A Man Like Mike

by Sami Lee

  The money he would get working for Jay Stephenson couldn’t be equalled by anything he could get here in Brisbane, and at the time Mike had indicated that he would take up the offer once he saw his parents were coping and he had got to know his nephew a little better.

  Yet a truth he hadn’t fully considered was now weighing heavier on his mind by the day. He was for all intents the most significant male role model in his nephew’s life. The part he had intended to play was a fairly major contribution for an uncle who lived in another city and saw him only a few times a year. He was going to teach Bailey to fish and ride a skateboard … and be the bearer of sage advice when he was older and had girl troubles. The more important things, like where the goldfish went when it died and where babies came from were definitely a father’s domain.

  He couldn’t be the father figure. Derek’s shoes had always been way too big for him. But now, if Eve were to be believed about the likelihood of her getting married, he was it. As far as fathers went, he was all Bailey had, and the idea of leaving filled Mike with misgivings he didn’t know how to deal with right now.

  The thought of Eve sent his mind careening off on another, equally disquieting, tangent. The other night, he had come way too close to kissing her. And it hadn’t been the first time the urge had almost overwhelmed him, so he couldn’t just write it off as a fluke midnight craving.

  She shouldn’t have been so tempting, standing there in a modest white cotton robe with her hair all sleep-dishevelled and dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes. But he had seen past all that, his attention more focussed on the occasional flash of cinnamon-coloured lace he saw poking out from between the robe’s lapels and the enticing softness of her pale pink lips, for the first time since last Sunday free of the dark red, concealing lipstick she wore to work.

  If he hadn’t read such naked fear in her dark chocolate eyes, he probably would have kissed her, despite her voiced objections. He sensed that on some level she wanted him to. The chemistry that had developed between them was too strong; he found it hard to believe it was entirely one-sided. But it had taken them both by surprise, and Mike was glad he hadn’t acted on the impulse, as powerful as it had been.

  At least, that’s what he told himself. He just wished he could somehow give his body the message that he had done the right thing. Then maybe he wouldn’t still be lying awake at night, his senses alert to the fact that Eve slept in the room directly above him, his mind’s eye picturing the rest of whatever that cinnamon lace thing was.

  Mike groaned as the image reappeared in his mind. Picturing Eve in satin and lace was not going to help settle his runaway libido.

  So what was?

  Avoiding her hadn’t worked. The last couple of days he had stayed right away from her—a task made easier by his night work. He had chosen to leave as soon after Eve arrived home as he could, spending the minimum time required filling her in on Bailey’s day. She seemed more than willing to keep the tone of their conversations impersonal.

  “So get over it, Wilcox,” he muttered to himself. With his future up in the air, he couldn’t offer her more than a fling right now, and Eve wasn’t fling material. He couldn’t risk alienating her if he wanted to continue having a relationship with his nephew. But they couldn’t go on like they were, stiff and formal and avoiding all contact.

  He would have to make a gesture of friendship to assure her he wanted to be a help to her, not a hindrance. That the moments when they’d almost kissed had been nothing more than renegade fancies, the product of too little sleep and too much upheaval for both of them. He’d do whatever it took to make her believe that if it would make things run more smoothly around here.

  But what?

  The smell of the baking lasagne he had spent the morning preparing gave him an idea. With sudden decision, he stood and lifted Bailey into his arms. “Come on, kiddo,” he announced, “We’re going for a drive.”

  The payroll clerk, a lanky brunette with short hair named Terri Howard whom Eve had never seen wearing anything that wasn’t black, gave a soft tap on Eve’s office door before pushing it open. “A few of us are going down to Mama’s House for lunch,” she said, referring to the Italian eatery situated just around the corner from the office and, as such, frequented by most of the staff at Fine Furniture. “Would you like to come?”

  Eve glanced at the clock in the corner of her computer screen and saw that it was well past midday. As if her stomach read the time as well as her eyes, it let out a loud growl of expectation at the notion of Mama’s famously delicious pastas, but the work piled on her desk wouldn’t let her take a break. “I think you’d better bring me something back,” Eve said. “I won’t be getting away from these balance sheets anytime soon.”

  She was bending over her bottom desk drawer for her purse when Eve felt sure she heard Bailey giggle. She dismissed the phantom sound with a shake of her head, but a few seconds later she heard it again, and this time she could swear she wasn’t imagining it.

  Looking up, she saw that Terri was no longer standing in her doorway. Curiosity had her heading out into the hall, where she saw the payroll clerk, along with the rest of the mostly female office personnel, huddled in a crooning, tittering, group.

  The Wilcox men were here, and the staff were swarming around them like bees around a hive.

  Eve folded her arms and watched, surprised she had even heard Bailey above the cacophony of ‘he’s so cutes’ and ‘how adorables’. Mike was wearing the same well worn, holy jeans he usually wore around the house—didn’t he have any going-out-in-public wear?—and a red T-shirt with the slogan ‘Chefs Do It With Spice’ emblazoned in white across the front. The way he looked, Eve suspected it wasn’t just Bailey causing all the excited tittering amongst the office girls.

