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She had spent the best part of a decade tracking her grandmother’s earrings. She wasn’t about to give up that easily.
* * *
Viktor Rohan was mentally sorting a dozen priorities as he left Rika Corp and descended the stairs toward his waiting car.
A young woman, a backpacker, if the map she held was anything to go by, stood chatting up his driver. The spring breeze pressed the fabric of her T-shirt against her modest chest and lifted the waves of her loose brunette hair away from her creamy complexion. She wore no makeup, but sunshine was all she needed. That buttermilk skin would light up any room—most specifically a darkened bedroom.
Viktor didn’t begrudge his driver a personal life, but for some reason, as his employee leaned in to make a play for this one, Viktor bristled. A compulsive This one’s for me resounded in him.
He had grown out of picking up women, especially young, free-spirited ones, back when he’d still been nursing scorn over an adolescent heartbreak. From his midtwenties on, he’d preferred the convenience of longer-term arrangements with women in his social circle. Now that he was hitting thirty, however, even those comfortable situations came with expectations of a more serious future. His own mother badgered him ceaselessly to marry and produce an heir.
Perhaps his interest in this pretty traveler was reflexive pushback against his mother’s latest efforts because he found himself mentally rearranging his priorities again, now allowing for a shared dinner this evening—with plenty of time allotted for other potential entertainments to develop.
“Joszef.”
His driver snapped to attention and hurried to open the back door of his town car.
The woman turned to look at him and stilled as though transfixed. A slow smile filled her expression with even more light. He thought of artwork that depicted angels of grace and goddesses of fertility, none of which had ever caused such a brilliant thrust of heat to swell in him.
Oh, yes, this one was definitely his.
“That saves me going inside to ask for you.” She came toward him, hand extended. “I’m pleased to meet you, Úr. Rohan.”
She spoke in Hungarian without accent, but something told him she was American. He took her hand the way a cat snared a bird that flittered too close, pulling her in, determined she wouldn’t get away.
Then she spoke again, and the hunter inside him went from playful to bloodthirsty, claws extending.
“I’m Rozalia Toth. Do you have time to speak with me?”
* * *
Viktor Rohan dropped her hand like she was made of fire. It was a shock when she was still reeling from that initial touch that had set her alight. The spark of generic attraction she’d experienced for an online image flared to sharp fascination as she faced him in person. A compulsion to know everything about this man welled in her.
“No,” he answered with the look she had seen in that beach photograph, like he thought she was something irritating. Abhorrent, even. Definitely far beneath him. “How do you have the nerve to chase me down like this?”
He was so much more dynamic and dangerous in real life. An air of potent virility came off him along with ruthless command of his surroundings. It took everything in her to keep her faculties and respond, “I had an appointment with your mother. She promised to show me an antique earring that my grandmother possessed at one time, but she canceled at the last minute.”
“You aren’t the one who made the appointment and I advised her against agreeing to it, not when you haven’t even offered an apology.” He turned to step into the space of the open car door.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have been clear that I took Gisella’s place.”
He swiveled a look on her that should have sent her head rolling into the street. “I meant an apology from your grandmother. For stealing our family heirloom.”
“What? Grandmamma didn’t steal those earrings. Why on earth do you think that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think it. I know it.” So confident, as if it was a proven fact. He folded himself into the back of his car.
“Wait! That’s wrong.” She pushed herself into the space behind the door, so his driver couldn’t slam it without breaking her shins. She braced a hand on the top of the door as she leaned her head down. “Your great-uncle gave them to her as an engagement present.”
“How is that possible? He was dead before they went missing. Joszef,” he said sharply.
The driver, who’d been doing his best to charm the socks—and everything else—off her a minute ago, set his hand on her arm.
Rozalia had long ago learned how to shake off a grope in the subway and cast a warning look that had any man stepping back in defense of his chestnuts. The driver did exactly that, one hand blocking his fly on reflex.
She also knew better than to get into cars with strangers, but that’s exactly what she did. She pushed into the back seat, trying to crawl across him like she was taking the far chair in a row at the theater.
It was rude enough, and startled Viktor so that he grabbed her waist to steady her in front of him, practically on his lap. His strength was undeniable, but what froze her in place was the impact of his touch. For a moment, they were eye to eye, nose tip to nose tip, practically about to kiss.
