Desire by Design

by Paula Altenburg

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” she said.

  He sagged back against her embroidered pillows, closed his eyes, then cracked them open again. “Okay. But you have one hour, Tinker Bell. Then I call in the Lost Boys.”

  Eve hoped his sense of humor stayed with him long after the medication wore off.

  …

  Early morning traffic was light, and it wasn’t long before she walked into her cramped office at Sullivan Construction.

  Calling it an office was a flattering overstatement. She was often at job sites, and the company had a conference room for meetings, so she didn’t require anything fancy. She had spare rolls of toilet paper stacked under a chair, and a pre-fab maple door, screwed to two sets of folding metal legs, served as her desk. But at least she had a window.

  Elevators whirred in the hallway, then office doors opened and closed as the building slowly came to life. Time was wasting. Eve opened her briefcase and began to gather the things she’d need for a few days of working from home.

  She had one foot out the door when the phone on her desk rang. She hesitated, then decided she’d better answer it. The hour Matt had given her was more than up, and although common sense told her he’d be dead to the world by now, she wasn’t used to looking after other people and didn’t want to take that chance. What if he needed her?

  Marion Balcom’s cheery voice was a relief. “I was hoping you’d be an early bird!”

  Eve wasn’t. She yawned and glanced at her watch. At the moment, she was more of a late-night person. Really, really late.

  She shifted the briefcase from under her arm, letting it slide to the floor. “Hi, Marion. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if you could find out for me what’s going to happen to the old City Hall.”

  That was an odd request, since the fate of the building had nothing to do with Eve. “Wouldn’t you be better off calling the mayor’s office to get that information?”

  “You know what Bob’s like. Getting anything out of him is like pulling hens’ teeth.” Marion gave a light, meaningful laugh, and Eve could sympathize. Bob had two sets of rules—one for himself and one for everyone else.

  The information wasn’t exactly confidential, however, and Eve didn’t see any harm in helping. She knew what it was like to be brushed off by people with more important things to do than answer a few simple questions. Besides, Eve still wanted to impress her. Marion Balcom was high up on the food chain with the Department of Tourism and Culture, and she would be a great asset for Eve’s career, maybe even make up for the job she lost to Matt. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  She gathered her things and drove home, then tiptoed into her bedroom to check on her houseguest.

  He hadn’t needed her. Instead, he was sound asleep on his back with one arm flung out to the side, the other stretched above his head, his long body sagging deep into the thick mattress of her double bed. He’d thrown off the quilt, and the white, cotton sheet twined around his hips and legs like honeysuckle around a porch rail.

  He didn’t look at all like an internationally renowned architect. He looked like an internationally renowned centerfold.

  Looking at him like that, she tried not to think about the way he’d kissed her. It wasn’t like he’d meant anything by it. He’d only wanted Claude to think she had a new man in her life.

  Eve bit her lower lip.

  She reached out a reluctant finger, tracing it along the sweep of his jaw. Matt twitched, rolled onto his side, and let out a soft grunt. Eve snatched her hand back, grabbed her nightgown and bathrobe, then scurried out, easing the door shut behind her.

  After shedding her clothes and crawling wearily into the bed in the spare room where Matt normally slept, she snuggled her cheek into a spicy, aftershave-scented pillowcase and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The next thing she knew, someone was pounding on her front door. A travel alarm clock on the chair beside the bed read 11:07 a.m.

  Eve pulled the pillow over her head, intending to wait until whoever it was had the decency to get lost, then remembered Matt was asleep, too, and needed the rest far more than she did.

  She said a few rude words as she swung her feet to the floor, hauled on her bathrobe, then stumbled down the stairs.

  Not even in her worst nightmare would she have expected to find Bob Anderson on her doorstep, wielding an armful of red roses. She clutched the neck of her bathrobe and blinked up at him, but Bob didn’t comment on her appearance, although she knew quite well how she looked—like she’d just crawled out of bed.

