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 explore—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