by Dani Collins
“Ah. You need luggage,” he said as they paused before the designer set.
It had a vintage carpetbag look trimmed in brown leather with gold clasps and hinges. The ensemble included four suitcases of various sizes, a steamer trunk, a shoe chest, a jewelry case, a garment bag and a hatbox. It claimed to have a value of eighty thousand euros.
Giovanni put a one in front of that figure.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, appalled.
“Winning.”
“I need a suitcase.” For underwear. “All the eveningwear is on loan, isn’t it?”
He sent her a look that asked if she was missing several marbles. “This is why I find you endlessly fascinating. I can never tell if you’re feeding me a line like you did about being married, or if you’re actually that naive.”
“Are you serious?” Her stomach dropped to the middle of the earth. “Please tell me these are loans.” She pointed at her ears.
“I thought they would suit you and they do. This says they’ll monogram each piece.” He nodded at the bidding sheet. “That’s a nice touch, don’t you think?” He scratched off his bid and increased it, then rolled along, leaving her speechless.
She was still trying to come to terms with the idea she could, however unlikely, be pregnant. Now she began to understand what it would mean if she was. She would be part of Giovanni’s life. Part of this. The high fashion and high rollers, the titled and the privileged.
Freja had spent her whole life as an odd duck. She had learned to embrace her status as an outsider and press forward on that left foot so she wouldn’t be shunned completely. She didn’t expect to be accepted into the different cultures she encountered, but it meant she’d spent most of her life feeling apart from everyone around her. She’d had her father for company and later Sung-mi, but even they had eventually fallen away. She had never found “my people, my home.”
Then she’d come to America and encountered the strangest culture shock of all. In New York, everyone stuck out so no one did. She hadn’t realized how comfortable she’d been there until she failed to blend in again.
She didn’t belong here! This crowd drowned odd ducks in orange sauce and ate them with roasted beets.
She didn’t even want to belong here. She had grown up on a shoestring, not living in poverty, but often a witness to it. She still lived very frugally, not liking to see waste when she knew how hard some people worked for the little they had.
“I’m going to try my luck at the craps table,” Giovanni said.
She nodded. “I’m going to read the...” She gestured absently at the display of framed stories about children the charity had helped.
It was an excuse to steal a moment to catch her breath, but soon she was losing herself in each of the success stories. Children hurt by land mines or illness or pure bad luck were all finding purpose and achieving bigger things than ribbons and bronze medallions. They wore smiles and pride and confidence. Each photo lifted Freja’s heart a little more until she was smiling to herself with happiness for them.
Darn him, this was a good cause. She couldn’t be angry with him for being wretchedly generous in supporting it. She went to his side and set a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m losing. Give me some lady luck.” He showed her the dice in his hand.
She blew on them and he threw.
A roar of approval went up around the table.
It was the beginning of a hot streak that had people betting in an increasing frenzy. She blew each time while Giovanni stacked up chips before him. She couldn’t help holding her breath, then bursting with a cheer of laughter with everyone else when the sevens kept coming up. She was completely caught up in the play as the stakes rose higher and higher.
Suddenly Giovanni said, “That’s a million.” He pushed his stack of chips toward the stickman. “Donate it to the foundation.”
There was another loud reaction from the spectators, this one a mix of shock and approval with a few moans that their luck was changing as someone else moved in to throw the dice.
Freja and Giovanni ran a small gauntlet of congratulations before settling into a quieter area of the room to sample the canapés and enjoy complimentary champagne sent over by Clair.
“Please don’t ever put me through a roller coaster like that again. I don’t think my heart can stand it.” Freja set her hand on her chest, still breathless. “I thought you were here because you’re a big softie who can’t resist helping injured children, but you’re actually an adrenaline junkie who enjoys risk, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you?”
He might have meant it as light banter, but she heard the edge in his voice that invaded sometimes, the one that made her feel as though he saw something in her that wasn’t there. The crash of his gaze into her own made her heart stutter and trip.
Every time she thought she was coming to know him a little, he had one of these mercurial shifts that disoriented her again. He did have a taste for risk. For one second, he let her see there was an atavistic barbarian in him willing to fight to the death if he had to.
She ought to have gone cold with premonition, but something in her leaped toward that Neanderthal the way a stray fleck of metal latched on to a magnet.
She was so shocked by her reaction, she yanked her gaze from his and tried to steady her breathing, but she was left teetering upon an intrinsic difference between them—as if they needed more proof beyond this enormous wealth gap.
“No,” she said quietly but firmly. “Some people enjoy the tension of a haunted house, but I don’t put myself in scary situations if I can avoid it. I’ve been genuinely frightened and I braved it out because I wanted to survive, but I don’t like it. I’m here in spite of my fear.”
