by Maisey Yates
“My name is Samantha,” she said, smiling grandly, both realizing she’d lost him before she’d ever started. “I’ve followed your business exploits with great interest recently.”
The way she said exploits left him in little doubt that it wasn’t his business she had been paying attention to.
“Oh, have you?” he asked. “Perhaps you could tell me about them. I rarely pay attention myself.”
She laughed, a high, sharp sound that shot down his spine like an arrow before ricocheting back up to the base of his skull. She touched his arm, leaning in closer. “I didn’t know you were funny. I had heard you were frightening.”
“Boo,” he said.
She laughed again and he fought to keep from cringing.
He flicked a glance across the room at Gabriella, who was watching this interaction between himself and Samantha with what appeared to be great interest. She was now literally standing next to a potted plant, her hand closed around a leaf, her posture rigid.
He couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking. Couldn’t begin to guess much of anything about her.
With Gabriella there were a great many unanswered questions.
“Really, we must make more time to get to know each other over the course of the week,” she was purring now, all but arching into him like a very needy cat.
“What exactly brings you to the party?” he asked. He didn’t care what her answer was. Not in the least. His attention was split between her and the little dark-haired woman with glasses standing against the wall. But he didn’t think she noticed. She was far too involved in the performance she was putting on with him.
And he was too busy regarding Gabriella to listen to what she had to say. Which was a shame, really, for Samantha at least. He had a feeling she was putting her full effort into this. An intended seduction, or whatever nonsense she had in her head.
Strange, because in most circumstances he would be more than willing to take her up on the unspoken offer. But not now. He wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps the little bespectacled witch had cast a spell on him. He smiled ruefully, dimly aware that his companion Samantha had likely taken that smile as her due. And of course, it was actually owed to Gabriella.
Very strange. She wasn’t the kind that revealed itself immediately. It was more like the sun shining through the trees as you drove down the highway. He would catch flashes of golden light before it faded away again into the darkness. But it was there. And when it struck him directly it was so intense, so brilliant, that it stopped him where he stood.
His eyes caught hers and held for a second before she looked down sharply, obviously embarrassed to have been caught staring at him. He felt no such embarrassment over being caught staring at her.
Then, suddenly, she scurried from the room, hugging the wall as she made her way to the exit.
“Excuse me,” he said to Samantha. “I’m very sorry. I have to go.”
He wasn’t anything of the kind.
He set his drink down on a table as he left, exiting out the same door Gabriella had. He saw her turn left at the far end of the corridor, and he continued on down that way. Maybe she was just headed to the bathroom. Most definitely he didn’t need to be following her. That didn’t seem to stop him.
He had known from the beginning that it was her cleverness he would find to be trouble. He was not wrong.
Had she been boring he would never have chased her out of a crowded room while being talked to by a busty blonde.
But no, she did not have the decency to be boring.
She had to be interesting. She had to like books. And she had to explain things to him in funny, intricate ways that he would normally find incredibly arduous.
He was angry at her. And with each step he took he felt angrier. Because he was Alessandro Di Sione. He did not pursue women into empty corridors. But then, he also didn’t go around hunting for old paintings, either. It was a week of strange happenings. It was entirely possible he should just embrace it.
He saw her head out one of the glass double doors and into the garden, and he followed suit. He said nothing as he walked along behind her in the darkness, heading down a gravel path through the garden. He wondered if she had any idea where she was going or if she was just following some sort of impetuous instinct.
She was a study in contradictions.
Quiet, and yet also very loud. She swore that she was practical, and yet he could sense that she was so much more than that. She was sensual. She enjoyed tactile pleasures. Visual pleasures.
He thought back to the way she had eaten dinner last night. How she had lingered over her wine. The way she had nibbled slowly at the fresh bread on her plate, and the appreciative sound she had made when she’d bit into the dessert she had ordered without hesitation.
There was no doubt about it; she was not an entirely practical person.
Damn her for being so fascinating.
The path curved, feeding into a clearing surrounded by hedges. At the center was a stone bench and he imagined that there were a great many flowers planted at various levels throughout. It was dark, so he could see nothing. Nothing but great inky splotches, breaking up the pale gravel.
Gabriella took a seat on the stone bench, planting her hands on either side of her.
“I do hope you have room on your bench for two,” he said, moving closer to her.
She gasped and turned toward him, her wide eyes just barely visible in the dim light. “What are you doing out here?”
“Stopping to smell the roses?”
“You were deeply involved in a conversation when I left,” she said.
“Oh, yes. That. Remember our discussion about boring women?”
“Yes.”
“She was one.”
Gabriella laughed softly; the sound lifted high on fragrant air, mixing with the scent of flowers and winding itself around him, through him.
“How terribly tragic for her. At least she is beautiful.”
