He poked the tiny, missile-shaped RF beacon needle tip right through the black leather of the case and insinuated it beneath. It left a tiny misshapen bulge, but by the time she noticed, it would no longer matter. It would only monitor her for maybe thirty-six hours, having so little battery power.
But Imre only had a couple of days, in any case.
“…so tell her I’ll be back soon. And only Elmo, or Pooh. The other ones give her nightmares. Yes. Just a couple of hours. ’Til then.”
She clicked the phone shut. He sensed rather than heard her sigh of frustration.
“You have a child?” he said quietly.
She whipped around, alarmed. “You speak Brazilian Portuguese?”
He shrugged. “Romance languages,” he said lightly. “Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian. You learn one, you learn them all.”
“Hmmph.” She gazed at him, eyes wide. He had scared her.
“Tell me about your daughter,” he urged.
Her haughty chin lifted. “I do not discuss my private life with strangers.”
He gave her a coaxing smile. “I am still a stranger?”
“Let’s focus on business,” she said crisply. “Why am I here, Mr. Janos? Talk. And be succinct, please.”
He displayed appropriate good-humored disappointment at being frozen out. “Very well. I am interested in organizing a private auction. Many of my clients are already eager to acquire your work. Once I put out the word, there will be a quiet stampede. And I have the perfect setting for it, too. A friend of mine owns a restored medieval masseria in San Sebastiano, near Naples, where we could organize a weekend event, and if you came—”
“Why the hell would I come?” Her voice was sharp.
“Your presence would be a huge draw,” he assured her. “Your mystery, your secrecy, your beauty.”
She gave him a disdainful look.
He persisted. “I am serious. Nothing stimulates people to spend money more than feeling part of an exclusive club. The commisions you will get for future pieces will keep you busy for years. You could earn hundreds of thousands, Ms. Steele. Perhaps seven figures.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and pondered him. “And you?” she asked. “What do you earn, Mr. Janos?”
He shrugged. “A modest percentage, of course.”
“Modest,” she purred. “A dangerous word. Very subjective, especially when it comes to money.”
“Never mind the money. We can hammer out the financial details later. For now, think about it. You come to San Sebastiano, enjoy a sensual, profitable weekend, and then disappear again to your secluded privacy with a sack of money. Why not?”
“It sounds dangerous,” she said.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “The place is private, the guests hand-picked, the security good, the time interval brief.”
“It’s dangerous because you are dangerous,” she said.
“You are more than what you seem. Or less. Shall I tell you why?”
Her words chilled him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Let me tell you all about yourself.” She gave him a coaxing, overly sweet smile. “Then tell me if I hit the mark. Think of it as a get-to-know-you game. Wasn’t that what you wanted? To know me better?”
He sensed a trap, but threw up his hands, galantuomo to the last gasp. “How can I refuse a lady?”
Chapter
7
Tam cupped her tea in both hands and inhaled the steam as she studied his face. She didn’t like to admit it to herself, but it was taking more energy than she’d expected to withstand the gale force of this man’s sex appeal. Not just the language but even the way she talked changed in his presence.
Erin had not been kidding. For some reason, Tam had been expecting a generic, male-model sort of handsomeness. Which was unfair. Erin was married to Connor, after all, and even Tam could appreciate his craggy, fierce good looks. Even at her moodiest.
But still. She was utterly unprepared for…well, him.
Lethal. It was the first word that came to mind, even though it embarrassed her. He was so solid, so hard looking. Dynamic, and yet calm and focused. Nothing soft about him, except for the gloss of that thick brush of black hair. She wanted to touch it, just to see if it really was as soft as mink. Gypsy dark eyes, inky brows and lashes. The planes and angles of his face were starkly masculine, arrogantly sensual, but that smile was pure temptation. She’d considered herself impervious to men’s lures, so why was she marveling at the lines carved into his cheeks when he grinned, or that blinding flash of teeth against his dark skin? Get a fucking grip, Steele. This is unacceptable.
His face looked hard used for a rich business consultant. There were bumps on his slightly crooked nose, a white diagonal scar sliced through one thick, slashing eyebrow, and subtler scars that only a trained eye accustomed to evaluating the effects of cosmetic surgery could catch. And the hands, of course. He’d fought in his life. Fought hard. Won, more often than not, judging from his vibe.
And what a vibe. It blasted out of him, full force. It was out of human range, a frequency that only a fucked-up freakoid with a weird, checkered past like hers could perceive. But so different from the danger waves that had throbbed out of the sicko madmen she’d had the misfortune to get close to before, like Novak, Georg, Drago Stengl. Their vibration had made her recoil.
Not so with Janos. In him, the danger was blended like a cocktail with seductive, predatory male sexual energy that assaulted her at every level. It silently said, beneath the smooth veneer of perfect gentlemanly courtesy, that he wanted to fuck her, left, right, up, down and sideways. And that it would be well worth her while.
She didn’t doubt it. But she wasn’t going to listen, not even with her nerves jangling, her skin prickling, her heart thudding. Back off, boyo. This was business, and that was how it was going to stay.
“You’re not what you try to appear,” she said. “You are charming and flirtatious and inscrutable, Mr. Janos, but tiny details betray you. Your hands should be soft from handling nothing heavier than a pen and a computer mouse, but yours are scarred and callused. And your face. Your nose has been broken. Several times it wasn’t set. You can’t blame the martial arts club. If it happened during sparring, why would a rich, image-conscious businessman neglect to get his nose set? Of course he would not.”
“I did not see the point of—”
“So it happened when you were a boy,” she went on smoothly. “No one set your nose then, either, which implies poverty, neglect, or both. I’m thinking an urban environment, judging from your basic vibe. And those scars on your face, the tiny one above your lip, the one cutting through your eyebrow, the one on your forehead that you almost hide with your hair, it makes me wonder what other scars you hide with the beautiful six-thousand-euro suit you’re wearing. You’ve had laser treatments, dermabrasion, but the ghosts always remain.”
“I’m glad you like the suit,” he said blandly.
“You’re no country boy,” she went on. “But you’re not from Rome. You don’t have the accent of the Roman periphery. Your Italian has a Roman cadence, but to my ear, it is a studied one, not a native one. You grew up somewhere else, speaking something else, and learned your perfect Italian later. And you grew up rough. Very rough.”
He stared back at her, frozen into stillness. His eyes were chips of black, opaque glass. “Go on,” he said.
She