Desire by Design - By Paula Altenburg Page 0,33

than she’d given him credit for initially. He’d seemed genuinely concerned when he’d come to her rescue, and not at all angry over her having shot him. He’d been more annoyed that she’d been working late alone in the café.

He was easy to like, and that made her uneasy. She couldn’t imagine why Matt should care.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she said.

He sagged back against her embroidered pillows, closed his eyes, then cracked them open again. “Okay. But you have one hour, Tinker Bell. Then I call in the Lost Boys.”

Eve hoped his sense of humor stayed with him long after the medication wore off.

…

Early morning traffic was light, and it wasn’t long before she walked into her cramped office at Sullivan Construction.

Calling it an office was a flattering overstatement. She was often at job sites, and the company had a conference room for meetings, so she didn’t require anything fancy. She had spare rolls of toilet paper stacked under a chair, and a pre-fab maple door, screwed to two sets of folding metal legs, served as her desk. But at least she had a window.

Elevators whirred in the hallway, then office doors opened and closed as the building slowly came to life. Time was wasting. Eve opened her briefcase and began to gather the things she’d need for a few days of working from home.

She had one foot out the door when the phone on her desk rang. She hesitated, then decided she’d better answer it. The hour Matt had given her was more than up, and although common sense told her he’d be dead to the world by now, she wasn’t used to looking after other people and didn’t want to take that chance. What if he needed her?

Marion Balcom’s cheery voice was a relief. “I was hoping you’d be an early bird!”

Eve wasn’t. She yawned and glanced at her watch. At the moment, she was more of a late-night person. Really, really late.

She shifted the briefcase from under her arm, letting it slide to the floor. “Hi, Marion. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you could find out for me what’s going to happen to the old City Hall.”

That was an odd request, since the fate of the building had nothing to do with Eve. “Wouldn’t you be better off calling the mayor’s office to get that information?”

“You know what Bob’s like. Getting anything out of him is like pulling hens’ teeth.” Marion gave a light, meaningful laugh, and Eve could sympathize. Bob had two sets of rules—one for himself and one for everyone else.

The information wasn’t exactly confidential, however, and Eve didn’t see any harm in helping. She knew what it was like to be brushed off by people with more important things to do than answer a few simple questions. Besides, Eve still wanted to impress her. Marion Balcom was high up on the food chain with the Department of Tourism and Culture, and she would be a great asset for Eve’s career, maybe even make up for the job she lost to Matt. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She gathered her things and drove home, then tiptoed into her bedroom to check on her houseguest.

He hadn’t needed her. Instead, he was sound asleep on his back with one arm flung out to the side, the other stretched above his head, his long body sagging deep into the thick mattress of her double bed. He’d thrown off the quilt, and the white, cotton sheet twined around his hips and legs like honeysuckle around a porch rail.

He didn’t look at all like an internationally renowned architect. He looked like an internationally renowned centerfold.

Looking at him like that, she tried not to think about the way he’d kissed her. It wasn’t like he’d meant anything by it. He’d only wanted Claude to think she had a new man in her life.

Eve bit her lower lip.

She reached out a reluctant finger, tracing it along the sweep of his jaw. Matt twitched, rolled onto his side, and let out a soft grunt. Eve snatched her hand back, grabbed her nightgown and bathrobe, then scurried out, easing the door shut behind her.

After shedding her clothes and crawling wearily into the bed in the spare room where Matt normally slept, she snuggled her cheek into a spicy, aftershave-scented pillowcase and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next thing she knew, someone was pounding on her front door. A travel alarm clock on the chair beside the