Freja was only dimly aware of the world beyond their sustained eye contact. Her heart was racing as though she’d run up ten flights of stairs. A flush of something like shyness or embarrassment was washing through her along with strange tugs and a tremendous sensual awareness throughout her entire body.
She tried to dismiss it as the silly vestiges of an infatuation that was so far in the past, it shouldn’t affect her now. It hadn’t even been him she’d had a pre-pubescent crush on!
That wasn’t what this was, though. This was far more intense. Physical.
Was it lust? How mortifying.
He swiveled the empty tray back to her and cocked one eyebrow. “Do I know you?”
“No!” She nearly choked on her tongue. “I mean, I met y—I thought you were someone else.” Not true, but her very brief history with his brother wasn’t something she wanted to blurt out in front of strangers. Far too many questions followed when she spoke about her childhood.
“We’ve never met,” she hurried to affirm in a sputter, but her discomfiture made him narrow his eyes. Butterflies invaded her stomach. “Have a nice evening.”
She took the tray and walked away with a dizzy stagger. It took everything in her not to look back over her shoulder as she fetched more canapés and continued serving.
Nearly a full hour passed in which she tracked back and forth, waiting for everyone to filter into the ballroom and find their seats. She forced a smile and concentrated on not becoming clumsy when her limbs didn’t feel as if they were her own.
Giovanni Catalano stayed on her radar the entire time.
Was it her imagination or was she on his? She didn’t catch him looking at her, but she experienced the sensation of being observed.
She lost track of him once everyone had finally entered the ballroom, though. Still disconcerted, she busied herself with gathering abandoned napkins and dishes from the reception hall. The sense of being watched returned and she spun around.
His wheels had made his approach nearly silent, but there he was. An intense zing of electrical awareness went through her, so sharp it hurt.
“Come.” He neatly pivoted and rolled down the hall.
Her heart lurched and she glanced to see the people in the ballroom were watching screens flashing to life with a presentation. Her colleagues would be looking for her to help serve shortly, but she could slip away unnoticed for a few minutes. Pulse racing unevenly, she followed.
Giovanni ducked down a corridor, turned the handle on a door, and led her into the empty cloakroom. A handful of light wraps and jackets hung on the racks, but the shutters were closed and the attendant absent.
He swiveled to confront her and nodded for her to close the door.
She did, still astonished to be in his presence.
“Have we met?” he demanded.
“No. I mean, I know who you are.” Freja wished she’d kept her tray, needing a shield of some type. Not that she felt unsafe, but nor did she feel completely safe, either. Something about him struck her as dangerous in ways she couldn’t articulate. Not that he wanted to hurt her, but she suspected he could. He was so muscled and had that air of power.
She was breathless in his presence for no explicable reason, completely beyond her depth—which was odd for her. She rolled with punches and was almost always ten steps ahead of most people around her.
Nevertheless, she found herself sinking into the single wooden chair tucked beneath an empty section of a rack, weakened simply by the force of his personality.
A brief flicker of surprise went across his expression as she came down to his eye level.
“Why did you give those people the impression we’ve had sex?” he asked bluntly.
“I didn’t. Did I?” She pressed into the hard rungs of the chair back. “No one thought that! Why would they?”
“They not only thought it, they judged me a cradle robber.” His turbulent gaze took her in from crown to toes. “You’re what? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three.” Not a young twenty-three, either. At least, she knew a lot of people her age who were far less capable of looking after themselves. He made her feel positively juvenile, though. Like those perfectly sensible students who spouted feminist doctrines, then grew flushed and got all high-voiced around the football quarterback. “I’m really embarrassed for reacting like that.” She fought to keep her voice steady and clear. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Why did you?” His demeanor was both compelling and faintly ominous. “Who did you think I was?”
“No one. Well... It was a prevarication. I knew right away that you’re...” Oh, God, she was touching her hair. Playing with the fine hairs beneath her ponytail, where the hollow at the back of her neck was prickly with heightened awareness. Exactly like a flirty cheerleader. She clasped her hands in her lap. “I met your brother once. When I was a child.”
His head went back and his whole body bunched as though preparing for a fight. His hands closed into fists and his jaw hardened.
She understood that reaction. It happened to her sometimes when people mentioned her father. Years of carrying grief didn’t mean it no longer had the power to knock the wind out of you, especially when it arrived out of the blue.
“He made an impression,” she continued gently, understanding, too, that there could be a gift hidden behind the sucker punch. A new memory could bring that person to life again, if only for a brief, intangible moment. “It was a fencing class for children.”
“In Sicily?” Another raking glance filled with skepticism.
“I was there with my father. He often enrolled me in local activities while he worked. Stefano was teaching with a girl named Paloma.”
Giovanni’s head jerked slightly at the sound of his brother’s name. He offered her a three-quarter profile under the unforgiving fluorescent light. “You would have been very young. Seven?” he calculated.
“He said I had potential.” She smiled with nostalgia for the little girl who had developed instant hero worship from being noticed by such a dynamic young man. “I thought I would go on to become an Olympian like him.”
His cheek ticked. “Did you?”
“No.” Laughably, she wasn’t much of anything, not even a proper US citizen. One day she might become a schoolteacher. At best she could call herself an author, but she wasn’t even published yet and was riding on her father’s coattails. “No, that swashbuckling fantasy went the way of my equally delusional dream that I would grow up and marry him.”
His choked-off laugh could have been actual humor or a measure of outrage that she would dare to aspire to marry such a man.