Free A Man Like Mike by Sami Lee Page B

need to tell you that the CEO deserves something a little beyond a hastily compiled speech. That might pass muster in a weekly staff meeting, but not for Sheila Smith.” It was only after this mini-diatribe that Nathan spotted Bailey in the corner, where he had tipped the wastepaper bin on its side and was now carefully sorting through its contents. “What in blazes is that ?”
    Mike answered before Eve could. “ That , is a child.”
    She shot him a look, but his eyes were on the other man, the offence he’d taken at Nathan’s obvious displeasure at seeing Bailey clear on his face.
    Nathan turned his gaze on Mike. Mike stood and offered his hand, keeping his expression neutral. “I’m Mike, and I brought that along.” He tilted his head toward Bailey. “Was there a security checkpoint I should have passed him through?”
    Nathan’s dark eyes narrowed behind his wire rimmed glasses, as though he might be taking Mike’s sardonic question seriously. With apparent reluctance he accepted Mike’s outstretched hand.
    Eve considered staying out of it and letting the two males of the species size each other up but, knowing Mike as she did, she wasn’t sure there would be much of her boss left when he was finished. It wasn’t just sheer physical power that Mike had over the thin-framed Nathan. It was as though the very impact of his magnetic presence could wash the other man away.
    Nathan was much easier to handle when he was in a good mood. Her afternoon would be chaos if Mike put him in a bad one.
    Standing and scooping up Bailey before he was able to strew any more of her rubbish across the floor, Eve walked over to stand beside Mike. “Nathan, this is Mike Wilcox, Bailey’s uncle. Mike, this is the General Manager, Nathan Shore.” She hoped Mike picked up on the subtle emphasis she placed on the title, General Manager. The expression on his face told her he cared not a whit if Nathan Shore was the Sultan of Brunei. “Mike and Bailey were just leaving.”
    “Good,” Nathan said with satisfaction. “I know your situation, Eve, but you know how I feel about children in the office.”
    “Yes I do, Nathan. I assure you, this won’t be a regular occurrence.” She felt rather than saw the tension that stiffened Mike’s spine and rushed to suggest to Nathan, “Why don’t I join you in your office in five minutes and we’ll discuss an action plan for tomorrow’s presentation?”
    Fortunately he seemed satisfied with that idea, giving a stiff nod and a last, wary glance at Mike before taking his leave. Eve breathed a sigh of relief that she had averted an ugly scene, but she barely had time to relax before Mike rounded on her. “You let that guy go on like that all the time?”
    “You mean, do I let the General Manager of the company that employs me assign me work? Dictate how the office is run? Yes, Mike, I usually do.”
    “I’m not talking about that. He looked at Bailey like he was something he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.”
    “Not everyone likes children. It’s not a crime. I promised Nathan my altered home situation wouldn’t in any way impact my work here.”
    “Still, you could have said something about his attitude.”
    “I can’t just go around telling people I work for what I think of their attitude. You have to be a bit politic in an office. It’s not a no-holds-barred situation, like in a kitchen.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled, and not in a friendly way. “I bet you’ve never seen the inside of a commercial kitchen.”
    “Well, no,” Eve was forced to admit, “but I imagine it’s very different from working in an office, where people have to be a little more … polished.”
    “Polished?” he repeated. “Should I take that to mean you think I’m unpolished ?”
    She looked down at his T-shirt with the quirky slogan, his ripped jeans. “I think your wardrobe speaks for itself on that count.”
    He followed her gaze, then shrugged. “All right, fair