Unless Pia had said something.
This sudden communication from her could be a trick to force his admission that he’d been there that night.
Given that possibility, Angelo had taken the precaution of having her properly investigated, but there was little in the report that he hadn’t read online.
Her age or educational history had to be misstated. Only a genius could earn a master’s degree in environmental science before she’d turned twenty-one, after a double major in biology and chemistry and a minor in sociology. Three short years later, she was about to defend a dissertation analyzing polymer deterioration on barnacles and bivalves.
That was tomorrow, Angelo noted with a glance at his calendar icon.
This report wasn’t telling him what he really wanted to know: Why was she contacting him now? Had it taken her that long to find him?
Even more salient, why had she made love with a stranger that night? That question had been driving him mad.
Some people enjoyed conquests. Angelo’s father and brother, for instance. He would normally think her targeting him had been a move from a fortune hunter, but aside from her own healthy coffers, he couldn’t fathom how she had known he would meet her on that rooftop.
She had compromised him once he was there, though. The fact he’d given in to impulse and dallied with her, putting himself in real danger of being caught with his pants down, made her a weakness he should avoid.
He still didn’t understand why he’d been so compelled by her. The high of his caper? The erotic circumstances of intimacy with a stranger? The sexy feel of his costume?
He sneered at himself and went back to scrolling through the report, finally seeing something new—speculation that she was in the early phases of finding a husband. Only titled bachelors with fortunes and impeccable reputations need apply.
Angelo pushed away from his desk, glad his damned brothers weren’t on the shortlist, but it still disgusted him. If she was shopping for a husband, this card of hers wasn’t an invitation to rekindle things. She had to be working with his brothers.
Nauseated, he picked up the note and studied her clean, level script. It would be easy to send word that she was mistaken; they had never met.
If she was operating on their behalf, however, it was exactly the closing of ranks and exertion of influence that had allowed his father to victimize his mother without consequence. He wouldn’t let any of them get away with that again.
He messaged his pilot to ready his jet for Valencia.
* * *
Over the years, Pia had taken classes in public speaking and presenting. She had even gritted her teeth through an improvisation class to learn how to roll with the unexpected. Nothing had fully extinguished her discomfort in speaking to a group, but she had developed coping techniques, like picking out one or two unthreatening faces and pretending the rest didn’t exist.
As for presenting and defending her material, her expertise in that had been honed during every family dinner from the moment she had joined her parents in their dining room at eleven. Speak clearly. Make her point in as few words as possible. Back up her position with supporting facts when required. Emotions proved nothing. Move on.
Since she didn’t expect her audience to consist of more than the committee, the chair, her mentor and a few fellow students monitoring the procedure as they prepared for their own defense, she presented her dissertation in a small conference room off the university’s faculty lounge.
After she attached her laptop to the projector, the chair introduced her.
“Thank you.” She began her prepared remarks with a surface smile toward the committee and swept it around the room to find her two receptive faces.
Oh Dios.
Since visiting Poppy last week, Pia had quietly and obsessively researched Angelo Navarro. He claimed to be Spanish born, but had spent several years in America and now had homes around the globe. His childhood remained a mystery, but the story of how he’d made his recent fortune was everywhere.
After a few years in low-level jobs setting up video game equipment, he had hustled his way into promoting championships. That had led to partnering with tech entrepreneurs and gaming nerds to develop microprocessors for faster gaming. One of those patented chips had made its way into all the top smartphones and, three years ago, his team had accidentally created another chip that was now revolutionizing artificial intelligence.
He’d since begun offering high-speed cloud services that were expanding faster than a cumulonimbus on a humid summer’s day and held untold reserves in cryptocurrencies. He probably buried gold bullion on his private tropical islands, too.
Pia had studied his photo, comparing it to her memories of a shadowed visage and a stubbled jawline beneath the edge of a mask, but in person he was even more fallen-angel-beautiful. His black hair gleamed. His eyes were utterly mesmerizing with their aquamarine color, crystal clear and piercing as he stared back at her, smug at having taken her so unaware.
She didn’t need visual proof this was her mystery lover. She felt him. Felt the impact of being in his presence. Her heart hammered like a dull ax behind her breastbone—once, twice, three times. The careful tending of her diet to hold morning sickness at bay threatened to have been for naught.
Her falter lasted only those few heartbeats while she accepted that she was on a ship that had struck an iceberg. The galley was on fire and sharks were circling in the water. Panic was not an option. Roll with it.
She accepted the premise. This wasn’t what she had expected or planned, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rattling her. She made him one of her points of contact, using this opportunity to show herself as confident and knowledgeable because, in this narrow milieu, she was. She found a smile and made her purpose clear to everyone in the room as she began working through her presentation.
She compartmentalized, pulling a steel curtain across the messy gush of emotions that would need every type of mop, bandage and stitches later, when she was in a position to let down her guard and process what was happening.