"No," Dante had said, "no, that's fine. I can use a break in routine."
So he'd flown to Rome or maybe it was Paris, and he hadn't said anything about leaving to Gabriella because why would he? They were dating, that was all. Dating exclusively because that was how he did things, one woman at a time while it lasted, but dating was all it was.
While he was away it had hit him that the thing with Gabriella had pretty much run its course.
He'd gone to Tiffany's as soon as he got back, bought a pair of diamond earrings, phoned her, arranged to meet her at Perse for dinner.
He'd been uncommonly nervous through the meal. Ridiculous, when he'd been through moments like this many times before. Finally, over coffee, he'd taken her hand.
"Gabriella. I have something to tell you."
"And I … I have something to tell you, too."
Her voice had been a whisper. Her cheeks had been flushed. Hell. She was going to tell him she'd fallen in love with him. He'd lived this scene before; he knew the warning signs. So he'd moved fast, put the little box that held the earrings on the table between them and said, quickly, how fond he was of her but how busy things had suddenly become at work, how he wished her the best of luck and if she ever needed him for anything …
She hadn't said a word.
The flush had left her cheeks. In fact, she'd gone white. Then she'd pushed back her chair and walked out of the restaurant, leaving the earrings, leaving him, just walked, head up, spine straight, never once looked back.
Dante tossed back the last of the beer, exchanged his jeans for shorts and went out for a run.
When he returned an hour later, he tumbled into bed and slept, dream free, until the wake-up call from the front desk awakened him the next morning.
Eduardo de Souza, the Viera attorney, sounded pleasant enough.
Dante explained he was the son of an old acquaintance of Juan Viera and asked if they could meet as soon as possible.
"Ah," de Souza said, on a long sigh. "And your father knows what has happened?"
That Viera was dying? That the man's son was about to inherit the Viera ranch?
"Yes," Dante said, "he does. That's why I'm here, senhor." He paused, unsure of how the lawyer would react. "My father wishes to buy the place from him."
Silence. Then de Souza, sounding puzzled, said, "From whom?"
"From Viera. From the estate. Look, senhor, if we could meet to discuss this … "
"Indeed. I can see we have much to discuss … but little time in which to do it. I am, in fact, on my way to the Viera fazenda right now. Can you meet me there?"
De Souza gave him directions, told him to watch for a turnoff about thirty miles from town.
"The sign is gone, I am afraid, but you will know you are in the right place because it will be the only turnoff for miles in any direction. Just drive through the gate. It is perhaps one mile from there to the house."
Dante found the turnoff without any difficulty. The gate was open, the gravel road ahead pockmarked with holes. After about a mile, a house and half a dozen outbuildings came into view. A corral stood off to one side of the clearing.
Dante frowned. The buildings, including the house, gave off a general sense of neglect. The corral enclosed only weeds. There were some vehicles in the clearing: a few well-used pickups, cars with mud caked on their wheels, and an enormous SUV, all gleaming black paint and shiny chrome. Stupid to dislike a vehicle, Dante knew, but he disliked this thing on sight.
Slowly he stepped from his car. This was a successful ranch? Maybe he'd taken the wrong road …
"Senhor Orsini?"
A short, stout man was hurrying down the steps, patting his sweating face with a handkerchief.
"Senhor de Souza?" Dante extended his hand. "It's good to meet you, sir."
"I tried to delay things, senhor, but there was some impatience. You understand."
Delay what? Dante started to ask, but the lawyer clutched his elbow and hurried him into the house. Men stood in little clusters, arms folded. One man, huge in girth and height, dressed like a movie villain in black and puffing on a cigar that filled the room with its stink, stood alone.
Dante pegged him instantly as the owner of the SUV. A wide staircase rose toward the second floor; in front of it stood a guy in a shiny suit, rattling away in indecipherable Brazilian Portuguese. Every now and then, one of the spectators grunted in response.
Dante frowned. "What's going on here?"
"Why, the auction, of course," de Souza whispered. "Of the ranch. By the bank." An expressive shrug. "You know."
No, Dante thought furiously, he did not know. His father had sent him into a situation without giving him any of the necessary facts. He grabbed the lawyer's arm, dragged him into a corner.
"Juan Viera is selling the place?"
The little man's eyebrows lifted. "Juan Viera is dead, senhor."
Dead? Dante took a breath. "His son, then? Arturo is selling it?"
"Arturo is dead, too. Is that not why you are here? To bid on Viera y Filho?"
"Well, yeah, but I had no idea that-"
"You must be prepared to bid strongly, senhor."
Hell. This was not a way to do business.
"What's the place worth?"
The lawyer quoted a figure in Brazilian reals, quickly amended it to its U.S. dollar equivalent.
"That's it? Fifty thousand is all?"
"That will cover the money owed the bank." De Souza hesitated. "But if you bid, you will have to go much higher." His voice fell to a whisper. "There is another interested party, you see."
Dante had been to auctions before. He'd bought a couple of paintings at Sotheby's. There was often another interested party but Sotheby's hadn't been like this. There was a sense of something not just competitive but raw in the air.
"Okay. What's the bid up to?"
The lawyer listened. "Twenty thousand reals. Half what the bank wants."
Dante nodded. This wasn't his money, it was his old man's. Spend what you must, Cesare had ended up telling him, up to half a million bucks. That gave him significant leeway-and the sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave.
"Bid one hundred thousand."
The lawyer cleared his throat. Called out the amount in reals. The room fell silent. Everyone looked first at Dante, then at the big guy in black who slowly turned and looked at him, too.
Dante held the man's gaze until he shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and showed all his teeth in what no one in his right mind would ever call a smile.
"Two hundred thousand dollars, U.S.," the man said, in lightly accented English.
There were audible gasps from the others.
What was this? A contest over what looked like a place that would suck in tens, maybe hundreds of thousands to put right? Maybe Cesare was nuts, Dante thought, but he wasn't, and hadn't his father said he was handing this off to him because of his business expertise?
Dante shrugged. "You want it that bad," he started to say …
And then a voice as soft as the petal of a rose said his name and he knew, God, he knew who it was even before he turned to the stairs and saw her.
Gabriella's heart was pounding.
It was Dante. But it couldn't be. He was a bitter memory from another time, another place …
"Gabriella?"
Deus, he was real!
Almost a year and a half had gone by and yet everything about him was familiar. His broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled body. The hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes, the palest shade of blue.
And his mouth. Firm and sensual, and even now she remembered the feel of it against hers.
He was moving toward her. She shook her head, stepped back. She knew she could not let him touch her. If he did, she might crumple. All the nights she'd thought of him. Willed herself not to think of him. Told herself she hated him, that she hoped and prayed she would never see him again …
True, all of it.
And yet, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing, listening as her fate was decided by a group of faceless men, she'd heard his voice and reacted with the predictability of Pavlov's dog, her heart racing, her lips readying to curve in a smile.
She drew a deep, unsteady breath.
Those days were gone. She had no reason to smile at this man. She felt nothing for him. Not even hatred. The sight of him had stunned her, that was all …
Unless … unless he had come for her. In the darkest hours of the darkest nights, even despising him, she had wept for him. For his touch. And sometimes … sometimes, she had dared to dream that he had discovered her secret, that he was coming to her, coming for her …