Something About Joe (4 page)

What Clive
said was true. Allison knew, as the only woman on the senior
management team, others were resentful of her position. They’d go
for her throat without any hesitation.

Clive
continued. “Don’t blow it, Allison. Not after all the work we’ve
put into this.”

Allison took
a deep breath. Clive was her mentor in this company. He believed in
her. “Just one call, Clive—”

Rebecca interrupted. “Let me make the calls
for you, Allison.” Her eyes signaled her full understanding of the
situation.

“
Let her,”
said Clive. He took Allison by the arm and led her away from her
desk. “Come on.”

Clive marched beside her with long,
purposeful strides as they headed back toward the boardroom.
Allison had the feeling of a prisoner being frog-marched by a
warder back to her cell. Then the adrenalin kicked in and she felt
a surge of excitement about what she intended to achieve.

Inside the boardroom waited four bankers
from Hong Kong, here in Sydney at her invitation. She was
negotiating with them, on behalf of one of her bank’s major
corporate clients, for a huge syndication lending deal. The dollars
involved went into the billions. The prestige for her as the
newly-promoted Head of Corporate Banking for her bank, if it all
went well, was immense. The backlash if she lost the business was
as awesome.

“Gentlemen,” she said as she swallowed the
knot of nervous tension in her throat and went back into the
boardroom. “Are we ready for lunch?”

At 6pm she was alone in her office, elbows
resting on her desk, head held despairingly in her hands. The bank
operated a culture of long hours that suited men and single women,
not mothers. She knew it would be a point against her that she
hadn’t gone on to drinks and dinner with the other bankers but how
could she? Mitchell’s welfare had to come first. Always. She’d left
Mitchell with a new nanny. She had to get home.

All afternoon, the back-to-back
presentations and discussions had been so intense she’d never again
found a chance to look for an alternate nanny. And Rebecca hadn’t
had any luck with the agencies she’d called.

What kind of a mother was she to have failed
to find Mitchell a more suitable carer than Joe Martin? But what
support systems did she have? The women she knew in Sydney were
either without children or also worked full-time. Diane had made it
quite clear she had enough on her plate with her own three and
wasn’t available—even in emergencies.

As for
Mitchell’s father—Peter had never taken a moment’s responsibility
for his son, and his grandparents on that side had never even laid
eyes on her baby. She would never be able to understand how Peter
could reject Mitchell. But she never gave up hoping he would change
his mind.

At this moment, in a lifetime where
loneliness had never been a stranger, Allison felt more alone than
ever. Never had she felt so distressed about the demands her job
placed on her. Joe Martin had berated her for not staying at home
to look after her child herself. But that wasn’t an option.

Peter’s
gambling and dishonesty, and her own short-sightedness in not
realizing what he was up to, meant she either worked in an
executive job where she earned good money or declared
bankruptcy.

That was something her background and
beliefs made it impossible for her to do. And if she were bankrupt
she would never get another job in banking. She knew she had to pay
back every cent of those debts to ensure her future—and Mitchell’s.
This deal with the Hong Kong bankers might help her do that.

She dragged
on her jacket, heaved her briefcase—jam-packed with papers she had
to review this evening for tomorrow’s meeting—into her hand and
closed the office door behind her.

The last
thing she felt like doing was taking work home, but if this deal
went through she’d be in line for a substantial commission. She
could pay off most of the debts Peter had burdened her with, and
start making changes to her life. Maybe step down to a less
stressful role or work as a consultant. A changed life, where she
could spend more time with Mitchell. She
had
to get that
commission.

As she
steered her car through the heavy traffic, for the hundredth time
she thanked heaven she had managed to find, for a manageable rent,
the little terrace house in McMahons Point, a small harbor-side
enclave nestled at the northern foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
She had very little use for its trendy cafes and restaurants; its
proximity to the city was its attraction. Traffic permitting, she
would be home to Mitchell ten minutes after leaving the
office.

