Kitabı oku: «Innocent's Nine-Month Scandal»

CHAPTER ONE

“NO ENTRY, MISS.”

The middle-aged man in a uniform spoke in heavily accented English. He wore an air of boredom, not even looking at Rozalia Toth as he turned her away from the gate of Kastély Karolyi.

“The best photos are from up the hill.” He pointed.

She couldn’t blame him for thinking she was one more tourist milling on the sidewalk, eager for shots of the gorgeous architecture here in Budapest. On her way to the gate, she had snapped the front of the Rohan family home, thinking to show it to her family when she got back to New York.

It was so beautiful, who could resist? Intricate gray brickwork was covered in centuries of vines and framed by lush old maples and oaks. The scrupulously manicured flower beds splashed color around the wide staircase that formed the covered entryway. Tall windows were spaced evenly across both floors with wrought iron balconies jutting out from a few at the top. Adorable round gables and a chimney on top made it storybook perfect.

She would have been charmed even without the familial connection—of which hers was virtually nonexistent. Even so, she intended to exploit it.

“I have an appointment with Mara Rohan,” she said in Hungarian.

“Name?”

“Rozalia Toth. She’s expecting my cousin, Gisella Drummond. I’ve come in her place.” She had thought about emailing ahead to warn about the change of plan, but had gambled they would be less likely to turn her away if she was here in person.

She gazed on the house again, listening to the guard radio her name, sorry that Gisella couldn’t be here with her. Through childhood and years of schooling, as they both gained their degrees and apprenticed as goldsmiths, they had longed to see their family’s “old country.”

Rozalia, in particular, had always been curious about the family history. But rather than walk the narrowest alleys of Budapest to find the walk-up where their grandmother had been born, or drive into the countryside to locate her own grandfather’s birthplace, she had been drawn here to Kastély Karolyi.

Istvan Karolyi would have been her grandfather if he hadn’t died in the revolution. Instead, he was only Gisella’s grandfather. Their grandmother, Eszti, had met him while they were attending university. When she became pregnant, Istvan asked her to marry him, offering a pair of family earrings in lieu of an engagement ring. He then sent her to America ahead of him, to escape the unrest. He died before he could join her and Eszti later married Rozalia’s grandfather, but still held a small torch for her first love.

That sort of titanic romance went straight to Rozalia’s soft heart. She needed to know everything about it.

And, like Gisella, she yearned to get her hands on those earrings, separated just as Eszti and Istvan had been. Rozalia and her cousin had searched for years for them, wanting to give them back to their grandmother so she could hold again that token from her first love.

A message came back to the guard that Mara Rohan had left town. The guard asked if someone else would take the meeting.

Rozalia perked up in anticipation that Mara’s son, Viktor, would admit her. He was gorgeous. And a count, not that Hungary allowed their nobility to use their titles, but it was one more thing that made him ultraintriguing.

From the moment Rozalia had searched his name, she’d been enthralled with the look of him—all dark and brooding with short black hair, a strong brow line and a squared-off, clean-shaven jaw. His mouth was the most intriguing. His upper lip was narrow, but formed with two well-defined peaks. The bottom was full and bitable—not that she had ever let herself go enough to nibble on a man’s bottom lip, but he certainly put the idea into her head.

One near-naked shot of him on the beach had jump-started a million fantasies. She was only human, for heaven’s sake. He’d been caught as he emerged with snorkel and fins in his hands, the most impossibly small bathing suit straining to cover his naughty bits. The rest of him was pure muscle, abs flat, dark nipples sharpened by the chill against the swarthy plane of his chest. His expression as he realized he was being photographed was positively filthy, he was so disgusted at whoever had taken the shot.

Why that made her laugh, she didn’t know, but she had been drawn here as much by the opportunity to meet that man as she was by the chance to acquire her grandmother’s earring.

The security guard received a response and shook his head, repeating in English the message she had understood in Hungarian as clearly as he had.

“Your appointment is canceled.”

So much for showing up in person making it harder to turn her away. Rozalia set her back teeth and found a pleasant smile. “May I reschedule?”

“No.” He didn’t bother checking with the voice on the radio for that one.

“May I leave a note?”

His cheek ticked, but he let her stand there and scribble in her notebook. She said she was sorry to have missed the chance to speak with the family and that she would be in the city for several more days, then added the name of her hotel and her contact details.

She tore out the sheet and handed it to the guard. He would no doubt crumple it, but she thanked him and started back to her hotel.

She waited until she was out of his earshot before releasing her disparaging snort.

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.

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!”

“No.”

“Why not? Even if Grandmamma had stolen it, which she didn’t, what’s the use in punishing me for that?”

“Why do you want to see it?”

“To take photos.” She searched for her most reasonable, professional tone. “I’d like to appraise it properly.”

His brows went up.

