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The server faltered.
“He’s joking,” Gisella said, stealing a flute of bubbly and smiling in a way that dazzled the confused server into smiling and ducking his head.
“I’m not,” Kaine assured her as the kid slipped away.
She only sipped and glanced over the crowd. “You call this a party?”
A deserved burn. The atmosphere was flatter than roadkill. Despite the pulse of music and the money made by everyone in the room, people stood in knots of downcast heads. Kids these days. They’d rather post a photo that they were there than be here.
“It’s Drummond, by the way. I told you that last week,” Gisella said. “When my grandmother married Benedek Barsi, she already had my mother.”
“Did she?” He scratched under his chin.
She sent him a sharp look. “What does that mean?”
“I do my homework.” Did she really not know?
He’d been intrigued by her from the first photo he’d seen, gaze drawn back to her image more than once as he’d learned all he could about Benny’s family. A few things had converged to make buying the Garrison estate a wise, last-minute move. He might not have been there, however, if his attention hadn’t already been snagged by her. His sources had revealed she’d been searching for a single earring for years and he’d seen an opportunity.
And, if he hadn’t known about her intense interest, he might have believed she’d been responding to his kiss in a very open, refreshing way. She hadn’t, of course. She had been trying to manipulate him. Even knowing that, he remained reluctantly fascinated.
“Have you been doing yours?” he asked her.
“My homework?”
“Yes. How is Benny? Never mind. I don’t care. Unless he’s dead. That’s the only excuse I’ll accept for his avoiding my calls.”
Pressing her lips flat, she seemed to gather her composure, standing taller and squaring her shoulders. “I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“Then why are you here?”
“You know why. The earring. You wouldn’t meet Rozi so here I am. I’m willing to be generous.”
“Not interested,” he lied. He was far too interested in watching how she played this despite knowing she was trying to play him.
“I haven’t even given you a number.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you offer, I can receive double from someone else.”
“Viktor Rohan?”
For some reason, the way she said the man’s name—pithy and familiar—provoked a sudden, inexplicable tension in him.
“You know him?” He kept his poker face on, pretending equal disinterest as he scanned the crowd.
“I know of him. We haven’t met. You’re planning to sell it to him, then?” She was affecting nonchalance, same as him, but she had tells. Her fingers tapped the stem of the glass she held, betraying her nervous interest in his answer.
“I haven’t decided.”
Viktor Rohan had become a bit of a thorn in Kaine’s side, prodding him to sell the earring to him with ever-increasing incentives. Kaine wasn’t playing him like a fish. From what he knew about the man, Rohan wasn’t a man to be trifled with. Under other circumstances, Kaine would have happily parted with the bauble for a modest profit.
But then, Gisella would have no reason to be here, frowning over his funeral of a party.
“What if I say I’ll double Viktor’s last offer?” she asked.
Kaine was again impressed by her bravado. He named the most recent figure Viktor had sent him, which made her lashes quiver.
He smirked. “Ready to fold?”
