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Chapter One

It was starting to rain when I got back, and I darted up Lucia’s steps, holding the plastic bag that held the tablecloth over my head.

“Excuse me?”

The deep, resonant masculine voice startled me into dropping the bag. It slid down the porch stairs, coming to a stop at the feet of the man who stood there, looking up at me. He stooped to pick it up. Rain sparkled on the spiky tips of his dark hair. His eyes met mine, and my breathing stopped. Every­thing stopped. Including time.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

His words started the clock again. That’s okay, I tried to say, but no words would form in my mouth. I gave him a jerky little nod. My glasses were spotted with rain, so I dried them on my sweater, or at least smeared the drops around some. Even out of focus, he looked amazing.

I couldn’t focus on any particular detail that stood out amid the general excellence. His face was wet with rain. A sexy shadow of beard stubble accented all the sculpted planes and angles of his strong jaw. He had a bump on his nose. His eyes were pale green. Dark brows, long thick lashes. Broad shoulders, a barrel chest, and muscular legs in faded work jeans. I was willing to bet he had a stellar ass to match. I was definitely going to verify that hypothesis at my earliest opportunity. Discreetly, of course.

And I horrified myself that I could be knocked on my ass by something so frivolous today, of all days. I had to shut this down right now, before I lost all respect for myself.

He observed me keenly as the rain pattered down. It gave me the uncomfortable sensation that everything noteworthy about me was written all over me, in a language that he could read in one sweeping glance. Which was unfortunate today, since God knows, I was not at my best.

I put my glasses back on. In that moment of grace before they got spotted up again, and before I could forbid my brain to do it, I flash-memorized every detail of him. The winged sweep of his thick brows, the grooves that bracketed his mouth. The smile lines. But he wasn’t smiling at the moment.

He wiped rain off his forehead with his sleeve. “Are you Nancy D’Onofrio?”

This epitome of hot manhood knew my name? I nodded, wishing I’d opted to wash my hair this morning. The tight bun was a lazy, deal-with-it-later choice. A peeled-onion, tight-lipped schoolmarm still in yesterday’s stale funeral black, eyes swollen up, breath reeking of alcohol. I looked like a walking cluster of big red flags.

This guy, by contrast, looked clear-eyed and clean-living. He prob­ably went to bed at ten and got up at five to stand on his head for ten minutes, or run ten miles, or something insane like that. He probably drank green tea, not espresso.

I saw him in my mind’s eye, shirtless. Moving smoothly from yoga pose to yoga pose.

Whoa. How shallow was I?

It’s just distraction. The answer bubbled up from a calmer place inside my head. He was eye candy, and my eyes were hungry. Gawking at a beautiful man was a way not to think about the piece that had been torn from my life. And the ragged hole left behind.

Oh shit. Now my eyes were fogging up. The guy’s mouth was moving, and I’d just been staring. Mouth open, no doubt. I hadn’t followed him at all.

“… Mrs. D’Onofrio here? I had an appointment with her this morning.”

Oh, God, not again. Irrational anger flared inside me. Why was it my goddamn job to announce this catastrophe to the whole world? I’d been the one to find Lucia’s body. I’d been the one to call the cops. I’d been the one to call my sisters. I’d gone up and down the block, telling neighbors, activating their community phone trees. I’d told the delivery people, I’d dealt with the funeral home, I’d written the obit. Could somebody else please take a fucking turn?

Not his fault, I reminded myself. I shook my head. “Lucia’s dead.” My voice was colorless.

His face went blank with shock. “Oh, my God. When?”

I rubbed my wet eyes under my glasses, took a deep breath, and tried again. “A few days ago,” I said. “The funeral was yesterday.”

He was silent for a long moment. “I am so sorry,” he said gently.

There was no good response to that. I’d learned that this week, to my great cost. I just nodded. “Yeah. Me, too. So who are you?”

“I’m Liam Knightly. I’m the carpenter. I’m here to start the work on the house.”

“Work? On the house? What work?”

“She didn’t tell you about the renovations she was planning?”

I shook my head. “I hadn’t spoken to her for a couple of weeks before she died.”

“Neither did I,” he said. “We set this date weeks ago.”

I shook my head. No clue what to do about him and his plans for Lucia’s house. He was an ambassador from that alternate timeline, the wonderful one that would have existed if Lucia hadn’t been … no. I had to stop the what-if thinking. It didn’t help.

Liam Knightly wiped the rain off his face. “Would it make you nervous if I stood under the porch roof with you? I’m getting drenched.”

