‘Sonia. I didn’t hear you come in.’
He emerged from his room just as she walked by. One large hand lifted to steady her arm as she wobbled on one heel.
Sonia had time to feel another wobble, this time inside. As if her body was racked by a silent earth tremor. Then his hand fell away and Sonia wished it hadn’t.
She frowned. This was so not like her. She wasn’t some pathetic, sex-starved miss, pining for a man’s attention. Until Eric she’d chosen to avoid intimacy, having seen too young the dreadful toll when male-female relationships turned toxic. And since Eric...
Okay, maybe she wassex-starved, but that wasn’t a tragedy. After all, sex had never quite lived up to expectations, had it? Her one serious relationship had been driven more by the desire for emotional intimacy.
But that had been a total sham, at least as far as Eric was concerned.
‘Sonia? Are you okay? You look quite fierce.’ Renzo’s forehead furrowed and even that looked good on him.
Her heart sank at what that said about her state of mind.
‘Do I?’ She felt heat surge in her veins and forbade herself to blush. She’d done enough of that the day they’d met. As if she weren’t a perfectly capable, organised, independent woman who had no time or inclination for a man in her life.
How about one in your bed?The sly voice wrapped itself around her brain. One who’s only interested in pleasure with no strings.
Sonia had never been a no strings sort of woman. She’d always had dreams and goals, and mindless pleasure wasn’t part of that. And yet—
‘Do you have plans for this evening?’
‘Sorry?’ She looked up into dark eyes and something jagged through her. Something that instantly banished tiredness.
‘I’m going to a party. I thought you might want to come too. You’ve been working hard. It’s time for a break.’
His words sounded a warning. It was the sort of thing Eric had said when her devotion to work interfered with what hewanted. As if she should be available at his beck and call though he never returned the favour. Sonia was about to reject the invitation when Renzo continued.
‘I thought you might like to meet a few people away from work. Expand your pool of acquaintances.’
‘That’s...considerate of you.’
Renzo shrugged, those broad shoulders in a casual shirt drawing Sonia’s attention to his magnificent physicality. She hadn’t stood this close to him since the day she arrived and that crazy jangling excitement was back.
Back? It had never gone. She’d just spent the week pretending it was jetlag and the disorientation of a new job and new country, making her feel on edge.
‘I know how difficult it can be in a new, unfamiliar place, away from friends.’
He was simply being kind, as he had been all week. He wasn’t inviting her on a date.
Disappointment clawed at her. What had happened to the man who’d been attracted to her? Who’d invited her to have sex the day she arrived? To her confusion he’d disappeared utterly.
She looked up into his impassive features, searching for something more than kindness. Surprised by how much she wanted more. Her whole being thrummed with awareness of this man. So much that the sensible woman she’d been for twenty-six years knew it would be a mistake to go out with him, even on a non-date.
Yet he was right. She had to get to know people. So far she knew her co-workers, who were friendly enough but wary. Sonia guessed it would take time to establish herself there. Other than that she knew her sister and brother-in-law, both out of town at the moment. And Renzo.
Sonia told herself it was his impassive expression that decided her. Not the fact she wanted to be with him.
‘Thank you, Renzo. I’d like that.’
* * *
It had been a mistake, inviting her to the party.
Renzo wanted Sonia alone, not surrounded by a horde of people intent on letting their hair down at week’s end. Or on being with her.
He especially didn’t appreciate the men who made a beeline for her, trying to monopolise her. He’d spent most of the night posting ‘keep off, private property’ signs. Even then a few had persisted, mainly because he couldn’t be too blatant about keeping them at bay. His feisty, prickly-when-challenged housemate would be furious at any hint of public possessiveness.