It took Gianna a full thirty seconds to catch her breath sufficiently to respond. When she did, she bellowed, “Rafe!”
Taking pity on Constantine and his business woes, Gianna decided to pick up dinner and drop it off at Romano Restoration. She wouldn’t stay, she promised herself. If he could spare a half hour she’d let him talk her into hanging around long enough to share a meal with him. But otherwise she’d make herself scarce so he could put the finishing touches on his proposal.
She caught a cab to his office building. The receptionist was no longer on duty, but the security guard tipped his cap when he saw her, recognizing her from her frequent visits. He even called the elevator for her, holding the door with a friendly smile. She stepped inside and used the key Constantine had given her to access his apartment. All the while, the delicious scent of the dinner she’d picked up at the Oriental Pearl filled the small space.
He wasn’t in the apartment, which meant she’d find him in his office. She’d assumed as much, but she had a few things she wanted to nab before she joined him. Snagging a throw off the back of his couch, she gathered up napkins, a bottle of wine and wineglasses. At the last minute she remembered to add a bottle opener to her stash and headed downstairs. Sure enough, he sat behind his desk, hard at work.
She paused unnoticed in the doorway and took the opportunity to study him. Usually he sensed her. But she suspected he was so focused on the job at hand that it would take more than even The Inferno to pry him loose.
His ink-black hair fell across his forehead in thick, unruly waves. She’d have called them curls, but suspected he’d take immediate exception to the term, a fact that made her smile. He jotted a note in the margin of the paper he held, the desk lamp casting sharp light across his features.
Dear heaven, but he was a gorgeous man. Elegant, and yet intensely male. His features were also intensely male—a firm, straight nose, a wide sensuous mouth, strong chin and jaw, high, aristocratic cheekbones. But the most devastating feature of all were his eyes. So dark. So sharp. So direct and honest.
Something deep inside of her gave a quick tug. A little lurch. She closed her eyes, unable to hide from the truth. She suspected that if she didn’t actually love this man, she was teetering on the brink. Dante pride had kept her from admitting it, but she couldn’t lie to herself. Not now. She’d fallen in lust the moment they’d touched. Her family called it The Inferno, but she knew lust when she felt it.
At some point in the dozen plus days they’d been together, her feelings for him had grown. Deepened. Matured. It would only take a tiny nudge to send her tumbling. She almost laughed at the thought. If left to Constantine, it wouldn’t be a nudge, but a full-body tackle from “maybe” to “happily ever after.”
She knew the instant he sensed her. A predatory stillness consumed him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He simply lifted his eyes and stared at her. She returned the look, not moving or speaking, either. She let him eat her alive with his gaze while she returned the favor.
“Are you real?” he asked with a slow smile. “Or just a delicious dream?”
“Definitely real.” She held up the bag of food. “And extra delicious. Can you spare a few minutes for dinner?”
His smile grew. “Maybe you can feed me while I work.”
“Now you are dreaming.”
He chuckled. “It was worth a try.” He eyed the blanket she carried. “Cold?”
“Nope. I thought we’d have a picnic.” She slipped out of her heels. “Kick off your shoes and relax for a few minutes.”
He hesitated, shook his head. “I don’t kick off my shoes.”
That gave her pause. “Seriously? Never?”
“Seriously. Never.” His expression darkened. “You can’t be ready to go at a moment’s notice if you’re not wearing your shoes.”
She blinked. That never would have occurred to her. “I’m not sure what might happen in the next half hour that you’ll need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“Thanks.”
Now she knew something was off. Thinking back she realized that even when she and Constantine had been their most relaxed during evenings at her row house, he’d never taken off his shoes. He’d also kept his possessions neatly gathered so all he had to do was pick them up on his way out the door.
Not the least like her. Half her possessions were scattered across every Dante home in the Bay Area. The Italian version of mi casa es su casa. She’d have dismissed Constantine’s obsessiveness as a personality quirk if she hadn’t caught that telltale darkness flitting across the hard contours of his face. Something was up there and she made a mental note to explore it at a future date. Until then, no point in making a big deal about it or attempting to involve him in a heavy discussion. Not when he was in the middle of a work crisis.