“You’re afraid right now? Why?” His steel gaze kept swooping into hers, catching like talons into her heart.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? We’re very different, but we might wind up tied to each other for life.”
“I’m not frightened of that.”
“Of course you’re not!” She laughed, but there was mild hysteria in it.
He narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means it’s one thing to lower into a cage and admire the shark. It’s quite another to swim in the open water with him. I’m not a shark.” She tapped her breastbone.
“You want me to believe you’re a goldfish? I don’t.”
“And you want me to believe after that display—” she pointed in the direction of the craps table “—that you’ll be happy stuck in a bowl with me and a guppy you didn’t ask for. I don’t.”
“You don’t know me,” he bit out.
She choked on the irony of that while he sat back, mouth pinned flat with frustration.
After a moment, she sighed and leaned forward to set her hand on his sleeve.
“The fact that my experience is strange enough to write a book about it makes people think I’m a lot more interesting than I am. I don’t actually want to be the most interesting person in the room. There’s a lot more security in being exactly the same.”
“Is that what you want? Security?” A muscle in his cheek ticked. “Because I can definitely give you that.”
“Financial security is important.” There was no denying that. “But I’m talking about emotional security.” And neither was likely to be found in a casino, she thought with a droll observation of the fortunes on the table and the straying eyes on the faces.
Or him, she acknowledged as she brought her attention back to Giovanni and fell into the turbulent eyes of a creature far more dangerous than a shark. Not the merciless stare of a predator about to pounce, but the calculating intelligence of a man.
So compelling and so inscrutable.
“Do you mind if I go back to the room? Jet lag is catching up to me.” Along with a deep sense of
inadequacy.
He refused to let her cross the street alone and escorted her to the penthouse. He was restless once they got there, though, not removing his jacket or tie. He picked up the card on the tray that held a bottle of scotch and read aloud, “Compliments of the management.”
He tucked the card into his pocket and helped himself to a pour, but only held it without sipping. His tension was obvious.
“You’re realizing that I’m as boring as I claim, aren’t you?” She was trying to make light of it when she actually regretted being so frank. “You don’t have to turn in because I am. If you want to go back and gamble, please do.”
“I missed speaking to Clair’s husband.” He set aside his drink. “We have mutual business interests that I’d like to discuss with him. I won’t be long.”
It sounded perfectly reasonable, but for some reason her stomach clenched with suspicion. She wasn’t sure why. It made her feel like a jealous girlfriend to have this lurching reaction when she had no reason to mistrust him. She had just urged him to go!
But she was stung that he was so quick to leave.
Everything felt very tenuous all of a sudden. The small connection they’d developed in New York was disintegrating, mostly because she was realizing exactly how far out of her reach he really was. Perhaps that sense of affinity had only ever been a conjured fantasy in her head anyway. She wanted to say, Stay. Hold me. But that seemed pathetic.
She made herself cross to set a hand on his shoulder. As she leaned to peck his mouth with a kiss, she murmured, “Good night.”
He caught a firm hand around the back of her neck and held her for a long, possessive kiss that tasted of craving and frustration and conflict, further confusing her and leaving her breathless.
He reluctantly released her, gray eyes stormier than ever—which only reinforced her sense that something was amiss between them.
“I’ll be back within the hour,” he promised. “I’ll try not to wake you.”
She nodded and turned away, throat tight.
CHAPTER FIVE
“HAVE YOU LOST your mind?” was Everett’s casual greeting when Giovanni let himself into the private salon with the card that had been propped against the bottle of scotch in his suite. “Why is she still with you? You’re working.”
Giovanni met the ice-blue eyes of his colleague. His boss, if one wanted to get technical. His friend, since there was no one else on earth who knew about this sideline job of his except the man who’d recruited him.
“The chancellor was there with his wife. His mistress was not, but he kept the napkin when his drink was delivered. The server was a brunette, midtwenties, five-eight or -nine with a mole on the left side of her throat. When she brought a scotch to the admiral, he tipped her very generously.”
Everett sipped his drink, considering that in silence.
Everett had been born to a Swiss father who was a captain of automotive engineering and a French mother who translated at Interpol. He’d been at boarding school with Giovanni’s brother and had come to the hospital often in that first year after the crash, as lost without his friend as Giovanni had been without his brother.
They had taken different paths for several years, but when Giovanni had uncovered a letter from a foreign government official attempting to blackmail his father into making certain concessions, he had realized it was evidence that his family had been murdered, not killed in a random crash as he’d always believed.
He hadn’t known where to turn or who to trust, but given Everett’s mother’s connections, Giovanni had reached out to him.
That’s when Everett had revealed he was more than the spoiled playboy he portrayed himself to be. He was employed by the American government and soon persuaded Giovanni to help him gather information and evidence for various ongoing investigations.