  She was just wondering who was enjoying the attention of the doting females more—the little boy or the big one—when Mike caught her eye above his circle of admirers.

  His smile widened at the sight of her, and Eve’s stomach did a peculiar flip-flop. She reminded herself she was starving and decided she was probably responding to the bag of what looked like plastic food containers he held up. “Thought I’d bring you some lunch,” he told her. “Hope you haven’t eaten.”

  The group of women let out a soft chorus of ‘awwws’ and wistful laments about how long it had been since a man had brought them lunch. “She hasn’t eaten. I was just going to get her something,” Terri piped up, missing the look Eve sent her, so enthralled she was by Bailey, who was cheekily poking his tongue out at her.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Eve told Mike, rattled by his unexpected appearance at her office … not to mention annoyed at the way the other women had turned to melted butter around him.

  The way she had turned to melted butter, just because he was here.

  “Come on. I noticed you left with nothing to eat this morning and I’ve been making lasagne so I thought I’d bring you some.”

  The air in the hallway became thick with silence as the staff exchanged furtive, speculative glances. Being one of the head accountants at the Brisbane headquarters of the Australia-wide organisation, Eve held a position of some authority. She acted as supervisor to some of the staff. In order to keep the line between professional and personal from blurring, she usually forewent socialising outside the office. She certainly didn’t routinely share information about her personal life beyond what was necessary. People knew about Bailey of course, but she hadn’t mentioned Mike. There’d been no reason to.

  Now the man had gone and told the entire department they were living together.

  Not wanting to become the subject of gossip, Eve felt compelled to explain to the room at large, “Mike is Bailey’s uncle. He’s living with—I should say staying with us for a while. In the studio downstairs. It has it’s own bathroom so it’s kind of like a whole separate apartment.”

  Good Lord, Eve. Too much information. She’d been so obvious in her attempt to assure everybody that she and
Mike weren’t sleeping together, everyone probably now suspected they were. Mike sent her a look, one of curious amusement that told her he knew what she’d been trying to do and that he thought she was just hilarious. Eve fought to keep her blush from showing.

  “Yeah, it’s quite a place,” he remarked dryly, smiling disarmingly at the group of women. “I could run a whole country from down in that little studio and Eve’d never know it, we see each other so rarely. We barely even speak to each other.”

  Eve sent him a look that said, Laying it on a little thick aren’t you? He responded with a faux-innocent smile that made her want to scream. Then she noticed all the staff looking at her with perplexed gazes, probably wondering why she had a perfectly attractive man—a veritable hero who cooked and delivered lunch—living in her house and was refusing to speak to him.

  She wrestled with her urge to explain and won by a small margin. She suggested to Mike, “Would you like to come into my office?”

  He followed behind her, shouldering the door shut and placing Bailey down on the carpet at his feet. “Are you sure you want me in here, Eve?” he asked from his haunches, glancing around her compact, functional office with the single window framing a view of the building next door. “This space might be a little small for the both of us. Don’t want people to think we might be doing something in here.” He let out a mock gasp. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have shut the door.”

  Eve gave him her best level stare. “Are you finished?”

  Not in the least intimidated by the look, Mike stood and laughed. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell me why you wanted to make sure everyone out there knew we weren’t sleeping together?”

  Eve supplied, as if he were a bit dense, “Because you gave them the impression we were.”

  “Did I?”

  “You said, ‘you left without anything to eat this morning’, as if we’d…” she made a circle with her hand.

  “As if we’d … spent the night together working up an appetite?” Mike filled in, still sporting that amused grin. There was a gleam in his eyes that took his countenance a step beyond amused, into more stimulating territory that made Eve’s heart catapult against her ribs. “Why don’t you want your workmates thinking you have a love life?”

  Because I don’t. She searched for some other, less embarrassing explanation. “They aren’t my workmates. They’re my staff.”

  Mike lifted a brow. “Excuse me.”

  “I mean I directly supervise some of them. Having them out there speculating about my private life undermines my authority.”

  He looked at her as if trying to decide whether she was crazy or not. She thought his conclusion would not be one she’d find flattering when he shook his head and dropped the subject. He turned to pulling the plastic containers of food from the bag he still held, popping one on her side of the desk and one in front of himself. “I’m guessing you want to eat this here—don’t suppose you’d come outside and find a spot in the sun?”

  “I can’t. I should really be working right through lunch.”

  The corner of his sexy, insolent mouth lifted. “If that’s a hint for me to leave—tough. I haven’t eaten yet and I’m starved.”

  Eve watched Bailey while he shuffled around on the floor, touching all the new, strange-looking items in her office like they were great archaeological finds and not just filing cabinets and wastepaper bins. “What about Bailey?” she asked.

  “He’s already eaten.”

  Eve huffed in frustration. “I mean an office is hardly an appropriate place for him to wander about.”

