A Man Like Mike (15 page)

Much later Eve surveyed the piles of clothes and shoes laid out on the queen-size bed and shook her head with a smile. Jacinta certainly had liked clothes shopping—not surprising given how great she looked in everything. A potato sack would have looked exclusive-nightclub-worthy on her tall, statuesque frame, yet Jacinta had preferred designer labels, no doubt about it. There must be thousands of dollars worth of outfits. Since nothing was going to come close to fitting Eve even if she had the flair to wear it, she saw no option but to give the clothes away.

The Lifeline store was about to get a sizeable donation.

She found boxes in the area just outside Mike’s bedroom. She was turning to go back up the stairs when the door behind her opened.

She halted abruptly in stride, three empty boxes in her arms. The box on the top slid off the small tower she had created. Instinctively, she reached out to grab it, dropping the remaining two boxes in the process.

The next minute she was crouching to retrieve them, with Mike on his haunches beside her. “I’m not usually so clumsy.” She felt herself babbling but was powerless to stop it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The lie heated her cheeks and she was glad she hadn’t tied back her hair so now her face was concealed from Mike’s sidelong glance. She knew exactly what was wrong with her—heart palpitations, an elevated temperature and a serious case of the jitters, all courtesy of Mike Wilcox. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were going to be gone all day.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said in a voice like dry ice.

Her eyes passed over him of their own volition, before she dragged them away again, her thoughts scattering. She stood abruptly. “Ah … so you got your, uh, errands done then?”

He rose to his feet, watching her with a curious expression. She might have expected his lips to twitch, for him to poke some good-natured fun at her bumbling, but his mouth remained grim. “I did. You want me to help you with these?”

What she wanted she couldn’t have, Eve thought in exasperation, but it would have been churlish to refuse his assistance, not to mention stupid. So she nodded, indicating he could lift two of the boxes, and turned to head upstairs.

He said nothing further until they were in the master bedroom and Mike saw the pile of clothes on the bed. “You’ve been busy.”

“Jacinta’s clothes,” Eve said. “I had to get around to it sometime.”

“What are you going to do with it all?”

“Donate it. That’s what the boxes are for. You don’t have to help.”

In reply he showed her a flash of annoyance before moving to open the first box.

They worked in silence, folding the clothes before packing them in the boxes, using the third box for the shoes, hats and other accessories.

“What about that one?” Mike asked, pointing to a small cardboard box left in the bottom of the closet.

Eve crouched and pulled the box out of the cupboard. When she opened it what she saw made tears clog her throat. “I can’t believe she kept this stuff.”

Mike crouched alongside her. “What is it?”

Reaching into the box, Eve pulled out a dog-eared a copy of
Gone with the Wind
. “Her favourite book of all time,” she explained. She pulled out a few other items, touching each one reverently, feeling Jacinta’s spirit in them. “Her father gave her this watch for her sixteenth birthday. And this is the—”

“The movie ticket stub from her and Derek’s first date,” Mike said taking the slip of cardboard from her and reading it. “I can’t believe my brother went to see a chick flick for her.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t watch a chic-flick for any woman.”

Mike looked at her, his expression puzzling. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Eve dragged her eyes away and cleared her throat. She pulled a photo album out of the box, opening it to find it was Jacinta’s wedding album, the one filled with pictures of goofy, candid moments of the day, not the posed portraits from the album everyone else saw. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed when she flipped a page to see a photograph of herself pulling a face that Jacinta and a few glasses of champagne had goaded out of her.

She was too late to pull the album out of Mike’s grasp. Lifting it out of her reach he looked at the photo, smiling for the first time since she had turned to see him standing in the open doorway downstairs. “Well look at you, Miss Evie.”

“Mike, don’t! It’s terrible.”

“I don’t know, I kind of like it.” He sent her a glance that stole her breath. Quickly, he turned back to the album and flipped over the page. “Look, there’s one here of Jacinta that looks even worse.”

