Читать книгу Modern Romance February Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 20
ОглавлениеALEX HAD BEEN dimly aware of the fact that Gabriella was a princess. He had originally fooled himself that she was not attractive, but now was exceedingly aware of the fact that she was beautiful. But what he had not realized was that, even behind the little gold mask that covered her eyes and part of her nose, her regal bearing would shine through.
What he had not realized was that, even with most of her face covered, her beauty would be undeniable. What he had not realized was that, in a designer gown that clung to her generous curves, she would be a temptation he was not sure he had the strength to resist.
He hadn’t realized that manner of temptation still existed for him.
Her dark hair was left loose, styled in dark curls, full lips painted red, the only part of her face that was visible. Her dress was a bright blue, the neckline high, covering more of her golden skin than he would like. But it hinted at a figure more spectacular than he had thought it could be. It clung to her hips and thighs before flaring out at the knee and billowing about her feet.
She was, in truth, a much more elegant creature than he had ever imagined. It was like looking at a stranger, and yet someone familiar at the same time.
Then she took a step forward, turning her foot sideways, and tripping slightly on her heel. “Drat!” she said, straightening and fussing with the bottom of her dress.
He smiled, because there was the Gabriella he had grown to know over the past few days.
“You look beautiful,” he said, the compliment rolling effortlessly off his tongue. She did look beautiful. She was more than beautiful.
“You don’t have to say things like that,” she said.
His chest tightened. He had wounded her earlier, and he bitterly regretted that. Still, he wasn’t entirely certain it was bad if she didn’t truly believe him attracted to her. He would never be like his father. He would never be the sort of man who simply took what he wanted without considering the feelings of others.
As a young man he had fixated on that little boy standing outside of the manor that night, the bastard child of his father who’d caused the car accident that killed his parents.
He had spent a great many years blaming that little boy. Hiding that little boy’s existence. Something he bitterly regretted later on in his life. Something he had done his very best to make right. But it had been too late. Nate’s life had been broken beyond recognition. Rejected by the only family he might have had, because of his birth.
Alex had brought Nate back into the family’s life when his grandfather had needed a bone marrow transplant and no one else had been a match. He hadn’t regretted it, but he and his half brother had never made much of a relationship with each other.
As an adult his memory of the events of that night had expanded. Not just to his mother, and her distress. Not just to the boy. But to the other woman, who was equally broken. Who had been brought into his father’s web somehow, who had born his child and received no support. Yes, more and more he thought about her. He thought about every single person who had been damaged by his father’s selfishness. By his unchecked lust.
The more the years passed, the more he realized his father was the villain.
Alex was a great many things, but he refused to become that manner of monster.
And that meant he would never touch Gabriella. She was so very different than anyone he’d ever known. So untouched by the ugly things in the world. She had seen the way her parents had behaved, and she had managed to retain a kind of simple, open view of the world he could never remember possessing. She had retained her hope. He would be damned if he were the one to take that from her.
One thing was certain, while he might be able to give her physical pleasure, he would never be able to offer anything beyond that. Nothing more than pain.
His family was stuck with him. The damage to Nate was done.
He would extend that damage no further.
“Shall we go to the ball, Cinderella?”
He extended his hand and she looked at it as though it might bite her. “If I’m Cinderella,” she said, keeping her hands fixed firmly to her sides, “does that make you my fairy godmother?”
“Never. Fairy godmothers are endlessly giving. They live to bestow gifts with no hope of receiving anything in return.” He smiled. “I’m not so selfless.”
“And what exactly do you hope to get in return for your gifts?”
“I’m getting it. Right now. As I told you, you look beautiful.”
He could see pink color bleeding beneath her skin, spreading outside the edges of the mask, revealing her blush to him. Reviewing the pleasure she took in his compliment. “And you... You look like the Phantom of the Opera.”
He touched the white mask on his face. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Except you aren’t hideously scarred.”
“My scars are metaphorical in nature.”
“The same can be said for most of us, I suppose. Though scarring is kept to a minimum when you spend most of your time in the library.”
“I knew my lack of a library would become problematic one day.”
“Right now, the only problem we have is a lack of a painting,” she said, gently steering the conversation back to the reason for all of this.
