“Everything but this. You can handle that for me?”
“Of course, sir.” The official waited for Kaine’s nod of dismissal, then hurried out, leaving Gisella alone with him.
Wait. He hadn’t bought a house to get one item, had he?
Kaine tucked the velvet box into the pocket of his jacket without opening it.
Gisella’s stomach swooped with dread. “What was that?”
She moved with panic to where a makeup table and dresser top held a number of open jewelry boxes, all with numbered tags on them. She scanned for the earring she’d only ever seen in the catalog for this auction. Several pairs of earrings were on display, but no orphans.
It wasn’t here. She scanned again, her sense of loss visceral. She was going cold with shock while a shot of adrenaline hit her heart, sending a stinging throb through her limbs. How could she be this close after so long and lose?
“Was that an earring?” She swung around.
He gave her a blithe smile. I know who you are, Ms. Barsi.
She was fully taken aback. A wild suspicion came into her head and out her mouth before she’d had time to absorb how ridiculous it was. “You did not just buy a house to get that earring!”
“It was the most expedient means of getting what I want before anyone else.”
Shock hit in waves. He really had bought the house for the earring. And there were other people after her grandmother’s earring? Enough that he’d gone after it this aggressively? That made no sense. It was one earring.
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but it’s not that valuable. It’s not worth a house. Not this house. Why didn’t you just bid on it?”
“Buying the house serves other purposes. And I don’t have time to play game shows all day. Shall we?” He waved to invite her to leave.
“No.” She put out a hand, used to having control of most situations, but she was utterly at a loss. It was the stakes, she told herself. She had been hunting that earring for more than a decade. She had been so sure she would take it home today and now her stomach was knotting with gross disappointment.
No. She straightened her spine, mentally smoothing the wrinkles from her normally smooth, aloof confidence.
“I’d like to make you an offer for it.” He’d said he would take some, right?
On everything but this.
His expression grew both alert and satisfied. He cocked his head slightly, gaze scanning her features, taking his time studying her brow and cheekbones, her jaw and mouth. Almost as though he was memorizing them.
“Why do you want it so badly?” he asked. “If it’s not that valuable?”
She licked her lips self-consciously while a scent of danger had her heart doing one of those skips that showed up in movies as a jag of returned life on heart monitors. Her whole body suffused with tingling heat. The air between them crackled.
“It has sentimental value for my grandmother.” And her grandmother was growing frail. Gisella wanted to put it in her pale, elderly hand before another health issue arose to alarm all of them.
“You care about her very deeply.” He seemed to delve into her soul with his piercing golden eyes.
“I do.” A lilt of hope infused the words as she sensed he was coming around. “She’s a very special woman.”
“I’m sure you take after her.” It was a thick piece of flattery, something she knew better than to fall for. Even so, his smoky voice caused her to blush.
It was inexplicable. He wasn’t going out of his way to stoke the sexual awareness between them. She was simply aware it was there. Intensely aware. She didn’t know why she was reacting to him so blatantly. She wasn’t even sure she liked him. He seemed quite arrogant and ruthless.
But fascinating. She knew a lot of rich and powerful men. None radiated this innate confidence. None wore impervious armor that begged her to see if she could pierce it.
Maybe if she’d had lovers, she would have found her sensual side long ago, but she had a silly pact with her cousin to wait for that elusive thing Rozalia kept insisting was real—love.
Gisella had been humoring Rozi when she had made her vow of chastity. They’d been thirteen and sex had sounded ridiculous enough that Gisella had been happy to put it off. Until now, she hadn’t met a man who had tempted her enough to break her promise.
But here she was, locking gazes in a staredown that filled her with anticipation. So much so, if he slid his attention downward, he’d see her nipples straining visibly against the lace of her bra and the light jersey of her top.
“How much would you like for it?” she asked, struggling to stay on task.
“It’s not for sale.”
He sounded so firm, so smug, she scowled in consternation.
“Such a beautiful face shouldn’t wear such an angry frown.” He ambled closer and grazed her jaw with the side of his knuckle. “It might stay that way. Shall we go?”
She ignored the way his light touch made her breath stutter and tightened her mouth with resolve. She was an only child, used to getting everything she wanted.
“How can I persuade you to change your mind?”
“You can’t.” His mouth pulled into a wicked grin. “But I’m tempted to let you try.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t use sexual favors to get what I want,” she informed him coldly. “If I kiss a man, it’s because I want to.” There. It was a dropped glove, but it was true. If she thought a man boorish, she told him so.
If she found a man enthralling... Well, he was the first to fascinate her like this. She wondered if he might become her first in other ways. This power struggle was inordinately exciting.
“Is that so,” he murmured. All the humor bled out of his expression, leaving it full of grave angles. He seemed to consider her words while the backs of his fingers continued to caress her throat where her pulse thrummed like a hummingbird’s wings.
What was she doing? This was madness. He was a stranger. Voices were conversing in a nearby room.
But she wanted him to kiss her. It wasn’t about the earring. He was unlike any man she had ever met. If he walked away and she didn’t at least know what it felt like to have his mouth on hers, she would always wonder.
She stared into eyes that had become the incendiary gleam of liquid gold and dared him to make her day.
His hand came back to her jaw, his touch firm as he bent his head.
He claimed her mouth without ceremony, as if they’d been kissing like this every night for years. And, oh, did he know how to kiss.
This was what she had sought all her life. A man who met her strong personality with an even stronger one. One who took her out of herself with a twist of his mouth against hers, parting her lips and sinking into a hungry, passionate ravaging that dismantled her even as he promised she would be safe in his strong arms.
She became a molten substance as he gathered her hair and squeezed an arm across her back. She pooled like quicksilver against him, curves fitting into the dips and contours of his chest, arms curling around his tense waist to settle her fingers against the warm hollow of his spine.
She had never been kissed like this. Carnal and possessive, urgent and lazy at once. Her scalp stung under the clench of his hand in her hair. Heat consumed her, burning up any memory she had of other men. A moan of pleasure escaped