Innocent’s Nine-Month Scandal

by Dani Collins

  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 girls.”

  Rozalia let her jaw hang open so he could appreciate the full extent of her affront. “Easy to see why your mother had to be bribed into marrying that sort of charm.”

  Dang. She hadn’t meant to reveal the temper that got the better of her sometimes. She looked like a pushover, but she wasn’t.

  Nevertheless, the way his cheeks hollowed with thinning patience and his gaze frosted over gave her pause.

  “What did you hope to accomplish by coming here, Ms. Toth? You’re wasting my valuable time.”

  She scraped together her own patience, trying to salvage this trip. “I want to make you an offer for the earring.”

  “No.” Flat and unequivocal.

  “At least let me see it!”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Even if Grandmamma had stolen it, which she didn’t, what’s the use in punishing me for that?”

  “Why do you want to see it?”

  “To take photos.” She searched for her most reasonable, professional tone. “I’d like to appraise it properly.”

  His brows went up.

  “I’m a fully qualified gemologist and goldsmith.” She had apprenticed with her uncle Ben at Barsi on Fifth, the shop her grandfather had started after arriving in America. “I make custom pieces all the time. I’d like to take the measurements of the stones and grade them, make some sketches. If I can’t purchase the original, I’d like to re-create the earrings for my grandmother. She’s quite elderly.” She also had health problems that had given them all a scare this winter, making it that much more imperative Rozalia succeed in her mission. “If I could give her that much, it would make her very happy.”

  “Aside from the fact I have no investment in your grandmother’s happiness, am I to understand you want to make a copy? My mother has considered that several times, but the one-of-a-kind rarity is part of the earring’s value. She’d rather have the authentic match and own the only pair. I’m in the process of acquiring the other one.”

  “Are you?” she asked with enough skepticism to turn his expression even stonier.

  “You don’t have the other one,” he said with confidence.

  She effected a casual shrug. “Not yet, but my cousin is in San Francisco right now.” Probably getting shot down by a man Gisella considered to be her mortal enemy, but Viktor didn’t know that. Rozalia held Viktor’s gaze while the pressure of his simmering anger nearly compressed her blood to a solid inside her veins.

  “I suggest you advise him against getting in my way.” His gaze slid to the fabric bag she had been carting around on her shoulder and held slouched in her lap.

  “Her,” Rozalia corrected with a blithe smile, not bothering to dig out her phone. She couldn’t move. He would see she was trembling at the intensity of this confrontation. “The women in our family are very persuasive.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Hey.

  “We’re also very stubborn.” She showed him the point of her chin. “I could call her, but Gisella is as determined as I am. Probably as determined as you are, seeing as she’s Istvan’s descendant and carries Karolyi blood. I’d say that gives her as much right to the earrings as you have.” She blinked with innocence.

  “Is she as foolhardy as you? Throwing herself in the way of a man with my resources?”

  Rozalia refused to betray the seesaw of fear and exhilaration sending shivers through her whole body.

  “If the earring is your mother’s, she ought to be the one who decides whether to sell it to me. I only came here because she canceled our appointment. Why don’t you call her and reschedule our meeting? Us womenfolk can work it out amongst ourselves.” Yes, she assured him with a smile, she was patronizing him.

  “My mother had to run to Visegrád. She won’t be back for a week, at least.”

  “To see your great-aunt Bella? Istvan’s sister?” Istvan had had two sisters, Bella and Viktor’s grandmother Irenke, who had had Viktor’s mother, Mara, and passed away some years ago. Rozalia had planned to track down Bella if she had time, thinking she might be interested to know her brother’s daughter and granddaughter lived in New York but—

  “Do not interfere in my family, Ms. Toth. I will make your life very uncomfortable. In fact—” He pulled out his own phone and tapped to signal voice activation. “Text Kaine Michaels,” he ordered, then dictated, “If you sell that earring to anyone but me, I will become a bigger problem than any you already have.”

  He hit the screen and a whoosh sounded.

  Rozalia internally winced at the complication she’d just caused her cousin. Sorry, Gizi.

  “Look, I didn’t come here for a war.” Time to try placating again. “Is it so unreasonable that I’m curious? Your mother was willing to talk to me. Why won’t you let me buy you a drink and ask a few questions?”

  “Because I don’t like liars, Ms. Toth.”

  “When have I lied to you? I’m exactly what I appear to be. A long-lost relative—”

  “You’re not my relative,” he stated with enough force it pushed her back an inch.

  On the surface, it sounded like a rejection. Part of her was even a little stung by his vehemence. He didn’t want to be associated with her, which was very insulting. Her brain was already gathering to make a haughty reply.

  But as she met his gaze, a current of electricity crackled between them. His words took on new meaning. Even a necessary truth.