She was good at that. He was losing the plot. Completely. For a moment he had forgotten that he had a goal that extended beyond dancing with her tonight. A goal that went past seeing her in this gown and that mask.
Time moved a strange pace here. It was slower. Being away from his phone, his desk, being outside of his world, was doing strange things to him. He wasn’t entirely certain he disliked it.
“Then I suggest we get a move on. The painting will wait for no man. Except it has done exactly that for the past fifty-plus years.”
This time, she did take his hand. And he was the one tempted to pull away. From the heat. From the silken quality of her touch. He didn’t. He was the experienced party. The touch of a woman’s hand against his should not be cause for any reaction whatsoever.
He knew that. Repeated it over and over as he led her from their quarters down the long hall and toward the ballroom.
No matter how committed he was to understanding it on an intellectual level, he could not convince his body to agree.
So he did his best to concentrate on the feeling of his feet making contact with the marble floor. One step, then another. When he focused on that, the burn, where her skin made contact with his, lessened.
A bit.
They approached the doors to the ballroom and two elegantly appointed staff, not wearing masks, opened the double doors for both of them. “I feel like I should bow,” he said, leaning in to whisper the words in her ear. “But at my age it might be bad for my back.”
She looked up at him, dark eyes glinting from behind the mask. “Stop that.”
“But it’s so much fun.”
She rolled her eyes and he led her into the ballroom where couples were already dancing. “This room... It’s amazing,” she said, looking about them at the high, painted ceiling before her eyes fell to the pale walls, made ornate by sconces and crisp white molding.
Nothing about the designer dresses the other women were wearing. Of course not. Gabriella preferred art and architecture. Always.
“Gabby,” he said, drawing her attention back to him. She didn’t look nearly as annoyed as she typically did when he used the nickname. She looked... There was something strange in her expression. Something he feared he understood. Something he wished he hadn’t seen. “If you keep staring at the walls with more admiration than you afford me no one will believe it when we slip away.”
He led her deeper into the ballroom, toward the dance floor, and her attention drifted from him as she continued to stare at the walls, at the art, probably at particularly historically significant dust motes, knowing her.
“That could be a problem,” she said, distracted.
“Yes. One I will correct.”
He chose that moment to pull her into his arms, into a closed hold. Her attention snapped back to him. “What are we doing?”
“Dancing,” he said as he led her into the first step.
“So we are,” she said, one hand caught up in his, the other resting on his shoulder.
She curled her fingers in a fist, as though she were afraid to touch him too much so she needed to minimize the amount of skin making contact with his jacket.
“I feel tonight we might be very rude.”
“Will we?”
“Yes. We should socialize with everyone. You should approach the women and ask them who they are wearing and I should try and forge as many business connections as I possibly can with everyone in attendance. But I’m not going to. And neither are you. Because tonight we are only going to look at each other. We are only going to stay for the minimum amount of time and we’re going to make the world believe that I could not wait one more moment to have you in my arms.”
He could feel the breath leave her entire body, could feel her limbs go stiff. “I’m in your arms right now.”
“No. Not like this. It would be different.”
“How?” she asked, her voice a hushed whisper, her dark eyes full of fear, curiosity and excitement.
“It would be different because we would be alone. Because if there was nothing around us but all of these beautiful walls and I were to take you into my arms you would know that there were no limits to what might happen next. Everything would be different. It would be quiet, there would be no music. Only our breathing. The air around us would be different.”
She swallowed visibly. “That’s what...that’s what everyone will think is going to happen?”
“Yes. By the end of this dance no one will be in any doubt that the moment I have you alone we will not be discussing art, let alone looking at paintings.”
He drew her closer as the music changed, not releasing her between songs, but rather continuing to sway gently with her. “But we are,” she said, “looking at paintings.”
“Of course,” he said, never taking his eyes from her. “Touch my face, Gabriella.”
“Wh-what?”
“I want you to lift your hand from my shoulder, and rest your palm against my face. I want you to take your fingertips and trace my jaw, down to my chin, then bring your hand to rest on my chest.”
“Why?” she asked, her expression almost frantic.
“It’s for the painting.” He ignored the dull beating of his heart—it was for a lot more than that. That reminded him there were other ways to do this.
