Renee forced herself not to think of Rafe in that moment. One kiss did not make for a sex life. But who knew? That might change given enough time.

She pushed those thoughts away too. It was much too soon to be thinking like that.

“Come on. Let’s hit a few more bars,” she said.

—

Rafe’s conversation with Bayram was the polar opposite of the one with Leopold. The prince of Turkey made demands and plenty of them, and it was Rafe’s job to see that those demands were met, within reason. Rafe had assigned an assistant to Bayram to help him organize his visit, but that wasn’t enough for the Turk. He wanted special attention. He wanted Rafe’s time. Rafe gave it to him, but only sparingly. He had an email to write, and he had no doubt that once it was sent out to all the delegates coming into New York for the summit, there would be a massive influx of calls—probably mostly protests. And it would be his job to field all of these calls and respond to each one in such a way as to coax agreement with the new addendum to the treaty. Because he had plans for the evening, it would be best to get it over with as soon as possible. So he drafted the email and sent it to the entire list of delegates. Then he warned Rachel about the firestorm that was about to fall down on them. But his assistant was not easily ruffled, so he had faith she would manage it well.

Ten minutes after he hit “send” the first call came in. They came at a steady pace and Rafe dealt with each.

He was worn out by the time six o’clock rolled around. He sent Rachel home, telling her to ignore any further calls and let voicemail pick them up. He went into the bathroom off his office, shrugged out of his suit jacket and shirt and bent over the sink for a quick shave. He put on a clean shirt from the selection hanging in a closet and skipped a tie. He left the shirt open at the collar and already felt a little better. Winding down wasn’t going to be easy, and his phone kept going off on his desk, but he had already determined he would shut off the ringer for the night, leaving the phone on vibrate only. That way he could surreptitiously glance at it to make note of who was calling without disrupting his dinner date. He would shut it off altogether, but he didn’t want to potentially miss a call from Simone, should she need him. He knew that once callers could no longer get to him, their next effort would be to contact Simone. Simone would take the calls or ignore them as she saw fit, and any fallout from that might need to be addressed by both of them.

By the time Rafe pulled up to Renee’s brownstone, he had successfully shifted his mindset away from work and toward the evening to come.

The opening at the gallery was not formal, so a fresh shirt and shave had been sufficient. But when Renee came to the door he immediately felt underdressed. Not that she was overdressed for the occasion, but to look so deliciously elegant as she did, she must deserve better than him. She was wearing red, a favorite color of his, and one that was quite flattering with her warm skin tone and her honey blond hair. The dress hugged every one of her charming curves, the skirt ending mid-thigh, showing off quite a bit of her legs. She wore a pair of shoes with sparkling red rhinestones and a show of toe, completely inappropriate for the snow-covered ground. She looked beautiful, but she was going to freeze to death.

“You’re stunning,” he said, feeling a little like his breath had been taken away. It was a peculiar feeling. He knew many beautiful women. In fact, it was safe to say he was surrounded by them daily. Why she should affect him this way was beyond his understanding. Still, in that moment none of those beautiful women interested him and none could hold a candle to her. She was just right in so many ways.

He watched her smile at his compliment. The ingenuousness of the reaction spurred warmth into him, even though he was standing in the cold.

“I’m ready,” she said, pulling on the coat she had been holding.

Rafe immediately maneuvered around her in the narrow doorway to help her. It brought their bodies into close contact and her body heat soaked into him. He felt her raw energy and it lit up a craving for her that he might have expected if he had gone several days without feeding, not mere hours after having already satiated himself on her. But her vibrancy could not be ignored and he found it remarkable that she had recovered so quickly. She should have at least seemed duller than usual, had less energy. But here she was, eager and bright and shining with exciting energy.

He wanted to devour her. Feeling her eddy into him like this, he wanted to be a glutton and take so much more that he would burst from overindulgence.

Instead, he took a deep breath, filled himself with the perfume she had lightly applied to her skin, and guided his cravings into a safer place. He focused his energy on her and showing her a good time tonight. He wanted to give her as much genuine pleasure as she gave to him.

He reached out to stroke warm fingertips over the apple of her cheek. “You’re going to catch your death in this outfit. Those shoes alone are highly unreasonable.”

“I know. But I wanted to look nice. I can take it. Will we be walking much?”

“Not much, but still. I don’t want your feet to get wet.”

“Don’t worry about it. Cold toes never killed anyone.”

“I want to insist you put on sensible shoes if nothing else.”

She laughed. “I have nothing else that would look right with this dress. And I’m not about to wear Uggs to a gallery opening.”

“All right then. If you insist you will be fine I will try to forget about it. But I make no promises.”

She smiled at that and he thought to make her smile more often. Her face lit up in the loveliest way when she did so.

Rafe guided her out of the doorway and down the front stoop steps. He led her to his car, which he had left idling in front of the house. Once they were ensconced within, he drove into the city.

“So, did you have a good day?” she asked him.

He hesitated as he thought of the trials of his day. “It was busy,” he said vaguely.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing too exciting. I wrote an email that perturbed a lot of people.”

“That sounds rather exciting actually. Can you tell me what it was about?”

“I can’t go into much detail. Most of it is confidential. But my boss changed an agreement at the last minute and those signing the agreement were a bit miffed by the change. But most of them are using it as an excuse to get out of signing the agreement in the first place.”