Her heart skipped a beat when she opened up her emails and found a message from him waiting for her.
Her throat went dry when she heard the deep, sexy timbre of his voice on the end of the line.
She was in danger of obsessing over a guy who belonged to her past. At least, emotionally.
He’d suddenly reappeared on the scene, opening all sorts of doors in her head, making her think about choices she had made and bringing back memories of the horror story that had followed those choices.
He made her think about Roger. He was curious about her ex. She sensed that. Perhaps not curious in a personal way, but mildly curious, especially because so many things didn’t quite add up. Why, he had asked her, hadn’t she intervened when she’d known that he was blowing vast sums of money gambling? When she’d discovered the scale of the financial problems with the company? Why hadn’t she acted more decisively?
But, of course, that was the kind of person he was. Someone who was born and bred to act decisively. He could never begin to understand how easy it was just to get lost and find yourself in a fog, with no guiding lights to lead you out.
She had grown up a lot since then. She had had to. And, in the process of taking charge, she had realised just how feeble her brother was when it came to making decisions and taking difficult paths.
When she looked back at herself as she had been seven years ago, it was like staring at a stranger. The carefree girl with a life full of options was gone for ever. She was a woman now with limited options and too many bad memories to deal with.
Was that why she was now obsessing over Javier, someone she had known for such a short space of time? Was it because he reminded her of the girl she used to be? Was it obsession by association, so to speak?
He made her think things she would rather have forgotten but he also made her heart skip a beat the way it once used to when she’d been with him.
And more than that, he made her body feel alive the way it hadn’t for years. Not since him, in fact. He made her feel young again and that had a very seductive appeal.
With an impatient click of her tongue, she raised the volume of the television, determined not to waste the evening thinking about Javier and remembering what life had been like when they had been going out.
She almost didn’t hear the buzz of the doorbell, and when she did, she almost thought that she might have made a mistake because no one could possibly be calling on her.
Since she had moved to London, she had kept herself to herself. She knew a couple of people who had relocated from the northern branch but the London crew, all very able and super-efficient, were new and she had shied away from making friends with any of them.
For starters, although it wasn’t advertised and in all probability none of them knew, she was more or less their boss. And also...did she really want anyone knowing her backstory? It was just easier to maintain a healthy distance, so there was no way whoever had buzzed her from downstairs was a colleague on the hunt for a Friday night companion.
She picked up the intercom which allowed her to see her unexpected visitor and the breath left her in a whoosh.
‘You’re in.’ Javier had come to the apartment on the spur of the moment. Since she’d started at the London office, he had seen her once, had spoken to her six times and had emailed her every other day. He had purposefully kept his distance because the strength of his response to her had come as a shock. Accustomed to having absolute control over every aspect of his life, he had assumed that her sudden appearance in his highly ordered existence would prove interesting—certainly rewarding, bearing in mind he intended to finish what had been started seven years previously—and definitely nothing that he wouldn’t be able to handle.
Except that, from the very minute he had laid eyes on her, all that absolute certainty had flown through the window. The easy route he had planned to take had almost immediately bitten the dust. He’d had every intention of coolly trading his financial help for the body he had been denied, the body he discovered he still longed to touch and explore.
She’d used him and now he’d been given a golden opportunity to get his own back.
Except, he’d seen her, and that approach had seemed worse than simplistic. It had seemed crass.
There was no way he was going to pursue her and showing up at the workplace every day would have smelled a lot like pursuit, even though he had every right to be there, considering the amount of money he was sinking into the failing company.
He wanted her to come to him but staying away had been a lot more difficult than he’d dreamed possible.
Like someone dying of thirst suddenly denied the glass of ice-cold water just within his reach, he had found himself thinking about her to the point of distraction, and that had got on his nerves.
So here he was.
Sophie frantically wondered whether she could say that she was just on her way out. His unexpected appearance had brought her out in a nervous cold sweat. She had been thinking about him, and here he was, conjured up from her imagination.
‘I...I...’
‘Let me in.’
‘I was just about to...have something to eat, actually...’
‘Perfect. I’ll join you.’
That wasn’t what she’d had in mind. What she’d had in mind was a lead-up to a polite excuse and an arrangement to meet when she had some sort of defence system in place. Instead, here she was, hair all over the place, wearing jogging bottoms and an old, tight tee shirt bought at a music festival a dozen years ago and shrunk in the wash over time.
‘Come on, Sophie! I’m growing older by the minute!’
‘Fine!’ She buzzed him in, belatedly remembering that it was actually his apartment, so he had every right to be here. And not only was it his apartment, but she wasn’t paying a penny towards the rent, at his insistence.
She scrambled to the mirror by the front door, accepted that it was too late to start pinning her hair back into something sensible, and even though she was expecting him, she still started when he rapped on the door.
He’d obviously come straight from work, although, en route, he had divested himself of his tie, undone the top couple of buttons of his shirt and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. Her eyes dipped to his sinewy forearms and just as quickly back to his face.
‘You look flustered,’ Javier drawled, leaning against the door frame and somehow managing to crowd her. ‘I haven’t interrupted you in the middle of something pressing, have I?’ This was how he remembered her. Tousled and sexy and so unbelievably, breathtakingly fresh.
And innocent.
Which was a bit of a joke, all things considered.
Dark eyes drifted downwards, taking in the outline of her firm, round breasts pushing against a tee shirt that was a few sizes too small, taking in the slither of flat belly where the tee shirt ended and the shapeless jogging bottoms began. Even in an outfit that should have done her no favours, she still looked hot, and his body responded with suitable vigour.
He straightened, frowning at the sudden discomfort of an erection.
‘I haven’t managed to catch much of you over the past couple of weeks.’ He dragged his mind away from thoughts of her, a bed and a heap of hurriedly discarded clothes on the ground. ‘So I thought I’d try you at home before you disappeared up north for the weekend.’
‘Of course.’
There was a brief pause, during which he tilted his head to one side, before pointedly looking at the door handle.
‘So...’ He looked around him at his apartment with satisfaction. He’d had it redone. ‘How are you finding the apartment?’
Some might say that he’d been a little underhand