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His eyes were gray as an ashen sky, moody and ominous without any hint of blue. And dear Lord he had an erotic mouth.
Her hand was on the leather seat next to his thigh, but she longed to brace against the well-developed ball of his shoulder. Touch the heat of his neck. He smelled of something woodsy and spicy, fine wool and the barest hint of brandy.
All of that combined with the flash in his stormy gaze to give her the vertigo she experienced looking down from tall buildings. The flip-flop in her stomach warned of a life-threatening fall even though she knew she was perfectly safe.
“Sir?” Joszef said.
With a muscular twist, Viktor dumped Rozalia onto the seat beside him.
“Close the door,” he said.
It slammed.
He settled his arm along the back of the seat so he was angled toward her, silently asking, What now?
Because she was trapped. The luxury sedan had a roomy interior, but it became unbearably small and airless. She felt enclosed with a panther. A hungry one. Her feet were still tangled with his and she carefully withdrew them to her side of the car.
“Are you finished work for the day? Can I buy you a drink?” she asked. Somewhere reputable and crowded, preferably. “I’d like to talk this out. I always understood that Istvan died after he gave Grandmamma the earrings.”
She was using her conciliatory I statements deliberately. The family didn’t call her their number one mediator for nothing.
“You’re wrong.” No compromise in his tone. “She came to the house after he was killed, stole my great-grandmother’s earrings, sold one to escape to America and sold the other one when she arrived.”
Now she was growing annoyed.
“My grandmother is a very kind and honest person. She would never steal and certainly wouldn’t lie, especially to family. I don’t know how the story got so twisted. How did you even wind up with one earring? How long have you had it?”
“My grandmother Dorika dealt in art during Soviet times. She came across it and knew how rare and valuable it was, despite it only being one of a pair.”
Rozalia
frowned. “Didn’t she recognize it as her mother’s?”
“She was on my father’s side. My mother is the Karolyi descendant. And yes, Dorika knew immediately it was Cili Karolyi’s. Anyone else would have broken the setting to sell the stones, but she tucked it away as a bargaining chip.”
If she wore pearls, Rozi would have clutched them, she was so appalled by the thought of the setting being broken. But, “What kind of ‘bargaining chip’?”
“Enticement when she arranged my parents’ marriage. She knew my mother would want it. Those earrings should have passed down through the women in our family.”
He was trying to make her feel guilty about her grandmother’s supposed theft, but she was caught by the rest of what he’d said.
“She arranged your parents’ marriage? I didn’t know that was a thing that was done here.”
“This level of success isn’t accidental,” Viktor said dryly, flicking a hand to indicate the car’s leather seats and privacy window, its polished wood grain trim and the touch screen computer mounted for his convenience. “It comes from generations of strategic alliances. Not from handing off priceless family jewels with a marriage promise to dishonest peasant girls.”
Rozalia let her jaw hang open so he could appreciate the full extent of her affront. “Easy to see why your mother had to be bribed into marrying that sort of charm.”
Dang. She hadn’t meant to reveal the temper that got the better of her sometimes. She looked like a pushover, but she wasn’t.
Nevertheless, the way his cheeks hollowed with thinning patience and his gaze frosted over gave her pause.
“What did you hope to accomplish by coming here, Ms. Toth? You’re wasting my valuable time.”
She scraped together her own patience, trying to salvage this trip. “I want to make you an offer for the earring.”
“No.” Flat and unequivocal.
“At least let me see it!”
