Perhaps his interest in this pretty traveler was reflexive pushback against his mother’s latest efforts because he found himself mentally rearranging his priorities again, now allowing for a shared dinner this evening—with plenty of time allotted for other potential entertainments to develop.
“Joszef.”
His driver snapped to attention and hurried to open the back door of his town car.
The woman turned to look at him and stilled as though transfixed. A slow smile filled her expression with even more light. He thought of artwork that depicted angels of grace and goddesses of fertility, none of which had ever caused such a brilliant thrust of heat to swell in him.
Oh, yes, this one was definitely his.
“That saves me going inside to ask for you.” She came toward him, hand extended. “I’m pleased to meet you, Úr. Rohan.”
She spoke in Hungarian without accent, but something told him she was American. He took her hand the way a cat snared a bird that flittered too close, pulling her in, determined she wouldn’t get away.
Then she spoke again, and the hunter inside him went from playful to bloodthirsty, claws extending.
“I’m Rozalia Toth. Do you have time to speak with me?”
* * *
Viktor Rohan dropped her hand like she was made of fire. It was a shock when she was still reeling from that initial touch that had set her alight. The spark of generic attraction she’d experienced for an online image flared to sharp fascination as she faced him in person. A compulsion to know everything about this man welled in her.
“No,” he answered with the look she had seen in that beach photograph, like he thought she was something irritating. Abhorrent, even. Definitely far beneath him. “How do you have the nerve to chase me down like this?”
He was so much more dynamic and dangerous in real life. An air of potent virility came off him along with ruthless command of his surroundings. It took everything in her to keep her faculties and respond, “I had an appointment with your mother. She promised to show me an antique earring that my grandmother possessed at one time, but she canceled at the last minute.”
“You aren’t the one who made the appointment and I advised her against agreeing to it, not when you haven’t even offered an apology.” He turned to step into the space of the open car door.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have been clear that I took Gisella’s place.”
He swiveled a look on her that should have sent her head rolling into the street. “I meant an apology from your grandmother. For stealing our family heirloom.”
“What? Grandmamma didn’t steal those earrings. Why on earth do you think that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think it. I know it.” So confident, as if it was a proven fact. He folded himself into the back of his car.
“Wait! That’s wrong.” She pushed herself into the space behind the door, so his driver couldn’t slam it without breaking her shins. She braced a hand on the top of the door as she leaned her head down. “Your great-uncle gave them to her as an engagement present.”
“How is that possible? He was dead before they went missing. Joszef,” he said sharply.
The driver, who’d been doing his best to charm the socks—and everything else—off her a minute ago, set his hand on her arm.
Rozalia had long ago learned how to shake off a grope in the subway and cast a warning look that had any man stepping back in defense of his chestnuts. The driver did exactly that, one hand blocking his fly on reflex.
She also knew better than to get into cars with strangers, but that’s exactly what she did. She pushed into the back seat, trying to crawl across him like she was taking the far chair in a row at the theater.
It was rude enough, and startled Viktor so that he grabbed her waist to steady her in front of him, practically on his lap. His strength was undeniable, but what froze her in place was the impact of his touch. For a moment, they were eye to eye, nose tip to nose tip, practically about to kiss.
His eyes were gray as an ashen sky, moody and ominous without any hint of blue. And dear Lord he had an erotic mouth.
Her hand was on the leather seat next to his thigh, but she longed to brace against the well-developed ball of his shoulder. Touch the heat of his neck. He smelled of something woodsy and spicy, fine wool and the barest hint of brandy.
All of that combined with the flash in his stormy gaze to give her the vertigo she experienced looking down from tall buildings. The flip-flop in her stomach warned of a life-threatening fall even though she knew she was perfectly safe.
“Sir?” Joszef said.
With a muscular twist, Viktor dumped Rozalia onto the seat beside him.
“Close the door,” he said.
It slammed.
He settled his arm along the back of the seat so he was angled toward her, silently asking, What now?
Because she was trapped. The luxury sedan had a roomy interior, but it became unbearably small and airless. She felt enclosed with a panther. A hungry one. Her feet were still tangled with his and she carefully withdrew them to her side of the car.
“Are you finished work for the day? Can I buy you a drink?” she asked. Somewhere reputable and crowded, preferably. “I’d like to talk this out. I always understood that Istvan died after he gave Grandmamma the earrings.”
She was using her conciliatory I statements deliberately. The family didn’t call her their number one mediator for nothing.
“You’re wrong.” No compromise in his tone. “She came to the house after he was killed, stole my great-grandmother’s earrings, sold one to escape to America and sold the other one when she arrived.”
Now she was growing annoyed.
“My grandmother is a very kind and honest person. She would never steal and certainly wouldn’t lie, especially to family. I don’t know how the story got so twisted. How did you even wind up with one earring? How long have you had it?”
“My grandmother Dorika dealt in art during Soviet times. She came across it and knew how rare and valuable it was, despite it only being one of a pair.”
Rozalia frowned. “Didn’t she recognize it as her mother’s?”
“She was on my father’s side. My mother is the Karolyi descendant. And yes, Dorika knew immediately it was Cili Karolyi’s. Anyone else would have broken the setting to sell the stones, but she tucked it away as a bargaining chip.”
If she wore pearls, Rozi would have clutched them, she was so appalled by the thought of the setting being broken. But, “What kind of ‘bargaining chip’?”
“Enticement when she arranged my parents’ marriage. She knew my mother would want it. Those earrings should have passed down through the women in our family.”
He was trying to make her feel guilty about her grandmother’s supposed theft, but she was caught by the rest of what he’d said.
“She arranged your parents’ marriage? I didn’t know that was a thing that was done here.”
“This level of success isn’t accidental,” Viktor said dryly, flicking a hand to indicate the car’s leather seats and privacy window, its polished wood grain trim and the touch screen computer mounted for his convenience. “It comes from generations of strategic alliances. Not from handing off priceless family jewels with a marriage promise to dishonest peasant