She obeyed his command, even while her expression remained frightened. Soft skin made contact with his face, the light drift of her fingertips along his cheek, down his jaw and then, just as he had told her to, she brought it to rest against his chest. He was certain that she could feel his heart, beating hard beneath her palm.
He never took his eyes off hers as he slipped his arm slowly from around her waist and reached for her wrist, curling his fingers around it and drawing her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm.
“That wasn’t... You didn’t...”
He released his hold on her, raising his hand to capture her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I suppose I didn’t. How many ‘Hail Marys’ do you suppose I have to say to atone for that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice raspy, scraped raw.
“It has been longer than I care to remember since my last confession. But for you, I would gladly get on my knees.”
Gabriella straightened, as though bolts of lightning had just shot straight down her spine, as though she had been hit with a thought so real, so strong, it had manifested itself physically. “You’re very good at empty flirtation, Alex.” She moved her arm around his neck, placing her fingers on his skin. “I wonder what might happen if you had to make good on any of your promises.”
“Why don’t you try to hold me to them, Gabriella?”
“Say something real,” she said, moving closer to him, slowly, as though it were taking great effort for her to move nearer to him, as though it took everything she had in her to keep herself from running away. “You’ve been playing a game with me from the moment we met. So now, if you want this to go on, I want you to tell me something and I want you to say it without that mocking gleam in your eye, or that wicked curve to your mouth. I want you to be real for one moment. Just one.”
“And what do I get in return?”
“Whatever you want.”
He could tell that the words had left her lips before she had given them her full permission. He could also tell that she wished she could call them back.
“A very dangerous gift to offer to a man like me.”
“I have no doubt.” But, to her credit, she didn’t rescind the offer.
“A real kiss for a real confession,” he said, “it’s only fair.”
“All right,” she said, her words breathless.
“You are beautiful,” he said, keeping his gaze locked with hers. He kept his grip on her chin tight, didn’t allow her to look away. “Quite apart from this quest, this game, apart from...me. The fact that no one has ever told you before, or at least has never made you feel it before, is a crime unspeakable in its cruelty.”
She blinked, relaxing in his hold. “I... I don’t know what to say. No one has ever... No one has ever said anything like that to me.”
“You were very angry yesterday. I... The way that I dealt with you was wrong. I hurt you. It was not my intent. You are sweet, Gabby. I am a man who licks the sugar off sweet things and leaves them discarded. But even if I shouldn’t say this, I want you to understand that while we might be here putting on a show for others, while I may have confessed to you my boredom with life, the attraction I feel for you is separate from that.”
She took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed, and then, her hands still curved around the back of his neck, she stood up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his mouth. It was quick, short, but he felt branded by it. Was certain that she had left a crimson stain behind from her lipstick, but something deeper than that. Something permanent.
“Now,” he said, “I think it’s time for us to excuse ourselves.”
* * *
Gabriella had failed in her objective. And she wasn’t entirely sorry about it.
She was supposed to seduce him. She was supposed to flip the tables on him. But from the moment she walked out of her room wearing that dress, she had felt like putty. Particularly when he looked at her, with all that heat and masculine energy radiating from him. He certainly looked like a man not entirely indifferent to what he saw before him.
And that, she supposed, was the variable she hadn’t counted on. The fact that coming close to seducing him might seduce her right back.
Then there had been the touching. Her touching his face, him kissing her hand. She had felt very much the frustrated mouse in the paws of a cat that wasn’t really hungry, just looking for amusement.
That was when she’d remembered herself. When she’d realized she was failing at her own objective. And so she had tried a different approach.
Yet again, he had come out on top. She had turned to nothing more substantial than spun sugar when he complimented her, then she’d nearly lost her nerve when she’d kissed him. Then she nearly dissolved when his lips had touched hers.
She was not a very good seductress. That was just the truth.
But...it turned out she was eminently seducible. Beautiful words from a beautiful man that touched her down deep beneath her clothes, beneath her skin, changed everything around inside of her. Made her forget to protect herself.
The wing of the palace they were in now was completely empty of guests or staff, it seemed. Everyone was in the ballroom, or on the other side of the house wearing a path between the kitchen and the ballroom.
