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I didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, but as long as I had a moment to regroup before I returned to my mother, I was good.
“You must be a Popescu,” he said neutrally.
“Obviously,” I said before taking another drag. “And you must be a Lupu.”
He gave a bark of disbelief at the snark in my tone.
“A little attitude. I like it.”
Those last three words coming out of his mouth did something to my tummy. It was like a swarm of butterflies had suddenly found refuge in there. Damn, with that edginess and rough tone, he was too sexy by half.
A few curls of sandy blond hair flopped over his forehead, and I itched to reach out and sweep them out of the way. I always had a thing for blonds, a rare unicorn among dark-haired, olive-skinned Romanians, like Nicu.
“A little,” I agreed, giving him a real grin this time, with a shrug of one bare shoulder. My dress was pretty revealing, with a plunging neckline from my spaghetti straps. I cupped my elbows to warm myself in the still-cool weather of the late spring day. While not far north of the city, being away from the incubation of the concrete jungle dropped the temperature by a few degrees.
Searching for something else to say, I observed, “It’s pretty here. Different from the usual mafie parties, always on some fancy rooftop or, even worse, a blinged-out reception hall.” My gaze absorbed the garden, with its swaths of tulips in brilliant colors. There was a marble fountain of a woman, water pouring out of the urn she was holding.
“You’re the pretty one,” he commented, his voice dripping with dark promises. His gaze coasted over me, and there was a snap, crackle, and pop on every inch of skin he pored over. Holy hell. Suddenly, I was burning up.
“Ahh…a player. I should’ve known,” I replied with a sardonic shake of my head.
“How would you know?” he scoffed. “You’re barely an adult.”
Delectable heat turned to hot shame. Okay, that was uncalled for. Grinding my teeth together, I took a turn at patently looking him over. Two could play this game, and oh, was I going to take advantage of my one and only chance to look. Tease him with my overtly sexual gaze. It might be my engagement party, but screw that, this man was taunting me. Besides, I was no delusional miss who thought my engagement and marriage had anything to do with love. I was a pawn, and my marriage was a contract. Nothing more. Nothing less. So, while I had a teensy bit of freedom, I’d snatch it up.
And he was nothing like the immature teenage boys from school that left me unimpressed and uninspired. This Lupu was a full-grown male. Biting into my bottom lip, I took in his broad shoulders and defined chest, obvious beneath his jacket and tie, down to his tapered waist and fitted slacks. This one was a lady-killer. He exuded a combination of sensuality and dominance that would bring women to their knees.
“For a little girl, you have a dangerous way of looking at a man. Could get you in trouble,” he murmured low, the gray in his eyes turning darker and more turbulent as he moved closer. Close enough for me to catch the musky scent of him, with a hint of bergamot.
That and the way he called me “little girl” shot lust down my middle and settled in between my thighs. I may have felt something when I’d kissed Simu, but what this man made me feel was in a whole other category of heat.
It could go no further than this moment, but I enjoyed the flirting, even with the edginess he threw into the mix. I chuckled, dismissing his comment. “I seriously doubt that.”
My fiancé had barely looked my way since I arrived, over an hour and a half ago. And I was watching his behavior closely. I got nothing. Nada. Nichts. You couldn’t feign that level of disinterest. Again, I knew this wasn’t love. But couldn’t lust at least make an appearance? Boys at school hit on me. Simu liked me. Hell, he could’ve at least glanced my way. I wasn’t ugly. In fact, people had commented on my looks in the past. I’d been called pretty.
But clearly not by my fiancé. Maybe he had a side girl, like Cristo had. Or maybe he was at the bottom of the totem pole and didn’t have the clout to reject me.
This one, on the other hand…I checked him out beneath my lashes and caught him staring at me again. This one was…something else. He took out another cigarette from a gold cigarette holder and lit it with a Zippo that he’d extracted from his jacket pocket. There was interest in his eyes. Deep interest. And I loved being the center of his attention. I felt like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis and stretching its wings for the first time.
His hand moved, picked a strand of hair that had flown across my face, and rubbed it between his fingers. My tummy swooped. The gesture felt proprietary. The cigarette I was holding had burnt down to the butt. Mesmerized by him, I dropped it to the ground. He crushed it beneath his heel.
“It’s quiet here. So different from the city,” I said, to cut through the heavy tension between us. I’d never felt this with a man before.
“It’s my hideaway,” he divulged, continuing to caress my hair.
“I love flowers,” I confided on a gentle sigh. His hand paused on my hair for a moment. There was an emotion in his eyes that I couldn’t interpret, him being a stranger and all. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was warmth in his gaze, along with a glint of pride.
Breaking our connection, he looked across the explosion of blooming flowers. Why would a man like him want to hide out? Men who looked like him were meant to rule in nightclubs, getting to choose the pick of the litter of women that inevitably flocked them. And yet, at the same time, I completely related. Boarding school was a hideout for me. It offered me an escape from the parts of my family and the mafie world that I hated, necessary evil that they were. I just assumed that only women, who were locked away most of their lives, were desperate to break away.
Before I could ponder this enigma or the man behind it further, I caught a flash of red.
My cousin, Dina, turned the corner and I pulled away from him. He held on for an instant before letting go just as Dina noticed me. Letting out a huff, she gave him a brief nod of respect before chastising me, “Your mother’s been looking for you everywhere. God, you can be such a pain sometimes.”
“I haven’t been gone for more than ten minutes. I needed a break.”
Her eyes softened as she came to me and pulled me into a hug. “I know, I know. The whole situation is maddening, but this is our lot in life. We have to make do, sweetie,” she said as she wrapped her fingers around my upper arm and dragged me off the wall like I was a child. Ugh. My head snapped to him when I heard a low growl, but I must have imagined it because his face was a mask of nonchalance.
“Come on, things could be worse,” she muttered.
His eyes were narrowed on Dina’s hold around my arm, and my heart soared. As we passed him, he brought his hand up and broke her contact on me. She drew back, rattled, but he ignored her, his eyes on me now.
“Could they?” I replied as I nodded a thanks to him before following her. Glancing over my shoulder, I gave the sexy Lupu a little wink and downed the rest of my champagne before Dina poked me in the side to get moving.
