Page 12 of Business Temptations

Of course, every color Bailey wore was perfect. In his mind, at least.

When the chicken was done, he lifted the pan and carried it over to the opposite counter, placing one piece on Bailey’s plate and another on his, then spooning the white wine sauce over each. The next moment, a timer went off and Matteo pulled broiled asparagus spears out of the oven and placed several on each plate.

“This looks wonderful!” Bailey sighed, waiting until he came around to sit next to her before she started eating. As they ate, Bailey and Matteo discussed the next product rollout and how it could be integrated with their other products.

A half hour later, Bailey put her napkin down and nodded. “That was delicious,” she told him. “Have I mentioned how much I appreciate your culinary talents?”

Matteo rolled his eyes. “Since you have none, yes. You’ve mentioned my talents on several occasions.” He added a chuckle as well as a shake of his head, obviously remembering some of her attempts at cooking. None of which ended with anything edible.

“How are Levi and Sean doing?” Bailey asked as she picked up the plates, rinsed them, and put them into the dishwasher. Levi and Sean were his friends from long ago. They’d met in college and still talked pretty often. The three of them had collaborated on renovating an exclusive clubhouse about an hour outside of Philadelphia. They were all bastards, all rejected by their fathers – and all extremely good men.

“They are doing well. They are finally getting some sleep now that the babies are sleeping through the night, but it’s going to take a while before they trust in the little ones’ new sleep cycles.” Levi had married Clarissa who had just given birth to an adorable little girl. Sean had only recently discovered that he was a father to a tiny baby boy. He was now married to the very lovely Kennedi and the family split their time between Philadelphia and Newsom, Georgia where their son’s honorary grandparents lived.

Bailey paused, one plate hovering under the rushing water as she contemplated the idea of babies. She couldn’t deny the appeal of holding Matteo’s child in her arms, or the very enticing ways one could conceive of that baby!

Matteo had been putting food away, but at her sudden stillness, his eyes narrowed suspiciously on her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, one hand resting on the handle of her large fridge.

Bailey jumped at his question and glanced over at him. “Nothing,” she replied and forced her features to brighten back into a smile. “Nothing. I was just thinking about…” she quickly grasped for a different subject.

Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. As she stared back at Matteo, flashes of a dark-haired baby came to her mind, smiling up at Matteo as they watched their children grow and develop and…well, all of the things she could never have with him.

Because they were just friends!

Bailey realized that Matteo was still watching her – and that she hadn’t moved. She was still holding the plate in her hand, hovering over the dishwasher. Shaking her head, she bent down and placed it between several of the prongs. Mentally, she admonished herself for the revealing error. She had to stop flinching every time Matteo talked about his friends’ babies. Just because she desperately wanted a child of her own, there was no reason to be envious of another person’s happiness.

Bailey looked up to find Matteo still watching her carefully. With forced casualness, she dumped the utensils into the dishwasher and scrambled for a change in conversation. “There’s a new social media group coming onto the market.” She turned to the sink, giving Matteo her back for a moment. That gave her the time she needed to pull herself together again.

Back to business she thought with a mental sigh. However, marketing tactics was a good solution for her wandering thoughts. Bailey mentally patted herself on the back for her quick thinking. She grabbed the dishtowel, but as soon as she looked down at it, Bailey wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with it.

Turning, she leaned against the sink, but she couldn’t lift her eyes up to him again. She scrambled for another topic, needing to pull her mind away from the very delicious thoughts that…could never happen.

With a sigh, she thought up a new idea, one that only formed now that she had a moment to breathe. Business. That was a safer topic, she reminded herself. Finally, she looked over at him and forced a smile. “I was wondering if this new social media idea would be geared towards younger kids or the older generations and how we could use it to market more effectively.”

Matteo stared at her for a long moment. She was lying to him, but why? What had he said that would cause her to withdraw from him like that?

“What’s wrong?” he asked again.

As he waited, he noted the tension building in her shoulders and the stiffness of her spine. A lovely spine, he thought, but obviously, something was bothering her. Bailey sighed and straightened, twisting the dishtowel and looking around. After a moment, she started drying off the marble countertop. “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “I guess I’m just…a little envious.”

He looked around at the elaborate kitchen that he’d helped her design, even though she never cooked in the space. He was the chef in their relationship. He loved cooking and thought it was therapeutic after a stressful day. He also liked ensuring that Bailey ate something healthy. He knew that, left to her own devices, she’d have a bowl of cereal or a cup of yogurt, meals that didn’t require cooking and only needed a spoon.

“You have everything you could ever hope for, Bailey,” he pointed out. “What more do you want, other than a much needed vacation?” He lifted his glass of scotch, draining the glass before he continued, “That you could take at any time, I might add.”

She smiled weakly, then leaned over the wide expanse of the kitchen island. She propped her chin on her raised hands and considered the problem. “I guess I just thought that I’d have a family and children by this point in my life.”

He grunted and stole her glass, taking a long sip of her wine. “You could have that.”

She snorted. “Right. Remember the last guy I went out with?”

He shook his head, preferring not to think about the men she dated. “He was an ass and you knew it from the moment he asked you out at that party.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t have accepted his offer of a dinner date if you hadn’t told him he was a wimp.”

Matteo set the cut crystal glass down on the marble countertop more firmly than he’d intended and rolled his eyes. “He was.”

Bailey’s head moved back and forth before she replied, “I know that, but the poor guy felt so emasculated that I felt sorry for him!”

“Serves you right. You’re not the kind of woman who can tolerate a weak man for very long. You’re strong and ambitious. Weak men feel threatened by you.”

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