“I suppose,” he said. “Though I don’t think she knows she’s boring.”
“I guess that’s a compensation for the dull.”
“Such a comforting sameness.”
She scuffed her toe through the gravel. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”
“I don’t know about that. I think you would find it excruciating.”
She shifted, and he couldn’t make out her face in the darkness. “Do you think so?”
“Yes. I am completely certain that Samantha does not do genealogy in her spare time.”
“A loss for Samantha, then. But points to you for remembering her name.”
“I was only just speaking to her five minutes ago. I might be shameless, but my shamelessness has its limits.”
“Does it? You were talking to her like you were interested. But you looked…very bored.”
“Did I? Perhaps I was simply looking down Samantha’s dress and that’s what my expression looks like in such situations.”
“Unless you find breasts boring I don’t think that’s the case.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. He was shocked by the forthright statement. He felt he should know better than to be shocked by her small moments of honesty at this point. It was another of her contradictions.
She should be mousey. She should be timid. She should be utterly out of her depth with a man such as himself. And yet she handled everything he threw at her with aplomb, and never passed up an opportunity to shock him, which he would have said under any other circumstance was impossible.
“People are the same. Everywhere you go,” he found himself saying as he walked over to the bench where she sat. “May I?”
She nodded slowly. “Sure.”
He took a seat beside her, an expanse of empty stone between them. “These parties are the same.”
“No, they aren’t,” she said. “How can they be? I once went to a gala at the most incredible castle. It was medieval and all the stonework was original. There was a chapel and I left the party to go expl
ore—it was incredible. This place…it’s full of my family history. I’ve studied it in books. But…being here is different. Books can’t prepare you for the reality of something. It can only hint.”
“I suppose to get all that out of a party you have to appreciate art, architecture and history.”
“And you don’t.”
“I was mainly speaking of the people.”
Of women who were looking to attach themselves to a man of wealth and status for short amounts of time. Of men who stood around touting their successes as they grew increasingly red-faced from alcohol and a lack of taking a breath during their listing of accomplishments.
“Yes, well. Places might have to be experienced in person to be fully understood. But books are better than people. In a great many ways.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s all written out in front of you, and even if you don’t know what’s going to happen…at least it’s all there. Very certain. People aren’t certain.”
“I disagree. People are predictable. They want pleasure. They want to be important, to feel good. They want money, power. There are a limited number of ways they can go about obtaining those things. I find people extremely bland.”
“I guess I just don’t possess the insight you do,” she said, sounding frustrated. “They don’t make much sense to me at all. Those things they call pleasure…the things my parents do…they don’t make them happy, do they?”
“And now our conversation circles back around,” he said, pressing his palm flat on the bench, the stone cool beneath his touch. “So you live through books?”
“To an extent.”
“Adventure stories?”
“Yes.”
“Romance novels?” He was leading her now. Because he couldn’t guess at her response. She was the one person who surprised him, and he found he wanted to keep being surprised.
She cleared her throat. “Uh. Not so much. The, uh, masculinity is all a bit…rampant in those.”
“As one in possession of masculinity that might be considered rampant, I’m not sure what the issue is.”
She sputtered, followed by a strange coughing sound. “I don’t even know what that means,” she said.
“You were the one who coined the phrase, not me. I think it’s fairly self-descriptive. And I find well suited to me. A kind of masculinity that can’t be contained.”
“I think it makes it sound like a weed.”
“A virulent one.”
“I just… I don’t find any of that relatable.”
“Of course not. You don’t possess rampant masculinity.”
“I meant romances.”
“I see,” he said, something goading him to continue pushing her. To see where this conversation would go. He couldn’t guess at her game. Couldn’t read any calculation on her face, and not simply because of the darkness that shrouded them. “What exactly is it you find unrelatable?”
She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was muted. “Well, he always finds the wallflower interesting, doesn’t he?”
“Who?”
“The hero. He finds the strange girl fascinating. Wants to know more about her. Men don’t. For the record, they never do. As you said, they like women boring. You like them boring. Or at the very least, they don’t like them weird. Plus, there’s all that racing heart, sweating palms business. Aching body parts.”
“Your body parts don’t…ache?”
She growled, a small feral sound. “That’s horribly embarrassing.”
“You’re the one who brought us here,” he said, lying. He had led the entire thing for just such a moment. “You can’t get mad at me for building off it.”
“I can get mad at you for whatever I like,” she said, sounding completely regal again.
Silence settled between them. Finally, he spoke again. “We are, by the way.”
“You are what?”
“We are fascinated by the wallflower. At least, I was tonight.”
“You were not. You were bored.”