“I’m a fully qualified gemologist and goldsmith.” She had apprenticed with her uncle Ben at Barsi on Fifth, the shop her grandfather had started after arriving in America. “I make custom pieces all the time. I’d like to take the measurements of the stones and grade them, make some sketches. If I can’t purchase the original, I’d like to re-create the earrings for my grandmother. She’s quite elderly.” She also had health problems that had given them all a scare this winter, making it that much more imperative Rozalia succeed in her mission. “If I could give her that much, it would make her very happy.”

“Aside from the fact I have no investment in your grandmother’s happiness, am I to understand you want to make a copy? My mother has considered that several times, but the one-of-a-kind rarity is part of the earring’s value. She’d rather have the authentic match and own the only pair. I’m in the process of acquiring the other one.”

“Are you?” she asked with enough skepticism to turn his expression even stonier.

“You don’t have the other one,” he said with confidence.

She effected a casual shrug. “Not yet, but my cousin is in San Francisco right now.” Probably getting shot down by a man Gisella considered to be her mortal enemy, but Viktor didn’t know that. Rozalia held Viktor’s gaze while the pressure of his simmering anger nearly compressed her blood to a solid inside her veins.

“I suggest you advise him against getting in my way.” His gaze slid to the fabric bag she had been carting around on her shoulder and held slouched in her lap.

“Her,” Rozalia corrected with a blithe smile, not bothering to dig out her phone. She couldn’t move. He would see she was trembling at the intensity of this confrontation. “The women in our family are very persuasive.”

“I’ll bet.”

Hey.

“We’re also very stubborn.” She showed him the point of her chin. “I could call her, but Gisella is as determined as I am. Probably as determined as you are, seeing as she’s Istvan’s descendant and carries Karolyi blood. I’d say that gives her as much right to the earrings as you have.” She blinked with innocence.

“Is she as foolhardy as you? Throwing herself in the way of a man with my resources?”

Rozalia refused to betray the seesaw of fear and exhilaration sending shivers through her whole body.

“If the earring is your mother’s, she ought to be the one who decides whether to sell it to me. I only came here because she canceled our appointment. Why don’t you call her and reschedule our meeting? Us womenfolk can work it out amongst ourselves.” Yes, she assured him with a smile, she was patronizing him.

“My mother had to run to Visegrád. She won’t be back for a week, at least.”

“To see your great-aunt Bella? Istvan’s sister?” Istvan had had two sisters, Bella and Viktor’s grandmother Irenke, who had had Viktor’s mother, Mara, and passed away some years ago. Rozalia had planned to track down Bella if she had time, thinking she might be interested to know her brother’s daughter and granddaughter lived in New York but—

“Do not interfere in my family, Ms. Toth. I will make your life very uncomfortable. In fact—” He pulled out his own phone and tapped to signal voice activation. “Text Kaine Michaels,” he ordered, then dictated, “If you sell that earring to anyone but me, I will become a bigger problem than any you already have.”

He hit the screen and a whoosh sounded.

Rozalia internally winced at the complication she’d just caused her cousin. Sorry, Gizi.

“Look, I didn’t come here for a war.” Time to try placating again. “Is it so unreasonable that I’m curious? Your mother was willing to talk to me. Why won’t you let me buy you a drink and ask a few questions?”

“Because I don’t like liars, Ms. Toth.”

“When have I lied to you? I’m exactly what I appear to be. A long-lost relative—”

“You’re not my relative,” he stated with enough force it pushed her back an inch.

On the surface, it sounded like a rejection. Part of her was even a little stung by his vehemence. He didn’t want to be associated with her, which was very insulting. Her brain was already gathering to make a haughty reply.

But as she met his gaze, a current of electricity crackled between them. His words took on new meaning. Even a necessary truth.

Her grandmother had been pregnant with Istvan Karolyi’s daughter, Gisella’s mother, when she came to America. Rozalia’s mother was the product of Eszti’s marriage to Benedek. All Rozalia’s fascination with the Karolyi connection was wrapped up in the romance of the story. She didn’t have a drop of blood tie in it.

Which made fantasizing about this man’s bottom lip okay. Or rather, it was still a dumb thing to do, but at least it wasn’t morally wrong.

Staring at it, she found herself longing to soothe the tension from the wide shape of it, lick and discover his taste and textures, feel his mouth cover hers and—

A strange light grew to a hot gleam in his gaze.

She realized she was leaning in.

With a small gasp, she pulled back, but he stayed exactly where he was, moving nothing but his eyes. He took his time sliding his perusal down her clean if wrinkled T-shirt and clean, faded jeans. Her chest grew tight, nipples stinging. Heat burned into her loins. Finally his gaze came back to what had to be a culpable expression on her face.

“Where are you staying?” His tone had gone from sandpaper to whiskey.

She swallowed. Licked her lips, drawing his gaze to her own mouth. Oh, dear.

“Um.” For a second, she honestly couldn’t recall. Then managed to give him the name of her hotel.

He dismissed it with a curl of his lip. “My place, then. We’ll have dinner. You can show me exactly how persuasive you claim to be.”