Giovanni had the ability to travel freely and infiltrate the highest industrial and political circles. It was amazing how nonthreatening a man in a wheelchair seemed to most people, or how quickly they opened up if they thought they could earn a favor from a wealthy man.
Giovanni had latched on to the challenge and inherent danger—Freja had read him correctly. There was an indescribable thrill in undercover work, avoiding detection while subversively righting wrongs and cleaning house at the highest level.
That side of his nature had made her uncomfortable, though, which left him questioning how badly he wanted to keep doing it.
“What of the waitress in your life?” Everett asked idly.
“You tell me,” Giovanni challenged, hackles instantly rising. “Have you found anything?”
“No.” Everett’s mouth twisted with dismay. “All her income streams are legit. The monitoring of her tutoring hasn’t turned up anything except one young man who is faking bad grades so he can keep paying her to talk to him. You have competition for her affections.”
Giovanni didn’t find that funny. At all.
“I told you she was harmless.”
“Harmless?” Everett scoffed. “In less than twenty-four hours after approaching one of my most valued and highly placed operatives, she was in your bed. She hasn’t left it. I’m not suggesting that chair means you’re dead from the waist down, but this is completely out of character for you. If she was the corn-fed milkmaid she resembles, I wouldn’t bat an eye, but she spent two years in North Korea and came out without a scratch. How?”
“Have you read her book?” Giovanni had finished it on the plane and Freja couldn’t be more wrong, calling herself boring. She was resourceful and resilient. Kind and warmly funny. Infinitely fascinating.
“Have I read a lengthy fairy tale that provides a comprehensive cover story for a sleeper agent? Yes. It stretches credulity. Her father could still be alive there. The authorities could be using him as leverage to keep her in line. Or holding those people she lived with. You can’t risk having such a dark horse shadowing your every move. Send her back to New York,” Everett ordered.
He debated briefly, then admitted, “I can’t. We’re waiting to see if she’s pregnant.”
Everett choked on his scotch.
“Screw you,” Giovanni bit out. “I can get a woman pregnant.”
Maybe. Hell, he didn’t know, but from the moment he’d realized there was a chance Freja might be carrying his baby, there was no question in him as to how he wanted to proceed. Of course she would stay with him. Of course he would marry her if a baby was on the way.
His reaction was primal and immediate, but he hadn’t given thought to how that would look long-term, not until their odd conversation this evening when she’d pointed out how ill-suited she thought they were.
She was afraid to be tied to him by the child they might share. Financial security is important, but I’m talking about emotional security.
His ego was stung by the suggestion he would fail to provide everything she needed, but emotions were something he no longer used—like shoes.
“I wasn’t questioning your ability.” Everett gave a last cough into his fist. “I’m astonished you let her maneuver you into that risk. Can you be sure it’s yours? You’ve known her less than a week.”
“Screw you again. I’m not a victim. Sometimes things happen.” The details were none of Everett’s damned business. “I’m man enough to take responsibility for my own lapse in judgment so I will.”
“Are you? Because this is sounding like a very big lapse.” Everett was referring to more than a skipped condom. He meant getting involved with Freja at all.
“You’ve been doing this too long if you regard an innocent woman with this much cynicism, Everett.”
“This cynicism keeps me and my people alive. You’re one of my people, Giovanni, so appreciate it.”
“Warm and fuzzy as that sounds, not everyone lives in this cloak-and-dagger world we occupy. She doesn’t,” Giovanni asserted.
“Of course I realize that!” Giovanni gripped the rims of his wheels so hard he should have bent them. “If she’s not pregnant, I’ll send her back to New York,” he conceded in a snarl.
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you came in here.” Everett sat back again. “What are you going to do if she is?”
“Marry her,” Giovanni answered without hesitation. “And retire.”
Everett swore. “I’ll hope this is a false alarm, then.”
Giovanni headed to the door aware he should be hoping the same thing. But he wasn’t.
* * *
Despite her best efforts to quiet her misgivings and fall asleep, Freja was wide awake when Giovanni came to bed.
“Did you speak to him?” she asked.
He stilled with the covers still lifted by his upraised arm. “Who?”
“Aleksy.”
“Oh. No.” He finished settling on his back beside her. “He was tied up with someone else.”
It was dark. She couldn’t see his expression and he was a master at keeping any sort of emotional tells from his voice, but somehow that brisk “don’t ask” tone left an impression that he wasn’t being honest. She didn’t know what the truth was, but that wasn’t it.
A fault line cracked through her heart, leaving the two pieces offset in her chest. Which scared her. She had been lying there thinking about how quickly and deeply involved they’d become, trying to convince herself it was an entanglement that had more to do with logistics and sex than her heart, but this sudden, acute ache wouldn’t be happening if she wasn’t falling for him in a more profound way.
Should she challenge him? What was the point? If he wanted to tell her the truth, he would already be doing so.