“Uh, that’s fine,” I said distractedly. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you before. Do you want to come in? For a cup of coffee, or tea? If Lucia has tea. Or had, I guess I should say.” Damn. Babbling again. I did that when I got nervous.

Knightly’s eyes showed the subtle gleam of a smile. “Thank you, yes. Wait just one moment. I’ll go tell Eoin to wait.”

I watched him run lightly down the walk and concluded that his ass was as fine as his quadriceps had suggested that it might be. “You could both come in,” I called.

“No, he’s shy. He’ll be fine in the truck.” Knightly jerked open the driver’s side door and exchanged a few words with whoever sat on the passenger side. A few long, loping strides brought him back up to the porch.

It took me forever to get the locks open. My hands felt clumsy and thick. When the door finally swung wide, the smell of the funeral flowers was in­tensely strong.

Knightly followed me through the house. His footsteps were weirdly quiet for such a big man walking on such old, creaky floors. I snapped on the kitchen light and had a bad moment when I remembered how we’d trashed the place last night. Every sur­face was covered with spilled flour, shreds of dough, and the odd grape here and there, squished on the floor and the countertop. The scorched crusts of the schiacciata looked sad and unkempt on the fine china serving plate. Sticky port bottles lay empty and forlorn, both on and under the table.

He must think I was a total lush. A slob, too.

“We had a wake for her last night,” I felt compelled to explain. “Me and my sisters. Up all night with port wine and Tuscan pastry.”

Knightly nodded. “Sounds like an appropriate thing to do.”

I touched my aching head with my fingertips. “It seemed that way at the time,” I said dully. “So what was I… oh, yes. Coffee. Or tea.” I started rummaging in the kitchen drawers, feeling shaky and rattled. “Which do you prefer?”

“Tea, please. If Lucia has it. Had it.”

“I thought you’d pick tea,” I told him. “What kind? Green? Herbal?”

“Black tea if you have it,” he said. “With sugar. And milk if possible. I’m Irish. I get the tea thing from my folks.”

“I’m Irish, too,” I confessed.

His eyebrows lifted. “Really? With a name like D’Onofrio? Wasn’t Lucia …”

“Italian? God, yes. Down to her toenails.” Nancy yanked a green canister of Irish Breakfast tea out of the drawer. “Will this do?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“She adopted us,” I went on, rummaging for the teakettle. “She took us in when we were foster kids. I was the first one she found. I was thirteen. Nell and Vivi came later. My name was O’Sullivan, then.” Pans rattled and clanked as I shoved them around. “O’Sullivan was my mother’s name. I don’t know about my father. He could have been Italian, for all I know. The way things went, I was lucky to have a surname at all.”

“Hey,” he said gently. “You seem upset. You don’t have to tell me all this—”

“I was so glad when Lucia finally adopted me.” I couldn’t stop talking, although there was a tight quaver in my voice. “It was a dream come true. I was so proud she wanted me. I’ve been a D’Onofrio for more than half my life now, so I guess that means I’m Italian now too, whether the Italians want to claim me or not.” I yanked out a kettle that was nested in some other pans and ended up pulling the whole cluster out of the cupboard. They hit the floor with an ear-splitting clatter.

I stared down, the kettle clutched in my hand. I felt Liam Knightly’s big, warm hand at my elbow, gently steering me toward a kitchen chair, turning me around, then nudging me steadily backward until I lost my balance and was forced to sit down on it.

“Let me.” He took the kettle from my numb fingers.

I just sat there, speechless, and let him do it. He ran water into the kettle, set it on the stove, lit the gas. He gathered the pans and slid them back into the cupboard without so much as a sound. Without seeming to search for anything, he assembled sugar, mugs, spoons, milk. Damn, he was smooth.

He gently pushed the clutter aside on the table and draped a tea bag in each mug. Hot water gurgled pleasantly as he filled them. Steam rose.

Knightly put the kettle down and sat, waiting patiently. I was so embarrassed at my little freak-out. When I made no move to drink, he finally stirred some sugar and milk into both cups and nudged one toward me.

“Go on,” he urged. “Tea helps with everything. My mom always used to say that.”

I tried to smile. Took a cautious sip. It must have been the hot steam against my face, but suddenly tears were slipping down. They tickled my face, dangled from my chin, filled my nose. Damn that nose. Already puffy and red from yesterday’s tears.

“She was a wonderful lady,” Knightly said. “Pure quality.”