“There’s no way Jacinta looks worse than me,” Eve denied. “She always turned heads. Lord knows why she ever befriended me. She was vivacious and popular even then, when we were both only eight. I had holes in my shoes and garish red pigtails.” Rising to her feet, Eve plucked a floral blouse from the top of the box she’d just packed, absently running her hand over the silky material.

When she fell into silence Mike prompted, “So why do you think she did?”

Eve shrugged. She could answer easily because it was something she’d thought about often herself. “I think at first I might have been nothing more than a curiosity. She used to lend me her clothes, give me mini-make overs, things like that.” She smiled wryly. “Somehow, we developed a kinship. She was lonely, too, in her own way. An only child whose parents gave her material things instead of time. She convinced them to take me in when I was twelve, when Leanna died.”

Mike stood as well. It was a long moment before he spoke again. “How did she die?”

She started a little at his softly issued question, and turned to look at him. He was flipping through the photo album idly, as though not wondering at her answer. It made it easier to tell him. “She was working as a waitress at the time, and accepted a lift from some customer. He’d been drinking. Unfortunately, Leanna never did have very good judgement when it came to things like that, especially if there was a man involved. Usually, when she … left me at home for a few days, it was to chase some man. It always ended badly, and she came back in a worse mood than ever, but not that time. There was an accident, and both my mother and the driver died on impact.”

When her eyes sought him out again, he was looking at her. His expression was guarded, but there was a hint of something harsh in his eyes, like anger. He said gruffly, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head in dismissal, tossing the blouse back into the box. She didn’t want to talk about her mother. She didn’t want to carry around this burden of aloneness any more.

But what else could she do? Alone was how she’d always felt. Alone would be how she’d feel when Mike was gone.

“I’ll take these boxes to Lifeline for you.” Mike dropped the photo album onto the bed and looked at his watch. “Tomorrow, if it can wait. I have to think about getting ready for work.”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Eve said to his retreating back. When he had almost crossed the threshold, she found she couldn’t let him go. “Mike, wait.”

He stopped and turned back.

“Thank you for your help. I appreciate it, especially after I, ah, led you on last night.”

At that, his eyes sparked. “Is that what you did?”

She lowered her head, mortified. “Isn’t that what you’d call it?”

“No.” Eve listened to his approaching footfalls, seeing his shoes enter her line of vision. Still, she kept her head bowed until he used two fingers to lift her chin, forcing her to look at him.

“Leading a man on implies a woman has no intention of following through with what she starts. Last night, you had every intention of following through. You know it as well as I do. If Bailey hadn’t cried, we would have spent the night together. We would have woken up together.” His words were so hypnotic, Eve felt herself swaying. “I would have brought you breakfast in bed. I would have made love to you again this morning.”

The picture he painted with his words, spoken with such quiet certainty, wrapped around Eve like a warm, silken blanket. She couldn’t remember why she had been so determined last night that everything he had just described shouldn’t happen.

Then Mike reminded her. He dropped his hand from her face and took a step back, the veil coming down over the heated promise in his expression. It was like having the covers ripped off on a chilly winter’s morning. “But you made it perfectly clear nothing between us would ever be more than a cheap romp—a one-night thing that we’d both regret, to paraphrase. So I guess you’re glad it didn’t happen. I only wish I could feel the same.”

Eve could only gape as he strode from the room without another word, too stunned to think straight. Was he saying he wouldn’t have regretted it if they’d made love last night? Was he saying he wished they
had
, no matter the consequences?

Well, of course he would wish that. He was a man who could divorce his feelings from the sexual act; he was perfectly capable of loving her and leaving her. There
were
no consequences for him.

And had he really appeared mortally affronted by her suggestion that they could only ever have a temporary fling?
He
was affronted! He was the one who was leaving, thereby enforcing the temporary nature of their relationship, not her. She was the one with the right to take offence here.

Relationship. They didn’t
have
a relationship. They had nothing more than a couple of stolen kisses and shared interest in a child.

Eve considered storming after him and pointing out his faulty thinking, but she quashed the impulse. He had said he needed to get ready for work, so he was probably taking a shower.

