And it didn't recognize her.
The world faded away briefly. There was a rushing in her ears. She had only ever come that close to fainting once in her life, in a fight that she had barely walked away from. As the world washed dizzily back in, she became aware that Gio was holding her by the shoulders.
"Normally I would say that having a lovely woman swoon into my arms is an unexpected pleasure," he said in his deep, resonant voice. "But it is most unexpected. Are you all right?"
Max managed to look up at him, forcing herself to meet his eyes again, as if she could possibly have been wrong before. There was no shifter alive who could meet their mate and justnot know. It was impossible. She had never heard of such a thing.
And that meant it was indifference she was seeing. He was smiling at her, but it was a friendly smile, not the awestruck smile of someone looking back at the person they were meant to spend the rest of their life with. It wasn't the besotted way her father looked at her mother, or the awestruck daze on the face of Aunt Juliet and her mate whenever they saw each other, as if every meeting was their first all over again.
Driven by powerful instinct and an overwhelming attraction, Max wanted—more than she had ever wanted anything in her life—to sag into his grasp. She wanted him to hold her.
But she dared not give in to it, and with the strength she had just used in saying no to her sister, she steeled herself against his touch.
Because she knew, just from looking in his eyes, that his animal didn't want her.
GIO
The gorgeous womansupported by Gio's light grasp wrenched away from him, her face turning steely as if he had mortally offended her. "I'm fine," she said.
Gio made no attempt to hold on to her. She seemed perfectly stable now, even if she had looked like she was about to faint a moment ago. He couldn't imagine what had triggered it. She had been perfectly fine, gazing at him in a shocked kind of way. And then she had gone completely ashen beneath her beautiful tan complexion, and now she was looking at him in a way that was as hard as nails.
It must be difficult to be a woman in her business, he supposed. He sensed damage in her, a recognition coming to him in a way he could not quite define, and now there was a hostility he hoped he had done nothing to cause.
Perhaps he had stared too long for politeness, because Max was exquisite. She was compact and solid, short enough that the top of her head barely came up to his shoulder. When she had grasped his hand, he felt calluses there, along with a practiced strength. She had a square, strong face, a defined jaw, and large, deep brown eyes framed by thick lashes.Movie-star eyes,he thought, although the frowning slashes of her dark brows and the slightly crooked nose made it a face of quirky character rather than a picture-perfect movie-star face, which he found that he liked even better. Her hair was black, pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail.
Gio had a sudden vision of what her hair might look like down, framing her face in raven-colored waves, softening the sharp points of her jaw and directing attention to her amazing eyes. He forced himself to banish the tempting image. She was an incredibly attractive woman, but he was here to hire her, not to romance her. He must keep this strictly business.
But perhaps later, when all this business is done, we might try romancing a bit.
Once he was no longer being chased around the world by magic-flinging goons, that is. He could hardly expect a woman to relax on a bed of rose petals under those conditions.
And there was nothing at all soft or inviting about her now. He wondered if her amazed and even delighted look when he walked in had been due to mistaking him for someone else. Now the briefly glimpsed softness in her eyes was completely frozen out.
Cara mia,he thought,what happened to you, to put all that steel in your frown?
Max went back behind her desk. "Do you have business with me, or were you planning to stand there all day?" she asked briskly. "I have a busy schedule."
"Yes, of course." Gio crossed the room to the chair in front of her desk. Max shuffled papers on the desktop as if she wanted something to do with her hands. He wondered if he was making her nervous. Could she sense what was wrong with him somehow? That would explain why she had suddenly changed her mood as soon as she got near him. He wasn't used to being around other shifters now that he was one of them, and he didn't know much about what they could feel with their extra senses. He knew they had perceptions that humans did not.
What had she sensed about him? He would like to know.
Thinking about that made him realize that if he stayed in her office, he was potentially compromising her. He couldn't be entirely sure that the Black Robes hadn't followed him here from Italy. Getting on the move would be a good idea.
"Have you had lunch?" he asked. "We could talk over a meal."
She looked up quickly with a flash of—something? Hope was what it looked like, but she met his eyes briefly and the steel shutters slammed down behind her level gaze before he could get more than a glimpse.
"If that's a pickup line ..." she began, but then paused as if she wasn't sure how to end that sentence.
"No, of course not, it is the furthest thing from my mind," Gio lied, and saw her face, if anything, grow cooler. "There is a very great danger after me, and I'd like to talk about it somewhere that isn't your place, just in case something happens. They rarely strike this quickly after I've traveled, but they can trace me. This is what I want your help with."
As he spoke, her face changed, losing the inexplicable hostility and becoming intrigued.
"Who's after you?" she asked.
"A magical cult," Gio said simply.
He wasn't sure how he expected her to react to that, but after gazing at him without expression for a moment, she got up with the same graceful, competent speed that he had noticed before when she moved around her office.
