Sevin combed his fingers through his rain-soaked raven hair, slicking it back. The woman across from him watched the gesture with thick-lashed dark eyes. At least she didn’t shrink away or gawk at him in scandalized fascination as most humans did these days.

Instead, she only glanced outside at the crowd and then leaned toward him with an earnest expression in her soft gray eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

His face hardened, lip curling as he sat back, stretching out his boots so she had to move her hem aside to make way. “You should be. I wonder that you dare show your face in Rome again.”

“Oh.” Now she drew back, her posture going ramrod straight as an understanding of his meaning drained the color from her pretty features. “I meant to apologize for this throng’s treatment of you. But yes, you are right of course. I–I should formally apologize for the pain my family has caused yours as well. And I am sincerely sorry.” She pressed a gloved hand to her breast and leaned forward again as if to willing him to believe in her sincerity.

What the hells was she wearing? Sevin wondered. Sackcloth? It was an unusually warm early autumn day yet she was buttoned up to her throat, every inch of skin covered save her pale face.

“More so than I can say,” she went on. “Sorry to the depths of my soul for what happened to your brother. I cannot even begin to imagine what he must have suffered.” She drew a shuddering breath and sent him a gaze that pleaded for his charity.

Except for the color of her blond hair she seemed nothing like her family, at least on the surface. But evil in the blood ran deep.

Abruptly, the carriage gave a hard lurch and she threw out elbow, whacking it against the window to keep from falling.

“Damn annoying humans,” Sevin bit out. With a careless flick of his hand he erected an invisible cloak of protection around the conveyance. Then came the startled sounds of those who felt themselves unexpectedly thrust away by his bespelling. The carriage abruptly ceased its rocking.

“We’re not all bad,” she informed him tartly as she straightened again and righted the little hat perched atop her head.

Ignoring her, he rapped twice on the ceiling of the carriage, a signal for the driver to move on now that he’d made passage possible. Since the crowd was still close, they began carving a slow path.

“Tell me, Signorina. Are you one of the bad ones?”

She froze, her hands clenching in her lap. “What?”

“I think you are. I think you are a Patrizzi with the same blackened heart as your mother and brother had. And I want you to stay away from my family, including Dane’s wife,” he announced, getting right to the point. “In fact, I want you gone. Tomorrow. Out of Rome.”

“What? Why should—?”

“Why?” he interrupted in outrage. “Because your family has done mine unimaginable, irreparable harm. Because the same night my parents died, your family abducted Luc and Dane. Kept them enslaved in the bowels of the catacombs under your family home. Dane may have escaped the worst of what they had in mind, but Luc was tortured in ways he’s never revealed. In ways that still eat at his soul.”

She drew in a harsh breath, tears welling in her eyes. “But I had no part in that. Eva said your family investigated and found me innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“We found no evidence that you were guilty. There’s a distinct difference. Eva may believe in your innocence, but my brothers and I are of the theory that you could not have been completely unaware of what went on under the earth beneath your own feet for so many years.”

“I am innocent, I tell you. Bona Dea was my mother’s business enterprise. And my brother’s. I didn’t know what was happening down there. That her cosmetics were created only through the abuse of your kind. And if I could undo everything and put it all right again, I swear to you that I would.”

His hand cut the air between them, in an innately Italian gesture. “You cannot put it right. No one can. But you can do the decent thing. Go. So that my youngest brother will not be reminded.”

Averting her gaze to the window, Signorina Patrizzi visibly struggled to collect herself. Or was it all an act? When she looked at him again, Sevin found himself drowning. He hadn’t expected her to be like…this. So open and seemingly without subterfuge. He’d always been a shrewd judge of women. And this one seemed…wounded, deep inside where it didn’t show.

One of her hands was restlessly rearranging the fall of her skirt. His eyes dropped, noting the way the fabric molded slender thighs. He shifted on the bench seat, fighting the insidious arousal that seeped through him. Damn! He worked with exceptionally attractive women around him day and night, and was never so strongly affected. What was it about this human that got to him so?

This unwanted attraction to her had plagued him since the first time he’d seen her. She’d been wearing blue that day, he remembered, her skirts and her blond hair lifting in the breeze as she strolled in the distance through the Forum ruins with Eva.

Afterward, he’d found himself listening keenly whenever her name was mentioned in his company. Had found himself sorely disappointed to learn that she was human. He’d sworn off human women in his late teens, and with good reason. Still, this infernal hunger for her had persisted.

“I’ve only just returned from several months of travel,” she said coolly, refusing to look at him now. “I assure you I intend to live a quiet life, a respectable one. No one—not even your brother—will know that I’m here.”

As the carriage broke free of the crowd and began moving at a normal clip, his low grudging burst between them like a provocative explosion.

“I’ll know.”