  “These are yours,” he said, thrusting the roses at her, the clear cellophane wrapping crackling. “Is Mattie here?”

  She was speechless. Why was Bob Anderson bringing her flowers?

  He stepped past her into the foyer, casually inspecting his surroundings, and straightened a framed watercolor hanging on the wall. The small gesture irritated Eve. First Claude, now Bob. Men kept touching her private things without permission.

  But Bob had every right to visit his nephew, and Eve was determined to be nice, because for some strange reason, Matt actually liked the mayor.

  Bob was looking at her, waiting for some sort of response. What had he asked her?

  Something hit the floor above their heads.

  “Eve!” Matt shouted. “Where are my pants?”

  A ball of ice tumbled into the pit of her stomach as she scanned her memory. They were at the foot of her bed, right where she’d left them.

  No way was she going to yell that out in front of Bob.

  “How should I know?” she called back.

  “Because you had them last.”

  This would be a good time for some natural disaster to hit. An earthquake, perhaps.

  “Matt,” she choked out, her voice cracking. “Your uncle’s here.”

  Scuffling and swearing could be heard, and she assumed the Demerol had worn off and his leg was hurting. Either that, or Matt was as excited about Bob’s being here as she was. A few seconds later he hobbled to the top of the stairs, zipping his torn, bloodstained trousers over his Jockeys.

  Bob’s eyes widened. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I shot him,” Eve said, tilting her chin up to peer over the fragrant petals in her arms.

  “With a nail gun,” Matt added. “She was working late last night at a job site. Alone. I surprised her.”

  Bob frowned at Eve. “You shouldn’t be working alone at night,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Be nice, Eve reminded herself. Bob had a right to be here. But wait until Matt moved out.

  “I was working on the Internet café renovations.” The ones Bob seemed to have forgotten he’d volunteered her for, she wanted to remind him. “Nights are the only spare time I have. Most of the time I’m not usually alone, but everyone else had to leave early.” They all had families. And lives.

  The fine lines around Bob’s eyes deepened. “They left you alone? Well, it won’t be happening again. I’ll make sure someone stays with you if you need to work nights.”

  Matt carefully descended the stairs, favoring his sore leg. “Don’t worry about it. For the next little while, Eve and I can operate as a team. Where she goes, I’ll go.”

  Wait just a minute. She had to share her home with him, work with him all day, and now her free time had to be spent with him, too?

  No way. Eve had a bad feeling about this. She and Matt spent too much time together as it was, and she wanted more distance. They were crossing that fine line between colleagues and friends, and that line was important. She already liked what she knew of him; she didn’t need to know anything more.

  Like the fact that he looked incredibly hot in navy blue boxer briefs.

  “Or I could just call if I need you,” she suggested.

  Matt’s blue gaze locked with hers.

  “Thanks, but I don’t have a death wish,” he said.

  Although right now, death held a cer
tain appeal.

  Matt’s leg hurt, his mouth was dry from the medication, and he could have used a few more hours of sleep.

  He hadn’t liked letting her go off alone to the office earlier, and liked it even less that he hadn’t been in a position to stop her. Now that the drugs had worn off, however, circumstances had changed. Let Eve argue all she wanted. He was in no mood to listen.

  He looked her over, reassuring himself she was okay. Her hair was a mess, the bathrobe she wore hadn’t come from any Victoria’s Secret catalog, and the expression on her face warned of storm fronts ahead. She looked rumpled and sexy.

  Nothing was going to happen to her.

  “You are not following me around,” Eve said. The roses in her arms reflected the fire blossoming on her cheeks.

  “Of course not.” He sat gingerly on a bottom step, easing his injured leg out before him. “I won’t have to follow you. We’ll be working together.”

  “I work on a number of projects, not just City Hall. You can’t come to all of them.”

  “I have a laptop. I’m mobile.” His leg throbbed. Maybe not as mobile as usual, but mobile nonetheless.

