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“It’s not that I didn’t mean it, I just...”
Just what? Rosa knew she should ask, but she was too stuck on the first part of his sentence to say the words. Was he saying he wanted to kiss her again?
Pushing himself to his feet, he moved around to the front of the desk. “You’re a beautiful woman, Rosa. What man wouldn’t want to kiss you?”
“You would be surprised,” she murmured.
“That is Fredo talking. Believe me, any man with half a brain would kiss you in a heartbeat.”
She would have smiled at his calling Fredo stupid if he weren’t filling her personal space. Rejection would be so much easier with a desk between them. Or breathing room. Anything besides the scent of his skin teasing her nostrils. “There’s no need to oversell your point,” she told him.
“I mean every word.”
She risked looking him in the eye. “But?” There had to be a but. After all, for all his sweet words, he was apologizing, not taking her in his arms.
Shaking his head, Armando stepped away. “I’m not dead,” he said. “I see a beautiful woman, I am going to feel desire. It’s only natural.”
He started pacing, a sign that he was thinking out loud. Trying hard to move past his finding her desirable, Rosa leaned back and waited for him to work out the rest of the explanation. The part that would pour cold water over the rest of his words.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “To kiss you. Not when I don’t... That is...”
“I understand.” There was no need for her to hear the words after all. She’d heard them often enough. His heart was buried with Christina. He was emotionally dead.
He might as well marry a stranger and help Corinthia, because he would never love again.
That’s what he meant by it not being fair. He might want her, but his feelings didn’t—couldn’t—go deeper.
Then there was Mona. Even if he could care, there was Mona.
At least he cared enough to worry about leading her on. She should take solace in that. Then, his sense of honor was one of the qualities that made him so special.
The least she could do was let him off the hook. Inserting a lightheartedness she didn’t feel into her voice, she asked, “Aren’t you being a bit egotistical?”
Armando stopped his pacing. “I beg your pardon?”
“We were flirting under the mistletoe. You might be a good kisser, but that is still a big leap to go from a kiss to breaking my heart.”
“So, you didn’t feel—”
“I’m not dead,” she said, throwing his answer back at him. “You’re a wonderful kisser. But even I’m smart enough to know that one kiss does not a relationship make.”
“That’s good to know,” he said, nodding. The note in his voice was embarrassed relief, Rosa told herself. It just sounded like disappointment.
“Now,” she said, walking around and taking her seat, “if we are finished making needless apologies, would you like me to print out the notes for your meeting with Ambassador Wilson?”
His smile was also tinged with embarrassed relief. “Please. I’ll be in my office. And, Rosa?” She looked up from her computer screen to find his eyes filled with silent communication. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She dropped her gaze back to her screen before he could see her moist-eyed response. It had been for the best, this conversation. Better to be reminded of reality than to make a fool of herself pining for something that couldn’t be.
Like she told herself when she got on the elevator, there were worse things than unrequited feelings. She couldn’t think of any right now, but there were.
* * *
Didn’t he feel like the proper fool? Blast his decision to keep the office door open, since right now Armando wanted to slap the back of his desk chair with all his might. Dragging a hand through his curls, he glared at the snow falling outside his window. Egotistical was right. Here he’d been worrying about whether he had been leading Rosa on and all this time she hadn’t been the least concerned. From the sounds of it, she hadn’t given their moments under the mistletoe a second thought.
Why the hell hadn’t she? Surely she had felt the same frightening intimacy he’d felt on the stairs? Why then weren’t her thoughts swirling with the same confusion and desire?
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, ’Mando. Regardless of what Rosa did or did not feel, the arguments for his apology still applied. Rosa’s lack of interest merely made closure that much easier. He should be relieved.
Check that. He was relieved, and now that matter was settled, his and Rosa’s relationship could go back to the way it had always been.
