“I prefer watching you.” He signaled a waiter, then took a glass from the tray for her himself. “You move well, Hannah, as though you wouldn’t make a sound in an empty room.”

That had as much to do with her training in tae kwon do as her childhood lessons in ballet. “I was raised not to make disturbances.” She accepted the glass because it freed one of her hands. “Thank you. This is a lovely room.” She said it casually, as casual as the glance she sent sweeping over the guests. Her reflection was thrown back at her a dozen times. Hers, and Bennett’s, close together.

“I’ve always been partial to it.” Now that she was here, he was content. He’d almost heard the click of things falling into their proper place when he’d taken her hand in his. “As it happens it was another Bennett, some generations back, who started the collection. It seems he was miserably vain without much cause and continued to buy mirrors in hopes one would tell him a different story.”

She had to laugh. For a moment she felt almost as though she belonged there with the gowns and the glass and the glamour. “I’d say you made that up, but it sounds foolish enough to be true.”

“You have the most alluring laugh,” he murmured. “It’s a laugh that reminds me how you look with your hair down and your eyes dark.”

She couldn’t allow this. Hannah told herself she was foolish to be moved when she knew how clever he was with women. She was more foolish to be caught off guard when she knew what a dangerous game was being played. This time her voice was cool and formal.

“Shouldn’t you see to your guests?”

“I have been.” He passed his thumb gently over her knuckles. It was a small gesture and an intimate one that made her wish once again she could have been lovely for him. That she could, very simply, have been for him. “While I was waiting for you.” He stepped closer. Because she was already wedged into a corner, there was no place to go. “You smell wonderful.”

“Bennett, please.” She almost lifted a hand to his chest before she remembered eyes were on them. In defense she lifted her glass instead.

“Hannah, I can’t tell you how it pleases me to see you become unnerved. The only time you become at all unsure of yourself is when I’m just a bit too close.”

It was true, and a bitter pill to swallow for a woman who survived by being sure of herself. “People are watching.”

“Then walk in the gardens with me later, when we can be alone.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Are you afraid I’d seduce you?”