by Tawny Weber
Good and sexy. She gave him a quick once-over, her eyes lingering for a long moment on his shoulders, broad enough to block the sunlight. Oh yeah, he was so, so sexy.
“So?” At her blank look, he added, “Ready to do it?”
Horrified that her thoughts might be clear on her face, Mia slapped her sunglasses on.
“Do what?”
“Celebrate? Let’s go get that drink.”
Right. They’d talk business, go over her plans and, sure, toast the new contract.
One drink wouldn’t hurt.
“And food. We definitely need food,” Mia said, gathering her portfolio and composure. And vowed that by the time they reached the restaurant, she’d have a handle on her libido, too.
Because hot or not, hitting on people who worked for her was off-limits.
* * *
Spence sat across from Mia in a quaint Italian bistro, the scent of sauces and spices redolent enough to mask her tempting perfume. Too early for the dinner crowd, and too late for lunch, there weren’t a lot of people in the restaurant, so it was quiet.
The better to enjoy Mia’s company.
He leaned back, one arm wrapped around the back of his chair as he listened to her summarize her meeting. He liked the way her eyes lit with delight when she detailed her progress so far, and tried to ignore the temptation of her mouth and the way it moved as she spoke.
On top of gorgeous, she was smart and savvy, with a wicked sense of humor. She was a lot more fun than any woman he’d ever dated. Which was probably why he’d never dated a woman for more than a couple of months.
Not that this was a date.
This was business. On two levels, all business. He just had to remember that.
“So, I’m solid on the jobs you need me to cover this week. How about the Alcosta event? What do you need me to do for that?” he asked when she finished her summary and stopped to take a sip of her ice water.
He wasn’t surprised when she pulled out a detailed task list. But he was when she didn’t hand it over as he reached out. Instead, she pulled out her pen.
“I have to make some changes,” she said absently, her attention on the notes she was scrawling across the pages. Spence leaned across the table to see how much more she wanted to do, then frowned.
“You just booked the biggest event of your career and you’re cutting back on the amount of work you want me to help with? Are you sure you’re doing this right?”
“One of the requests Señor Alcosta made was that in addition to having his assistant, Jessica, involved, he wants to personally assist me with a lot of the event details.” She glanced up and gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not taking any key jobs from your list. I’m only having Señor Alcosta help with a few tasks that I’m already taking point on.”
Mia and Alcosta, together? Just the two of them? Without him standing between them, doing his duty to protect Mia from any danger—real or imagined? Sure, any danger was more imagined than real at this point, but orders were orders.
“No.”
“Sorry, what?”
“No,” he said again. “You’re not deliberately arranging your schedule so that you’re alone with that guy.”
She set the pen down with the same care he’d use diffusing a bomb and gave him a steady look.
“Again, what?”
“Alcosta hit on you at a party and it made you so uncomfortable that you claimed to be in a relationship with me,” he reminded her. “I wasn’t at that meeting because you need a security presentation. I was there as a shield. My money says he hit on you when I left, too.”
He paused to give her a chance to deny it. She fluttered her lashes, then took another drink of her water. He smirked before continuing.
“You’ve got the contract. You’ve got the deposit. You’ve got your golden opportunity to send your company into the stratosphere.”
“In other words, you don’t think I should make any concessions.”
Spence narrowed his eyes, trying to read her tone and body language. He didn’t want to piss her off, but he wasn’t going to lie.
“No. In other words, I don’t think you should be alone with Santiago Alcosta. He has a crap reputation. Maybe he got a raw deal, being judged for his family’s crimes. Maybe it’s just a matter of time before he’s caught. Maybe that guy at the party, the one in the office today, was just delivering a message or asking for a raise.” Spence shrugged. “I don’t give a damn which it is. The bottom line is associating with Alcosta carries a risk. It’s my job to mitigate that risk and ensure that you’re not harmed while dealing with him.”
That was as close to a speech as Spence ever got, and he wasn’t sure what to do now. Bow? Wait for applause? Duck?
“So, you’re protecting me?”
“Yeah.” Spence nodded. “I’m working for you, assisting with your business and helping raise money for some good causes. But bottom line, I’m going to protect you.”
Tension gripped his shoulders. He wasn’t a man who shied away from confrontations. Actually, he reveled in them. But Mia was different. And not just because pissing her off could get him fired—on two levels.
He waited, wondering if she was going to explode. A lot of women would get pissy being talked to that frankly.
But Mia only tilted her head to one side and, lips pursed, gave him a considering stare. For the first time since he’d met her, he could see the resemblance to her father. Finally she arched her brow and nodded.
“Okay.”
“That’s it? Just okay?”
“Sure. I mean, not that I’d let you tell me how to run my life or my business. But you’re right about Señor Alcosta,” she admitted with a grimace. “I’m not afraid of the man and don’t think he’s a criminal. But I’ll work a lot more efficiently and do a much better job knowing I don’t have to fend off passes that will eventually make for a very uncomfortable working relationship.”
