Genevieve looked up at him.
Most people lowered their eyes when Lorenzo Costa stood too close. Some apologized before knowing what they had done wrong. Others tried to impress him, which was usually worse.
Genevieve did neither.
She met his gaze with the cold stillness of someone who had once survived worse than intimidation.
Costa tilted his head slightly.
“Tell me, Signorina Hayes,” he murmured. “Are you a ghost, or are you merely haunting the wrong room?”
For a moment, the old life flashed behind her eyes.
A villa burning against a black sky.
A locked room.
A woman screaming her name.
A man telling her to run and never turn back.
Then the memory was gone.
Genevieve had spent fifteen years preparing for the past to return. She had imagined police, assassins, lawyers, strangers at her door.
She had not imagined a man like Lorenzo Costa asking the question so gently.