The Dance Off

“Architect, actually,” he said, the gleam morphing into a sexy smile, which, when surrounded by all that rough stubble, was as good as a loaded weapon.

“Is that why you’re interested in my building, then?”

When he was silent a while she risked a glance to find his sexy smile had faltered. Right, back to being Mr Tall Dark and Taciturn. She gave herself a mental slap, and a reminder not to forget it. Not if she wanted to make it through the next month and a half without becoming unhinged.

“That’s not the kind of architecture I do.”

“What is?”

“High rises. Skyscrapers. Big, tall shiny ones.”

“Ah, compensating.”

His laughter came from nowhere, his eyes crinkling as deep waves of joy rolled from his lungs. People stopped. People turned. People sighed. People closed in as if magnetised. All of them women.

Rolling her eyes, Nadia shouldered past them out of the food hall and into the weak wet sunshine. “Your car’s not that flash, though,” she threw over her shoulder, in case he’d made it out of there alive, “which always gives a girl hope.”

“My car is plenty flash,” he said, having caught back up. “You’ve just never been inside her.”

“Your car’s a girl? My hopes for you are falling.”

He shot her a look that was half lit with laughter, but mostly lit with something else. Something that made her feel as if baby ants were tap dancing all over her skin.

“So, Miss Nadia,” he said, leaning in close enough his voice rumbled through her, “care to tell me about these hopes of yours?”

Her tummy rolled in honeyed pleasure. She bit her lip in atonement. “Not on your life, Ace. Now, why not bring back the glory of beautiful old buildings with beams strong enough to swing from if it’s not about—” she glanced at his crotch and whistled “—you know?”

He blinked, then grinned. And the honeyed pleasure hardened so fast it fractured into a thousand pieces that pierced her insides with hot little spikes of desire.

“I interned with a few mobs after I graduated. The first commercial firm offered me a good package and I took it. Learnt a lot, learnt fast. Went out on my own a few years later.”

“Hence the eighty-hour weeks.”

“Hence. Helps that it’s immensely satisfying work. For the most part...” The frown was back a moment before it slid away.

“Well, good for you. And I’m sure your...towers are awe-inspiring.”

He shot her another of those glances, those new ones, filled with humour and that flicker of heat that he could never quite quell even when he was being all distant and haughty. This one came with a new angle, as if he was trying to figure her out.

“How about you—you like teaching?” he asked.

“It pays the bills.”

“Damned by faint praise.”

“Said the man who finds his own work satisfying for the most part?”

She expected a frown, and instead got a smile. The kind that slipped under her defences like a hot knife through butter.

Mmm. She’d need a flashlight, a map, and a millennium to figure this one out. She only had a few short weeks. Not enough time. Yet way too much.

She stopped and held out her hands for her bags. “Thanks for the help, Ryder, but I’ve got feeling back in my fingers. I can take it from here.”

He just stood there, the muscles in his arms bunching as he slowly rearranged the bags, his dark eyes unreadable.

She clicked her fingers at him but he still didn’t move. “Ryder—”

“It was Sam on the phone the other night,” he said, the words seeming to tear from inside him. Then, “She was the reason I had to leave.”

As if he’d thrown a bucket of warm water over her, Nadia felt herself pink all over. The heat grew when she remembered the one part she’d made herself forget—the torture in his eyes that he’d had to leave her.

Sam. Of course. But what didn’t make sense was that he hadn’t just said so. Unless...

Nadia swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper as she asked, “Oh, Ryder. Is she okay?”

He lifted an arm, as if to reassure her, then realised both hands were full. “Nothing like that. She’s fine. But that night she was upset. Very upset.”

Nadia kicked herself for not noticing anything at Sam and Ben’s rehearsal Thursday night. It seemed the Fitzgerald family as a whole were good at keeping things close to the chest. “So what happened?”

“Our father happened,” he said, and since he had her lunch and next day’s leftovers in his hands, when he started to walk she had no choice but to follow.

“Your father’s alive? I’d assumed... Since you’re walking Sam down the aisle...”