Diamond in the Rough. Marie Ferrarella

she didn’t have the time to spare, waiting for the drink to dissipate into her bloodstream. “I’ve got to be going,” she reminded him.

      “Right. Oh, wait.” He’d gotten so excited, he’d almost forgotten the most important part. “How do I get in contact with you?”

      He obviously wasn’t thinking because otherwise, Miranda decided, he would have remembered the e-mail. But because she didn’t want to embarrass him, she didn’t bother pointing that out.

      “I’ll get in contact with you,” she replied. She liked it better that way. It put the ball in her court and gave her control. Control was important to her. So very little of life came under that heading. “Do you have a business card?”

      “Yeah, sure.” Mike immediately felt for his wallet.

      Once retrieved from his left rear pocket, he flipped it open. Aside from several torn bits of paper containing miscellaneous information, two credit cards, several twenties, his driver’s license, a press card and a photograph of his family taken at the last fourth of July celebration, there was nothing. He’d forgotten to replenish his supply of business cards.

      “Just not with me,” he muttered, then looked up. “Sorry, I gave away my last one a few days ago,” he apologized. Pulling a napkin over from the bar, he took out a pen and began to write down every phone number he could think of where she could reach him. “This is my cell number, my office number and my landline at home.” He pointed to each. “Call me anytime, night or day.”

      She took the napkin from him and folded it into her purse. Her attention was drawn to the photograph he’d shuffled through in his search for the business card.

      “Is that your family?” They appeared to be a happy bunch of people, she thought, wondering what it felt like to have a large family. Now there was only her father and her.

      “What?” His mind already on the interview he wanted to conduct, it took Mike a second to process her question. “Oh, yes, that’s my family. My brothers, my sister, my dad and my stepmother.”

      Taking the photograph from him, she got a closer look. “My God, your brothers are absolutely identical,” she said in awe. Initially, when she’d glanced at the photograph, she’d thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.

      “Not once you get to know them,” Mike assured her. Growing up, Mike had gotten so used to his brothers he hadn’t thought of them as triplets in years. He put the photograph back into his wallet, which he tucked into his pocket. “How about you?”

      Miranda looked at him, slightly confused. “How about me what?”

      “Do you have a business card?”

      She did. It had her name, her position and Promise Pharmaceuticals’ very ornate logo stamped across it. But she didn’t really want Mike Marlowe having that much information on her, especially not her last name. She wanted to be the one who called the shots and could quietly disappear in case her father couldn’t be convinced to do this interview.

      The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that Marlowe could redeem her father. The only way people were going to change their minds about him was if someone methodically—and passionately—laid out all the arguments to let the past go and reevaluate the man only in terms of his accomplishments.

      She shook her head, spreading her hands wide. “I’m afraid I don’t have a card with me.”

      Mike leaned over the bar and confiscated another napkin. Pulling it over, he held it out to her along with his pen. “That’s okay.” He grinned. “We can exchange napkins.”

      She placed her hand over his and lightly pushed it back down to the bar. “I’d really rather just keep it this way if you don’t mind.”

      He raised one eyebrow. “In other words, don’t call us, we’ll call you?” he asked.

      “Not exactly. Something a little less daunting than that,” she promised, squaring her shoulders. There was something very sexy about a woman who knew her own mind. Damn, but that Shaw was a lucky man, he thought. “I’ll be in touch.”

      “I’ll hold you to that,” Mike called after her.

      Miranda didn’t turn around, but she did lift her hand above her head, giving him a half wave of acknowledgment.

      Mike squelched the urge to sprint in order to walk out the door with the woman. He had a feeling she might equate that to come kind of a power play and he didn’t want anything jeopardizing the interview. So instead, he leaned back against his stool and watched her exit…and the way her hips subtly moved to some beat only she heard. The number of patrons at the bar had increased considerably since he’d arrived, Mike couldn’t help thinking.

      Just as she disappeared through the door, whatever else might have comprised Shaw’s shortcomings, the man certainly knew how to pick his women.

      Chapter Four

      “Son of a—gun.”

      Glancing toward his left, Mike amended his language out of deference to his stepmother, in whose kitchen he was sitting. Twenty years ago, she had come into his life bearing puppets, warm humor and good intentions. She’d wound up staying on to raise him and his brothers, not as their nanny the way she’d initially appeared, but as their new mother. Along the way, she’d also accomplished the impossible by making his dad smile again.

      There’d been a very dark period, right after his mother died in that plane crash. He was five and his brothers were four; they’d been utterly certain none of them would ever be all right again. To this day, the sharp, biting pain of that loss, of suddenly realizing that his mother would never return, never walk through the front door and hug him again, remained with him, hovering in the shadows.

      But that took nothing away from Kate. Blond, chipper and incredibly intuitive when it came to the actions of small boys, she had brought light into their world and subsequently turned them into a family again. Though words were his craft, he could never really tell Kate the full extent of how much she had come to mean to him. To all of them.

      Kate was sensitive to cursing, so he stopped himself before he uttered anything offensive. But had he shouted out “Rumplestiltskin,” that still wouldn’t have taken the edge off his surprise.

      Mike stared at the screen and the article he’d just pulled up after Googling Steven Shaw’s personal stats. Mike wasn’t sure what to think and part of him felt like an idiot.

      “Something wrong?” Kate asked, her voice an equal mixture of amusement and concern.

      She peered over her shoulder, away from the stove and the dinner she was preparing. It wasn’t a throwaway, automatic question. Kate was interested in every aspect of her sons’ lives and was more than willing to listen to anything they felt like sharing. The little boys that she’d once signed on to raise were off on their own now. Nothing made her happier than having them all turn up around the table at the same time for a meal. She asked for one day a month. Generous, they tried to give her one day a week whenever they could coordinate their schedules. It meant the world to her.

      The others, including her husband, weren’t here yet, but Mike had decided to come over early, with the one stipulation that he be allowed to bring his work with him because he needed to get something done before this evening. Kate was so pleased to have him come over—he’d missed the last couple of get-togethers because he was out of town on assignment—she would have said yes if he’d asked to bring the devil along.

      There was a five-second delay before her question played itself in his brain.

      “What?” He looked up, then shook his head. “Oh, no, nothing’s wrong.” He glanced back at the screen and the startling information. “Exactly,” he amended.

      Kate dug a little deeper. “Would you like to elaborate on that just a little?”

      Mike frowned, still looking at the screen. “I think she’s his daughter.”