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Judith stood taller. “Damn straight I do.”
Katrina walked closer, watching Lorenzo’s face as he carefully examined his choices, his hands as he reached out and traced the lettering on each logo she’d printed for his inspection. Everything about him screamed control except for the slight shake in his fingers as he touched the last one.
The one she’d known he’d choose.
“This is perfect,” he said, tapping that paper once before moving back to Judith’s designs. “And this one.” The simplest of the three was the one he tapped on, again choosing the one that Katrina had believed he would. She mentally reminded herself to collect on that $20 that Justin was going to owe her, knowing this was not the time.
The tension in the air was too thick.
Lorenzo’s smile was warm as he looked up at Judith. “Are you going to name the puppy after me?”
“There’s only one Ren,” Katrina said without thinking, her cheeks heating afterward. Lorenzo turned his easygoing smile in her direction, and her resolve almost crumbled.
Just almost.
“Would you like a beer?” Justin asked, and Lorenzo shook his head.
“It’s a long drive back.”
“Were you drinking the night you wrecked?” Judith asked. “What? No one else wants to ask the hard questions,” she added when all eyes had turned to her.
“No,” he replied with a slight shake of his head. “I was just being stupid on a road that has no mercy.”
He said it as if it had been rehearsed, perhaps to the point where it was automatic for him.
“I think we are done here,” Justin said softly, his hand on Judith’s lower back and he whispered something into her ear.
“Yeah,” Judith agreed, and she reached for her bag. “I’ll leave the sketches here. The estimates are on the back of each one.”
“Puppy shopping?” Lorenzo asked.
“Yeah, something like that.” Justin couldn’t keep the anger from his eyes, though he kept his tone civil.
“Will you be overseeing the project?” Lorenzo asked Judith, whose smile was tight.
“Absolutely. My fee is in the estimate.”
“Sounds good. I guess I’ll see you both soon?” Lorenzo worded it as a question, one that Justin only answered with a nod before giving his sister a hug.
“Give him hell,” he whispered into her ear.
She had the feeling, one that wouldn’t leave her, that Lorenzo had already seen his fair share of hell.
And the feeling stayed with her as Justin and Judith left, leaving her alone with Lorenzo for the first time since the accident. He let out a heavy sigh.
“Do you know what I did to piss Justin off?”
Katrina nodded once, her words stuck in her throat as Lorenzo approached her, his head tilted slightly.
“Are you angry with me, Trina?”
She could only shake her head. Anger wasn’t the emotion she was feeling at the time. It was doubt, and her intuition screaming at her that something was wrong.
Incredibly wrong.
The closer he moved to her, the quicker her pulse became, threatening to overcome reason and logic and just take him in her arms.
But she needed to know.
