“I’ll be sure not to eat the wedding cake,” Eleanor said before she could stop herself. She was naturally chatty and even a bad mood couldn’t quite keep her from bantering.

“Ah, she reads,” Daniel said. “Good. I’m trying to reorganize my library this week. An extra pair of hands will be a great help.”

“Eleanor loves books,” he said. “She even works in a bookstore so at the very least you’ll have a perfectly alphabetized collection.”

“Oh, it’s already alphabetized,” Daniel said as he ushered them inside the house. “I’m just not sure which alphabet. Certainly not the English one.”

Eleanor glanced around Daniel’s home as they made their way to what she guessed was the drawing room. The house seemed vast but warm and would have been cozy but for its enigmatic master. In the presence of such pain, Eleanor doubted she could ever feel at home.

Daniel gestured toward a chair and he sat down. One glance from him brought her to her knees at his feet. In private she always sat at his feet. That she was to take the standard submissive posture in front of Daniel meant only one thing—Daniel was one of them. Or had been, at least, before his wife died.

“Could I offer either of you a drink?” Daniel asked, taking a seat on the sofa across from them.

“No, thank you.” Eleanor let him speak for her. “I really must be going. My flight leaves in three hours.”

“Back to Rome again?” Daniel asked.

“Again,” he said, sounding tired of it all.

“I’ll walk you out.”

Usually he would never leave her without a long and intimate goodbye. But this time he merely stood, brushed a finger gently across her cheek and chin, and left her alone in the room. She waited on the floor although she desperately wanted to run after him and beg him to take her with him. But she was far too well-trained to break a submissive posture for the sole purpose of engaging in what she knew would be a futile emotional outburst.

After a few moments, Daniel returned to the drawing room. He said nothing at first and Eleanor could only keep her silence and her eyes lowered.

“Please, sit,” he said, his voice kind and quietly amused. “In a chair.”

“Oh, a chair. How extraordinarily generous,” she said, unable to maintain her submissive comportment now that she was truly alone with Daniel.

“I understand that you’re upset with this arrangement.”

Eleanor smirked. Upset?

“I get it,” she said as she sat in the armchair behind her. “This is good cop, bad cop, right? Bad cop works me over and leaves and then good cop comes in and offers me the milk and the cookies and the nice comfy chair. How cute.”

“He warned me you were smart. He neglected to mention you were a smart-ass as well.”

She had to give Daniel some credit. He was impressively unimpressed by her sarcasm. Tougher even than he looked.