  “If you’d like to take up my idea of going outside…”

  Letting out a growl, Eve sank heavily into her chair, accepting that she wasn’t getting rid of Mike. He seemed perfectly at home here, as though he were settling in for a long, companionable chat. He smiled at her ire and took the seat across from her, handing over one of the forks he pulled from his bag of goodies.

  In silence, she sectioned off a bite-sized piece of the lasagne, keeping an eye on Bailey as he toured the facilities … because that was what good caretakers did with children, not because looking at Mike was too distracting for her own good.

  The moment the tender meat, al-dente pasta and creamy béchamel sauce hit her taste buds, Eve let out a moan of delectation. It was like a little piece of Italy had exploded in her mouth. She closed her eyes, savoured the flavours, then took another bite before taking her next breath.

  She was halfway through the lasagne before she noticed the silence. Her attention turned away from the food for a moment as she looked across her desk and saw Mike watching her intently, his face set in grim lines. “What?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  He frowned and returned his attention to his food, stabbing at the lasagne with unnecessary vigour. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Eve didn’t think he sounded all that sorry, but she didn’t feel like pursuing it. Her food was getting cold.

  She finished off the lasagne in record time. “My goodness. That was fantastic. You’re a very talented chef, Mike.”

  He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

  Turning her attention to watching him eat, Eve noticed that he was barely halfway through his lunch. Chagrined, she said, “I guess I was hungrier than I realised.”

  “Yeah, well. For a thin woman you sure do eat fast.”

  So he thought she was a glutton, did he? And she had thought he was trying to be nice, bringing in lunch and making her take a break. “I would have thought you’d be flattered I like your cooking.”

  “I am.” The two words sounded more like a complaint. “I just don’t know where you put it all.”

  Eve glanced down at her nondescript dark suit. She’d put on weight the last month, from eating too much drive-through takeaway. She was lucky she didn’t go in for the more tailored, figure-hugging suits some women preferred, or she would have had to buy several new ones already. As it was, this one was growing a little tight around the waist. “Give it time. Much more of your cooking and you won’t be asking that question.” She really would have to get back to the gym sometime soon.

  His eyes connected with hers, pinning her to her leather chair with a blast of unexpected heat. His gaze trailed downward, taking in what little of her he could see above the desk. Eve couldn’t move, and by the time his scrutiny returned to her face she could barely breathe.

  His voice was husky. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Eve swallowed. “All women worry about that sort of thing.”

  “You shouldn’t,” he insisted. “You look fantastic.”

  Really? Eve wanted to ask. She was glad her jumping nerves had made speech next to impossible. She didn’t want him to confirm it. Mike’s compliments were far too addictive.

  Besides, the way he was looking at her left her in no doubt that he meant what he said. He was as attracted to her as she was to him, and was having as much trouble fighting it. The knowledge was terrifying, yet it filled her with a tingling warmth that pushed terror to the furthest reaches of her mind. She was more to him than an idle curiosity, a challenge to pass the time. Who’d have guessed, the worldly and desirable Mike Wilcox, who charmed women as effortlessly as he smiled, was attracted to her?

  Eve’s office door swung open abruptly then, making her sit up with a start and break eye contact with Mike. “Where the bloody hell is everybody, Eve? We need to call an emergency meeting.”

  She remained calm in the face of the General Manager’s agitation. Nathan Shore had a tendency to get agitated at the slightest provocation. Besides, she could handle her boss in a snit more easily than she could handle her confused feelings about Mike. “Everybody is probably at lunch, Nathan. What’s the problem?”

  Nathan let out a choice word or two and pulled on his dark blue tie. “I’ve just got off the phone with head office. Sheila Smith herself is flying up here tomorrow and she wants to see a presentation on the b
udget—projected expenditure, cash flow, the lot.”

  “I have a lot of that data on my computer, Nathan,” Eve told him calmly. “It shouldn’t take me long to compile something with the help of a couple of the other staff.”

  “I shouldn’t need to tell you that the CEO deserves something a little beyond a hastily compiled speech. That might pass muster in a weekly staff meeting, but not for Sheila Smith.” It was only after this mini-diatribe that Nathan spotted Bailey in the corner, where he had tipped the wastepaper bin on its side and was now carefully sorting through its contents. “What in blazes is that?”

  Mike answered before Eve could. “That, is a child.”

  She shot him a look, but his eyes were on the other man, the offence he’d taken at Nathan’s obvious displeasure at seeing Bailey clear on his face.

  Nathan turned his gaze on Mike. Mike stood and offered his hand, keeping his expression neutral. “I’m Mike, and I brought that along.” He tilted his head toward Bailey. “Was there a security checkpoint I should have passed him through?”

  Nathan’s dark eyes narrowed behind his wire rimmed glasses, as though he might be taking Mike’s sardonic question seriously. With apparent reluctance he accepted Mike’s outstretched hand.

  Eve considered staying out of it and letting the two males of the species size each other up but, knowing Mike as she did, she wasn’t sure there would be much of her boss left when he was finished. It wasn’t just sheer physical power that Mike had over the thin-framed Nathan. It was as though the very impact of his magnetic presence could wash the other man away.