All A Man Can Be. Virginia Kantra

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      Pain stabbed an old wound, making him snarl. “Sorry. I’m not going to give up my plans so you can make nice with your parents.”

      Nicole glared. “Well, I’m not giving up my evening so you can make time with your married lover!”

      Chapter 4

      She was wacko.

      “What are you talking about?” Mark demanded.

      Nicole’s face turned fiery red. He could almost—almost—feel sorry for her.

      “I’m not judging you,” she said painfully. “But it’s unwise to form a relationship with someone who isn’t free to commit to you fully.”

      Mark lifted an eyebrow. She was so earnest it was funny. “You speaking from experience here?”

      Her face got even redder. He wouldn’t have believed it.

      “I’m not trying to get personal,” she said. “I’m simply saying it’s a mistake.”

      He could go for the direct approach. Sometimes that worked. “He really did a number on you, huh? What was his name?”

      “Ted,” she said, surprised into a reply. She looked down at her rings. “He had three children. Boys.”

      Her lips pressed closed, as if she’d let something precious escape. Interesting.

      “You got a problem with boys?”

      She didn’t smile. “No. I liked them. I liked spending time with them. I never minded going over on the weekends so that he could meet with customers or go into the office. Only—” She broke off.

      “Let me guess. It wasn’t only customers he was meeting.”

      Her blue eyes widened. “How did you know?”

      “I hear it all the time, babe. It happens all the time.”

      “He wasn’t even divorced,” she said. “Only separated.”

      He heard that, too. But it didn’t make sense. She was rich. Blond. A looker. “Why’d you put up with it?”

      “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      He shrugged. Her love life wasn’t his problem. “Okay.”

      “And you don’t have any right to sound so superior.”

      “Hey,” he said, genuinely startled. “You don’t need to get so defensive.”

      But she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “You can’t tell me you’ve never gotten involved with a married woman.”

      “No. I can’t tell you that,” Mark said grimly. “But I can tell you that’s one mistake I don’t plan on repeating.”

      Nicole sniffed. “Why did you agree to meet with her, then?”

      “Meet who?”

      “The woman on the phone.”

      He almost goggled at her. The lawyer?

      He turned to check the liquor levels in the bottles behind the bar. Not that anyone in Eden was likely to order a lunchtime grappa, but it bought him some time to figure out how to deal with her accusation.

      “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” he said.

      Nicole lowered her voice to a wickedly deep imitation of his. “‘Have you told him about me?’” She shook her head and said in her normal voice, “Big leap.”

      He wanted to shake her. He wanted to laugh. She was funny and concerned and totally wrong.

      Mark was getting pretty damn tired of being accused of things he hadn’t done.

      “You don’t know the situation,” he said.

      You don’t know me.

      “So tell me.” Her voice was bright and sympathetic. So were her eyes.

      “No.”

      She stiffened. “I can’t let you have Thursday night off without some kind of explanation. Staffing is a problem.”

      “Your problem,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

      “Yes, I am. And since I am—” she took a deep breath and straightened on her bar stool “—I want you back by eleven that night to close the register.”

      She was drawing her line in the sand.

      He could do what he wanted. Let her call the shots. His business with the Gilbert woman would be over by five. Six, tops.

      Or he could tell her to go to hell.

      Yeah, and then he could explain to the guardian-ad-whatever, at their first meeting, that not only was he the kind of loser scum who lost track of a seventeen-year-old girl and their baby, he was an unemployed loser scum incapable of supporting said child.

      Oh, yeah. That would go over well.

      He looked at Nicole, sitting at the end of his bar in her don’t-touch-me blouse with her don’t-mess-with-me face, nervously twisting those pretty gold rings on her fingers. What would she do if he walked on her? She’d be screwed. They both knew it.

      “Eleven?” he asked.

      She tried hard to keep the hope from her expression, but it shone in those incredible blue eyes.

      “In time to close,” she said.

      “Fine. I can manage that.”

      He didn’t know what he expected. Not gratitude, exactly, but… Well, okay, gratitude would have been nice.

      Instead she nodded, like his capitulation was never in doubt, and started grilling him about the menu.

      Okey-damn-dokey. He wasn’t trying to make points with her. From now on, he would just do his job and hope she didn’t interfere too much.

      She was taking him line by line through the appetizer listing, with him explaining which items Louis prepared in the kitchen and what he purchased from their wholesaler in Chicago, when a horn blared in the parking lot.

      Nicole jumped. “What’s that?”

      Mark shrugged. “Beats me.”

      The horn sounded again, a quick, impatient tattoo.

      Nicole nibbled her lip. “Well, don’t you want to go see?”

      “Nope. It’s probably some kid with a new car.”

      Whoever it was decided hitting the horn wasn’t working and starting banging on the СКАЧАТЬ