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He tilted his head, gazing at her from underneath very long, thick black lashes. ‘Which particular “this” are you talking about?’
‘I mean this room. A job. A bed for the night. Why are you doing any of it? Why should you care?’
She hadn’t meant it to come out so accusingly, but she couldn’t help it. Men like him, with money and power, never did things without wanting something in return. Even charity usually came with strings. There were bound to be strings here, if only she could see them.
But the duke merely gave one of those elegant shrugs. ‘What else does one do with a feral kitten but look after it?’
‘I’m not a kitten,’ she said, for the second time that night.
His mouth curved and once again she felt that electric ripple of sensation move through her. It came to her very suddenly that this man was dangerous. And dangerous in a way she couldn’t name. He wasn’t a physical threat—though those strange little ripples of sensation definitely were—but definitely a threat of some kind.
‘No,’ he murmured, his gaze moving over her in a way that made heat rise in her cheeks. ‘You’re not, are you?’
She lifted her chin, discomfited and not liking it one bit. ‘And I didn’t ask you to look after me, either.’
‘Oh, if you think I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart you are mistaken.’ He strolled past her towards the door. ‘It’s entirely out of self-interest, believe me.’
‘Why? Just because I vandalised your car?’
Pausing by the door, he gave her a sweeping, enigmatic glance. ‘Among other things. The bathroom is through the door opposite. A shower or a bath wouldn’t go amiss,gatita.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, annoyed that he’d obviously noticed how dirty she was and how she must smell, and then annoyed further by her own annoyance—since why should she care if he’d noticed?
‘What else am I to call you?’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Especially since you won’t give me your name.’
Leonie pressed her lips together. He might have strong-armed her into staying in his house, but her name was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to force out of her. That was hers to give.
Again, he didn’t seem offended. He only smiled. ‘Thengatitait will have to be.’
And before she could say another word he walked out, closing the door carefully behind him.
CHAPTER THREE
THELATE-MORNINGSUNpoured through the big windows of Cristiano’s study, flooding the room with light and warmth, but he didn’t notice. He wasn’t interested in the weather.
He’d got up early that morning, despite not having slept much the previous night, and gone straight to his study to see if the memory that learning Leonie’s name had generated was correct. After a couple of calls and a few strongly worded orders he’d had his confirmation.
She was exactly who he’d suspected she was.
Which should have been impossible, considering she was supposed to be dead.
He leaned back in his big black leather chair and stared at the computer screen on the desk in front of him. At the photo it displayed. An old one, from years and years ago, of a tall, dark-haired man, holding the hand of a little girl with hair the distinctive colour of apricots. At the side of the little girl stood a lovely slender woman with hair exactly the same colour.
It was a loving family portrait of the ancient and illustrious de Riero family—Spanish aristocrats who’d fallen on hard times and lost their title a century or so ago.
Leonie had turned out to be Leonie de Riero, Victor de Riero’s prized only daughter, who’d disappeared along with her mother fifteen years earlier, rumoured to have died in an apartment fire in Barcelona not long after she’d disappeared.
It was a scandal that had rocked Spain for months and he remembered it acutely. Especially because Victor de Riero, whose family had been blood enemies of Cristiano’s, had become his mentor.
Victor had been grief-stricken about the loss of his wife and child—at least until he’d found himself a new family.
Your family.
The deep, volcanic rage that Cristiano had thought he’d excised from his life shifted in his gut, hot enough to incinerate anything in its path, and he had to take a minute to wrestle it back into submission. Because he couldn’t allow himself to feel that—not any more. He couldn’t allow himself to feel anything any more.
It had taken him years to put that rage behind him, but he had. And he’d thought he’d found some measure of peace. Until Leonie had appeared.
Cristiano pushed his chair back and got to his feet, walking over to the bookshelves opposite his desk before turning and pacing back to the desk again, needing movement to settle himself.