She gritted
her teeth as she imagined just what she might find when she got
home. Joe Martin certainly hadn’t looked the house-proud
type.

That was
another reason she wanted a female nanny. Her father and Peter—the
only men she’d lived with—had been far from competent housekeepers.
She knew it was a prejudice, even as she thought it, but would this
male nanny be any better?

The place would no doubt be a pigsty and
she’d have to spend the evening cleaning up after him. She just
hoped he’d given Mitchell his dinner and a bath.

Her hand was shaking with exhaustion as she
fitted her key into the lock of her front door. She pushed it open
and braced herself for the scene she felt certain awaited her.

The first
thing she noticed was the toys she’d left scattered around the
living room floor had been neatly packed away. The second was the
delicious aroma of cooking wafting from the kitchen. Mitchell had
eaten, and eaten well by the smell of it.

The heating
was on to guard against the cool spring evening and the house
seemed somehow more welcoming than it had in a long
time.

She heard
the sound of delighted laughter and splashing coming from the floor
above. So Mitchell was being bathed right on schedule.

She walked
up the stairs. “Hello-o,” she called, as she headed for the
bathroom.

“Momma,” cried Mitchell as she pushed open
the door.

Mitchell
crowed contentedly in his bath, obviously as well cared for as he
could be. She smiled at the sight of his chubby little body and his
spiky hair slicked down with damp. Having Mitchell in her life made
every difficulty she faced worthwhile. “Hello, my angel,” she
said.

Joe Martin
was crouched next to the bathtub, a toy boat in his hand. He
dropped the boat and stood up as Allison came into the
room.

His powerful, muscled body took up half the
bathroom and instinctively Allison stepped back. The front of Joe’s
white T-shirt was wet, Mitchell must have splashed him, and the
fabric clung to his strongly defined pecs. The water made the
fabric almost transparent and she could see his dark chest hair
through it.

Joe was
barefoot and she glanced down at his large, well-formed feet, with
long, even toes. She’d read somewhere you could judge the size of a
man’s equipment by the size of his feet. In Joe Martin’s
case...

Quickly she shifted her gaze to his face,
fighting the flush that warmed her cheeks. His jaw was shadowed
with a day’s growth; he must be a twice-a-day shave man. Virile.
Loads of testosterone.

She swallowed hard at the nervous lump that
rose in her throat. Please let him think her blush was caused by
the steaminess of the bathroom. Not by her growing awareness of him
as a male.

She kneeled
down by the side of the bath and reached over to Mitchell to hug
him as best she could, not caring if her jacket got wet.

She found
Joe Martin more attractive by the minute. She could fight those
feelings but she couldn’t deny them. He was the most physically
exciting man she’d ever been this close to. But she had to keep her
thoughts on track. Was he really up to the responsibility of
looking after her child?

J
oe shifted so he could see
Allison’s face. He was struck by how tired she looked. Her face was
pale and there were shadows beneath her green eyes. Wisps of light
blond hair had straggled free from their clips and fell around her
face. She had a smear of ink at the side of her chin.

He resisted the urge to pick up Mitchell’s
wet washcloth and wipe the ink away. Imagine what the boss lady’s
reaction would be if he tried.

Allison pulled away from Mitchell, who went
on happily submerging his boat and then letting it shoot back up to
the surface. Joe hadn’t realized Allison was so tall. When she
stood up, she almost reached his eye level. The steamy atmosphere
of the bathroom had brought a flush to her cheeks.

“Everything go okay today?” she asked.

“Fine,” he replied. “Mitchell enjoyed
getting together with his little buddies at playgroup. He had lunch
when he got home and then a nap. Just like on your schedule.”

“
I wondered
if you’d followed it.”

“It’s my job to follow parents’
instructions.”

What did she think he was? Not a “proper”
nanny, that was for sure. He could understand why people were wary
of male carers. You heard terrible things about some men left in
charge of children. It made him sick to even think about it. He
would personally strangle anyone he caught interfering with the
innocence of a child.

