“I don’t even have to speak hypothetically.” She put the Brie on a plate and slipped it into the oven to warm, then picked up the knife again. “I’m afraid you’ve been bumped off the candidate list because of who you are.”
“Didn’t we agree that I was simply an honest guy from New Mexico?”
“That was last night.” A subject she did not want to bring up. “The simple fact is that even seeing you like this compromises me professionally. I don’t even know why I’m making you a snack.”
“Because you’re a well-brought-up Southern girl?”
“That wouldn’t cut it with Dan Phillips. He owns CATL-TV and our production company. Mitch, I owe him a lot, including my loyalty. If it wasn’t for him and Cole having so much faith in me, I’d still be talking about overnight lows and how the rain is affecting the commute for four and a half minutes every hour.”
“That’s right. You used to be the weathergirl. I saw a picture on one of those fan sites I mentioned. You looked to be fresh out of college.”
“I was. So you can see that every minute we spend together makes it look like I’m consorting with the enemy. So to speak.”
“You can consort with whomever you like on your time off,” he pointed out.
“Most business consorting would happen in a meeting with you in my office, where everything is aboveboard. Not in my kitchen or-” my bedroom “-or anywhere else. I feel like I’m sneaking around on Dan behind his back.”
“Okay, I can see that. But you have to admit, this way of consorting is more fun.”
“Sure it is. But I’m a realist, and the reality is that CWB wants to take me away from CATL-TV. The station’s done a lot for me. I can’t just run out on them the moment the going gets good.”
“CWB can do a lot more for you,” Mitch said. “Take you national. Give the show a wider scope. Bigger production values. More audience reach.”
“Yes, so you said in our meeting. Which, I might point out, this is not.”
It was a sight better than talking about honest bodies and relationships, though. At least when they talked business, she had open-and-shut answers. When it came to Mitch and anything personal, she was very much afraid she didn’t have answers of any kind.
“Are you done torturing that salami?” He leaned over the counter and grimaced. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had some Freudian prejudice against the subject of relationships.”
“Or symbols of male power,” she said sweetly. “But I wouldn’t read anything into it. It’s a snack. A short one. Because I still have my to-do list waiting for me.”
Hands on hips, he looked over her kitchen, taking in the white tile, the skylight, the basket of onions and garlic on the granite counter. Her answering machine sat next to it.
“You have a message.”
She licked salami flavor off her index finger and punched the button. The man had strummed pleasure from her body the night before. He’d helped her find a dinosaur. It was a little late to worry about whether he should listen to her personal messages.
“Eve, honey, this is Grandmother Charlotte,” her dad’s mother said. If the Queen Mother had been brought up in the fields of Georgia, she would have looked and sounded like Charlotte Best. Eve straightened at the sound of her soft vowels, as if she’d reminded her about her posture. “I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight at Roy’s. Do bring along an escort if you’d like to.” Her grandmother laughed, and Eve’s stomach sank. “I know it’s hard, but choose one of your collection to introduce to your family. Bye-bye.”
Eve resisted the urge to bang her head against the nearest cupboard door. Could there be anything more intimidating than a Southern lady determined to get her eldest, most successful granddaughter married off?
When Eve glanced at Mitch, his eyes were dancing. “I take it your grandmother is deluded about your social life?”
She picked up the knife again and held the salami down as if it were going to escape. “In her day, the aim of a girl’s life was to get married. She knows I’m not like that. She knows how busy I am.”
“I don’t think it’s about being busy. I think you’re just afraid. Of getting involved. Of me. Of what could happen if we really got together.”
The knife thwacked through the last of the salami and hit the cutting board with a clack. Lucky thing her fingers hadn’t been in the way. “A woman who’s learned as much about men as I have can’t be afraid of lil’ ol’ you.” She mimicked Charlotte’s accent.
“Prove it.”
“How would you suggest I do that?” She licked her fingers, deliberately goading him. She knew exactly what he’d say. That he wanted to take her to bed. And then she’d tell him-
“Let me be your date tonight. Your grandmother would still be deluded, but at least she’d be happy.”
Eve froze, staring at him, one finger still in her mouth. Then she drew it out slowly, and his gaze dropped to it as though it were a magnet.
“I watched the ‘Meet the Family, Pass the Test’ episode,” he said, and pure challenge flavored that grin. “Or didn’t you mean what you said in your closing monologue?”
“What, that any man who’d subject himself to that voluntarily was a keeper?”
“Exactly. I dare you.”
She lifted her chin. “You’ve got a deal, Mr. Hayes.” She offered him the plate. “Salami?”
7
“SUGAR, YOU LOOK like one of my favorite actors.”
Eve held her breath as her grandmother allowed Mitch to take her hand in his and squeeze her fingers. This was never going to work. No one had ever put anything over on Charlotte Best in Eve’s lifetime. The woman had gone from riches to rags and back to riches again, and what she didn’t know about the stock market, gardening and human nature wasn’t worth knowing.
Eve couldn’t possibly pass off Mitch as a date or even a serious boyfriend. In fact, they’d agreed that the truth was probably the best strategy. Charlotte would see right through anything else.
“And you look like one of my favorite actresses,” Mitch told her. “But Helen Hayes only played women like you. She wasn’t the real thing.”
Charlotte chuckled and glanced at Eve. “You’ll let him sit beside me at dinner, won’t you, baby doll?”
Not on your life, sugar pie. “Now, Grandmother, no stealing my date.”
Charlotte laughed again and patted Mitch’s sleeve. “Mr. Hayes, this is my son Roy, and his wife Anne.”
Mitch shook hands with his host and hostess. “I saw you folks at the Ashmere benefit last night, but we didn’t speak.”
“No wonder,” AuntAnne said with a smile. “You spent the evening dancing with Eve-not that I blame her.”
“Did you, now?” Charlotte said with interest. “The whole evening?”
“Practically. She-”
“Are Karen and John and the kids here yet?” Eve asked hastily. “I have Christopher’s gift in the car.”
“Not yet, but I’m expecting them any minute.” Anne took their coats. “Why don’t you show Mitch around? Roy, that roast needs to be carved before it’s as tough as an old boot. Mama, would you like a cocktail before dinner?”
With the skill of a longtime hostess, Anne shepherded them out of the foyer until they were, Eve had no doubt, exactly where she wanted them.
Not that that was a bad thing.
She didn’t mind having several rooms between Mitch and her grandmother’s sharp gaze. Not to mention her sharp tongue. Charlotte figured she was too old to filter her comments through any screen but politeness. Other than that, the family had learned to expect just about anything.
They walked into the living room and Mitch looked around with a soundless whistle. “Is this how old money lives?” he asked in a low voice.
“No, this is how a developer lives,” she murmured. “We might be an old family, but the money is long gone. My great-grandpa managed to lose it somehow. My grandmother went from having servants and a big mansion to living over a shop in genteel poverty. But Uncle Roy has always been smart about money. They don’t want for much.”