Spence’s lips twitched. Her tone made it clear that Alcosta would probably be the uncomfortable one.
“And that’s the bottom line?”
“Rocking my job?” Mia laughed. “Of course. It sounds like that’s your bottom line, too.”
The tension eased from his shoulders and Spence relaxed again.
“I have to admit it is.”
“I like that,” she said with a smile that sent that tension surging once again, this time quite a bit south of his shoulders.
Spence stared into her eyes, drowning in the image of what it’d feel like to hear her say those words in the dark. Just the two of them, tangled in cool sheets while the hot night air wrapped around their naked bodies.
The sound of his cell phone ripped him out of fantasyland and back to reality.
Saved by the bell.
Not caring that it was rude, he grabbed it from his pocket like it was a life preserver. As soon as he glanced at the readout, he grimaced. He should have stayed in fantasyland.
“Do you need to get that? I don’t mind,” Mia said, waving her pen at her notes to indicate she had plenty to do.
“I guess I should,” he said, choosing the lesser of two evils. Then, steeling himself, he moved a polite distance away and answered.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Spencer, darling. I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“I’ve been working.”
“Working? At that gym? Spencer, you’re so good at so many things, why would you settle for teaching rich men how to lift weights?”
Even if he hadn’t been sitting there with Mia, he wouldn’t have corrected her. Instead, he just said, “A job’s a job.”
“You could do better. You really need to consider your future, dear. Just the other day, I had a long chat with a darling woman. Your girlfriend, Lori. She and I talked for a good quarter hour, Sp
encer.”
“She was never my girlfriend,” he corrected, glancing over to meet Mia’s unapologetically amused stare. “And should I ask how you got her number?”
Mistake, he realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth. By investing even that much into her rant, he fed her rant. Knowing there was only one way to stop the train before it jumped the tracks, he said, “I’m at lunch with a woman right now, so I need to go.”
“A date? Spencer, you’re talking on the phone while on a date? What is wrong with you? Where did I go wrong. You hang up right this minute. No, wait. You call me back this evening, young man. You call to tell me all about this woman or I’ll show up on your doorstep. You know I will.”
“Goodbye.”
He put the phone on silence before shoving it deep in his pocket. Her smile even wider now, Mia propped her elbow on the table, rested her chin on her fist and arched her brow.
“Rough phone call?”
“My mother,” Spence confirmed with a grimace. “She’s recently gotten into the habit of calling at least once a week to share her thoughts on my life.”
“Oooh, interfering parental phone calls.” Mia breathed with a wide-eyed nod. “Those are always fun. Even better are the unannounced interfering visits. Although those, at least, are often accompanied by muffins.”
“Muffins?” Spence laughed.
“My mother was big on bringing a basket of muffins as the excuse for her in-person interference.”
“I guess I’m lucky that my mom still lives in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s where you’re from?” At his nod, Mia asked, “How long have you lived in California?”
“I left Philly for college at UC San Diego. It was close to my priorities. Surfing and, um, school,” Spence corrected, fumbling that last word into a lie. He’d gone to UCSD so he could be near the Coronado Naval Base while getting the degree so he could join the Navy as an officer. Spence frowned at the realization that the Navy, and more to the point, the SEALs, had been his be-all and end-all as far back as he could remember. It’s all he’d had. All he’d wanted. A part of him was afraid that it was all he was.
Mia blinked in surprise, either at his odd phrasing or his sudden silence. Spence couldn’t blame her. He was surprised, too. Both at his realization, and at how easily he’d dropped his natural caution.
“And your mom’s weekly phone calls are a new thing?” she asked after a few more seconds of silence. “Is that because you’re making changes in your career?”
“How do you know that?” Not that Spence was surprised at her insight—Mia was an amazingly insightful woman—but he was impressed that she’d nailed down his mother with so little information.
“Believe me, I’m an expert on the topic of parental interference in all its many forms.”
If only she knew just how many forms there were, he thought, trying to ignore the guilt trickling like ice down his spine. That guilt, and an uncomfortable need to open up to Mia as much as he could, prompted him to share a little more.
“For years she seemed perfectly content with the live and let live policy she’d adopted when I went to college. But, yeah, as soon as she heard I was going to change careers and focus on security, she’s been on a rampage. She’s desperate to have a say in what that career is. If she can’t control my career, she’s determined to marry me off. Or, failing that, to convince me to move back home.”
“Didn’t you tell her that you’re rocking the event-planning business on your way to launching the next phase in your new security career?”
“Hell, no. I told her I was on a date,” he confessed with a laugh. “But I kept your name out of it, so don’t worry.”
“So, I’m your date?” she asked with a flirtatious flutter of her lashes.
“Just like I’m your...” He’d choke before he said boyfriend, but throwing out the word lover would be like tossing a live grenade on the table between them.
