Blazing Midsummer Nights (Harlequin Blaze) (8 page)

Her eyes widened. “That explains the ladder crack.”

“Yep.”

“So you’re used to heat.”

More used to it every minute he spent with her. “You could say that. What about you?”

“I’m in sales.”

“What do you sell?” He grinned. “Please tell me it’s not thongs.”

“Ha. I actually run the marketing department for Burdette Foods.”

He of course recognized the name. “Family business?”

“Yes. My father’s the CEO. What does your family think about you moving so far away from home?”

His jaw clenched for just a moment. He supposed he needed to get used to questions like that, but it was still hard to say the words he forced to his mouth. “I don’t have any family.”

A frown formed between her eyes. “Oh.”

“I’m an only child of two only children,” he explained. “And my parents both passed away last year.”

She reached across the table and put her hand on his, squeezing briefly. It was obviously an impulsive move, driven purely by kindness, but he reacted to the softness of her touch, his heart flipping over in his chest. Just as he’d reacted to everything about this woman since he’d first heard her voice in her bedroom the other night.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” He thrust off the flash of sadness, explaining, “It had been a rough couple of years, and they made me promise to go do some living once they were gone.”

“So you came to Athens, Georgia?” she asked with an amused lift of the eyebrow.

“My Mom was Greek, but I couldn’t afford the airfare to the other Athens.”

“Greece is on my bucket list.”

“Mine, too,” he admitted.

“Ever since I saw
Mamma Mia,
I’ve wanted to see the Greek Isles.”

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to go find the person who invented the name Lysander and punch him in the jaw.”

They laughed together.

“Lysander? That’s your real name? Seriously?”

“Yep.” Having been curious since they’d met, he asked, “Tell me what Mimi’s short for.”

She hesitated.

“Come on, I told you mine, you tell me yours.”

Sighing, she mumbled, “Hermione.”

“Like in…”

“Don’t say it,” she snapped, holding a hand up, palm out. “The next person who asks me if I’m named after a character in the Harry Potter books is going to get a slap. I mean, how long can those books have been out? Do I look like a teenager?”

He couldn’t resist casting another look over her, from sun-tossed red hair, to beautiful face, slim neck, high breasts pressing against her tank top, all the way down her long, bare legs.
Definitely not a teenager.

“I wasn’t going to suggest you were named after her.”

“It’s my grandmother’s name. I’m an only child, but I have a few cousins. I think my father was angling for a bigger trust fund for me while I was still in the womb.”

Trust fund. Ouch. Another reminder that he was so out of his league with this woman. “How’d that work out for ya?”

Her mouth turned down. “About like he hoped it would.”

Interesting. She wasn’t happy with her silver spoon. He’d already guessed as much, judging by her lifestyle.

“So if you’re a superrich trust-fund kid, why are you living in an apartment house and figuring out how to fit three-for-a-buck boxes of macaroni-and-cheese and half-price toilet paper on the same page of a sales circulars?”

“Food and bathroom products on the same page? Never! That’s basic freshman marketing.”

“Sorry, I never took that class. I was busy with ladder-climbing 101 and fire-hose handling.” Seeing her confusion, he chuckled. “Kidding. I never went to college.” Seeing a flash of confusion—
or pity? Please God, not pity
—cross her face, he quickly added, “Classic underachiever. That’s me.”

Joking was better than getting into the subject. By the time he was eighteen, he was working full-time to help his dad pay the bills and take care of his mom, who was five years into an MS diagnosis. There’d been no time for school and certainly no money. But they didn’t need to discuss that.

“I somehow doubt it,” she said, disbelieving. “It takes a special kind of person to do what you do—putting your life on the line to help others. You’re a real hero. Marketers are a dime a dozen.”

Uncomfortable with the praise, he asked, “Is that your professional opinion, having analyzed the cost-versus-value-added benefits of marketers?”

She laughed lightly, and he pressed forward with the subject change. He’d made his decision to enter his career for valid reasons, and was proud of what he did. He didn’t need anyone else’s strokes telling him he’d done the right thing. If he got strokes from this woman, he wanted them to be of a very different variety.

Not happening, dude. Boyfriend, remember?

“So, you never answered my question.”

She glanced toward the big house, once white, now more gray after a hundred and fifty years of weather and history. “I love this place. I love living here.”

“It is special. But couldn’t you buy one just like it?”

She shook her head. “I could probably afford a house, but not like this one. The trust fund’s tied up with the family business—I couldn’t touch it if I wanted to. And I won’t take money from my parents. I work hard for what I earn.”

“I always figured there were two kinds of boss’s kids. Those who got away with murder, counting on Daddy to bail them out. And those who worked twice as hard as everyone else to try to prove something. Do I have to guess which you are?”