“I was bored by the businessman who couldn’t stop telling me about his portfolio. I was bored with Samantha. And I did not look down her dress. But you… You’re the one person in that room that I couldn’t predict. That I couldn’t figure out. I had to follow you when you left the room because I had no idea where you were going, or what you intended to do. Very few people surprise me, Gabriella, but you do.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not here to surprise you. I’m not really here to do anything to you. I’m just supposed to find that painting, which of course we haven’t done yet. And I…I’m playing secretary to you and having to face the kinds of social situations I would rather eat a handful of bees than contend with.”
“Well, don’t eat a handful of bees. It sounds incredibly unpleasant.”
“These kinds of things are unpleasant. Even more so when I look like this. At least when I have my team of people making me look…polished… At least then people are fooled for a few moments. Right now, my outside kind of matches my inside.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“I just told you.”
“I don’t think that’s all of it.”
She shifted next to him. “I don’t know. When I’m in costume—so to speak—at least when people reject me they’re rejecting this strange version of me that isn’t who I see in the mirror every day. Princess Gabriella is something I put on when I go out. But otherwise, I’m just me. And right now, it feels very much like all of those people out there ignoring me are rejecting real pieces of me.”
“No one is rejecting you. It’s my fault for having you come here as an employee. You are definitely being treated as such.” He found that he felt a little bit contrite about the situation. And he was never contrite.
“That’s my own set of issues, I suppose. I don’t make very much sense, Alex. That’s the real problem. I want to be left alone. I want to be anonymous. But… Not always. Not every time. Just once it would be nice to have a handsome man look at me and cross the room to be by my side.”
“I’m not entirely certain whether or not I’m handsome, at least not by your standards, but—” he paused “—you’re the one I crossed the room for tonight, Gabriella. Take that as you will.”
Silence fell between them and she placed her hand flat on the bench, a few inches separating their fingertips.
“I suppose you did,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“I could have had her,” he said, speaking of Samantha. “But this was where I wanted to be.”
“You’re quite confident in yourself,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Brought about by predictable patterns. I told you, people don’t surprise me.”
“I wish I had that confidence. I wish I wasn’t so afraid.”
She had no reason to be afraid. And in that moment he hated a world that bestowed so much confidence on the terrible and unworthy—on her parents and his. And robbed it from the truly unique.
He lifted his hand, placing it over hers, and feeling every inch a bastard for doing it. She was vulnerable, and by touching her at the moment he was taking advantage of her.
He wasn’t sure whether he cared or not. He was accustomed to dealing with people who moved in common circles to himself. People who saw the world much as he did.
Gabriella was an entity unto herself. She was not an experienced woman. She didn’t know this game.
Why are you even bothering to play the game with a woman you thought plain only forty-eight hours ago?
He didn’t have the slightest idea.
He was equally confused by the idea that he had ever found her plain. She clearly wasn’t. Not in the least.
“I find you impossible to predict,” he said again.
“Is that… Is that a compliment?”
He was trying to process her words, but most of his brainpower was taken up with relishing the velvet softness of her hand beneath his. She
was so warm to touch after the cold stone of the bench. So very much alive.
How long had it been since he’d had a woman? He couldn’t remember. Because it was irrelevant. Whoever the woman was, whenever she was, she hadn’t been Gabriella.
Gabriella, who seemed to be her own creature.
“Why are you touching my hand?” she asked.
“Because I want to. I have never seen much use in denying myself the things that I want.”
“There are a host of reasons for self-denial,” she said. “We both know that.”
“Oh, I am better trained than my parents ever were. My desires don’t come from errant passions. I’m a logical man.”
“There is nothing logical about you touching my hand.”
He moved his thumb slowly over her knuckles, stroking her. “No, I suppose there isn’t. I suppose there is nothing logical at all in this.”
There wasn’t. He was touching her now, but it could never be more than that. Alex had few scruples, it was true. But he had some. He had limitations on his behavior, if only because he had seen what it was like when people didn’t. His parents had cared for nothing.
He preferred life to be a series of business transactions. He only entered into transactions with people who had a similar amount of resources. He wasn’t the kind of man who swooped in and killed off dying companies. Wasn’t the type to offer seed money to a start-up. It just wasn’t his way. He preferred everything equal. In terms both parties understood.
It was the same with his sexual liaisons. He had no interest in despoiling innocents. No interest in corrupting a girl who barely understood what desire was.
His stomach tightened, his body hardening at the thought. Calling him a liar.
Well, perhaps his body was interested, but that didn’t mean he would act on it.
He had spent all of his life endeavoring to become a better person than his mother and father. To learn from the mistakes of that fateful night.
A little bit of errant arousal was hardly going to change that.
But still, he didn’t move his hand.
“I think you’re like me,” she said, her words small, soft. “You say that you’re logical. That you like business transactions. You play with people. You toy with them. You were doing it to Samantha back in the drawing room. You had no intention of ever taking her up on her offer, did you?”
