AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then, suddenly, she scurried from the room, hugging the wall as she made her way to the exit.
“Excuse me,” he said to Samantha. “I’m very sorry. I have to go.”
He wasn’t anything of the kind.
He set his drink down on a table as he left, exiting out the same door Gabriella had. He saw her turn left at the far end of the corridor, and he continued on down that way. Maybe she was just headed to the bathroom. Most definitely he didn’t need to be following her. That didn’t seem to stop him.
He had known from the beginning that it was her cleverness he would find to be trouble. He was not wrong.
Had she been boring he would never have chased her out of a crowded room while being talked to by a busty blonde.
But no, she did not have the decency to be boring.
She had to be interesting. She had to like books. And she had to explain things to him in funny, intricate ways that he would normally find incredibly arduous.
He was angry at her. And with each step he took he felt angrier. Because he was Alessandro Di Sione. He did not pursue women into empty corridors. But then, he also didn’t go around hunting for old paintings, either. It was a week of strange happenings. It was entirely possible he should just embrace it.
He saw her head out one of the glass double doors and into the garden, and he followed suit. He said nothing as he walked along behind her in the darkness, heading down a gravel path through the garden. He wondered if she had any idea where she was going or if she was just following some sort of impetuous instinct.
She was a study in contradictions.
Quiet, and yet also very loud. She swore that she was practical, and yet he could sense that she was so much more than that. She was sensual. She enjoyed tactile pleasures. Visual pleasures.
He thought back to the way she had eaten dinner last night. How she had lingered over her wine. The way she had nibbled slowly at the fresh bread on her plate, and the appreciative sound she had made when she’d bit into the dessert she had ordered without hesitation.
There was no doubt about it; she was not an entirely practical person.
Damn her for being so fascinating.
The path curved, feeding into a clearing surrounded by hedges. At the center was a stone bench and he imagined that there were a great many flowers planted at various levels throughout. It was dark, so he could see nothing. Nothing but great inky splotches, breaking up the pale gravel.
Gabriella took a seat on the stone bench, planting her hands on either side of her.
“I do hope you have room on your bench for two,” he said, moving closer to her.
She gasped and turned toward him, her wide eyes just barely visible in the dim light. “What are you doing out here?”
“Stopping to smell the roses?”
“You were deeply involved in a conversation when I left,” she said.
“Oh, yes. That. Remember our discussion about boring women?”
“Yes.”
“She was one.”
Gabriella laughed softly; the sound lifted high on fragrant air, mixing with the scent of flowers and winding itself around him, through him.
“How terribly tragic for her. At least she is beautiful.”
“I suppose,” he said. “Though I don’t think she knows she’s boring.”
“I guess that’s a compensation for the dull.”
“Such a comforting sameness.”
She scuffed her toe through the gravel. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”
