His voice moved away from the window, toward the door. Antonietta’s heart beat loudly in reaction, terrified he would leave her and not return. She knew almost nothing about him. Byron. Man of mystery. The man filling her dreams. “My hair is streaked with gray, and I’m hardly beautiful, Byron, but thank you for the compliment.” Her hand fluttered to her throat to hide her rapidly beating pulse. He said the sight of her robbed him of breath, yet his words alone left her breathless.
He laughed. It was a shocking reaction and the last thing she expected, given her precarious emotions. “Why would you think your hair is streaked with gray? Your hair shines like a raven’s wing. If there is silver, it only adds to the depth and richness of your color. No one else has such beautiful hair. Surely you know that.”
Antonietta squirmed under the sincerity of his words. She searched on the nightstand for her dark glasses, feeling more naked without the eye covering than with the lace barely skimming her body. Byron didn’t help her as he normally would have. He was always the perfect gentleman, opening doors and placing her things close to her fingertips without a word.
“How is my grandfather?” She should have asked him immediately instead of reacting to his presence like a schoolgirl. She needed a way to get the spotlight off of her and her all too noticeable reaction to him. “You spent a long time with him.”
“Don Giovanni is fine. I removed the poison from his body, and he is sleeping peacefully. I also examined the other members of your household.”
Behind her dark glasses, Antonietta closed her eyes, feeling more foolish than ever. She could walk onto a stage and take command, but here, in her own home with this one man, she felt foolish. He had the strangest effect on her. She didn’t want to think of him alone in a bedroom with her cousin Tasha. She fought to keep her voice cool. “Had any of them been poisoned?” She fought to keep from imagining Byron bending over Tasha in her bed when so many men were so vocal about her cousin’s perfect body.
“Strangely enough, yes. Your cousin Paul had traces of the same poison in his system. Very small amounts. He also had been drugged just as Don Giovanni, and, I suspect, you had been. Not that it makes him innocent. In fact, it is interesting that he was drugged yet not dragged to the cliff.”
Byron was closer to her. She couldn’t stand being in bed, sitting there helplessly while he prowled like a great tiger around her bedroom. She tossed the covers to one side, intending to stand up, but with the terrible silence of a stalking cat, he was at the side of the bed. She could feel the bulk of his body, feel the heat radiating from him. Her hand accidentally brushed the hard column of his thigh. Her entire body clenched in reaction. Heat spread and pooled into a sweet ache. It was just possibly the worst night of her life. At the very least, the most embarrassing.
Antonietta swallowed hard. “Paul was drugged and poisoned? Are you certain?” She was uneasy with the soft growl to his voice when he said Paul’s name. He sounded almost threatening, and it frightened her.
“Yes he was. I want to check you, not only for the drug, but for poison. I think you are going to have to consider that this was a personal attack on both you and your grandfather and possibly Paul, although why he was not thrown into the sea I cannot fathom. He would represent more of a threat than you, I would imagine. I also searched the palazzo. Someone went through the drawers in your office, leaving everything a mess, but I suspect it was to keep the police from finding out that what really happened here tonight was an attempt on your lives.”
“I was awake still, I do remember being sleepy, although normally I go to bed in the early hours of dawn.” She couldn’t prevent the faint blush stealing into her cheeks. Byron would know her sleeping habits better than most. “Perhaps they broke in expecting us to be drugged and Grandfather and I were both still up. Maybe they tried to kill us out of fear.”
“You do not believe that. The first time I met Don Giovanni, his car had gone off the cliffs and was falling onto the rocks below. I only managed to get him out seconds before the car hit the rocks and was mangled. He was lucky I happened by.”
“His brakes failed. It happens, Byron.” But she was be ginning to believe he might be right. “Why would someone want to kill
Nonno
? He’s loved by everyone.”
“Money. It has been my experience with humans, it is nearly always about money. And you and your grandfather have far more than most people.”
My experience with humans. She had come to know Byron for all his mysterious ways. He had used the expression deliberately. Just as he was deliberately crowding so close to her body. Just as he had deliberately brought up her grandfather’s impossible rescue. She remembered the story well. Don Giovanni told everyone who would listen the absurd and totally unbelievable tale of the rescue from his vehicle as it fell over the cliff. The door torn from the hinges in midair and being pulled out to find himself on the cliff with Byron, his newfound friend. Byron merely smiled when the story was related, neither confirming nor denying the impossible story. Antonietta had come to believe it.
Tonight he carried her through the wind and clouds. She felt the rush of air on her face and her feet had not skimmed the ground. As ridiculous and as impossible as it was, she was certain he had carried her through the sky. If he could do that, he could pull her grandfather from a car plunging onto the rocks. A fairy tale. But she lived a fairy tale, so she knew all things were possible.
Antonietta rubbed her temple, forcing herself to marshal her thoughts and focus on the threat on her life and that of her grandfather. “You are implying someone in my own family, someone I love, would try to kill mio
Nonno
? Would try to kill me? Maybe even Paul?”
Byron’s fingertips skimmed her forehead, tucked stray tendrils of hair behind her ears, removed the dark glasses. Found her temples and lingered for a moment until the throbbing had ceased. “I think you have to at least entertain the possibility, Antonietta. No one likes to suspect their loved ones of such things, but avarice and jealousy are sins that have led many to murder.” His hand dropped to her shoulder, gently but deliberately pressing her back against the sheets. “Your grandfather runs a very successful company. You inherited your father’s stocks, his entire estate, so you actually own more shares of stock than any other family member. It is no secret that your grandfather relies heavily upon your advice. Your cousin Paul has taken no interest in the company. Your cousin Franco works hard, but he committed a grave error when he listened to his wife and she poisoned his mind with her constant nagging. Your grandfather has never trusted him since it came to light that he took a great deal of money in exchange for inside information into the bidding for contracts. That is common knowledge,
cara mia
, it was a very public scandal. Tasha has no interest in the company, would sell it in a heartbeat and spend the money within the first year. Again, it is no secret your grandfather intends to leave everything to you. If he does that, you would own more of the company than the others, unless they could get together and combine their stock.”
“Have you forgotten I’m blind? It would be difficult for me to run the company efficiently with such a handicap. I would have to rely tremendously on others.”
“It is not a handicap for you, Antonietta, it is an asset. In the boardroom you sit quietly without speaking. They treat you as if you are deaf as well as blind, and you are able to glean information that way. You use it to your advantage.”
“How do you know these things?” Her hand went defensively to her throat, covered the telltale pulse beating so rapidly there. What other things did he know about her? There was much she did in her grandfather’s boardroom, using methods best not known or spoken of to get the results they needed.