Page 88 of Niccolo

In fact, her eyes were locked on mine.

There were other signs, too. Subtle, but they were there.

A slight blush in her cheeks…

A quickening of her pulse, which I could see in a vein at her throat…

And a complete disregard for everything else going on around us.

The only thing that gave me pause was when she hesitated before saying her name:

…Aurora Dispenza.

Almost as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to give it to me.

I chalked that up to her struggling with her attraction to me…

Which only made me redouble my efforts.

38

Sofia

He justwould not relent.

If you’d asked me earlier, I would have said such persistent behavior from a man would have turned me off.

But with Niccolo…

I liked it.

Quite a bit, actually.

He kept me on my toes, which wasn’t something any other man had done in recent memory.

“Iaminterested in something, though,” Niccolo smiled. “Whether we call it chess or a dance, you keep evading me. Specifically, my questions. Why is that?”

My pulse sped up as I realized he was correct.

I’d been reticent with information, and now I needed a reason why.

“Because – just like you – your questions are a bit too forward.”

“Well, ‘forward’ismy middle name,” he joked. “Audace, audace, toujours l’audace!”

French forAudacity – audacity – always audacity!

“Actually,” I said, “the quote is,‘L’audace, l’audace, encore l’audace, toujours l’audace.’”

Audacity – audacity – again, audacity – always audacity!

“Ah!” Niccolo said, delighted. “Someone knows their revolutionaries!”

It was a quote from George Danton, one of the architects of the French Revolution.

“Someone else knows just enough to misquote them,” I said with a hint of playfulness.

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” he countered, quotingHamlet.

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