She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was muted. “Well, he always finds the wallflower interesting, doesn’t he?”
“Who?”
“The hero. He finds the strange girl fascinating. Wants to know more about her. Men don’t. For the record, they never do. As you said, they like women boring. You like them boring. Or at the very least, they don’t like them weird. Plus, there’s all that racing heart, sweating palms business. Aching body parts.”
“Your body parts don’t...ache?”
She growled, a small feral sound. “That’s horribly embarrassing.”
“You’re the one who brought us here,” he said, lying. He had led the entire thing for just such a moment. “You can’t get mad at me for building off it.”
“I can get mad at you for whatever I like,” she said, sounding completely regal again.
Silence settled between them. Finally, he spoke again. “We are, by the way.”
“You are what?”
“We are fascinated by the wallflower. At least, I was tonight.”
“You were not. You were bored.”
“I was bored by the businessman who couldn’t stop telling me about his portfolio. I was bored with Samantha. And I did not look down her dress. But you... You’re the one person in that room that I couldn’t predict. That I couldn’t figure out. I had to follow you when you left the room because I had no idea where you were going, or what you intended to do. Very few people surprise me, Gabriella, but you do.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not here to surprise you. I’m not really here to do anything to you. I’m just supposed to find that painting, which of course we haven’t done yet. And I...I’m playing secretary to you and having to face the kinds of social situations I would rather eat a handful of bees than contend with.”
“Well, don’t eat a handful of bees. It sounds incredibly unpleasant.”
“These kinds of things are unpleasant. Even more so when I look like this. At least when I have my team of people making me look...polished... At least then people are fooled for a few moments. Right now, my outside kind of matches my inside.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“I just told you.”
“I don’t think that’s all of it.”
She shifted next to him. “I don’t know. When I’m in costume—so to speak—at least when people reject me they’re rejecting this strange version of me that isn’t who I see in the mirror every day. Princess Gabriella is something I put on when I go out. But otherwise, I’m just me. And right now, it feels very much like all of those people out there ignoring me are rejecting real pieces of me.”
“No one is rejecting you. It’s my fault for having you come here as an employee. You are definitely being treated as such.” He found that he felt a little bit contrite about the situation. And he was never contrite.
“That’s my own set of issues, I suppose. I don’t make very much sense, Alex. That’s the real problem. I want to be left alone. I want to be anonymous. But... Not always. Not every time. Just once it would be nice to have a handsome man look at me and cross the room to be by my side.”
“I’m not entirely certain whether or not I’m handsome, at least not by your standards, but—” he paused “—you’re the one I crossed the room for tonight, Gabriella. Take that as you will.”
Silence fell between them and she placed her hand flat on the bench, a few inches separating their fingertips.
“I suppose you did,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“I could have had her,” he said, speaking of Samantha. “But this was where I wanted to be.”
“You’re quite confident in yourself,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Brought about by predictable patterns. I told you, people don’t surprise me.”
“I wish I had that confidence. I wish I wasn’t so afraid.”
She had no reason to be afraid. And in that moment he hated a world that bestowed so much confidence on the terrible and unworthy—on her parents and his. And robbed it from the truly unique.
He lifted his hand, placing it over hers, and feeling every inch a bastard for doing it. She was vulnerable, and by touching her at the moment he was taking advantage of her.
He wasn’t sure whether he cared or not. He was accustomed to dealing with people who moved in common circles to himself. People who saw the world much as he did.
Gabriella was an entity unto herself. She was not an experienced woman. She didn’t know this game.
Why are you even bothering to play the game with a woman you thought plain only forty-eight hours ago?
He didn’t have the slightest idea.
He was equally confused by the idea that he had ever found her plain. She clearly wasn’t. Not in the least.
“I find you impossible to predict,” he said again.
“Is that... Is that a compliment?”
He was trying to process her words, but most of his brainpower was taken up with relishing the velvet softness of her hand beneath his. She was so warm to touch after the cold stone of the bench. So very much alive.
How long had it been since he’d had a woman? He couldn’t remember. Because it was irrelevant. Whoever the woman was, whenever she was, she hadn’t been Gabriella.
Gabriella, who seemed to be her own creature.
“Why are you touching my hand?” she asked.
“Because I want to. I have never seen much use in denying myself the things that I want.”
“There are a host of reasons for self-denial,” she said. “We both know that.”
“Oh, I am better trained than my parents ever were. My desires don’t come from errant passions. I’m a logical man.”
“There is nothing logical about you touching my hand.”
He moved his thumb slowly over her knuckles, stroking her. “No, I suppose there isn’t. I suppose there is nothing logical at all in this.”
There wasn’t. He was touching her now, but it could never be more than that. Alex had few scruples, it was true. But he had some. He had limitations on his behavior, if only because he had seen what it was like when people didn’t. His parents had cared for nothing.
He preferred life to be a series of business transactions. He only entered into transactions with people who had a similar amount of resources. He wasn’t the kind of man who swooped in and killed off dying companies. Wasn’t the type to offer seed money to a start-up. It just wasn’t his way. He preferred everything equal. In terms both parties understood.
It was the same with his sexual liaisons. He had no interest in despoiling innocents. No interest in corrupting a girl who barely understood what desire was.
His stomach tightened, his body hardening at the thought. Calling him a liar.
Well, perhaps his body was interested, but that didn’t mean he would act on it.
He had spent all of his life endeavoring to become a better person than his mother and father. To learn from the mistakes of that fateful night.
A