“Come with me,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist and moving at a brisk pace toward a set of double doors at the end of the corridor.
She did. Because this was the game. Because there was nowhere else she wanted to be. And after tonight it was over. This hunt. This flirtation. Whatever it was.
The only flirtation she’d ever had in her life.
The thought made her want to cry. Sit and weep in the middle of the corridor. But she couldn’t do that because they were on a painting quest.
She hoped it took all night.
That they could spend the whole evening wandering through vacant halls on a quest, and if he never touched her it would be okay. It would be okay as long as she was walking with him.
Are you that easy? A few compliments and you’re ready to melt all over him like butter.
Yes. She was.
But the strange thing was, she knew Alex now. And she knew that what he’d said in the ballroom was real. What she didn’t know was what it meant for him, for them, and for the ticking clock that was winding down to midnight, when the enchantment would break and Cinderella would go back to being a bespectacled bookworm beneath his notice.
He opened one of the doors and slipped through the crack, bringing her with him, before closing it behind him.
“Do you suppose he has some kind of security camera system?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Alex said. “And believe me, I’ve been keeping my eye out. But he has no reason to think that any of the guests are going to make off with the art. And we’re not going to make off with any of the art that he knows about.”
“A fabulous technicality.”
“Speaking of technicalities, I want my kiss,” he said, turning to her, his expression suddenly hard, like granite.
The breath rushed from her body. “I kissed you,” she said. “Already, I mean.”
“You kissed me in front of everyone else. You wanted real words for me, and I want a real kiss from you. That kiss always had to happen for the two of us to excuse ourselves from the ballroom. I want one that isn’t inevitable.”
“Is that so?”
“Though I’m beginning to wonder if a kiss between the two of us was always inevitable.”
She laughed, a shaky, breathless sound. “Since when? Since you first walked into my grandmother’s house when I was barefoot and in my glasses?” She wished it were true. She wished he had.
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t. You’re right. Nothing about this makes sense.” He was the one who closed the distance between them, who reached out and curled a lock of her hair around his finger before letting it fall free. “I’m not certain it matters.”
“It should.”
“There are a lot of shoulds in the world, Gabby. But they very often become shouldn’ts. There isn’t much to be done about it. Except perhaps do the one thing that feels right.”
She didn’t know if this felt right. No. It didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. Very, very wrong. But she still wanted it. That was the thing.
She took a sharp breath, taking a step in toward him, pressing her hand to his chest. She looked up at his eyes, hard and dark, his expression still mostly concealed behind the mask. She flexed her fingers, scrunching the stiff white material of his shirt, then smoothing it again, relishing the feeling of his heat, his hardness, beneath the fabric. He was so different than she was. She had never truly fully appreciated just how different men and women were. In a million ways, big and small.
Yes, there was the obvious, but it was more than that. And it was those differences that suddenly caused her to glory in who she was, what she was. To feel, if only for a moment, that she completely understood herself both body and soul, and that they were united in one desire.
“Kiss me, Princess,” he said, his voice low, strained.
He was affected.
So she had won.
She had been the one to make him burn.
But she’d made a mistake if she’d thought this game had one winner and one loser. She was right down there with him. And she didn’t care about winning anymore.
She couldn’t deny him, not now. Not when he was looking at her like she was a woman and not a girl, or an owl. Not when he was looking at her like she was the sun, moon and all the stars combined. Bright, brilliant and something that held the power to hold him transfixed.
Something more than what she was. Because Gabriella D’Oro had never transfixed anyone. Not her parents. Not a man.
But he was looking at her like she mattered. She didn’t feel like shrinking into a wall, or melting into the scenery. She wanted him to keep looking.
She didn’t want to hide from this. She wanted all of it.
Slowly, so slowly, so that she could savor the feel of him, relish the sensations of his body beneath her touch, she slid her hand up his throat, feeling the heat of his skin, the faint scratch of whiskers.
Then she moved to cup his jaw, his cheek.
“I’ve never touched a man like this before,” she confessed.
And she wasn’t even embarrassed by the confession, because he was still looking at her like he wanted her.
He moved closer, covering her hand with his. She could feel his heart pounding heavily, could sense the tension running through his frame. “I’ve touched a great many women,” he said, his tone grave. “But at the moment it doesn’t seem to matter.”
