Well, that too, I guess.” She hadn’t even considered whether he had full sexual function, only thinking that she wanted to be alone with him, too. “It’s more...” She could hear herself stammering and wanted to die of mortification. “I’ve never done this,” she blurted.
His shoulders relaxed and one of his dark eyebrows lifted in self-deprecation. “This is considerably faster than I usually move, myself.”
“No, I mean...” She nervously linked her hands before her. “I’ve never had sex.”
His head went back in astonishment.
She wrinkled her nose. “I knew you’d think I’m odd.” Her fellow students had. “That’s why I mentioned it.”
“It’s not odd.” He tilted his head, conceding, “Okay, I’m surprised. I didn’t expect someone as worldly as you are wouldn’t have taken a lover somewhere along the line.” He studied her again in that way that picked over her bones, but left small fires in its wake.
