She looked to him and lost her voice as she confronted his handsomeness up close. His dark hair was short and thick, his brows bold statements above golden-brown eyes. His swarthy cheeks were smooth, but underlined by a precise border of stubble along his jaw. A goatee framed a mouth too full-lipped and sensual for words.
Men didn’t usually affect her. Not even very good-looking ones, but a funny squiggle in her midsection teased with intrigue, especially when his eyelids lowered in lazy, male appreciation.
She extended her hand. “Gisella Drummond.”
His relaxed demeanor altered. His expression tightened with dismay and he raked her with a more disparaging glance. It went down to her open-toed heels and came back to her snug top with the shoulder cutouts.
When he met her eyes again, she felt the impact as though she had walked into an invisible wall, one that teemed with icy electrical currents. They wrapped around her and squeezed the breath from her lungs.
He snorted in a way that suggested he couldn’t believe her gall.
It was highly disconcerting. She was usually very well received by men. Not just for her various wealthy and respectable contacts, either. She was naturally blessed with the slender height and patrician bone structure seen in ads for swimsuits and makeup.
Her beauty was as much hindrance as strength so she didn’t often use her looks for leverage, but this was battle conditions. She was on the verge of losing something she’d waited years to acquire.
She tried to melt his sudden frost with a warm smile, but it felt forced.
“I know who you are, Ms. Barsi.” He only looked at her hand, didn’t take it.
She let it drop along with her smile. Her heart also seemed to slump uselessly for a moment before she gathered herself with affront.
“I wasn’t trying to misrepresent myself. I use my father’s name.” Not that it should matter either way. Her family was complicated, but she was a Barsi in her heart, if not by blood. The Barsis were a well-regarded family here in New York. Counting herself among them was an honor.
Yet it held no sway over him. If anything, her being one of them seemed to provoke a disdainful tic in his cheek.
“Sir?” the official said, returning from the auction room. “You’re sure this is all you want for the moment?” He held a velvet box in his hands.
“Yes.” Kaine moved into a nearby bedroom. His lip curled with distaste as he took in the canopied bed, the sitting area of ornate boudoir furniture and the heavy blue drapes framing a view over Central Park.
Gisella followed, wishing she’d been able to leave work early enough for the guided tour. It was a one-of-a-kind home and prime real estate. Her parents had money, but no one in Gisella’s family was in a position to buy a house like this, especially if they didn’t love it, which Kaine clearly didn’t.
The official handed him the velvet box. “I’ll have the paperwork ready for you to sign when you come downstairs. Will you consider private offers on anything?”
“Everything but this. You can handle that for me?”
“Of course, sir.” The official waited for Kaine’s nod of dismissal, then hurried out, leaving Gisella alone with him.
Wait. He hadn’t bought a house to get one item, had he?
Kaine tucked the velvet box into the pocket of his jacket without opening it.
Gisella’s stomach swooped with dread. “What was that?”
She moved with panic to where a makeup table and dresser top held a number of open jewelry boxes, all with numbered tags on them. She scanned for the earring she’d only ever seen in the catalog for this auction. Several pairs of earrings were on display, but no orphans.
It wasn’t here. She scanned again, her sense of loss visceral. She was going cold with shock while a shot of adrenaline hit her heart, sending a stinging throb through her limbs. How could she be this close after so long and lose?
“Was that an earring?” She swung around.
He gave her a blithe smile. I know who you are, Ms. Barsi.
She was fully taken aback. A wild suspicion came into her head and out her mouth before she’d had time to absorb how ridiculous it was. “You did not just buy a house to get that earring!”
“It was the most expedient means of getting what I want before anyone else.”
Shock hit in waves. He really had bought the house for the earring. And there were other people after her grandmother’s earring? Enough that he’d gone after it this aggressively? That made no sense. It was one earring.
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but it’s not that valuable. It’s not worth a house. Not this house. Why didn’t you just bid on it?”