Page 5 of Bound Enemies
And Pau had made a small, personal study of that smile in the brief time he’d spent in her presence three months back. He had determined that it was practiced. Deliberate.
A tool she wielded, he’d decided. That made her smile the kind of game he could appreciate and admire.
A lot like the clothing she was wearing now. He had observed her for a few days before the wedding at her father’s ostentatious castle, set down in the midst of the Tuscan hills like someone had discarded it out of pique. She had dressed much like she was now, in shapeless pieces of clothing that she seemed to choose only from the ugliest possible shades, as if she was competing with herself to find the least flattering cut and color. Soon, he came to understand that she did it so that the eyes of her father and all of his self-important guests bounced right off of her.
He had gone to the wedding with the express purpose of meeting her, and so he had made a point of finding her in the midst of the festivities—something that had not been easy to do. He’d had to hunt her down—meaning, he found himself watching her during all the pompous events that Umberto had put on, all in an effort to celebrate himself rather than the happy couple.
Pau had watched the girl who seemed to betryingto disappear into the wall coverings. He’d watched as she’d now and again reacted to something someone was saying, usually Umberto or one of the guests like him. She had only showed the slightest flash of personality now and again, but he’d seen it. He’d noted it.
The roll of an eye. A checked sigh. A pursed lip, momentarily there and then gone.
He had also watched her shift back to become the wall itself, literally disappearing before the very faces of those who had elicited her tiny reactions in the first place.
It was like she was wearing an invisibility cloak that she could put on and take off at will.
More impressively, it worked.
He had been forced to acknowledge that if he hadn’t been looking for her specifically, it might have worked on him, too. If he hadn’t been determined to study her, he might have missed those moments that hinted at the real woman behind the shy and retiring act—because that’s what he thought it was. An act.
If he hadn’t decided in advance that he would seduce her, he would have missed her altogether—an indictment that Pau had not exactly been pleased with. But then again, when was the truth comfortable? That wasn’t germane one way or the other. It was still the truth no matter how he felt about it.
Then, of course, there had been her attire at the actual wedding itself. When suddenly it was as if she’d found an entirely new wardrobe that she’d had secreted away somewhere the whole time, while she’d been shuffling around in rags instead. It was as if she was an entirely new woman, if only for the one day.
Like something out of a fairy tale, he thought now.
He had to remind himself that he was not a fanciful man. He was hardly one to tuck up with a book of fairy tales and glut himself on Cinderella stories—but the fact was, Leontina hadglowed.
Her dark hair had spilled down all around her in thick waves, making her dark jade eyes gleam. It had been impossible not to see her then. Not only toseeher, but to fully appreciate that the supposedly mousey and forgettable Leontina was, in every way, an heir to the same genetic cocktail that had made her brother one of the most sought-after men in all of Europe.
Simply put, Leontina was stunning. Mouthwateringly so, no matter how disconcerting he’d found it.
And once he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it. Not even when she was up to her usual tricks, like today. She had her hair twisted severely back from her face and wore absolutely no makeup. If he didn’t know better, he might think that her shape matched that of the dress she wore, because that thick, drapey fabric gave no hint of the body beneath it. All quite deliberate, he thought.
She even looked…rumpled. As if she hadn’t slept well, and might possibly have tried to get a few hours’ sleep in that shapeless sack she wore. She looked very much as if she’d been in this car for days.
He thought that perhaps she had been.
That, too, suggested that she was here for the precise reason he hoped she was.
But he could not permit himself to celebrate anything in advance. He could not allow himself to do anything but wait—as excruciating as that wait might have been.
He told himself it would be worth it. After all, as the saying went, if a man sat by a river long enough, the bodies of his enemies would float on by. It only took patience. Commitment. Dedication.
All things he was not only good at, but had long since perfected.
“Shall I tell you why I’m here?” she asked after a long moment. And though she sounded calm, he thought he saw a slight tremor move over her. That intrigued him almost more than the rest of her act did. “On your doorstep—and yes, regrettably, without an invitation?”
He didn’t let himself react to the note in her voice that he doubted most ever heard. That hint of strength that he’d seen that night, but had second-guessed ever since. Perhaps he only wished that she was more sharp and tough than she seemed. Because that would make what he was doing less distasteful, surely.
Not that it mattered, he knew. He would do it either way.
The truth that Pau had spent these months coming to terms with, no matter what happened, was that he had set out to do exactly what he had done. It had not been a spur-of-the-moment idea. It had been a plan he had set out to execute, and had.
And while he could tell himself flattering fairy stories aboutstrengthandinner resilienceon her part as he liked, the facts remained the facts.
He had deliberately set out to seduce his best friend’s younger sister, at that same best friend’s wedding, with one very precise goal in mind.
There would come a reckoning one day. This he did not doubt, because he knew his best friend. Sooner or later, Giaco would express his feelings on what Pau had done, and he doubted very much that he would enjoy what happened then.
