black lattice trees and twinkling white lights.
She raced past the shocked guests, past her horrified society friends, past everyone who tried to grab her, who tried to ask questions or offer back-handed sympathy.
She had to escape. Had to get away from the dark stranger and all the unwilling tumult of scandalous desires he caused within her.
Glancing back, she saw him in grim pursuit.
And she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. Kicking off her four-inch stiletto heels, she just ran. Ran down the hallway of the hotel, ran until her whole body burned, as she hadn’t done since her school days when she’d competed fiercely on the track team.
And yet still he gained on her! How was it possible?
Because she wasn’t the lithe, fit girl she’d been ten years ago, she realized. Years of inactivity in Italy, of long days sitting by Giovanni’s bedside, and nights of crying alone in her bed with a broken heart, were finally catching up with her.
And so was the stranger.
Panting, she dashed into the hotel lobby. Wealthy tourists in polo shirts and chic little summer dresses stared at her with their mouths agape as she stumbled across the marble floor and pushed violently out through the revolving door into the summery violet of dusk.
The doorman cried out when she nearly knocked him over. “Hey!”
“I’m sorry!” she cried back at him, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not with the man so close behind her.
In the distance she could see a subway entrance. She ran for it with all her might.
She was fast. But he was faster. She heard the heavy echo of his footsteps on the sidewalk behind her. She weaved through a crowd of tourists browsing the shop windows along Fifth Avenue. She saw a taxi pull in front of Tiffany’s, right behind a dog walker surrounded by dogs of all sizes.
She leaped over the man’s tangled leashes like a hurdle. She heard the rip of her white satin gown as she landed on the other side. Panting, she flung herself into the taxi over the back of the exiting passenger.
Behind her, she heard the stranger curse aloud, caught up in leashes, dogs, and tourists loaded with shopping bags.
“Go!” she shouted at the taxi driver.
“Where, lady?”
“Anywhere!” Looking back through the window at the approaching stranger, she gasped and held up the hundred-dollar bill she always tucked in her bra. “There’s someone following me—get me out of here!”
The taxi driver glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the hundred-dollar bill and the panicked expression on her face, then stomped on the gas pedal. The car roared away, its tires scattering water from the nearby gutter as they ducked into the evening traffic.
Turning around to look out the back window, Lia saw the diminishing figure of the dark stranger behind her. Wet with water, he stared after her in repressed fury, his mouth a grim line.
She’d escaped him. She nearly cried with relief.
Then she caught her breath and realized she’d just fled her own party. What had she been so afraid of? What?
His fire.
Her body shook with suppressed longing as she sank her head against her hands…and really cried.
CHAPTER FOUR
ROARK returned to the ballroom empty-handed, furious and soaking wet. He took a towel from a beverage cart and grimly wiped the grimy water from his neck and the shirt and lapels of his tuxedo.
She’d gotten away.
How was it possible?
He scowled in fury. He’d never had any woman turn him down before for anything. He’d never had any woman even pretend to resist.
Lia Villani had not only resisted him, she’d outrun him.
Crumpling the wet towel angrily, he tossed it on the empty tray of a passing waiter. Clenching his jaw, he looked across the ballroom.
He saw Nathan on the crowded dance floor, swaying with a plump-cheeked girl with honey-blond hair.
Roark ground his teeth. He’d been chasing the fleet-footed countess all over Midtown, nearly breaking his neck and getting soaked in the process, while Nathan was flirting on the dance floor?
His old friend must have felt his glower across the ballroom, because he turned and saw his boss. At the expression on Roark’s face, he excused himself from his pretty blond dance partner, kissing her hand after walking her off the dance floor with visible reluctance.
When Nathan was close enough to see Roark’s wet hair and tuxedo, his jaw dropped. “What happened to you?”
He ground his jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”
“That was quite the show you put on with the countess,” Nathan said brightly. “I hardly know which scandalized everyone more—the million dollar bid, your make-out session on the dance floor, or the way you both ran out of here like you were in some kind of race. I didn’t expect you to return so quickly. She must have agreed to sell you the property in record time.”
“I didn’t ask her,” Roark snapped.
Nathan’s jaw fell open. “You paid a million dollars to get her alone on the dance floor, and you didn’t even ask her?”
“I will.” He furiously pulled off his wet tuxedo jacket, tucking it over his arm. “I promise you.”
“Roark, we’re running out of time. Once the deed is signed over to the city—”
“I know,” Roark said. He opened his phone and dialed. “Lander. Countess Villani left the Cavanaugh Hotel in a yellow cab five minutes ago. Medallion number 5G31. Find her.”
He snapped the phone shut. He could feel the elite families of New York edging closer to him. Most of them looked at him with bewilderment and awe.
Who was he? their glances seemed to say. Who was this stranger who would bid a million dollars for a dance…and then ruthlessly kiss the woman that every other man wanted?
He tightened his jaw. He was a man who would soon build seventy-story skyscrapers on the Far West Side. A man who would start a new business district in Manhattan, second only to Wall Street and Midtown.
“I know you.”
Roark turned to see the white-haired blue blood who’d brought Lia her champagne. He had to be in his sixties, but powerful and hearty still. “I know you,” he repeated, furrowing his brow. “You’re Charles Kane’s grandson.”
“My name,” Roark stared at him coldly, “is Navarre.”
“Ah, yes,” he mused, “I remember your mother. She had that regrettable elopement. A trucker, wasn’t it? Your grandfather could never forgive—”
“My
