Eve glanced at her tank top and jeans in the mirror, and pulled a gauze tunic off its hanger and slipped it on overtop. There. Much better. Some comfortable sandals in matching green, a green wallet-on-a-string, and she was ready to go.
If only Mitch wasn’t such good company.
As they cruised toy stores, movie tie-in stores and educational stores in search of the perfect dinosaur for four-year-old Christopher, she kept things deliberately on a friendly business-lunch footing. But by the time they’d begun triangulating the mall’s second level for a renewed attack, she’d given up the pretense. How was a girl supposed to keep her distance when he insisted on cracking jokes about passersby or things in the windows? How was she supposed to put last night out of her head when every time she turned suddenly, she caught him watching her? Which wasn’t a problem-lots of people watched her. So far three women had come up and asked for her autograph, in fact.
This was the gaze of a man silently undressing a woman in his mind. Not just undressing, either. He was making love to her behind that innocent, bland gaze, she was sure of it.
Luckily they found the perfect dinosaur in a nature store, and she led the way out of the mall with a sense of relief. She needed to go home and back to reality, and forget he was even in Atlanta, wanting her.
Just the way she wanted him.
No, no. She couldn’t let her thoughts wander that way. It wasn’t good for her peace of mind-and it certainly wasn’t good for Just Between Us.
“It’s four o’clock.” Mitch shook his sleeve down over his watch. “I vote for lunch.”
Eve arranged her face in a regretful expression-which didn’t take much. “I can’t. I really need to get home and get ready to go to dinner. And I should look at that script one more time.”
“Creativity never came on an empty stomach.” He grinned, and her resolve wavered, then straightened up.
“Then where do all the starving artists come from?” she quipped. “I appreciate your helping me out, Mitch. I now know as much about toy dinosaurs as I’ll need to know for the rest of my life. It was good of you to take the time.”
“Come on.” His long stride kept pace with hers effortlessly as they headed back to his car. “My hotel’s across the parking lot. Let me treat you to lunch. Or at least a snack before your dinner. Remember, you agreed.”
“I agreed to breakfast. Maybe it’s just as well we’re out of time.”
He put a hand on her arm to slow her down. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s talk about it somewhere less public, okay?”
She could tell he was holding back what he wanted to say with an effort that lasted through the parking garage, down the street and all the way back to her house. But as soon as she got out and retrieved her package from the backseat, he closed his door with the sound of finality.
“This is less public, wouldn’t you say?”
She opened the front door and dropped the package and her green bag in the hall, then turned in the doorway to face him. Even hunched under the roses, he looked completely masculine and, if not comfortable, then at least in command of himself.
Words failed her. How could she tell him she didn’t want to see him socially when she’d only be lying to herself-and him?
“May I come in?”
“No. If I had any sense, I’d ask you to go back to your hotel and book an earlier flight home to New York.”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“You should. There’s no reason to stay here.”
“I can think of one. And I’d like to talk about it somewhere other than on your doorstep. A beetle just dropped down the back of my neck.”
How could she chase away a guy who made her smile every five minutes? She turned her head so he wouldn’t see it flickering at the corners of her lips, and stepped back. “Fine. But only for a few minutes.”
He closed the door behind him and began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. Her mouth dropped open.
One button. Two. Three.
What was this? Did he think an invitation to talk for a few minutes was some kind of thinly disguised come-on? Not that she was complaining about the view, but a girl had her principles.
Four, five. Was he-was he-
Oh, my.
He peeled off the shirt and her jaw felt as though it had become unhinged. Along with her mind.
Because, naked to the waist, Mitchell Hayes was just about the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Muscle flexed and moved under smooth, tanned skin as he shook out his shirt. There wasn’t an ounce of extra fat anywhere. A broad chest narrowed to a finely honed set of abs, and dark, curly hair arrowed down and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.
“There you are, you little rascal.” He knelt and scooped up the black beetle skittering across the tile of the entryway, then opened the door and tossed it back into the thicket of roses.
Breathe. Take a breath. Good. Now, close your mouth and behave as if everything is normal.
Turning, he buttoned up his shirt and tucked the tails into his jeans as though nothing had happened.
Look away from the jeans.
“Eve, you okay?” He bent sideways to look into her face.
“Yes.” She reached for something sensible to say. Should she apologize? “It’s not often that my visitors strip when they walk in, that’s all.”
“If I’m going to have someone walking on my back, I’d rather she didn’t have six legs.” He paused. “And I find that very hard to believe. I bet any boyfriend of yours strips when he hits the door.”
“I bet he doesn’t,” she batted back. “Or at least, if he existed, he wouldn’t. I’m sorry about the banzai attack. Usually my insect life is better behaved.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No. Once in a while the moths come in if I leave the porch light on, and the june bugs are awful, but-”
“I didn’t mean the bugs, I meant the boyfriend.”
The refrigerator door made a very effective shield. The last thing she needed was for him to see the color wash into her face. “I have a chunk of Brie and some grapes here. If you were hungry before, you’re probably starving now.”
Oops. Hadn’t she just said he’d get a few minutes and then he had to go? Now, see, that’s what you get for gawking at his abs. He’s completely scrambled your brain.
“And you’re avoiding a really interesting topic.”
She pulled out some celery and a plastic tub of guacamole. She had chips in the pantry, and half a salami. Would that be enough? All that muscle was probably the result of downing slabs of roast beef. “Are you kidding? You just took off your clothes in my foyer. It’s impossible to avoid you.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re the relationship guru, the most desirable woman in Atlanta, the subject of several fan sites-I do my homework, don’t look at me like that-and you don’t think your man would be racing to get naked for you?”
“Maybe,” she said as coolly as she could. She had fan sites? “But I don’t have time for a relationship, as I think I made clear.”
“That’s plain wrong,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s reality.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a hip on the end of the breakfast bar. “Leaving time out of it, do you want one?”
Her knife sliced into the salami with precision. “Of course. But it’s pretty hard to ask a man to play second fiddle to the show. I mean, he’d have to. I work sixteen hours a day.”
“You’ve just never met anyone who could make you rearrange your priorities, that’s all.”
Was that a glint of challenge in his eyes? “Oh, and you think you’re the man who can do it?”
Certainly he could. If a man like Mitch were waiting at the studio door, she’d say damn the calendar and hit the stairs at a run. Not that she’d ever say that to him.
“Why not? Hypothetically speaking.” The challenge was now complicated by humor. And-face it-temptation.