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For all he knew, she was a charter member.
Or wasn’t.
She’d gone from hot to cold in the blink of an eye, and—
And who cared about that?
What was she doing here? She could be in Rome, yes. But she most assuredly could not be Cesare Orsini’s rep resentative.
Had she come looking for him? Maybe she hadn’t been able to forget what had happened and now she wanted to finish that long, exciting slide into sexual oblivion …
Forget that.
His receptionist had buzzed him. Cesare Orsini’s representative is here, sir, she’d said. And his receptionist had been with him a long time. No one could get past her without proper ID. So this had to be—it had to be—
The woman stopped in the doorway, face white.
“Ohmygod,” she said. “Ohmygod!”
Draco’s last, faint hope that this was a mistake vanished.
“You?” The woman reached for the doorjamb, curved her hand around it as if that might keep her from fainting. Her voice rose an octave. “You’re Draco Valenti?”
Draco took a deep breath. “And you are …?”
She laughed, but it was not a real laugh. It was the kind of sound someone might make when what was really called for was an anguished wail of despair.
“The Orsini attorney.”
Draco had always heard that hope died hard. Now he discovered that it didn’t simply die—it crashed to earth in flames.
“Small world,” he said drily.
She nodded. “Small, indeed.” All at once the look of shock vanished. “Wait a minute,” she said slowly, letting go of the jamb, straightening to her full height. Her eyes narrowed. “It was all deliberate!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Color suffused her face. “I cannot believe anyone would resort to such a thing.”
“Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me, Miss—Miss—”
She stalked toward him menacingly, a cat approaching its prey.
“You set me up!”
“What?”
“You—you sneaky, slimy—”
“Watch what you say to me,” Draco said sharply.
“You played me for a patsy!”
What did that mean? This woman was playing havoc in his head.
“You tried to take advantage of me!”
Draco gave a mirthless laugh.