But why did some women find it so hard to
admit that a responsible man like himself could look after young
children? No one had ever questioned his ability to care for the
twenty-plus seven-year-olds in his classroom.

“Thanks for following the schedule,” Allison
said, a little stiffly. “Mitchell’s had a few changes of carer
lately, and I think it helps if he sticks to a routine.”

She looked
so hot in that suit. Tailored as it was, it couldn’t disguise the
lush curves of her body. Especially to someone who’d seen them
covered by so little. That see-through robe she’d answered the door
in lingered in his memory. He could feel a tightening of his jeans.
He looked away.
Eyes off the
boss lady.

“If you want to get changed, Mrs. Bradley,
I’ll dry Mitchell off and get him into his PJs.”

“Please call me Allison. Mrs. Bradley makes
me seem so...so old.”

“Hardly.”

Allison looked down at Mitchell, a doting
smile warming her face. She could pose for one of those
Madonna-and-Child-type paintings—but with that ripe body and
sensual mouth she didn’t look in the slightest bit virginal.

Suddenly it
was important for him to know her age. “So how old were you when
you had Mitchell?”

She looked surprised by the question.
“Thirty,” she said. “Which makes me thirty-two now.” She pulled a
wry face. “And feeling every second of it.”

Thirty-two. She didn’t look it. But why
should he feel so dismayed she was older than he was?

He was twenty-seven. Five years shouldn’t
make any difference but somehow it did. He’d only ever dated
younger women; had never thought beyond the traditional
man-older-than-the-woman thing. Of course she didn’t seem bothered
admitting her age to him. Why should she?

Allison Bradley was gorgeous—if he’d met her
anywhere else he would have asked her on a date by now. But she was
older, had a kid, and was a client. That put her strictly off
limits.

“I’ll get out of my work clothes,” she said.
“Then I’ll take over and you can go home.” She moved toward the
doorway and he had to turn side-on to let her through. Her breasts
brushed him as she pushed pass; his muscles tensed at her
touch.

“
Fine,” he
said and averted his eyes from the sight of her enticing backside
as she left the bathroom.
Do
not think about how she would look stripping out of her
suit.
“Come on, Mitchell, let’s get
cracking.”

A
llison peeled off her “boss
lady” suit with relief, and slid gratefully into gym pants and a
sweatshirt. She thought unenthusiastically about the frozen diet
meals stacked in the freezer, and decided to pass on them. After
all, she’d had a three-course business lunch. She’d just nibble on
a choc-chip cookie for dinner. Stress always made her reach for
chocolate.

As she hung
up her suit in the closet, she wondered why Joe Martin had asked
about her age. She knew from his résumé that he was twenty-seven.
Why would it matter to him how old she was?

She’d been
tempted to tell him to mind his own business but it was no big
deal. Being thirty-two didn’t bother her; she was proud of what
she’d achieved at her age—and her crowning achievement was
Mitchell.

As she
turned in the direction of the bathroom, Joe Martin came out of
Mitchell’s bedroom, holding her son dressed in his dinosaur-print
pajamas.

Mitchell’s eyes were already heavy with
sleep. Allison chastised herself for her disappointment. She liked
it when Mitchell was wide-awake and she could justify keeping him
up beyond his bedtime. She knew it wasn’t going strictly by the
book—but some evenings she only saw Mitchell for half an hour and
she longed for more.

“
I’ll take
over,” she said, as she reached for her son.

But Mitchell resisted. “Want Joe,” he said,
clinging to his nanny.

Allison felt a stab of fierce jealousy, but
she schooled her face into a nonchalant smile. “You have been a
hit,” she forced herself to say.

The part of her not shriveling with angst
was telling her it was great Mitchell liked Joe so much.

“
But
no
one can replace Mommy,” Joe said. He
gently disengaged the child’s arms. This time Mitchell went
willingly to her and Allison held him to her too tightly, breathing
in the warm, soapy smell of him like a drug.