Durante’s hiss could have scraped steel. “Bring her up.”
Giancarlo gave him an opaque glance. “Molto bene, principe.”
Durante paced on those coals, feeling the burn spreading through his system. Gabrielle. Here. She’d sought him out. At the exact moment he’d been about to seek her. How did she know that he was ripe for another incursion? How could she be so attuned to thoughts and decisions that seemed random even to him?
Giancarlo returned within two minutes. He wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his smile. Durante would bet he wasn’t even trying.
The man cleared his throat as if he were going to sing. “Signora Williamson insisted I deliver her message word for word. She said, quote, ‘I’m not coming up. You’re the one who’s coming the hell down here and facing me like a man. If you are one, that is’…unquote.”
Durante came the hell down.
After a moment of being unable to believe anyone could not only talk to him that way, but have the temerity to deliver a slap through his right-hand man, to even win said man to her side so that Giancarlo had felt justified and satisfied to transmit it full force.
So he came the hell down. He hurtled, streaked, zoomed and tore his way the hell down. He forced himself to slow once he exited his private elevator. She might have thrown down the gauntlet, but damn if he would give her proof of how she had seeped into his blood, had taken hold of his reactions.
He came to a stop just outside the foyer, depleting reserves of control that he saved for navigating crises of global scope. He yelled inwardly at his instincts, wrestled some rhythm into his heartbeat and breathing. He should make her wait.
He couldn’t wait. Her challenge, his eagerness to see her again, was boiling in his blood.
He started walking again, his gait a study in subterfuge, radiating the opposite of what roiled inside him.
He turned the corner and…there she was. Standing at the reception desk, part of her profile visible to him.
She was wearing a skirt suit in another shade of blue, a cross between royal and navy, the richness and depth of the color setting off the clarity of her complexion, the vivid gloss of her hair. The getup was impossibly more flattering than that evening outfit he’d thought the best showcase of her lushness. It molded to her lithe frame, emphasizing her height, the perfection of her proportions, detailing each curve and dip, showing off the symmetry and sculpted creaminess of her legs. Those legs. Her flowing skirt had deprived him of seeing them before. He’d had them wrapped around him when he’d been stupid enough to walk away from the promise of fulfillment they’d been offering, almost dealing his potency an irreparable blow.
She was carrying a briefcase. Navy blue to go with her outfit. She looked all business today. And there was this…royal assurance to her bearing, a bring-it-on air to her stance, befitting the potent woman that she was and the mission that had brought her here. To conquer him? He’d bet that was it.
She turned, as if she’d sensed his entrance. She couldn’t have possibly seen him, not at the periphery of her vision, not in any reflection. He was still too far for his footsteps to be heard. She had sensed him.
And he sensed her. Her emanations were unchanged. How did she do that? How did she mess with his perception so that he felt only what she wanted him to feel?
He didn’t care. He had to get closer, get more.
He struggled to keep his stride tranquil, as if reaching her was low on his priorities.
When he was finally within arm’s reach, he stopped. Her face was a mask captured in blankness, her vibe transmitting nothing of her mood or intentions.
A crack exploded by his ear, on the side of his face, slashing the tranquility of the exclusive foyer’s silent occupants and sourceless music.
Chapter Seven
Durante blinked, gaped. Beyond stunned. Paralyzed.
He would later swear that she hadn’t even moved. But the evidence that she had would resound inside his head forever. Echoes ricocheted off every sound-reflecting surface in the all-marble, chrome and quartz massive space. He barely heard the gasps that went off in a chain reaction of incredulity around him, the quickening footsteps of the guards whose perpetual orders were to stay out of sight.
He made an adamant gesture, banishing them back where they came from. He couldn’t bear for others to exist in this moment. Only Gabrielle. Gabrielle, whose eyes were panning away from his with the same void filling them as if she didn’t even see him.
Then she brushed past him, walked away with all the grace and serenity of a fairy creature.
It was only when she exited the door the stunned bellman held open for her that Durante registered the burn spreading through his flesh. His hand went instinctively to the pain from the imprint of her fingers, as if to investigate the damage. He moved his mouth from side to side. His jaw felt almost loose.
It excited the hell out of him.
Which made him even more of a colossal fool than he’d realized.
She was pulling his strings. He knew it. But he could sooner resist the pull of a black hole. He rushed out after her.
He caught up with her in less than a minute, her head start and brisk stride no match for his longer legs and urgency.
She suddenly stopped. He overshot her by six strides and retraced them at once.
“Here’s the other cheek.” He presented her with it. “Go ahead, I know you want to.”
She gave no indication that she heard him or even felt him there. She put her briefcase on the ground, opened it, produced a dossier, took papers out, straightened, started reading.
“Prince Durante Benedetto D’Agostino. Eldest son of the King of Castaldini, and therefore, according to the ancient laws of succession, the only member of the extensive D’Agostino royal family ineligible for the crown.”
She was reading him a report? On him?
“To prove to the world that his inability to run for the crown meant nothing to him, Prince Durante decided to be king of his own kingdom, emperor of his own empire.”
Would there be a point to this somewhere? Knowing what he did about her, she was bound to have a whopper. But what could it be?
“During his meteoric ascent from age twenty, the prince masterminded takeovers that redefined the word hostile. Those he took an ax to say that they would have preferred it if he’d taken a contract on their lives and been done with it. Two of those he destroyed did end up taking their own lives. Then, at thirty-five, he engineered a market crash that sent thousands into bankruptcy while catapulting himself from mere billionaire status to that of financial god. Ever since, he’s been shearing his way through the pantheon, cutting down fellow deities in his climb to the absolute and solitary top.”