Coherent thought left her again at the image that flashed through her mind. Heat infused her, melting her muscles until she had to sit down on the edge of the bed.

If only Mike hadn’t moved in. She hadn’t had much interest in sharing physical intimacy with a man in years, had certainly never longed for it this way, with an obsessive persistence she couldn’t seem to overcome. He had awakened something inside her that she couldn’t put back into hibernation.

For a savage moment she wished she could be the type of woman who indulged in meaningless flings. Then she could have what she craved and be happy for Mike to carry on his merry way afterward. But that wasn’t who she was, and there was no use lamenting it.

“I wish you were here, Jacinta,” Eve murmured on a sigh. “You’d be able to make me feel better about this, one way or another.” The thought of her friend brought Eve’s eyes to the photo album that lay beside her on the bed. What she saw stopped her heart.

Mike had left it open at a picture of the two of them. It had been taken while they were engaged in the obligatory bridal party dance. Mike held her loosely in his arms, looking as gorgeous as she remembered in his tuxedo. She stood stiffly in his embrace, looking about as comfortable as a lamb in the wolf’s lair while Mike murmured something in her ear. She couldn’t remember what it was, but she remembered it had made her blush. She had hardly been able to wait for the dance to end, but when it had she’d felt a stab of disappointment that he didn’t ask her for a second one.

So what is it you
do
want, Eve?

What she wanted, she realised, was to have an affair with Mike and not get her heart broken.

She might as well wish to write her name in the stars.

“Are you going to take that pizza out of the oven or did someone ask for a well done Veggie Supreme?”

Mike didn’t bother to turn. He knew Barry’s face would be drawn down in a scowl, the scowl that had many a man, woman and apprentice scampering for cover anytime he brought it out. “Yo, Ross!” he called.

“Yo!” came the answer from the apprentice chef.

“Take that pizza out of the oven for table thirty!”

“Can do!”

“Satisfied?” Mike asked the burlier man, slinging the now finished plate of grilled Barramundi and mango salad on the serving counter and hitting the bell with more force than necessary. “I had it covered.”

“Sure you did,” Barry said doubtfully. The next minute Mike felt something cold nudge him in the arm and turned to see Barry holding out a bottle of cola to him. He took it gratefully and downed half of it in one swallow.

“You feel like getting something off your chest, Wilcox?”

“No,” Mike snapped.

“Hell, I wish you would. There’s only room for one surly chef in this here kitchen, and I’m not about to give up the title.”

“I’m coming down with something, I guess.”

“Hmm. A simple case of that-little-redhead’s-got-you-twisted-in-knots. That’s my diagnosis.”

“Yeah? Well I didn’t ask for your diagnosis. … and I don’t want to talk about Eve.”

Barry reared back, feigning alarm at his barely controlled fury. Hell, Mike had alarmed himself, and he knew his friend was right. It was Eve’s fault he was so moody. Eve and her slender curves, her dark, vulnerable eyes, her whip-smart mind and her thoroughly kissable lips—all of which he was missing like the devil now that they were so carefully staying out of each other’s way again.

Unfortunately, staying out of her way hadn’t been enough to make him forget how she had kissed him two nights ago, how she had felt in his arms. Soft, pliant and willing. Definitely willing. Not for the first time this interminably long weekend, Mike cursed Bailey’s timing. If he hadn’t cried when he had, everything would have panned out exactly as he had described to Eve yesterday. The reminder made the ache of longing in his gut intensify.

But neither could he forget what Eve had said that night, about him only ever being one-night-stand material. The anger was all that had kept him from reaching out to her this weekend to pick up where they’d left off. Evidently, Eve was only interested in a corporate type, someone smoother and more upwardly mobile than he. The fact that he was financially secure thanks to a few smart investments he’d made over the years wouldn’t make a difference, if she knew about it. He didn’t own an Armani suit and didn’t want to. He couldn’t think of a reason he’d ever need one.

“It’s nice to see you again, Barry.” Mike was pulled out of his brooding by the sound of his mother’s familiar voice. “We just wanted to pop in say hello to Michael, if he’s not too busy.”