Whatever history existed between those men, it did not require explanation.
He looked toward Grace instead.
“You know me.
We were talking about the legal aid program.
I introduced you to people.
That’s all.”
Grace’s face hardened.
“I met you tonight.”
The man opened his mouth.
She continued, more slowly, “And you spent twenty minutes asking which firms I was applying to, whether I had accepted a summer placement, and whether I had access to document-review systems.”
My stomach tightened.
I remembered watching them through my lens earlier.
Grace had looked animated, flattered by the attention of people who seemed connected and important.
At the time, I had thought nothing of it.
Now every smile in those photographs looked different.
Luca’s gaze moved to Grace.
“That is why I crossed the room.”
She looked at him coldly.
“You crossed the room to call me desperate.”
“Yes.”
“And stupid.”
“I did not call you stupid.”
“You found a creative way around the word.”
His jaw shifted.
“I needed you away from them.”
“Then you could have said, ‘Grace, please step away from these men.’”
Luca glanced at the crowd surrounding us.
“They would have followed.”
“And humiliating me was your brilliant alternative?”
“No.”
That answer surprised everyone.
He looked directly at her.
“It was the fastest one.”
Grace folded her arms.
“It was also cruel.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
I watched him carefully.
He was not apologizing yet.
But neither was he hiding behind the authority that seemed to make everyone else in the room afraid of him.
The blond man seized the opening.
“This is insane.
He walks into a charity gala, throws accusations around, and everyone assumes he must know something because of his name?”
Several guests looked uncomfortable.
That was the first intelligent thing he had done.
He was reminding everyone who Luca Pellegrini was.
Whatever exactly Luca controlled in Manhattan, his reputation had entered the hotel before he did.
People did not whisper his name because he chaired foundations.
The blond man spread his hands.
“Ask yourself who the dangerous person is here.”
Luca almost smiled.
Then he looked at me.
“He is trying to make you afraid of the wrong thing.”
“I’m capable of being afraid of multiple things.”
That earned the faintest flicker of amusement from him.
Grace did not share it.