  “She says she doesn’t want you following her around all day,” Uncle Bob interrupted, his voice mild. “There are anti-stalking laws in this country, you know.”

  Those laws didn’t seem to bother Eve’s ex-husband.

  “Thank you, Bob,” Eve said, her tone so sweet Matt almost laughed. She sniffed the flowers in her arms. “And thank you for the roses, too. They’re lovely. What’s the occasion?”

  “Those aren’t from me. I found them on the doorstep.” Bob plucked an envelope from his suit pocket. “The card says they’re from some guy named Claude.”

  A look of revulsion crossed Eve’s face. If there had been any doubt in Matt’s mind how she felt about her ex-husband, there was none now. He made a mental note never to bring her roses, too. Besides, Eve was more of a bird-of-paradise kind of woman, all fire and sunbursts. This Claude guy didn’t know anything.

  Except for how to terrorize a woman. Matt’s blood pressure edged up several notches.

  Eve handed the flowers back to Bob. “Here. Why don’t you give these to your secretary?”

  Uncle Bob scooped up the flowers, opened the door, and set them on the doorstep outside, displaying one of his rare moments of tact. Eve, all soft and wide-eyed and mussy-haired, chewed on her lip and looked like she couldn’t decide whether or not to burst into tears. Matt hoped she chose not to. If she did, he was going to have to hold her, and she wouldn’t like that. Especially in front of his uncle. She tried to seem tough on the surface, but he couldn’t shake the image he had of her crouched alone in the dark with only a nail gun for protection.

  “Did you have something you wanted me for?” Matt asked, prodding his uncle’s memory in an effort to change the subject. The sooner Uncle Bob left the better.

  “What?” Uncle Bob appeared confused for a moment as he turned his attention from Eve back to Matt. “Oh, yes.” He ran a hand over his thick, silver hair. “Council is putting some pressure on me to find out what the new building is going to look like. How soon do you think you can have a presentation ready? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but the demolition is already scheduled, and next week we’ll begin moving records and office space into temporary quarters. Once the site is cleared, we can begin construction.”

  Uncle Bob looked happy. Matt wished he could say the same for Eve. Twin vertical furrows appeared above her pixie nose.

  “What demolition?” she asked.

  “We’ve made arrangements for the old Hall to be imploded,” Uncle Bob told her. “Then we’ll build the new Hall on the same site.”

  The furrows deepened. “Imploded?”

  “That’s what’s done when the demolition of a large building might damage its neighbors.” Uncle Bob spelled it out as if he were speaking to a child, and not a person far more familiar with the construction industry than he was. Matt threw up mental hands. Not much wonder his uncle rubbed her the wrong way. He really was a moron.

  “I know why it’s used.” Her pink-tipped toes tapped on the tiled floor. “But a new site has already been bought, and Sullivan Construction agreed to site preparation as part of the bid.”

  “It was agreed that the current property remains the best choice to build on because it’s centrally located,” Uncle Bob said. “Since the old building has already been decommissioned, we can bring it down and start over.”

  “You work fast,” Eve said. “And quiet, too. I’ll bet this bit of information hasn’t hit the newspapers yet.”

  Uncle Bob beamed. “Thanks. It hasn’t.”

  Matt wondered if his uncle realized she wasn’t issuing him a compliment.

  “Have you given any thought to how this is going to affect the budget?” she asked next. “You can’t go around changing things without talking to Connor. He has a contract. Imploding the old building will cost a lot more than leveling off the property that was purchased for the new project.”

  Uncle Bob waved it off. “Connor and I are on the same page.”

  “You’ve already brought Matt into this. Now you want to change the building site. Do you have any idea how much implosion will add to site preparation costs?”

  “Don’t you go worrying about money,” Uncle Bob said. “I have ways of covering additional expenses.”

  “It’s my job to worry about money.”

