The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

door.”
    Another nervous shiver rolled down Eve’s back, and Bianca—though not maternal- looking she still possessed fully functioning maternal antennae—drew closer and put her hand over Eve’s forehead. “Are you all right, cara ?”
    â€œOf course.” That “Call me” threat from the SEC notwithstanding. Eve didn’t know what more they could want from her. When the investigator had contacted her last month, she’d been forced to explain herself. One of her former gentlemen friends, Vince Standish, respected, upstanding CEO, had whispered a juicy little stock tip in her ear during a charity lunch. A hush-hush merger. A sure thing if she moved fast, because the news was being released the very next day. Only the very next day Vince Standish had turned out to be not a generous ex-lover with a surefire financial tip but a vindictive weasel who’d paid her back—for ending their relationship—in the lowest way possible.
    By using her own greed to do it.
    Bianca frowned. “Cara?”
    So maybe Eve was sick, because it made her ill to think about how she’d run with the tip—liquidating what assets she could and taking out short-term, high-interest loans against what she couldn’t—to risk every nickel she had and then some. When the real details of the hush-hush merger had been made public, she’d discovered that the company she’d invested in had been on the losing side of the deal. It was now worth nothing. After having sold her condo and her car and anything else she could think of to cover the loans, she was worth nothing as well.
    But she couldn’t let Bianca know that. The olderwoman had done enough for her. “I’m fine. Good.” Eve stepped back, in case the woman’s palm was some sort of parental lie detector. “Do you need any help in the lounge tonight?”
    Bianca shook her head. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
    Ignoring the question, Eve used the toe of her shoe to nudge the dead bird toward the nearby shrubbery. “Here, cat. You can have it back.”
    The big tom just looked at her. Like Bianca was still looking at her.
    To escape their dual regard, Eve kept her gaze on the dead bird. Suddenly hating the idea of leaving it unprotected against the elements, she knelt. A sharp-edged rock was lying nearby on the damp earth. She picked it up and went to work digging a small grave.
    Maybe it was the activity that prompted Bianca’s next words. “Eve, we…we haven’t talked much about finding your father’s remains.”
    â€œWhat’s there to say?” Eve kept her voice casual. “We’d already accepted his death years ago.” Perhaps the others had. The truth was, however, that even though he’d been missing since she was twelve years old, she’d always held out hope that Salvatore had been somewhere in hiding and that someday he’d return. Was that so strange? It wasn’t easy to accept being truly alone in the world.
    Above her head, she heard Bianca sigh. “I never talked enough about the past with you girls.”
    Squelching her squeamishness, Eve used her rock to push the pretty yellow bird into the little hole she’d made. “It doesn’t matter.” And she certainly didn’t want to talk about it now . Her current modus operandi was to ignore or avoid all unpleasant things.With the exception of Nash Cargill, she’d been doing okay.
    What would Bianca have to say about the past anyhow? That it had been a strain on the marriage to raise this other, extraneous daughter? That it hadn’t been easy loving the living symbol of her husband’s infidelity? Eve had drawn her own conclusions about that while looking at herself in the mirror every morning—deciding that the secret to an unbroken heart was controlling your feelings for a man and thus not letting him control you.
    Rock still in hand, she