Right then, I wished desperately that I’d left my hair down, unwashed or not. I would have loved to tilt my head forward and have curtain of hair to hide behind.

But it was not to be. My hair was slicked back cruelly tight, every wisp smoothed, with my pale, wet face naked and exposed in the cold, gray light of morning.

“Yes,” I said. “She was. The best. In every way.”

The sounds of the morning smoothly shifted into the foreground as the silence lengthened—cars passing by, rain sluicing down the window glass. Steam curled up from the two cups.

Liam Knightly reached out and took my hand.

My first instinct was to yank it back, but I didn’t want to be rude, and he’d been so nice about the tea. Besides, he had a nice hand. Big, warm, callused. His gentle, careful grip made my own hand tingle.

“I lost my mother six years ago,” he offered. “I couldn’t breathe for weeks afterward.”

“Oh. So, um. You know,” I mumbled. “How it is.”

“Yes, I know.”

Tears blinded me again. He just sat there, sipping tea, clasping my hand. In my usual tense and anxious state, any kind of silence felt like dangerous emptiness that needed to be filled.

But Knightly’s silence was different. It made space for me. He didn’t seem embarrassed or put off by my little breakdown. He was in no hurry. He didn’t seem to be wondering how quickly he could get away from the whacked-out, grieving girl.

My hand felt good in his. Warm.

It occurred to me suddenly that this was the most intimacy I’d had—be­sides hugs from my sisters—since my last fiancé’s defection. And maybe a good long time before that, if I was honest. Maybe he was just being nice, but the patient way Liam Knightly held my hand, witnessing my tears without flinching, was more subtly erotic than anything I’d ever shared with Freedy. Or any of the others either, for that matter.

I mopped my eyes with a crumpled napkin, then felt a soft square of cloth tucked into my hand. A handkerchief, of all things. I looked at it, bemused. “Wow,” I said. “I didn’t know people still used these.”

“I’m old-fashioned,” he said. “My father liked them. It’s an artifact from a bygone age. One I happen to like.”

I dabbed my eyes with the crisply ironed cotton, wishing I looked prettier, and feeling stupid and childish for wishing it.

He squeezed my hand gently. “I don’t mean to touch anything painful, but could you tell me what actually happened to Lucia?”

The question jolted me out of my self-absorption. “Oh. Yeah. A thief broke into the house while she was here alone. The shock and fear must have provoked a heart attack.”

His mouth tightened. “That must have been so terrible for you.”

I nodded. “I was the one who found her, about two days later. I’d been calling her, but she hadn’t been answering. So I came to check on her. I was already scared for her.”

“Christ, that must’ve been hell.” His hand tightened. “Did he …” He hesitated, clearly afraid to ask. “Had the burglar hurt her?”

“Not as far as they could tell,” I told him. “The chain on the door was broken. The TV, computer, and stereo were gone. And Lucia’s jewelry. Just a petty thief, I guess.” I tugged my hand away. “Let’s get back to practical matters, okay?”

His smile flickered. “Whenever you like. There’s no rush.”

“I imagine you’re losing money right and left as the clock ticks,” I said.

“Not really,” he said. “I’m self-employed. And I choose not to see my time in that way. There’s always time for a cup of tea and condolences for a lost friend.”

“Ah.” Well. Just call me brittle, shallow, and uptight then, why didn’t he. “Okay. Anyhow, I have no idea what kind of arrangement you made with Lucia, but—”

“How about if I just tell you now?”

I retreated behind my tea mug. “Ah, okay.”

He pulled a square of folded paper out of his pocket, which proved to be a floor plan of Lucia’s ground floor. Several notes and edits had been made in Lucia’s distinctive, elegant script. It hurt to look at it.

“We chose this date to start the work,” he said. “She was going to make the changes to the ground floor that you see on that plan—build a new deck, put in teak flooring, redo both bathrooms and the kitchen, update the stairs, enlarge the upstairs closets, finish the attic, and add skylights in the upstairs bedrooms.”

“Ah … wow.” I stared at the plan, bemused. “I am so sorry that it all went up in smoke. I imagine that will create big problems for your work schedule.”

He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I have plenty of work, and for this job, I’d only hired one assistant. But I do have a truck full of build­ing materials parked outside, and another full load in my barn back home—bought and paid for. That stuff’s not smoke.”

I was startled. “Bought already? Lucia bought it?”

“Yes. Forty-two thousand dollars and change.”