She sank into her chair. “I have to cop to the second.”

“I figured.”

“I started working in one of the stores as a cashier as soon as I turned sixteen. I’ve baked cakes, sliced deli meats, stocked shelves, even did some turkey bowling in my day.”

He lifted a curious brow.

A tiny dimple appeared in one perfect cheek as she grinned. “The night after Thanksgiving, when the stores were being restocked and a lot of frozen turkeys were left unsold, the stock guys used to set up bowling alleys with stacks of empty containers at one end, and use the birds as the balls.”

He snorted a laugh. “Sounds like fun. So I guess you really have worked your way to the top in the family business.”

She glanced away, toward the sky, which was turning purple and blue as the sun dropped lower in the sky toward evening. “I don’t want what I haven’t earned. I was determined to prove to my father that I am not just a useless daughter, good only for patting on the head and sending out to buy dresses.”

Ouch. Despite the softness of her pretty, lyrical voice, the pain came through loud and clear. “Daddy issues?”

“I don’t need his approval,” she snapped. “I want his job when he retires.”

And obviously, she was afraid she wasn’t going to get it. Or thought there was a chance she might not.

Licking her lips and not meeting his eye, she explained, “I guess that’s a bit of a lie. I do want his approval—or at least, I want him to think I want it. He’s resisting the idea of a woman taking over the company his grandfather founded, which he almost single-handedly saved from bankruptcy ten years ago.” She huffed. “I have an MBA, but I don’t have a penis.”

Thank God.

“You don’t have any siblings,” he pointed out, remembering what she’d said earlier.

“Male cousins.”

All other things being equal in terms of the job, it seemed crazy to him that any parent would favor a nephew over his own child just because of her sex. Talk about a strange value system. Mimi acted like the only thing that mattered was the job, but he couldn’t imagine it was easy growing up and always being made to feel somehow “less” in the eyes of a parent.

His own upbringing had included a lot of struggle, mostly because of his mom’s illness, but his parents had always made sure he knew they loved him.

“My cousins aren’t even interested in the business—one’s a lawyer, one’s a pilot, another’s a musician.”

So, all things weren’t equal. And the father was still being sexist? Bizarre.

“So you must really love what he does if you so want his job, huh?”

She thought about it for a moment, then admitted, “No. Not really. I like sales and marketing—honestly, I would rather be trying to sell more than cold cuts and jelly doughnuts.”

He laughed. “Then why are you so determined to stick with the grocery biz?”

“I guess I’m just the type who never likes being told I can’t do something. Hearing from the time I was a kid that a man had to run the company was like waving a red cape in front of a bull.”

“Sorry, but I have to say, your dad sounds like a tool.”

She chuckled. “He’s all right. Just old-fashioned and stubborn. I haven’t exactly made it easy on him.”

“What kid does?”

“Well, my mom tells me I always went out of my way to do the opposite of what he suggested. He wanted me to take dance lessons as a little girl—I insisted on karate. He hoped I’d be interested in music in school, I was interested in boys and track. He wanted me to go to Georgia State, I went all Yankee on him, to that evil, great wild north known as Maryland.”

“Whatever Daddy says…you go the opposite way.”

“In the past,” she admitted. “But now, going all Sigmund Freud on myself, I suspect that’s why I started going out with Dimitri. To extend an olive branch, do something he wanted for a change. And to make my father think I see things just the way he does. He sees Dimitri as perfect for me.”

He tensed. Couldn’t help it, his muscles just stiffened reflexively when he heard the other man’s name.

The other man? Make that—her lover’s name.

“So your boyfriend comes with Daddy’s stamp of approval?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she immediately replied.

He couldn’t help pushing the issue. “Your lover?”

A long hesitation. Then she admitted, “Not that, either.”

His heart skidded. “I thought…I heard voices in the hall late Friday night, after everyone was gone.”

She looked down, her lashes hiding those expressive eyes, as if she didn’t want him to read too much into her words. “That was Obi-Wan. Dimitri was long gone by then.”

“So you didn’t…”

“No. We didn’t.” Like a broken record, she again reminded him, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

No, of course it wasn’t. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to fist bump the sky. “Got it.”

Their stares met, and he suspected she was reading his silent relief, evaluating it, figuring out how she felt about it. Hell, he didn’t know how he felt about it himself. It wasn’t as if he had any kind of chance with this woman beyond being friendly, sharing a beer and occasionally saving her ass from bees and falling ladders.

He was also willing to offer underwear advice anytime she required it. Hey, he was neighborly that way.

But anything else? Was that really possible?