Page 37 of One Naughty Night (Single in South Beach)

As with Renzo, Esme acknowledged that this man built like a linebacker could squeeze her hand and she didn’t feel the least bit threatened, whereas her ex-employer had probably only weighed thirty pounds more than her and he’d intimidated her with just a look.

Renzo’s arm materialized at her waist again before he nudged her away from Nico and closer to the buzz-cut blonde.

“And this is Brody Healy, who has much better manners than my brother. Brody’s my best cabinet guy so I thought I’d see how he liked working on the reproductions.”

Esme shook his hand before peering over his considerable shoulder at the cherry sideboard piece he seemed to be distressing.

“The wood looks marvelous.” Pleased, she smiled up at the younger man and received a grin with an honest-to-God blush in return.

She had the feeling Brody would have fit right in with the history geeks in college. He was the kind of guy she knew how to relate to, the kind of guy who would never be too pushy or in your face.

Too bad Esme had never been overly attracted to that kind of man since she’d been surrounded by them all through her academic career.

Nico snapped a bright orange hibiscus flower off a nearby stem and handed the bloom to her as he joined them. “We finished up a few other pieces that are drying inside the workshop. Would you like to see?”

Renzo butted in between them before Esme could say yes. “Easy, brother. She promised to show me something first, so you and your belated attempts at good etiquette can just get back to work.”

He steered Esme toward the gently sloping side lawn full of overgrown tropical flowers, but not before she caught Nico sending her a wink.

Renzo glowered so hard she thought he’d burst into flame.

“He’s harmless, he’s just hell-bent to give me a hard time.” He guided her around to the front of the house, leaving Nico and Brody to their work in the backyard so he could see her new car parked in the driveway.

“See? Four perfectly safe wheels. No more buses for this independent woman.” Could she help it that she lifted her chin a little at the statement? No offense to the bus — and in fact, thank God for mass transit— but still, she’d been pretty proud of herself to waltz into the dealership, haul out her best garage sale haggling skills, and drive away with a great car.

She wasn’t surprised in the least to see Renzo already crawling under the hood, kicking tires and studying the dials across her dashboard.

When he finally came up for air, he was smiling. “Two thumbs up, lady. You snagged yourself some nice wheels.”

“Bet you didn’t think I could handle the car dealers, did you?” She remembered Renzo had asked to go car shopping with her every day that week. She intended to deliver a haughty sniff, but she was so proud of her new purchase that she ended up grinning instead. “Did I mention I bought it for a song?”

Renzo shut the car door and made his way back to her, his dark eyes locked on hers.

“I know you can handle yourself. Maybe I just thought I could help. Provide moral support, input, whatever. For that matter, I have to buy a car from my brother too. I thought we could have used that buying power to leverage an even better deal.” He shrugged. Ran restless fingers through his silky dark hair. “I know you’re on this quest to prove something to yourself, Esme, but don’t think for a second you have to prove anything tome.”

Oh.

The idea reverberated through her, making her wonder if he had a point.

But then, his body loomed close to hers suddenly, the force of his will a palpable thing between them. She stifled a shiver, along with the urge to reach out and touch him.

“My mother taught me that if I didn’t expect much in life, I’d never be disappointed.” And maybe, for a research librarian who’d never fallen in love, never ventured out of the neighborhood she’d grown up in, it had been an important life lesson to avoid disappointment. “But I am beginning to realize that if you don’t have a few high expectations in life, if you don’t strive to be the best you can be, how can you ever achieve great things?”

Her mother may have been content to protect herself from failure by not taking any risks, but Esme refused to live that way any longer.

Renzo’s thick, dark eyebrows inverted in a downward slash. “I don’t get it. You’ve already taken a huge risk by going into business for yourself, by venturing out on a blind date that turned out to be a date with a total stranger… You’re taking a lot of risks already.”

But she couldn’t take the biggest risk yet. The risk of falling in love with a sexy, arrogant woodworker who made her knees weak just by standing close to her.

Not that she would let him know that.

“Those are all new risks I’ve just taken in the last few weeks. It’s going to take more than that to demonstrate to myself that I don’t need anyone’s approval. That it’s enough for me to respect who I am and what I do.” She leaned back against the sun-warmed front fender of her new car. “I spent years working as an assistant to a slime ball at the museum when I was doing all his work plus mine and yet I let him get away with treating me less than professionally for years. Why? Didn’t want to rock the status quo. Besides, I’d never expected much glory or recognition as the assistant to a museum director, so why should I have been surprised when I didn’t get any? I settled for second best for too long.”

“The guy who hit on you was your boss?” Renzo straightened, a cool fury lacing his words.

Oddly, his anger only comforted her. She wished she’d had the sense to be that outwardly furious with Miles Crandall when he’d hauled her into an unwanted lip lock. Instead she’d simply fought her way free and bolted, keeping her fury locked inside.

She needed to take a page from Renzo’s book.

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