My jaw dropped. “Forty-two … oh my God! Is it refundable?”

Knightly hesitated, gazing into his tea mug. “Ah, no,” he said, reluctantly. “I knew a guy who was going out of business and liquidating stock, so I took Lucia there a few weeks ago. We picked out supplies at a quar­ter of the list price. No refunds. And the lumber’s already been cut.”

I blew out a shaky breath. “Oh, man. That’s a kick in the ass. Forty-two thousand bucks’ worth of lumber, flooring, tile, and bathroom and kitchen fixtures.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I really liked her, so I was trying to save her money.”

“Well, thanks for that,” I muttered.

He drummed his fingers against the table thoughtfully. “You’ve got a couple of different choices here,” he said thoughtfully. “You can try to sell the stuff on eBay or Craigslist and probably recoup at least a portion of what she spent. Or you can go ahead with the renovation. It’ll definitely boost your property value. Though I have no idea who currently owns the house.”

There was a delicate pause. “My sisters and I,” I supplied. “In equal measure.”

“Ah. Good, then. So all you’d have to pay for now is labor, and a few odds and ends for whatever comes up last minute. You’d recover that and more in the increased property value. That way, the investment won’t be wasted. If you intend to sell the house, that is.”

“We don’t ‘intend’ anything.” My voice came out more sharply than I meant it to. “The funeral was yesterday. We have no plans yet.”

He lifted his hands. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to seem like I was pressuring you.”

His quiet tone shamed me. This was not his fault at all. It was so hard to think clearly. I kept losing the thread, getting muddled and lost. “My sisters should know about this,” I said. “Would you mind if I called them right now?”

He set his cup down and rose to his feet. “That’s fine with me. I’ll step outside while you make the call. To give you some privacy.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. Please, sit down.” I waved him back down and di­aled Vivi’s number. Nell, the impractical bookworm scholar, had a smartphone in her possession, but she may as well not have it, since she almost never turned it on or charged it up, and when she did, she never had the ringer on, or even kept it anywhere near her person. Nell considered smartphones evil in general; annoying, prob­ably carcinogenic, and worst of all, a diabolical sinkhole for her precious attention. Chances are she was right about all of that, but in practical terms, this philosophical position drove Vivi and me nuts. Which Nell thought was hugely funny.

Or at least, she had thought so before what happened to Lucia.

“Yeah?” Vivi picked up immediately. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, but I’ve discovered a new wrinkle.” I outlined the situation just as Knightly had described it, then waited while Vivi relayed it to Nell.

There was some muffled back-and-forth on the other end before Vivi came back with the verdict. “Our combined opinion is that if Lucia wanted it done and went to the trouble of buying all the supplies, we should respect her wishes. Problem is, I don’t have any cash on hand to pay the crew.” Nell said something emphatic in the background. “And neither does Nell,” Vivi added.

“Okay. Maybe I can look into getting a loan. Later, babes.” I ended the call and turned to him. “This is the situation as it stands,” she said. “My sisters and I are disposed to proceed, so as not to waste Lucia’s investment. But we don’t have cash on hand to cover your labor—at least not yet. Lucia had some money tucked away, I assume, but we don’t know how much or when we’ll be able to ac­cess it. I can look into taking out a loan, but in the mean­time—”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just go ahead and get started. Pay me later. When you sort it all out.”

I was startled. “Are you sure that’s wise? I don’t even know when I can get the cash. I wouldn’t want to put you in a bind.”

His shrug was nonchalant. “I can cover costs for a couple of weeks. I only have Eoin to pay, for now. We’ll just see how it goes.”

“On just my word?”

His eyes gleamed over his cup. “I know your word’s good.”

“Ah … you just met me fifteen minutes ago,” I pointed out.

Knightly glanced at his watch. “Eighteen minutes. That’s more than enough.”

His gaze was so intense. It wiped my mind clear of coherent thought.

All thoughts but one.

No. Not today. I was grieving, wobbly, my judgment shot to hell, and I was probably imagining all these wildly inappropriate, ill-timed vibes. No, no, and no.

Or maybe I wasn’t imagining them, and that was even worse. He was way too big for my tastes, for one thing. There was just too much of him. I steered around big men who gave off those commanding alpha-dog signals. I avoided them like the plague. And perfect though Knightly’s manners might be, mellow though he might act, there was no mistaking a man like that. I could spot one disguised in any costume—a dress suit, a military uniform, or jeans and a T-shirt. The force field of Liam Knightly’s natural machismo tickled my skin, all the more dangerous for how deliciously subtle it was.

