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Kathy rolled her eyes. “Well, sure. This was my first big commercial property sale on the new job. What do you want me to say? I appreciate your business?”
Nicole was shaken. “No. I just—”
“Fine. Because I do. And thank you. But you were the one who couldn’t wait to get out of Chicago.”
“Yes,” Nicole said. “You’re right.”
But Kathy was on a roll. “You were the one who lost your job.”
“The owner sold the company,” Nicole corrected her.
“After he broke up with you.”
Nicole flinched. “Yes.”
“And didn’t you say you wanted to move further away from your parents?”
Nicole felt herself visibly shrinking, like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole, drinking from a bottle she never should have opened. “You’re right,” she said again. “I’m sorry.”
Kathy shrugged. “I just don’t like you thinking you’re doing me any favors. You were as eager to clinch that sale as I was. An established business in a great location with available living space doesn’t come along every day.”
“It’s a wonderful property,” Nicole said truthfully.
And wondered, as she drove carefully to work along unfamiliar streets, how soon she could renovate the upstairs apartment and move in.
With a sigh, she saw that Mark DeLucca had managed to get to the Blue Moon before her. His black Jeep Cherokee occupied the parking space closest to the entrance.
Nicole wasn’t upset. Really. It wasn’t like the space had a big sign on it that read Owner.
She tugged on the door. Locked.
Well, of course he would lock it while he was alone inside. Hadn’t she told him last night that she appreciated his concern for security?
She fished in her bag for her new keys, trying not to twitch with irritation. Her hand closed on her keyring just as the door opened, and Mark DeLucca stood framed against the shadows, every bit as lean, dark and dangerous as he’d looked last night.
He wore a navy work shirt with the cuffs rolled back, exposing his muscled forearms. His hair clung damply to his temples. A tiny bead of sweat streaked the harsh plane of his face.
Oh, my.
She wanted him the way a nicotine addict craves a last cigarette, wanted to breathe him in and hold him inside her.
Bad idea. Get with the program, Nicole.
He frowned. “Sorry I didn’t answer right away. I was in back cleaning up.”
“Oh.” Because that didn’t seem to be sufficient response, she added, “Thank you. I noticed last night that the place could use a thorough cleaning.”
His expression became shuttered. “I can get you a mop and bucket from the closet, if you want.”
Nicole blinked. Was he teasing? “I thought I would hire a cleaning service.”
He shrugged, already moving away from her toward the bar. “It’s your money.”
It was her bar. Still, she expected to operate it at a profit.
She nibbled her lip. “Do you think that would be too expensive?”
“Depends on what you call expensive.” He began to restock his work station with coasters and napkins, his movements so quick and practiced she had to wonder if he were even aware of what his hands were doing. “Commercial cleaning a place this size, including the degreasing, will run about fifteen hundred dollars. More, if you don’t want to close for the day and have to pay the crew to come in at night.”
She nodded. She would check his figures later, but what he said sounded reasonable. “I’d rather not close if I can help it. There will be enough disruptions with the remodel.”
“Hold the train. What remodel?”
Oh, dear. This was not how she had planned to introduce the topic.
“Well…” She would talk about her plans for the lunch room later, she decided. “There’s that empty storage space upstairs. That could be converted into an apartment.”
“Sure it could. If you could find somebody willing to rent rooms over a bar.”
“I wasn’t planning on renting. I want to live there.”
“What about the noise?”
She shifted on her stool. “Soundproofing would of course be part of the renovation.” God, she sounded stuffy.
“What about the inconvenience?”
“What inconvenience? I’m used to immersing myself in my work. I’ve had enough of hour-long commutes. And this way I’d always be available to keep an eye on things.”
“Swell. The next time I have to break up a bar fight at one in the morning, it’ll be a real comfort to me, knowing you’re on hand to keep an eye on things.”
She stuck out her chin. “I’m not really concerned about your comfort level.”
He muttered something that sounded like, “No kidding.”
“This is a business decision,” she said firmly.
Which was a lie. It was intensely personal, this need to have a place that was wholly hers. She was tired of making room in her heart and her life and her closets for men who moved in, made a mess and moved on. The Blue Moon was hers.
“Anyway, it’s my decision,” she said, which was true and made her feel better.