  Her grandmother had been pregnant with Istvan Karolyi’s daughter, Gisella’s mother, when she came to America. Rozalia’s mother was the product of Eszti’s marriage to Benedek. All Rozalia’s fascination with the Karolyi connection was wrapped up in the romance of the story. She didn’t have a drop of blood tie in it.

  Which made fantasizing about this man’s bottom lip okay. Or rather, it was still a dumb thing to do, but at least it wasn’t morally wrong.

  Staring at it, she found herself longing to soothe the tension from the wide shape of it, lick and discover his taste and textures, feel his mouth cover hers and—

  A strange light grew to a hot gleam in his gaze.

  She realized she was leaning in.

  With a small gasp, she pulled back, but he stayed exactly where he was, moving nothing but his eyes. He took his time sliding his perusal down her clean if wrinkled T-shirt and clean, faded jeans. Her chest grew tight, nipples stinging. Heat burned into her loins. Finally his gaze came back to what had to be a culpable expression on her face.

  “Where are you staying?” His tone had gone from sandpaper to whiskey.

  She swallowed. Licked her lips, drawing his gaze to her own mouth. Oh, dear.

 
“Um.” For a second, she honestly couldn’t recall. Then managed to give him the name of her hotel.

  He dismissed it with a curl of his lip. “My place, then. We’ll have dinner. You can show me exactly how persuasive you claim to be.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  VIKTOR WATCHED THE pert Ms. Toth sit straight, looking wary and disconcerted when a moment ago she had been looking very...receptive. Her delicate scent had closed around him as they’d sat here, beguiling with its notes of vanilla and fresh air, sunscreen and something sensual and light and a tone he instinctively identified as her.

  “You’ll show me the earring?” she asked, eyeing him while showing him her profile.

  “I’ll give you an opportunity to tell me why I should.”

  A pause, then a small, decisive nod. “Fair enough.”

  He knocked on his window and told his driver where they were going. Then he wondered what the hell he was doing. Picking up a student taking a gap year would be bad enough. This woman was dangerous.

  Not that she looked it. She projected innocence with her casual clothes and naked face. She chewed the corner of her mouth as though having second thoughts.

  The virgin act wasn’t normally his thing, but there was something in the way she nervously licked her lips that made desire dig sharp talons into his vitals. It wasn’t a hunter’s instinct to plunder the helpless. That wasn’t his thing, either. Rather, he sensed she was quietly fighting a betrayal of her attraction toward him—one that exactly matched the sexual heat he was struggling against.

  That was compelling.

  In those seconds when she had looked at his mouth, silently begging him to ravage hers, he’d nearly given in to... Hell, had he ever felt such anticipation for a woman? His emotions had been buried alongside his brother, never to be resurrected. But as the hunger in her gaze had fixated on his lips, he’d felt something other than cynicism and the relentless press of obligation.

  He had seen, oddly, an open door to freedom, when every other woman struck him as the bait inside a cage.

  This one had to be bait, as well. She came from duplicitous stock, he reminded himself, redonning his cloak of skepticism. He didn’t doubt she was the granddaughter of the woman who had stolen his great-grandmother’s earrings, given the way she had misrepresented herself to steal into today’s appointment. This doe-eyed innocence had to be an act to throw him off whatever it was that she really wanted.

  It was very likely the way her grandmother had gotten the better of his great-uncle. Family legend had it that Istvan’s thieving lover had claimed to be carrying a Karolyi bastard to gain entry to the house. The only reason his mother had agreed to meet Gisella was to ensure there wouldn’t be any scandalous—and false—claims against the estate. There was such a thing as DNA testing and his mother had intended to insist on it.

  Was that why Rozalia had come instead of the woman who would have had to undergo a blood test? He wondered what she really wanted. It couldn’t be merely a glimpse of an earring. He would spare his mother the work of getting that answer by taking Rozalia Toth to Kastély Karolyi himself.

  When they arrived, he had his driver pause to tell the gatekeeper to get rid of the paparazzi at the fence. As they carried on up the drive, beneath the bower of branches, he caught Rozalia sending him a pithy look.

  He lifted a brow in query.

  “They’re just tourists, aren’t they?” she said. “The house is listed in a guidebook as one of the best-preserved examples of classic architecture in Eastern Europe. I took a photo myself when I was here earlier today.”

  Something in that remark jarred, but he was also reminded of why he was of such interest to long-lens photographers right now. Damn his mother and her matchmaking and rumormongering. In her quest to see the next heir produced, she had singled out the daughter of a family friend—one of many associations cultivated over the last twenty years with the sole purpose that his mother would have the pick of the litter when the time came.

  Trudi, an heiress from Austria, was suitably finished at boarding school. She excelled as a socialite, walking the line of interesting without being scandalous. She wrote freelance fashion articles and managed charity events for her father’s auto manufacturing corporation—one that dovetailed nicely with some of Rika’s steel interests. Viktor had had dinner with her twice. Both evenings were pleasantly civil and ended in an underwhelming kiss.