It wasn’t a bad thing. It was how he was, like having brown hair, or a nice ass. But even so. I had to run the show when it came to relationships, romance, sex. That detail was non-negotiable. And a guy like him would want to be on top.

Figuratively speaking.

My gaze skittered around and landed on the plastic tablecloth. Ah. Yes. Some­thing to do. I grabbed the package, ripped open the wrapping and headed for the living room.

Knightly followed me, mug in hand, still sipping in that leisurely way of his. I’d long since nervously gulped down all of my own tea. He watched as I unfolded the tablecloth and shook it out. The stink of new, raw plastic overwhelmed even the scent of the funeral flowers. I positioned it carefully over Lucia’s in­taglio writing table.

“It’s none of my business,” Knightly said. “But why on earth are you covering that beautiful thing with that godawful plastic?”

“Camouflage,” I said. “In case the burglars come back. My sister and I will take the smaller pieces of fine art home with us, for lack of a better plan, but none of us has a place for this table. Did Lucia tell you the table’s history?”

“Yes, actually. She told me the SS officers used it during the Nazi occupation. That they used her father’s palace for their headquarters.”

I was startled. Lucia had not usually been so forthcoming about her family history. “Yes. The Nazi officers were the ones who made the graffiti,” I said, tracing some of the brutal scratches carved into the delicately carved tangle of flowers.

“Bastards. But now that’s part of its fascination. It’s a piece of living history.”

“Lucia’s father was a count, you know? The Conte de Luca. So Lucia was technically a count­ess, even though she lived over half her life here in New York.”

It felt good to talk about Lucia. Like a pres­sure valve releasing steam.

“I’m not surprised,” Knightly said. “She looked the part. She was a class act.”

I blinked back fresh tears and shook the table­cloth into place with an angry jerk. “Yes, she was.” I posi­tioned the jade plant in the center. “There. Who would guess?”

“Looks butt-ugly,” he said judiciously.

“That’s what I was going for,” I said. “Thanks.”

Knightly laid his hand gently on the table, as if he were stroking a living thing. “I’d love to study it someday. Figure out how the guy did it.”

“Did what?”

“How he made something that’s still intact and still beautiful after four hundred years of use, plus the vandalism and abuse,” he said. “That’s real talent. I’d love to learn from it.” He turned away, taking his mug back into the kitchen.

My eyes fell on Lucia’s shelf of photos as I gazed after him, and a thought occurred to me. I waited until he reappeared in the doorway.

“How did you know who I was, outside the house?” I asked.

That subtle smile lit his eyes again. “Lucia showed me pictures,” he admitted. “She told me about you three. She bragged you up, actually. She was very proud.”

A dark suspicion dawned in my mind. “Bragged me up?” I re­peated. “Oh, no. What do you mean? What did she tell you?”

“That you work too hard,” he said. “That you let everyone take advantage of you. That you live in a tiny Manhattan apartment surrounded by motorcycle gangs, crackheads, meth heads, and the criminally insane. That you come across as bossy and managing, but you’d give the shirt off your back to a stranger in need—”

I winced. “Oh, no. I see exactly where this is going.”

“And that you’re not married. She said you’d be here for her birthday. She wanted to introduce us.”

“Oh, God.” I felt myself turn a hot red. Lucia, for fuck’s sake. Really?

Lucia would never have done this to me if this guy was taken. And a swift glance at Knightly’s left hand confirmed that he wore no ring.

Of course, he intercepted the glance. His smile deepened, and my mortification deepened with it. “I’m so sorry,” I babbled. “You being put on the spot, I mean. Lucia just couldn’t stand it that I’m single.”

“That was my impression, too. But I will admit, it is strange.”

I covered my hot cheeks with my hands. “What’s strange?”

“That you’re single. You’re not at all what I expected.”

Don’t ask it. Don’t ask it. Just don’t. “What did you expect?” I asked, helpless to stop myself.

“She told me you were beautiful. I could see from the pictures that it was true. She just didn’t tell me how beautiful. Photos can’t capture that.”

Beautiful? Wild energy crackled through my nerves, as if he’d touched me.

Suddenly, I started to imagine how it would feel if he did.

I vibrated. Strange, that I was single? Hah. Little did he know. I forced my voice not to shake. “Don’t flatter me.”

“I’m not flattering anyone. I don’t do that. Just the plain truth.”

I looked away, flustered. No clue what to say.

