Virginia Kantra - All A Man Can Be

“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 door instead. Nicole slid from her seat.

“Or a drunk,” Mark added, “who can’t wait for opening hour.” In which case he couldn’t very well let Blondie answer the door alone now, could he? He strolled from behind the bar. “Or it could be—”

Nicole threw the bolt and opened the door on a very attractive, very ticked-off brunette wearing gold jewelry and sunglasses.

His sister, Tess.

Oh, hell.

He had a tux fitting at ten-thirty which he had just totally blown off.

Of the two women, Tess looked more surprised. But she also recovered faster. Growing up with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father did that for you. Both DeLucca kids had plenty of practice in hiding their feelings and thinking fast on their feet.

His sister stuck out her hand. “You must be Nicole. I’m Tess. Is Mark here?”

Nicole froze like one of those ice sculptures they set on the buffet tables in the Algonquin Hotel dining room. “Yes, he is. Is he expecting you?”

“He should be,” Tess said. “The rat.” She looked over Nicole’s shoulder at Mark. “You are not getting out of this. I don’t care how uncomfortable it makes you or what you think of this marriage. If you hurry, they can still squeeze us in.”

Oh, yeah. Tess was one tough cookie, all right. Only he knew what a softie, what a sucker she was.

He owed her. Always had.

And maybe now was a good time to prove to his blond boss—hell, to prove to himself—that he could walk away at any time.

“Okay,” he said to his sister. “I’m gone,” he told Nicole.

“But—”

Looking into those wide blue eyes, he felt a very unfamiliar and totally unwelcome need to explain. To apologize. To reassure.

He squashed it.

Nicole Reed didn’t need him or his explanations.

Besides, Joe would be along in a few minutes to help her open.

“I work four until close,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you then.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Tess added.

He followed her out to her car.

Nicole folded back the grimy shutters, watching through the window as Mark drove off with the gorgeous brunette with red nails and attitude.

Things could be worse. At least this time she knew what kind of man he was before her heart got involved.

Mark DeLucca was not the type of guy who could make her happy. He was a player. Like Charles. Like Zack. Like every other guy who had ever strung her along and used her. Only this guy wasn’t even bothering to string her along. He had enough women on his line already. That Kathleen Turner wannabe on the phone. The exotic-looking brunette in the car.

Nicole couldn’t compete.

She shouldn’t want to compete.

Her relationship with Mark was strictly professional, employer to employee.

She slid into a booth, kneeling on the bench seat to unlatch the heavy shutters.

Employee. Right.

Only she hadn’t been in the kitchen flirting with Louis. She hadn’t quizzed Joe about his personal life or blurted out the pathetic story of married-Ted-the-insurance-sales-man-and-his-three-children to Deanna.

Oh, no. Nicole tugged at the dirty shutters. Because that wouldn’t be humiliating enough. No, she had to go and expose herself to Mark DeLucca instead.

Outside the windows, the sky was overcast. The lake reflected shards of light like an open drawer of tarnished flatware. Nicole closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the cool glass.