Hot Item (Hot Zone 3)

He’d sent Lizzie to say goodbye to whomever she wanted to before they left and he had a hunch she’d made a beeline for the ladies’ room because his daughter was nowhere to be found.

He had to admit the evening wasn’t a total bust. He found a surprising satisfaction in having made a tentative peace with his biological father after all these years. He didn’t know what the future held for them, but he had a positive feeling where before he’d felt only anger and disappointment. Not bad for a party he hadn’t wanted to attend.

He glanced around but he didn’t see Lizzie and wondered if she’d decided to meet him by the entrance. He’d turned and started for the door, when a light touch on the shoulder stopped him.

Having had his share of people and small talk for the evening, he jerked around with every intention of abruptly excusing himself without a long explanation. And then he saw Sophie.

“Care to dance?” She spoke boldly, but in her eyes he saw vulnerability.

She obviously wasn’t sure what to expect of him. And damned if a part of him didn’t want to just turn and walk away to make her feel as rejected as she’d made him feel all night long.

Instead he placed his hand in hers and led the way to the dance floor. Although he tried to keep an emotional distance, he found it difficult when holding her in his arms, inhaling her unique scent and knowing how her soft curves fit so perfectly against him.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, his voice gruff.

She drew a trembling breath. “Not really.”

Her words surprised him. “I’d have thought you’d be thrilled to celebrate your uncle and Lola’s marriage.”

“I am.”

“But?” He swung her around and eased them away from the prying eyes of her family, who stood too close to where they danced.

She tipped her head back. Moisture fringed her lashes, making her blue eyes glassy. “I’m…lonely.”

He blinked, certain he’d heard her wrong. “I don’t understand. Your entire family is here. How could you feel alone?”

She treated him to a grim smile. “I’ve been asking myself that same question. All my life, I told myself that family is all that matters. First we needed to stay together after my parents died and later we just needed each other.”

By her serious tone of voice, he sensed things had shifted for her in a way that had affected her deeply.

“But now…” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes grew even more glazed and unfocused.

She was obviously thinking about what to say next. It was difficult not to make suggestions to lead her to the conclusions he wanted to hear, but he refrained. “Go on,” he said, not wanting her to think he wasn’t listening.

She nodded. “Have you ever been surrounded by people you loved and yet been completely alone? That’s such a surreal thought and yet that’s exactly what happened tonight.”

He understood her, because being here tonight with his daughter and the man whose approval and love he had always sought hadn’t been enough for him, either. Not with Sophie little more than an arm’s distance away physically but emotionally on the other side of the earth.

“I realized tonight that the family I hold so precious isn’t enough anymore,” Sophie whispered. “I need more.”

Despite their slow and easy dancing, Riley nearly tripped on his own feet, because her words gave him a shot of hope for a future between them for the first time.

“It’s confusing,” she said, obviously talking things through for both herself and for him.

“What is?” He switched his grip, lacing his fingers through hers.

“All the rules in my life have shifted. It’s like I’ve done a one-eighty and now I can’t find firm ground.”

“I can relate,” he muttered. The way Riley’s stomach was bouncing around inside him, he couldn’t settle down, either. She was giving him explanations with no firm conclusions and his nerves were shot waiting to see what exactly she was trying to say to him.

She smiled. “I know I’m talking in circles, but I need to do this my way.”

And their ways were never quite the same, which was what had given her pause to begin with, Riley knew. So he shut up and let her continue. Otherwise he might lose this one last chance—at what, he hadn’t a clue.

He could only hope.

“So I looked around the room and realized that I had half-a-dozen examples in front of me of people who had conquered their fears, and I could either do the same or end up alone.” She grinned at him, her smile too bright, too forced, her fear of rejection palpable.