Taken by the Highest Bidder

He saw she was staring and she flushed, looked away and then up into his face. His gaze met hers, and he gave her a long level look but said nothing.

“I was going to dry Gabby’s wet things in here,” she said awkwardly. “They’re still so wet.”

“Leave them on the bed. I’ll do it.”

She nodded, a hasty embarrassed nod, before dropping the clothes and leaving.

But back in the living room Sam couldn’t forget what she’d seen. Cristiano’s skin, so tan and gorgeous above his hips, looked nothing short of tortured below. He’d obviously been badly hurt, burned in a fire. But how and when?

Cristiano reappeared moments later, dressed, his black hair combed, the curls tamed, the sage linen shirt open at the throat, the tails out over his sturdy khaki pants. He was so tall, so male that Sam found herself wanting to move toward him, to touch him and see if he was as warm and hard as he looked.

It was a crazy thought. It made no sense because she didn’t trust him, didn’t want to like him, and yet she was also so drawn to him, like a fly to sticky paper.

Her attraction, as well as her ambivalence, scared her. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in years and years…since Charles, actually, and yet as much as she cared about Charles, she’d never felt this kind of curiosity or interest. She’d never really thought of Charles as a man. In her mind, Charles was always just a good person—kind, compassionate, saintly—but not physical, and certainly not sexual.

“When did she fall asleep?” Cristiano asked, gesturing to Gabriela who was curled up on the floor.

“Right after her bath. I went to get her hot cocoa, and when I came back she was out.”

“I worry about her sleeping so close to the fire. I’ll carry her to bed.” Cristiano crouched down and scooped Gabriela into his arms as though she weighed nothing, and yet as he stood, she saw his jaw tighten, an almost imperceptible tensing of the muscles in his jaw.

He still hurt, she thought.

Funny, if she hadn’t seen the actual burns on his thighs, she wouldn’t have known he’d been injured. He compensated well, but now she could see things she hadn’t seen before, the adaptations he’d made to compensate for loss of agility, probably even muscle weakness. Like his slower walk. She’d thought it was arrogance, confidence. Instead it was practicality. And when he sat, he nearly always chose a chair with arms, sitting down by leaning on the chair’s right arm, and then dropping into the seat.

As he returned to the living room she studied his walk more closely, saw for the first time the slight hitch in his step, how he put a little more weight on one leg than the other.

Probably playing with Gabby in the snow hadn’t helped, she thought. He didn’t have boots and in his leather dress shoes he wouldn’t have had much traction.

He casually took a seat in one of the old leather chairs facing the fire. And he did just what she remembered: he leaned on the chair’s right arm, dropped his right hip onto the leather cushion and then the left. His thick hair, now nearly dry, looked glossy in the firelight and the dark beard shadowing his jaw emphasized his straight nose and his firm expressive mouth.

And Sam, who’d felt such conflicting, ambivalent things for Cristiano, felt something new. Tenderness. Admiration.

Despite everything, she liked him. But she had no desire to complicate an already complicated situation, so any attraction she felt would have to be suppressed. Gabriela came first. Gabriela’s stability was everything.

“I’m sorry I walked in on you,” Sam said, taking a seat on the couch. “I should have at least knocked.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure it’s not the first time you saw a naked man.”

She nodded, blushing a little, thinking there was no point in telling him that she actually hadn’t seen that many naked men. He probably wouldn’t believe that she was still a virgin at twenty-eight.

She waited a moment, hoping he’d say something about the burns she’d seen, but he didn’t, and it really wasn’t any of her business.

If change was required, it was on Sam’s part. Sam knew she was too sensitive, too shut-down, too controlling. She’d thought it was her nanny training, but it wasn’t the two years spent at nanny college that had made her so disciplined. It was fear.