That was when she kissed him.
She closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her lips to his, her heart thudding against her chest so wildly she could hardly breathe. She felt dizzy. She felt restless. She felt...everything.
It was the most natural and comfortable thing in the world to be in his arms. And also the most frightening. The most torturous.
She felt as though she’d come home, as though she’d finally found a place to rest. One that was hers and hers alone. But it wasn’t enough. And it never would be. His suit and her gown put too many layers between them.
Her title and his lack of one.
His age and experience coupled with her relative youth and inexperience.
Thirteen years. Thousands of miles. Lord knew how many women.
An unbridgeable divide, but one that was reduced to nothing as she stood here, tasting him. Savoring him. Holding him.
There was no space between them now. None at all. They were both shaking, both needing, both wanting.
She curled her fingers into a fist, holding him tightly as she angled her head. Then she jolted when he parted his lips, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth, requesting entry.
She couldn’t deny him. Not now. Possibly not ever.
He wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her, holding her close. One hand pressed between her shoulder blades, the other sliding low, just low enough to tease the curve of her buttocks without actually going past the line of impropriety.
Her world was reduced to this. To his hands, his lips, his scent. His every breath. If they had come into this room for anything other than the kiss she didn’t remember it.
If there was anything beyond this room, this moment, this man, she didn’t remember it, either.
They parted slowly, so different from that kiss in the garden. This felt natural, even though she regretted the end. They were both breathing hard, both unsteady. She lifted her hand and touched his cheek, felt the rasp of his whiskers beneath her palms, drank in the sight of him. What she could see of him that wasn’t covered by the mask, anyway.
“We should look for the painting,” she said, knowing she sounded dazed.
Her lips felt hot. Swollen. She wondered if they looked different, too. She couldn’t possibly have any lipstick left on them—that was certain.
“Painting?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up.
“Yes,” she said, her tone dry. She cleared her throat and started to walk toward the back wall. “She said there was a painting in one of the rooms, and only I could open it...”
“The key,” he said.
“Yes. I’m good at keeping secrets, it turns out. All those years of not having very many people to talk to, I guess.”
She reached beneath the neckline of her gown and fished the necklace out, holding it up in front of her.
“The key,” he said, his tone slightly different than it had been a moment earlier.
“Yes. It fits into a frame. She said it was scenery. Of a farm.”
“There’s a lot of that here.”
“I know,” she said, moving closer to the far wall and examining the different scenes in front of her. “They really do like their geese,” she muttered as she moved down the row, examining the frames, looking for any evidence that one might not be a typical picture. “There are some farm scenes in here, but nothing quite like what my grandmother described. I feel like this is the wrong room. The sorts of farmhouses my grandmother described were from a slightly different era. They predate these more modern houses.”
“Do they predate the geese?”
“There were always geese, Alex,” she said, enjoying the way his words played off her own. A thrill the way their lips worked together, even when they weren’t touching.
“Then let’s keep looking,” he said.
He took hold of her hand and another thrill shot through her as he led her from the room and back down the hall. He opened another door.
“What sorts of paintings are those?” he asked.
She looked in, her heart pounding hard due to the excitement. Sort of. Mostly it was the proximity of Alex.
“Cityscapes,” she said, “it won’t be here.”
They continued through a room filled with the portraits of royals, and one with scenes of the beach. Finally, they opened up a door to a room with a wall lined with paintings of farms. Pale, rosy cheeked children with animals, thatched roof homes and, well, more geese.
“It would be here,” she said, “I’m sure. So now...we just have to figure out which. Which painting looks different? Which one might be a false front?”
Alex squinted looking around the room. Then his posture went straight as though a realization had shot through him like a lightning bolt. “Here,” he said.
She turned to look at him. He’d stopped in front of a painting with a farmhouse, and a young girl in front of it. His fingertip was pressed into the corner of the frame.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There’s a small...a notch here in the corner. Look.”
She moved over to where he was and her mouth fell open, her fingers trembling as she held the charm on the necklace out in front of her. “I think... I think this is it,” she said.
He moved aside and she stepped forward, pressing the back of the necklace into the notch and pushing it in. The frame popped away from the wall about two inches and Gabriella stood back, bringing her necklace with her.
