She was worryingly off balance, but determined to hide it. She knew if he touched her—even her hand—everything would change. So he must not touch her. And she couldn’t afford to be too friendly. Her involuntary physical reactions to him were depleting her supply of self-control. There could be no winners here. Not him. Certainly not her. For her there would be punishment of some kind.
They were inside the small two-bed apartment. Sonya had filled it with the sort of things that reminded her of her early life.
Holt looked around with pleasure. “You decorated this yourself?” He had already guessed the answer. “Where did you get all the old pieces?”
She watched in some wonderment as he moved around the living room. David Wainwright here! She almost felt like bursting into emotional tears. She had been so lonely. Marcus, lovely man that he was, couldn’t hope to fill the sad void in her. But David! She berated herself for her weakness. “I picked them up from demolition yards, jumble sales, second-hand shops.” She managed to sound perfectly calm. “It’s amazing what people part with. I had to work on all my finds, of course. I love timber.”
“So do I. This appeals to me greatly.” He ran a hand over the back of a carved chair with very fine finials. It looked Russian.
“I’m absolutely delighted.” She purposely spiked her tone.
Keep it light. Don’t deepen the connection.
The living-dining area was the usual open plan, he saw. There was a galley-like small kitchen with granite bench tops and good stainless-steel appliances. The balcony had been made a relaxing green haven with luxuriant plants. But what she had done to an ordinary space was what impressed him.
“This has a lot of character.” A beautiful scrap of tapestry had been used to cover the top of the cushion on its seat. “Not our sort of character where the emphasis is generally on exploiting the natural light, the sunshine and the indoor-outdoor lifestyle. This is a glimpse into a different world. Neo-Gothic maybe?” He glanced across the room at her, his eyes touching on her face and lissom body.
“There’s that,” she agreed. “I like the way the timbers gleam so darkly against the white walls. The white-tiled floor I managed to cover with a really good rug, as you can see. That set me back a bit but it was worth it. I don’t own the apartment. I rent it.”
“And the big painting on the wall?” His interest was truly captured.
“Mine,” she said. “Anyone can paint flowers.”
“No, they can’t!” He moved nearer the painting, an oil reminiscent of the Dutch school: dark background, lightly touched with green and mauve strokes, with massed flower heads, roses, peonies, lilies, others, taking up the entire central canvas. “This is very painterly,” he said with genuine admiration.
“I can’t resist flowers. I used a palette knife.”
“Aren’t you clever! “ He was giving the painting his full attention. “Who taught you?”
“Oh, a relative,” she said evasively.
“As forthcoming as usual?” His black eyes mocked. “You know, you could make a good living as an artist, Sonya. I could help you.”
“You think that preferable to my capturing your uncle’s heart and along the way a good slice of his fortune?” she retorted more sharply than she had intended. But she was made nervous by how easily he was getting under her skin. If he stayed too much longer she didn’t think she could withstand his powerful aura. The very last thing she wanted was for a man to turn her whole world inside out. Contact was too dangerous. He would never give her what she needed. He would eventually marry some beautiful young woman within his own circle. She knew there would be a long list for him to choose from.
He sensed her concealed agitation. “Is that what you really want, Sonya?” The force of his gaze pinned her in place.
“What I want is perhaps something I will never get,” she said enigmatically. “Now would you excuse me for a moment? I want to get out of this tracksuit.” From the moment she had met him, every instinct had warned her not to allow him to come close. She knew she couldn’t deal with emotions that could not be contained.
“Take your time,” he called after her as she started to move down the narrow passageway. “I’m going to take a look at your books.” He crossed to the large timber bookcase that stood against the end wall. It was jammed with books. “German, French, Russian, Hungarian, how weird is that?” he called after her. “No need to be in a rush to tell me.”
“See how much you can work out on your own,” she threw ironically over her shoulder.
When she returned she was wearing a long turquoise and lime-green dress that hung from shoestring straps over her bare shoulders. The bodice clung lovingly to her breasts, then fell in a fluid drop to her ankles. She wore little silver ballet shoes on her feet. Obviously she had run a brush through her hair, but the great thing was she had left it loose. “What languages do you speak?” he asked quietly, not taking his eyes from her. She looked so beautiful, so strangely innocent, he had to suck in his breath.
“A few.” She moved quickly into the kitchen. There would now be a high barrier between them.
“You read Goethe and Schiller in the original? I saw that wonderful monument to them both when I was last in Germany. Then you have the French collection. A well-thumbed Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Gautier among others. A lot of Hungarian literature, Janos Arany, Kazinczy, Molnar, a very old chronical of Magyar affairs.”
“You know perfectly well I have Hungarian blood.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” he lightly jeered. “Hungarian accent according to Rowena. Norwegian surname. Norwegian ancestry? What’s the big secret anyway? What is it you’re frightened of giving up? There has to be a better way, Sonya. Your manner, the extreme reserve, only adds fuel to the fire. It’s as if you didn’t exist up until five years ago.”
“Maybe I’m on the run from villains,” she suggested, preparing the coffee.
He shot her an impatient look. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. You don’t trust me one bit.”
“How can I when you make yourself one-hundred-percent inaccessible? What sort of life have you had?”
He sounded as though it really mattered to him. That shook her. Her body was filling with shivery sensations.
“You must have had lovers?” How had they ever let her go?
She looked up very quickly from what she was doing, green eyes frosted. “Why make it sound as if I had a brigade of them? The truth is, I don’t like men all that much.”
“So you keep the ones you consider dangerous at a distance. It’s the why I want to know. There’s got to be an answer.”
“Distance is effective,” she said, pressing the button on the coffee machine.
“Generally speaking women who want distance don’t give off high-octane sparks,” he said dryly. “Not to men anyway. You do, Sonya. You know it. I know
