When she stopped at the fringe of the bidding crowd, he put his lips to the mic, implanted hot, wild images and sensations straight inside her, pitched his voice an octave lower. “Do I hear one hundred ten?”
Over three-dozen people, mostly women, raised their hands. She’d beaten them all in speed of response.
His lips spread in satisfaction, his pose grew more languid, a conqueror certain of his victory, indulgent in his triumph. “Thank you. Do I hear one hundred twenty?”
Her hand was up in the air before she could will it to be there. Seemed he’d jumpstarted her competitiveness. More. He’d sparked the first sign of life in her since she’d witnessed her mother’s being extinguished.
He kept raising the bid, and her competition dwindled. Soon suspense was fast reaching the point of overload.
When a dozen hands still shot up in the air when he reached the four hundred fifty grand mark, her stamina snapped and recoiled like an overextended string.
She blurted out, “I bid one million.”
A hush fell. Everyone turned to gape at her.
He straightened, his eyes losing all lightness, singeing hers through the charge that filled the space between them. “Now that’s a nice round figure. Anyone willing to top that? No? Fine, then. I have one million from the lady in blue. Going once, going twice—”
“I bid ten million.”
Durante saw shock seize his mystery woman’s face before he registered the words that had caused it. Only then did he drag his eyes and senses from her and search out the new speaker.
His every muscle tensed. How had he gotten past security? How had Durante not noticed him before?
His security had messed up. As for him, all his faculties had been converged on her, everything else skimming his consciousness without leaving an imprint.
And there was the now-gaunt, wild-eyed Jeremiah Langley. Staring at him like a drowning man would at a lifeboat. A month ago he’d looked at Durante as if at his own killer, before attempting to stab him. Durante couldn’t imagine how Langley had ended up blaming him—and not the investments he’d made against his advice—for his bankruptcy, but he’d hushed everything up, not wishing to add criminal charges to the distraught man’s troubles. He’d also postponed announcing Langley’s bankruptcy until he sold shares that would leave the man with minimal debt. But he’d made it clear to Langley, and to his security—he didn’t want to see the man again. Not in this lifetime.
No one knew how things stood between them, or that Jeremiah didn’t have the ten million he’d bid for Durante’s leniency. He couldn’t call Langley on it without outing him. Langley had cornered him into accepting his so-called bid as the winning one.
And that was his worst crime.
She had already accepted defeat. This time, she was walking away. He might not have more of her. Not tonight. Unacceptable.
He would have more of her. And if he had his way, as he always did, he would have all of her.
Gabrielle felt all animation drain from her system.
The moment her bid had burst from her incontinent mouth, she’d launched into feverish calculations to determine how she could part with that much cash in one lump sum in her current situation. Then that ten-million-dollar sledgehammer had fallen, pulverizing both worry and hope.
So that was it. She’d bid and lost. And he was no longer looking at her. Ten million dollars would distract even him.
So what was that tightening behind her ribs? Disappointment?
How stupid was that? This scheme wouldn’t have worked anyway. She didn’t know how she or King Benedetto could have thought it might. All her moronic endeavor would achieve was to give the scandal sheets fuel for the coming decade. She had to leave before the paparazzi he’d banned from the event got wind of this and ambushed her. Leave. Now. And don’t look back.
She managed that, but still felt as if she were wading through quicksand. His gaze had latched on to her again, robbed her of dominion over her own body. Desperation to get away kicked in.
In minutes she was in the parking lot, running to her car.
She remote-opened her door, was reaching for its handle when a boom cracked the silence of the night.
“Stay.”
She dropped her keys. Her purse. Probably a few months’ to a couple of years’ life expectancy, too.
She slumped against the warm metal and glass as if pressed there by the presence closing in on her. She heard nothing but the blood thundering in her head. The presence expanded at her back, pinning her to her support, squeezing her heart.
She fumbled for the door handle. She’d managed to open the door when that voice hit her again, a quiet rumble this time.
“Stay.”
She clenched her eyes shut, pitched forward, her nerveless weight closing the door with a muffled thud. That one word.
An invocation. Deeper and darker than the moonless night.
She turned around, leaning on the car. And there he was.
The good news was that he kept a dozen feet between them. The bad news was that it made no difference. And why should it? He’d been dozens of feet away in that ballroom and had still overwhelmed her.
“Stay?” Where was her voice? She’d addressed him before in a breathless whisper. This time it was a husky rasp. Both were nothing like her usual crisp tones. “What am I? Your poodle? What’s next? Roll over? Beg…?” She winced, stopped. Where were her brakes?
“How about ‘stop,’” he drawled. “Before you inflame my already-raging imagination beyond control.”
His voice wasn’t the same as what had flowed from the sound system earlier. It was so much more layered and modulated and hard-hitting, the prominent r’s of his accent far more intoxicating. Hearing it without distortion delayed her comprehension of his words. Then it hit her and she almost went up in a puff of mortification.
She couldn’t believe she’d said something so provocative, just begging for misinterpretation. He’d never believe she hadn’t meant anything beyond sarcasm.
But wonder of wonders, his eyes weren’t stained with that knowing derision she was used to from men. His emitted only pure excitement. “Would ‘stop’ be less open to unfavorable interpretation? How about ‘don’t leave’?”
His voice sluiced another rush of heat over her. She quivered. “Still orders, both of them.”
He tilted his head. Light ignited the azure depths of his eyes and carved dimples in his sculpted cheeks. “At least they don’t have canine connotations, if my idiomatic English serves.”
And she did something she’d thought was beyond her, now and forever. She giggled. Giggled.
His