She stared at the picture for a moment, then looked over at Alex. “Well, now I’m nervous,” she said. Her stomach was flipping over, her hands sweating. She was...excited. But terrified. If the painting was there...who knew what would happen. If it got out and it created more waves for her family it would be disastrous. She would never be able to salvage their reputations. Not even with a more complete and fair history compiled.
But if it wasn’t there...
She had wondered about the painting for so long. If it was real. And now they knew it was real and the possibility of seeing it...
Alex swung the painting open and revealed a large rectangle behind it, set deep into the wall, covered in burlap.
“Oh,” she breathed, “that could be... I mean, it probably is...”
Alex reached out and grabbed hold of the burlap, drawing it down to reveal the painting underneath.
“Well,” she said, “you kind of took the drama out of it.”
“You don’t think this is dramatic enough?” he asked.
It was. Even without fanfare. Because lowering the burlap had revealed what could only be The Lost Love. It was a woman, sitting in front of a vanity, hands in her dark curls as she gazed into the mirror. She was naked, her bare back on display, the suggestion of her breasts in the reflection of the mirror. She was seated on a cushion, the curve of her bottom visible.
It was...provocative, certainly. But beautiful. And hardly the salacious, distasteful scandal the press had insinuated it might be so long ago.
“And this is why...” she breathed. “This is why we search for the truth. There’s nothing... There is nothing filthy about this. Nothing wrong with it.”
“I’m inclined to agree. But then, I am a fan of the female form.”
She turned to look at Alex. “I only mean that the media made it sound as though revealing this photo would be detrimental to my grandmother’s reputation. Certainly...” She looked back at the painting. “Certainly, it suggests that she was intimate with the painter. It is not a standard sort of portrait that one might sit for. And someone in her position was hardly ever going to pose nude. Plus... There’s something... There’s something more here than you see in a portrait that simply contains a model. The painter was not detached from the subject. I can feel it in every brushstroke. There’s so much passion.”
Her fingers reached out to the corner of the painting, where the artist’s initials, B.A., were faintly painted.
“Or,” Alex said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, “he was a very good painter.”
“It was more than that, Alex.”
“It makes no difference to me. My job is simply to bring the painting to my grandfather.”
Gabriella frowned. “Why does your grandfather have more of a claim to this than my grandmother? It’s her in the painting.”
“Yes, it is. But my grandfather owned this painting at one time. He will be willing to pay whatever price is fair. It was not your grandmother’s dying request, but it is his.”
“We will bring it back to Aceena. She wants to see it. At least give her that.”
“I can’t be away from work indefinitely, Princess,” he said.
She looked at him, unable to make out the finer points of his expression behind the mask. “Please. Let’s bring it back to her.”
He regarded her closely for a moment. Then he nodded slowly, moving over to where the painting was, extending his hand and brushing his thumb along the edge of the canvas. “It is very beautiful. In fact,” he said, looking away from the painting and back at Gabriella. “It reminds me a bit of you.”
Her face heated. “I don’t look anything like that.”
“You certainly do. Beautiful. Lush.”
“I don’t.”
“This painting is not the view of the subject. It’s the vision of her admirer,” he said, his dark eyes locked on to hers. “For that reason, I would say that I’m in a much better position to evaluate it than you.”
“You’re not my lover,” she said, the word sweet and thick like honey on her tongue.
“No,” he said, his tone taking on a wistful quality. “I’m not.”
“How are we going to get this back to our room?”
“Very quickly,” he said.
He took the portrait out, covered it with the burlap again and quickly closed the original painting.
She moved forward and pressed her necklace deeply into the notch again to lock it just as before.
“If he truly had no idea this painting was here, he will have no reason to believe it isn’t mine,” Alex said. “Of course, carrying a rather large canvas through the house may arouse suspicion. I doubt I could convince him I was simply taking the painting out for a walk.”
“Then we had better hurry,” Gabriella said. “Everyone else is still occupied in the ballroom.”
“And thank God for Prime Minister Colletti’s devotion to having a good time.”
They walked to the double doors that led back to the corridor. Alex opened the first one slightly, peering out into the hall to see if anyone was there. “It looks clear,” he said.
