have a past. What skeletons are lurking in the family closet? Do you have a mad brother locked away in the attic?”

He smiled slowly. “Nothing like that, I assure you. However, there’s one thing you might find interesting. I’m restoring my family estate in Virginia. They lost it after the war.”

“Which war?”

He looked vague for a moment, then replied, “The Civil War, as you call it up here.”

“Personally, I never saw anything particularly civil about a war.”

He smiled at my joke. “I’m sure you know what befell many southern families during reconstruction. They couldn’t keep up the taxes and debts and so on. Thankfully the family fortunes revived later. The estate is called Caithness, after the Sinclair family seat in Scotland. The house was in ruins when I acquired it. That was ten years ago— it’s nearly finished. You should see.”

Was that an invitation? It had the ring of one. “Is it one of those great big white houses with the columns?” I had stopped eating and leaned my cheek against my hand.

“It’s red brick and a bit smaller than those antebellum palaces you see in the movies, built in the Georgian period. I’ve been in New York hunting suitable antiques. Some of the old pieces were salvageable, but many were beyond redemption. I’m not boring you?”

Not a chance, I could have stared at him forever but a warm, drowsy feeling had come over me. His face became animated, where before his manner had been so composed. He had tremendous feeling for this house. Touching. Still I caught a whiff of desperation. Just what was it about him? Something indefinable.

“Not at all,” I replied. “This place has great meaning for you. It gives you a sense of your history.”

He was surprised by my response. “You understand.”

Our eyes met again. I wasn’t quite up to the challenge and changed the subject. “I’ve a bit of history myself.”

“Do tell.”

“After you, I’ve got two more courses.”

“You do have a healthy appetite,” he said, observing the nearly empty plate before me. His blue eyes narrowed, as he rested that chin on his hand. “Are all of your appetites this prodigious?”

I aped his drawl, “Now you aren’t being a gentleman Mistah Sinclair.”

“But you like me better for it, don’t you?”

“You’re a very bad boy, I think.”

He ran his finger along the bottom of his lower lip. “That, my dear Miss Disantini, remains to be seen.”

The waiter placed my entree before me. Mr. Salvi must have been convinced I was truly starving and ordered the chef to double my portion. Ethan laughed at my amazed expression. “Are you up to it?”

I observed the mound of food on the plate. “I begin to doubt myself.”

“The Bird of Prey?”

“Huh? Oh, the play. That’s just acting.”

“You have a bit of the bird of prey in you as well. You’re sinking your little talons into me— not that I mind in the least. But I must warn you— you haven’t met such prey as me before.”

I watched him furtively between bites. Oh, he was very easy on the eyes but there was something odd about his looks. He was inhumanly beautiful. Hair too glossy black, eyes too icy blue— he looked about thirty-five but didn’t have the tiniest lines, smooth and pore-less as a young boy and although very fair, not pale or unhealthy looking, rich red color infusing his skin and lips. Like some celluloid image from Hollywood, he was just too much of everything to be true.

Still there was something else— in the glitter of the ice blue eyes, in the precise control of his movements, so different than anyone I’d ever seen, but not just because of his background. Something under this disciplined and elegant exterior, maybe the posture of his powerful frame, or the arrogant set of his full mouth spoke savagery. Danger. Somewhere in the dark corners we’d met before… ”

Joe stifled a laugh. “The gothic stuff… really Mia.”

“It’s all true. He was all that. Ethan was unlike anyone else.”

“And of course you fell madly in love with him?”

“Madly… yes, it was like madness… ” I must have been sitting there for awhile with my mouth hanging open, because he waved a hand in front of my eyes.

“Are you still here, Mia? You must tell your story.”

I related my history while he listened intently.

“He appraised me with the air of a connoisseur. “You’ve a European flair. Women of your nationality have a certain, vitality, about them, very attractive.”

I shook my finger at him. “You know