“Nicolo?”
Vicki, whatever her name was, said his name. Said something more and put her hand on his chest. He brushed it aside. Stepped away. Abandoned her in the middle of the crowded dance floor.
The part of his brain that was of this century knew all that. Knew, too, that his response to the events of the afternoon might not be entirely rational.
But the part that was as old, as savagely male, as time whispered, This is what I want. And I’m going to have it.
And Nicolo heard nothing else.
The music had turned wild; the throbbing pulse matched the insistent thump of his blood, the beat of his heart….
The fury eating inside him.
Fate, always capricious, had decided to favor him tonight. The woman who’d made a fool of him was here.
Now, he could even the score.
He shouldered his way through the crowd, eyes locked to his quarry. She was oblivious to him. Good, he thought grimly. He wanted to reach her before she had time to think.
But halfway there, she suddenly stopped dancing. Her partner said something; she didn’t answer. Instead she moved out of his arms and stood like a doe at the edge of a clearing, sensing the presence of a hungry predator.
Later, Nicolo would wonder if it weren’t the whole world that had gone still and waited, waited, waited.
A minute, an eternity, swept by. Then the blonde raised her head and looked directly at him.
He let a tight smile curve his mouth. Whatever beat its wings within him must have been in that smile, because the color drained from her face.
She took a step back.
He thought, again, of the doe.
Run, he thought.
And, just as if she’d read his mind, the woman with the violet eyes swung away from him and fled.
Nicolo didn’t hesitate. He went after her.
CHAPTER THREE
YOU COULDN’T end up in the same place wit
h the same man twice in one day. Not in a town the size of New York.
At first, when she saw him, Aimee told herself it had to be some other tall, dark-haired guy. There were tons of dark-haired, good-looking men in the city.
A second glance and that hope vanished. It was the overbearing, supermacho jerk who’d kissed her. It had to be. The truth was, nobody else would be as…
All right. No other man could possibly be as easy on the eyes. He was despicable—but he was gorgeous.
The last few minutes, she’d felt…What? A premonition? She didn’t believe in any of that stuff, but how else to explain that tingle at her nape? That feeling that eyes were following her as she danced with Tom or Tim or, dear God, she couldn’t even remember the name of the guy who’d bought her a drink, then led her onto the dance floor.
He was nice enough. Good-looking enough. And he was working hard at making an impression.
And he wasn’t the stranger from this afternoon.
No way would Tom, or whoever he was, grab a woman and kiss her, look at her through icy deep-blue eyes in a way that would make the memory of him lodge itself in her brain.
She hated men like the Neanderthal, no matter how hot-looking a Neanderthal he might be.