  Matt noticed with increasing alarm that Eve was almost vibrating from the effort it took to control her frustration. For Uncle Bob’s sake, Matt hoped he really did have ways of covering the additional expenses. He rubbed his leg, hoping that small gesture would be enough to cause a distraction and maybe win some sympathy. He wondered if a little moan would be overkill.

  “I think I should lie down,” he said.

  At once, Eve turned all her attention to him.

  “Sure. You go lie down. There’s no big hurry on that design,” Uncle Bob said cheerfully, reaching for the door. “It can wait a day or so until you’re feeling better. Just don’t let Evie sweet-talk you into drawing some low-budget eyesore.” He disappeared with a wave of one hand.

  Matt winced as he rose to his feet. Low-budget eyesore. There was no doubt about it. Uncle Bob seemed to go out of his way to antagonize Eve. The joke was on him, though. She wouldn’t have to do much sweet-talking at all to get Matt to do just about anything she wanted at this point. He rubbed his leg again. Unfortunately, her methods of persuasion weren’t what one could call “sweet.”

  “Here, let me help you.” She wriggled her way under his arm as if she belonged there, and Matt’s knees nearly buckled. Man, she was little. And strong. He’d been too drugged earlier to fully appreciate what it must have taken for her to get him in the house and up the stairs, but he knew he hadn’t done it all alone. He dimly recalled her helping him out of his pants, too. Too bad he couldn’t talk her into helping him take a shower.

  The thought of being naked with her wasn’t doing anything for his navigational skills as she helped him limp his way into the living room.

  No, Uncle Bob, never in a million years would there be any reason other than business for me to be living with Eve.

  Matt tried to come up with something to say to distract her from the flowers, the construction project, Uncle Bob, and the unwanted attention she was receiving from certain parts of his body.

  “Thanks for showing such remarkable self-control with Uncle Bob,” he said. “I know he can be hard to take sometimes, but he’s important to me. All my life, he’s stepped up to the plate whenever I’ve needed a dad. I owe him for that.”

  “How do you know I was using self-control?” she asked, the beginning of a smile tickling the corners of her curvy mouth.

  He knew more about her than she might suspect. He probably knew more about her than she did herself. For instance, Eve shouldered way too much responsibility for work. And if she worried too much about work, she probably w
orried too much about other things in her life, too.

  “I just do.”

  “Well, then, thank you for not saying anything to Bob about the real reason you moved in here.”

  This was the closest she’d come to discussing it with him, and he wanted to push, but didn’t dare push too hard.

  “How do you know I didn’t?” Matt asked.

  “I just do.”

  She said it with utter conviction, and a glimmer of pleasure lit Matt’s insides. If she believed he’d never tell anyone her secrets, it meant she trusted him at least a little. And Matt discovered he would do a lot to earn Eve’s trust. He liked her straightforwardness.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said, stretching out on the sofa with his shoulders braced against one armrest, and both feet dangling off the other. “Your mother called last night. She and your father are coming for a visit at the end of the month.”

  He waited for her to bring up her house rules, especially the one about answering the phone, but she didn’t. Instead, she adopted the air of a woman resigned to the inevitable.

  Eve sighed. “My parents are planning this huge fortieth anniversary party. It’s more of a family reunion. They’re coming to the city to pick up things they can’t buy in bulk locally. They always stay here. She’ll never believe you’re a roommate.”

  Matt was getting tired of her worrying that people might think there was something going on between them. He was considered quite a catch—by everyone but Eve.

  Patience, he reminded himself. And lots of it. Let her come to him.

  “I can move back into the hotel for a few days,” he said, just to torment her. He’d probably go to Toronto, but he was curious how she planned to handle this before he gave her an out.

  “At three hundred dollars a night?” She tightened the belt on her robe. “I don’t think so. I’ll sleep on the sofa. My parents will sleep in my bed.”

  “If anyone sleeps on the sofa, it should be me,” Matt said. Then he wondered why he was offering to sleep on her sofa. It was two feet too short for him.

  Eve measured him with her eyes, apparently coming to the same conclusion.