  Yet his mother insisted on sowing whispers of a forthcoming announcement, trying to nudge him along. Trudi had signaled her interest by subletting a penthouse here in Budapest while she “helped” her friend curate a fashion line due out this fall. Mostly that involved making appearances in high-profile clubs and other trendy nightspots, amplifying her name so as to create the biggest splash in the headlines when the time came to announce their engagement.

  Thus, the jackals were closing in, hoping for the scoop of the year. It increased his trapped, prickly mood, feeding his compulsion to break free of expectations.

  “Wow!” Rozalia said as they left the car and walked up the steps into the receiving hall. She flashed him an excited grin that invited him to cast off his brooding tension and join her in her enthusiasm. “It’s like walking into a museum.”

  He rarely noticed the grandeur, but now took in the inlaid marble floors that were the craftsmanship of a nineteenth-century Italian master. Ornate mahogany trim and enormous gold-framed mirrors lined the walls. Chandeliers hung from a ceiling with murals and intricate plasterwork.

  “Clearly built for impressing visitors,” she murmured, lifting her gaze to the massive staircase. “I can picture all the ball gowns and powdered wigs. My cousin goes to the Met for their big events, but weddings are the only thing I’ve attended that are at all extravagant. Can you imagine what it must have been like?” She laughed at herself. “Maybe you know exactly what it’s like. Do you have many balls?”

  They were speaking English and he heard the double entendre.

  “The usual amount,” he replied dryly.

  After the briefest confounded pause, she burst out laughing. It was, quite simply, the most beautiful laugh he had ever heard. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard anyone laugh in this mausoleum. Not since he was a child. Her laughter echoed to the second-floor ceiling, seeming to catch in the chandelier and make it shiver with musical delight.

  He was so caught by the sound, by the light and liveliness in her face, he felt his chest tingle with an urge to chuckle—which definitely hadn’t happened since he was a child.

  His butler, Endre, arrived to sober them. Endre offered to take the sorry-looking bag weighing her shoulder.

  “To where?” she asked with a blink of surprise, then decided with a flashing smile, “I’ll keep it.” She set the worse-for-wear eyesore on the sofa as they entered the parlor, making Endre look like a dog whose tail had been stepped on.

  They ordered drinks. Rozalia asked for pálinka, the Hungarian fruit brandy.

  “When in Rome?” Viktor presumed.

  “We drink it at family dinners. I could use the grounding influence right now. I’m having a hard time viewing this as your home. I wish Gisella was here to see it.”

  * * *

  Rozalia was feeling like such a fraud. Like the poor cousin she had always been, standing in glamorous Gisella’s shadow. Of course this was her cousin’s heritage. She loved Gisella to pieces. In some ways Rozalia was closer to her than she was with her actual sister. She and Gizi were the same age and shared the same passion for metallurgy and gemology. Also for the lore of Grandmamma’s earring and the determination to reunite the pieces and gift them to the woman they adored.

  But Gisella was a willowy, stunning, spoiled only child. She wouldn’t goggle in a place like this. She would assume she belonged here—which to some extent she did.

  Rozalia, not so much.

  She turned from glancing
out the windows that faced the front gardens and saw that Viktor was watching her the way a cat watches a mouse when it is too lazy to leap just yet. Biding his time.

  She searched for a resemblance to her beloved cousin, hoping the familiarity would reassure her, but only found a superficial similarity in coloring and height. He was a lot colder and more imposing than anyone she had ever encountered in her life.

  Gisella would know how to handle him, though, no matter the tensile sexuality he wore like armor. Gisella took male admiration for granted and used it.

  Rozalia had never presumed men were genuinely attracted to her. Too many had tried to use her as a stepping-stone to get to Gisella. It wasn’t Gisella’s fault that she was a beacon and Rozalia a fence post, but being overlooked left a mark, every time.

  That’s why she was confused by Viktor’s sudden desire to dine with her. She was quite sure she had been the only one affected in the back of the car earlier, but he’d made this invitation sound vaguely sexual. If he was the least bit interested in her, it was only because she was here. Convenient. He had a reputation as a playboy and she had enough experience with players to recognize them.

  What she didn’t have experience with was feeling so drawn in by one.

  She moved her gaze to the paintings before she started acting besotted again. She was confronted by a cheeky nude—literally a gathering of young women in a walled garden showing their backsides to the viewer. The rest were serene seascapes, fruit bowls, and peasants haying a field.

  “You mentioned your grandmother dealt in art? I don’t recognize these, but they’re obviously masterpieces.”

  “My father was her only child. My mother pilfered everything from his family estate and brought it here. Her mother was next in line after Istvan. There was no one else to inherit this house.” He paused, daring her to contest that.

  Rozi wasn’t here to make claims for Gisella’s mother, only asked, “Is the furniture reproduction? Or originals?”