She nodded, and they both slipped through the outside, closing the gallery door tightly shut behind.
It was ridiculous. Alex was wearing a suit that was rather disheveled, they were both masked and now Alex was also carrying a piece of art.
If anyone saw them, they would likely imagine they had simply had too much to drink.
They walked down the hall quickly, then they rounded to the left and froze. Up against the wall was another couple engaged in the very thing Alex had wanted the rest of the party to believe they were engaged in. The man had the woman pressed tightly against the wall, her hands held over her head while he kissed her again, his other hand roaming over her curves.
A flash of heat wound itself around Gabriella, her entire body ready to go up in flames at the sight of it.
What would it be like to have Alex unleash his passion on her like that? To have him press her up against the wall. To have him touch her like that.
The scene before them highlighted just how circumspect he had been.
For some reason, she was disappointed.
“Quietly,” Alex whispered as the two of them continued behind the amorous couple. The woman’s eyes were closed, the man’s back to them, and they were able to walk along behind them without detection. They hurried through the halls, the rest of which they found empty. Not stopping until they reached their rooms.
“Excellent,” Alex said, closing the door tightly behind them. “I will pack this away, and if anyone looks through my suitcase I will say that I acquired it elsewhere during our travels. There is no reason for them to think otherwise.”
Gabriella shook her head, laughing—a husky sound. “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be involved in an art heist.”
“Does it not belong to your family, Gabriella?”
“I feel it does,” she said.
“Then it’s hardly a heist.”
“Still. I’ve done quite a lot today that I never imagined I would.”
Dancing with him. Kissing him. Being called beautiful. Now it was ending. This was the end of it all. She didn’t care about stealing the painting. She cared about the mission being over.
“I have to say the same, Gabby, and I did not think that was possible.”
She wasn’t even irritated this time when he called her Gabby. No one else called her that. It was a name that only came from Alex. And she decided that there was something she quite liked about that. Whether it was because it kept this entire event separate from her real life, or because it made all of this feel special.
She was desperate to feel like it was special to him.
“I’m glad you found it diverting.”
He laughed. “Oh, I found it more than that.”
He took his mask off then, reached up and loosened his black tie. There was something about that look. That rakish, disheveled look that made her heart beat faster. That made her limbs feel weak. That made her stomach tighten.
Of course, it was the same when he was perfectly pressed, the same when he had a mask over his face. It was the same no matter what.
“We will leave tomorrow,” he said.
“What reason will we give?”
“I will tell him that urgent business has come up in the States. I think I have done enough to secure a deal with the prime minister, and I managed to get what I came for. All in all, quite a successful trip.”
Gabriella couldn’t help but laugh. “Almost too successful. I keep expecting guards and hounds to descend upon us.”
“Nothing like that, I think. I’m not sure this painting is truly valuable to anyone other than our grandparents.”
Gabriella blinked, pulled up yet again by the link between Lucia and Giovanni. “Yes. It’s very strange, that.”
“Not especially.”
“A bit.”
“Only if you like romanticizing things. And I do not.”
She rolled her eyes. “How very surprising.”
He paused in front of her, a strange expression passing over his face. The left side of his lips curved slightly upward as he studied her. He moved forward and her breath caught in her chest.
He reached out, tracing the edge of her mask before lifting it slowly. He pulled it away, the soft brush of his skin against hers enough to make her feel like she was on fire. “So very beautiful,” he said, his words hushed.
She waited for him to lean in. Waited for him to kiss her again. But he didn’t. He simply stood, looking at her, not touching her, not making a move to close the distance between them.
She wished she were brave. Brave enough to touch him. To lean into him. To recapture what had happened in that empty room.
“Goodnight, Gabriella,” he said finally, his words summarily dismissing her, stealing her chance at bravery.
She cleared her throat. “Goodnight, Alex.”
She turned and walked into her bedroom. She felt very much like she had missed something. Like she had left a very important piece of herself behind.
She blinked hard against the stinging sensation in her eyes, did her best to breathe around the rock that had settled on her chest.
They would leave tomorrow. They had completed their objective. Tomorrow, she would be back on Aceena. Back with her grandmother. And everything would return to the way it was.