A long, agonizing moment passed. “Ah. I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. “That was totally wrong. I can’t believe I just said that to you. Please forget I said it.”

“It’s okay,” I murmured. Right. Like I would. Ever. In my life.

But the easy intimacy I’d felt with him before was gone. Knightly’s face was closed and unreadable as we exchanged phone num­bers. He and his assistant, Eoin, would unload supplies that day and start on the kitchen tomorrow, though I had to clean it first. We set a time to meet the next morning. All done. Just the facts, ma’am.

It gave me a pang to hand over Lucia’s house keys to a man I’d just met, but the thought of having someone in the place was oddly comforting. I hated the thought of the house lying empty and bereft. This way, at least it was in a process of renewal. One that Lucia herself had set in motion.

Once he had the keys, there was no reason to not to let him and his assistant get on with their work. I shook his hand politely, gathered up my bag and the carefully bubble-wrapped bronze Cellini satyr, and took off.

I was pissed with Lucia for setting me up. At the same time, I missed her desper­ately. I felt raw and shaky, desperate to glom on to something else to think about. God knows, I’d been twitchy about dating and romance since long before Lucia’s death.

It occurred to me that Lucia had probably filled Knightly in on my string of romantic disasters. The thought made me cringe.

The first time I’d been dumped at the altar by my fiancé was very bad. The sec­ond time had been worse. By the third time it happened, I was seriously starting to consider that maybe I was the problem.

Not that I had the faintest clue how to fix it.

So? Fine. I could resign myself to being a single woman. I would content myself with a series of cats. Or do what Lucia had done. If I experienced a great upwelling of motherly energy in my heart, and had the means and time, I could always adopt some half-grown kids who desperately needed a home. There was more than one way to have a family. The center of a woman’s life did not have to be a man.

Besides, men didn’t seem to enjoy being at the center of my life. By all accounts, it was a prickly, uncomfortable place to be.

My sisters and Lucia had all politely despised Freedy, Ron, and Peter. But was it their fault they’d fallen out of love with me? A person either loved someone or they didn’t. I wasn’t about to marry a man who’d found out he didn’t.

I wondered, not for the first time, if I lacked some innate womanly skill. Maybe I should’ve practiced gazing up through flutter­ing lashes more—hanging on their every word, puffing up their egos.

But that wasn’t me. I’d always been too busy managing their careers, making them take their vitamins, wrangling their anxiety, making sure their socks matched.

Freedy told me I was too controlling. Ron said I was “driven.” Peter told me I just was too prosaic. He said that I couldn’t join him in that place full of dreams where he needed to go to make the magic happen.

But he sure hadn’t minded me finding lucrative gigs for him from that prosaic other world. What a shame that watching me do all the scut work to support his precious career had been such a turnoff to him. Fussbudget Nancy, the detail freak. And that damn phone of mine—always ringing, shattering his precious creative trance. Aww. So sorry.

Not that I was bitter or anything.

The strange, raw mood I was in brought on a brutal kind of self-honesty. I stared, hot­-eyed, out the windshield, and let myself ponder it. The real problem with my fiancés had been sex, above all. Sex had always been problematic for me. I didn’t like feel­ing vulnerable, squished, crowded. Being overwhelmed in any way, physical or emotional, made me run away in my head. I be­came unreachable.

When that happened, the fun was definitely over. Everybody out of the pool.

My lovers, not surprisingly, had become impatient with this, and who could blame them.

The thought of having one of those uncomfortable, it’s-not-you-it’s-me conversations with Liam Knightly made me want to curl up and rock in the corner.

After Freedy’s defection, I’d sworn off romance. Celibacy was easier, less embarrassing, and way cheaper. No bikini waxing, no scratchy lace push-up bras. It was comfy stretch cotton sports bras from here on out. Or better yet, no bras at all. Sweet, sweet freedom.

But Knightly’s gaze made me feel as if he’d seen something in me that no one else had, not even me. I wanted to see him again, to find out if it was a fluke. A trick of the light. A passing spasm.

It was an experiment doomed to fail, however, because the guy was just too big. And he exuded that aura of controlled power that made me feel vulnerable, even fully clothed and a full table-length away. I could only imagine how that vibe would feel if we were naked. Skin to skin. And oh, shit—

I screeched to a stop at the red light, just in time. Face flushed, heart pounding.

I, Nancy D’Onofrio, hyper-efficient multitasker, couldn’t even think about that man while driving.

End of Excerpt