“Well, that puts me in my place.”
Heat swept her cheeks. “I didn’t mean—”
His lips twisted in a smile. If he hadn’t looked like Lucifer rejoicing over the fall of mankind, she might have thought he was teasing. Or even sympathetic.
“Forget it,” he said. “If you don’t see any problem with a young, single, attractive woman living alone over a bar, it’s not my job to educate you.”
Pleasure spurted through her. He thought she was attractive.
No. He thought she was dumb as a rock.
Keeping her voice cool, she said, “Actually, it is your job. To educate me, I mean.”
He leaned against the bar. “Now that could get interesting.”
She ignored the little jump of her pulse. “Why don’t we start with a review of the employee schedules,” she suggested.
He went very still. And then he nodded once, in a brief gesture of…acquiescence? Respect? “You’re the boss.”
Or was he mocking her?
For over an hour, they discussed schedules and procedures and suppliers. Nicole took notes on her laptop. Mark showed her the work schedule pinned to a bulletin board in the back and the contact numbers taped by the phone, but most of the information he seemed to keep in his head.
It was inefficient, she decided. And intimidating.
“Deanna’s the only waitress with the hours to get benefits,” he was saying. “Then you’ve got Joe on days, and me on nights. Both full-time. And Louis, who runs the kitchen. You meet Louis yet?”
A slightly built, softly spoken black man with a bald head and a dry handshake. She nodded.
“Everybody else is part-time,” Mark continued. “You’ll meet them all eventually.”
She wanted to hold a staff meeting and meet them all at once. “Actually—”
“Payroll’s done by a service,” he went on. “I’ll give you—”
Nicole cleared her throat. She was getting tired of interruptions. It was time to take control. “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to calculate the deductions and write the checks ourselves?”
“Yeah. If you have time for that kind of thing. Which I don’t.”
She smiled, pleased to have discovered an area where she could make an immediate and positive difference. “But I do. Have the time. And the software.”
“You want me to give you a gold star?”
He didn’t sound jeering, she decided. More…amused.
“How about a cherry in my drink?”
He grinned suddenly, and the shock of it ran through her system like a computer virus. “You don’t strike me as the fruit-and-paper-umbrella type.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope.”
Drop it, her new, improved self ordered. You are not a healthy woman. You are a relationship addict. You cannot indulge in a flirtation, even a tiny one, without going on a love binge.
She moistened her lips with her tongue. “What type am I?” she asked.
Her better self groaned and threatened to call their mother.
Mark DeLucca studied her with his flat, black eyes. “Hard to say. Yesterday I had you pegged as a chardonnay girl.”
“And…today?”
“Today I think that’s too ordinary.”
He thought she wasn’t ordinary. Excitement licked along her nerves like flame set to paper.
The phone behind the bar rang.
They both reached for it.
Mark’s hand, hard and lean, closed over Nicole’s. She felt her cheeks color, but held on. This was her establishment. It was her phone.
After a moment he let go.
“Good morning, Blue Moon,” she said breathlessly into the receiver.
“Good morning.” The woman’s voice was pure Gold Coast, warm and rich as melted butter over lobster. “Is Mark DeLucca in?”
Nicole’s insides congealed. “One moment, please.” She thrust the phone at Mark. “It’s for you.”
He took the receiver from her cold hand. “Thanks. Mind if I—”
“Please, take the call. I think we’re done here.”
She was looking at him funny, like he’d said or done something on purpose to upset her, instead of just flirting with her a little.
But Mark didn’t have time to figure it out.
He didn’t have time to figure her out, not if this was the call he was expecting.
He held the receiver to his ear. “DeLucca here.”
“Mr. DeLucca, this is Jane Gilbert. What can I do for you?”
He turned his back on Nicole Reed, with her too-blue, too-interested eyes. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line? You wrote to me.”
“Yes.”
“So, what do you want?”
“I want whatever is in the best interests of six-year-old Daniel Wainscott. It remains to be seen if you can help me there.”
He didn’t bother to take offense at her tone. Hell, he agreed with her.
“Have you—” His heart was beating harder than it had on the airstrip at Kabul. His palm was sweaty on the receiver. “Have you said anything to him about me?”