“My boyfriend?” she said with a flutter of her lashes.
“God.”
Mia’s laugh echoed off the restaurant walls, pulling a reluctant smile out of him.
“Don’t worry about it. Believe me, I understand interfering mothers,” Mia said, still laughing as she swiped a hint of butter over her sourdough bread. “Mine considers it her sacred duty to poke into my life as often as possible. She criticizes everything from my hairstyle to my choice of roommate.”
“Mine used to be pretty good about staying out of my life. She still is now, except when it comes to things like my career, my failure to provide her with grandchildren or what I had for breakfast,” he said, ripping a slice of bread off the loaf. “I take it your family is big on interfering, too?”
“They are. My mother more than my father. He’s okay as long as he considers me a contributing member of society. Besides, he’s not the interfering type,” Mia explained before biting into the bread.
Damn, Spence thought derisively. If she only knew.
“My mother seems to feel like a failure if I’m not living life the way she’s decided I should,” Mia continued with a shrug.
“She doesn’t know you very well, then,” he said. From what he’d seen over the last few days, Mia had built herself one hell of a life, with no failure anywhere to be seen. “You’re doing what you want, you’re good at it and you’re obviously having a good time. That sounds about as far from failure as it gets.”
“Thank you. I don’t understand why your mom is against your career, either. I know you’re working in event planning to build your résumé, but why security?” Mia asked as their meals were served. “Was there a specific reason you chose that career path?”
All he’d ever wanted was to be a SEAL. Suddenly feeling adrift, Spence stared at the hefty portion of chicken parmigiana in its bed of thick pasta. Things change, he reminded himself. Deal with it.
Still, it took him a second to pull himself out of the loss and meet Mia’s gaze again.
“That’s a family thing, too,” he told her.
“Your family is in the business?”
“No, my family drives me crazy. I figure one of the reasons that my mom is—or was—so good at letting me live my life was because her parents and siblings are total busybodies. I chose—” since he couldn’t say the Navy, he went with “—San Diego to get as far away from my family as I could.”
And with the SEALs, he’d found his true family. One he’d lived with, learned with, traveled with and fought with, side-by-side. Even more than his birth family, his SEAL brothers had helped him figure out how to be his own man. How to push beyond the limits his family imposed and reach for new heights.
He’d be damned if he’d give that up and live an average life—no matter how much his mother nagged.
“Oh, yeah. I can so relate to that. Getting way from my family became priority number one when I was ten years old. Don’t get me wrong,” she quickly added, twirling pasta around her fork. “I do love them. I just love them better if they are far enough away to keep their interference to a minimum.”
“Distance means there’s less chance of showing up for dinner and finding your mother’s current daughter-in-law pick seated next to you. Or cousins who constantly want to borrow your truck or your tools or your cash.”
“Exactly,” Mia agreed. “Now I might get a nagging phone call about general life choices but it’s better than coming home to find my mother has replaced my living room furniture with ‘something of quality and taste.’ Life is better without family interference, isn’t it?”
“Much better,” he agreed, looking around the room in case she could see the guilt in his eyes.
How the hell did this woman draw so many feelings from him? Before Mia, he hadn’t realized he even had that many emotions.
“I never asked—why’d you leave your last job?”
A shaft of mi
sery shot through him, piercing and sharp.
“I was injured on the job. While I was recovering, my position closed,” he finally said, trying to stay as close to the truth as possible. He had no problem doing whatever was necessary to get the job done, but he didn’t like lying to Mia.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, those dark eyes sympathetic as she reached across the table to lay her hand over his. Since her touch ignited feelings a lot hotter than comfort, he slid his hand free after one tempting second.
“I was, too. Sorrier that it left me open to that family pressure we talked about.” At her questioning look, he explained, “My employment changes opened up a lot of suggestions from my family. Safe suggestions, ones that require that I move back to Portland. Suddenly I’m uniquely qualified to manage the neighborhood grocery store, to run my cousin’s construction business or to help my brother-in-law start up a computer-repair business.”
“None of which you have any interest in.”
“Exactly.” He took another drink of his beer. “I like security work. It’s what I’m trained to do. It’s what I like to do.”
“Then you should do it.”
“Instead of event planning?” he asked with a teasing smile.
“After next month, yes,” she said with a smile. “I learned at a very young age that the only thing that’s certain in life is that it’s uncertain. So if there’s something you want, something that’s important to you, you need to grab it while it’s there. Otherwise, by the time you think you’re ready for it, it might be gone.”
What if what you want is off-limits?
“Very wise.” He studied her over his beer. “Wise and maybe a little cynical. What happened at that young age that got you thinking like that?”
Mia held up one finger while she swallowed a mouthful of pasta, then washed it down with a sip of wine before patting her mouth with her napkin.
“My dad is in the Navy, so I grew up bouncing from military base to military base. State to state, country to country. My life pretty much changed every two years until I went to college.”