Those icy cold eyes rested on mine. A pale blue that put my own to shame. They were magnetic, and I stumbled forward again one step. Her lips twitched. “A tasteless suit for a tasteless man. Do you have your tailor’s number? I’d like to award them.”
I flashed her a smile. Somehow, by some magic, the grand elevator had shrunk and heated up because we were so close. So close I could have stuck my tongue out and licked her pert little nose. “I think,” I said slowly, “that you’ll find I’m very tasty. A mouthful, I’ve been told.”
She leaned in. there was no space between us, but this woman leaned in, and I thought I’d have her against the wall in a blink. But I didn’t. I couldn’t explain how I could be having so much fun, be so damned aroused, and somehow still be so sensible.
It felt like if I moved wrong, it’d be the end.
In the elevator wasn’t a kitty and a tiger. It was a tiger and a tigress.
“You should go up, Mr. Sorvino, and get some class.” She leaned back before the fog around me could clear up enough. If she’d waited for even a second longer, I would have tossed everything to the wind.
She pressed for the elevator doors to open. “Whatever you have tonight will be on me. A treat from the Petrenko family.” She pressed for the top floor and eased out, leaving me.
The elevator closed and started up, and all I could do was smile uncontrollably at my reflection and wallow in the scent of her perfume.
So, that was Katya Petrenko. No wonder it’d been hard for the bank to reverse the ownership of the building. When the elevator reached the top floor, I didn’t step out.
All I wanted was to drag that woman back in so we could continue our conversation right where we stopped.
“Mr. Sorvino,” Mattis called just as I pressed the button to go back down.
“Another day, Mattis. Keep my table.”
I saw him mouth a frustrated, “you’ve got to be shitting me!” before the doors closed again.
Everything was the same, the thumping walls, the noisy crowd outside, but my car wasn’t there.
I pulled out my phone to call David, my driver. Maybe he went to grab something to eat somewhere.
“David,” I said the moment he picked the call, “where are you?”
“Taking me home.”
That was Katya’s voice.
“Walk. I heard exercise was good for the body.”
Chapter 4 - Katya
There was a stupid saying about success and how addictive it was. I couldn’t remember the whole thing as I found my way back home, straight into my room.
Dad was out working as usual, and since it was past ten, all the live-in employees were fast asleep in their rooms. I practically skipped to my room.
Not literally, but there was an extra bounce to my step, and I felt the adrenaline in my blood. Maybe this was why Alessandro had been so annoying. First, taking my building and then getting me kicked out of my favorite restaurant.
Maybe now he understood very well that I could keep up with him and his cheap tactics.
First, I took a long, honeyed soak to wash all the grime that dealing with that man had accumulated on me.
Only to myself, I admitted that calling his suit tasteless had been a bold move on my part. An inch taller than me, Alessandro was a six-foot-tall devil with raven black hair and blue eyes like a harpoon swimming through the sea. That pale brown suit had fitted his build so perfectly. My knees weakened when that elevator door slid open. Leaning against the wall had been me trying to save face so he wouldn’t know what the sight of him was doing to me.
And his scent.
That smile that he kept trying to use to smother me.
A very dangerous man indeed, the cool air around him was evident enough. I could be very threatening. Too many times, in fact, I have. Yet that man had chuckled like I was a schoolgirl trying to sell him candy.
Clearly, he was used to danger.