she was not about to risk dripping salty tears all over the page and add insult to injury. ‘Just go, will you?’
She slid a folio beneath the page, lifting it gently back to the desk, using the opportunity to take a few more steps and put the desk between them at the same time. She would have to check the page for materials and fibres picked up from the rug, but pulling out her tweezers and microscope would have to wait until the Count had gone and her hands had stopped shaking.
‘Dr Hunter …’
‘Haven’t you done enough? I asked you to go.’
His jaw firmed, his eyes grew hard edged. ‘You’re blaming me?’
‘I certainly didn’t kiss you!’
‘No? I distinctly remember there were two of us there. And I sure as hell don’t remember anyone complaining.’
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering only too well her lack of resistance. ‘I think we both made a mistake. And now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ She curled her hands into fists, willing the shaking to stop, trying to make sense of this unfamiliar recklessness and get her scientific self back together while he loomed there, her very own dark cloud.
‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
Her breath caught. Dinner—and what else? Why the sudden hospitality? Unless he was looking to finish what he’d started?
‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’
‘You have to eat.’
‘I’m very good at eating alone. Luckily, as it happens.’
‘If that’s a dig at the way you’ve been treated here—’
‘Take it how you like. But I live alone. I’m good with it.’
He regarded her coolly from under hooded lids. ‘You’re afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid of you. It’s just that I don’t see the point. Every time we’re together we end up arguing or—’
His chin lifted, a spark glinted in his eyes. ‘You are afraid we will not argue?’
‘Should I be?’
‘I think whether or not we argue is something that is as much up to you as it is to me.’
And that was exactly what she was afraid of. One kiss and she’d forgotten who she even was. How could something as mechanical as the meeting of two mouths do that? She’d had lovers before, and neither of them had come close to making her feel anything like this man did. Okay, so maybe her first time had been more clinical than exciting, and borne of desperation that she would be the sole virgin in her university graduating class, and the second time had been grief sex with a colleague after a child she’d nursed for days in the refugee hospital had died in her arms. It had been bitter and sweet and life-affirming and exactly what she’d needed at the time, but it had been nothing to rival the impact of even this man’s kiss.
Dared she dine with him? If he kissed her again, how would she resist? And with what? She had no defences against such an onslaught. If she even wanted to stop it. She hadn’t before, and if that paper hadn’t fallen to the floor what would they be doing now? She shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the images dancing in her mind’s eye. Right there, on the desk.
‘You can tell me more of your theories,’ he prompted, clearly sensing her waver, ‘and perhaps I can share mine about why the pages might have ended up here under the castle.’
He had a theory? She looked up. She wanted to hear that.
She just wasn’t certain about the you-show-me-yours-and- I’ll-show-you-mine subtext. ‘Or,’ she countered, ‘you could just tell me now.’
‘But you have work to do, my dear Dr Hunter. And I have already disturbed you enough.’
True, but he would continue to disturb her whether or not he was here—now more than ever. ‘Look,’ she said, shaking her head, knowing it would be crazy to expect they could dine together and pretend that kiss had never happened. She gestured down at her casual singlet and skirt. ‘I didn’t expect to be entertained. I brought nothing—’
‘On the contrary,’ he interjected, ‘you look charming. But if it pleases you I’m sure we can find you something you will be more comfortable in.’
She sighed, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. Of course he was sure to have an entire women’s wardrobe at his disposal. Or maybe Bruno was also a fine seamstress. ‘Fine,’ she said in resignation, just wanting more than ever to get back to her work. There was an outside chance she could finish up the translations today, and if she did that, given the excellent condition of the pages, there was no reason why she couldn’t leave early and finish the rest of her report elsewhere. She had contacts in any number of universities across Europe that had the right facilities and who would be delighted to play host to such a famous text. And he wanted her gone. Surely she could survive just one meal together? ‘Fine. In that case I’d be delighted to join you for dinner.’
His eyes glinted with victory. ‘It is a long time since I had the pleasure of a beautiful woman as my dinner companion.’
‘You don’t have to resort to flattery, Count Volta. I have already said I’d come.’
‘Alessandro,’ he said, with a nod and a smile at her acquiescence. ‘And I shall call you Grace. I think we can drop the formalities, don’t you?’ He bowed his head and finally headed for the door. ‘Until dinner, then.’
She nodded absently, turning back to her work, knowing she should be concentrating on that rather than replaying the sound of his name in her head.
Alessandro.
Oh, no. She didn’t like that. She didn’t want to give him a name. She didn’t want to think of him as Alessandro. She preferred to think of him as the Count. It made him sound remote. A little unreal.
Whereas Alessandro made him sound almost human. It made him sound like a man.
And she didn’t want to think of him as a man.
‘Oh, and Grace?’
She blinked and looked around. ‘Yes?’
‘That wasn’t flattery.’
He had her. He strode back to his office, knowing that tonight she would grace both his table and his bed. She was as good as his. And tonight, and for all the nights that she remained here, he would have her. Nothing surer.
He almost growled in anticipation. He didn’t understand this need, this compulsion to have her. He hated strangers. And yet he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything before in his life.
Did it matter why?
Wasn’t it enough to know that he wanted her and that she was his for the taking? And by the time she left he would have rid himself of whatever spell this was that she had cast over him—rid himself of this compulsion to bed her and to watch the sparks in her eyes, to feel the electricity inside her as she came apart around him. He could hardly wait.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRACE rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, a bubble of excitement glowing pearlescent and pretty as her raw theory took shape and substance—a bubble only slightly tainted by a niggling concern that she had missed something.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Her supposition that the pages had been removed to protect them rather than to destroy them wasn’t just a rash idea now; the pages she had translated since then only lent weight to her theory.
One page had been in praise of mothers and motherhood and the sacred mother-child bond. Another had been a celebration of spring and renewal in all things spiritual and physical. Another an endorsement of acting kindly to