Her Perfect Stranger

Everyone but Mike doubled over with laughter.

Great. Just great. Mike hadn't even met the woman and he was probably on her shit list.

'There she is now,' Stephen said, pointing across the room.

She had her back to them. All Mike could tell from the view was that she was rather petite. No other details, except she'd pulled her hair back in a severe bun that reminded him of Mrs. Stestlebaum, his strict, terrifying first- grade teacher.

Commander Corrine Atkinson appeared to favor boxy business suits that didn't show nearly enough of the female body to suit him, and hid any curves she might or might not have.

'Come on, I'll introduce you,' Tom said.

Mike drew in a deep breath, feeling resigned, but not sure why. So she dressed a little stiffly. So she liked to torture her scalp with unforgiving hairdos. It didn't mean she would be difficult to work for.

He hoped.

'Mike?'

'Yeah,' he said to Tom. 'Coming.' But he didn't move.

Frank laughed and slapped him on the back. 'It's just the boss, big guy, not the guillotine.'

But Mike knew that sometimes they could be one and the same. Together, moving as a team already, they strode forward to introduce him, the other men smiling, relaxed in a way that suddenly Mike couldn't have imitated to save his life.

Strange, given how much he enjoyed smiling and being relaxed.

He didn't understand it, at least not until he got within two feet of her and she turned to face him.

Corrine got that funny tingle at the base of her skull, the one that warned her that something exciting-good or bad, she couldn't yet tell-was about to happen.

The inkling was right on, she discovered, as she slowly turned and faced the group of men standing there smiling, all of whom she knew, some better than others.

With the exception of the one in front.

Her perfect stranger.

The man with the wicked eyes and even more wicked hands, the one she imagined would headline her fantasies for years to come, was standing right there in front of her.

Only now he wasn't in worn jeans and a clean T-shirt, sitting at the bar tapping his foot in tune with the music as a storm raged outside. Now he wasn't looking alone and sexy, and just a tad bit dangerous to her mental health.

Now he was…oh, definitely still sexy and just a tad bit dangerous to her mental health-but no longer alone late at night.

He was surrounded by her team, looking for all the world as if he belonged there, looking as if he'd been born there.

'Commander Atkinson? This is Mike Wright,' Tom said proudly. 'In the flesh.'

Flesh. Oh, she knew his flesh. Intimately. And at just the thought, she blushed.

Blushed.

Unimaginable. She opened her mouth, maybe to deny this could really be happening, maybe just to let out an indignant squeak, but thankfully, he spoke first.

'You're the commander?' He looked as sick as she did. 'Commander Atkinson?'

At least he was every bit as stunned as she. Which didn't help things, not one little bit, not when her perfect stranger was… Oh my God.

On her team.

He was a subordinate. He was going to have to take direct orders from her, and as she knew damned well, he wouldn't like it. He was strong and tough and his own man…and this couldn't be happening, this couldn't really be happening.

She couldn't have accidentally slept with someone she was going to work closely with. God, more than closely, they were going to be practically glued at the hip for the next four months. This was some sort of cosmic joke. It had to be.

A nightmare.

For the first time in her life, she was truly speechless, with no idea of how to react.

But she could see he did. In fact, he was already reaching out his hand, not to shake hers as a stranger would, but to hold it and squeeze gently, in that very familiar way he had, a way that would scream to anyone watching what they'd been to each other, only hours before. 'You're-'

'Mike. Mike Wright.'

He had a name. Fancy that. She jerked her hand away and carefully schooled her features into a cool passivity. 'Nice to meet you.'

He wasn't only surprised at her civil tone and refusal to acknowledge that they knew each other, he looked shocked as well. But she couldn't register that at the moment; all she could think was …he was Mike Wright!

Not her first choice for pilot, or even her second, but those men had been taken from her by circumstance. When American-born and Russian-trained astronaut Mikhail Wright had been suggested for emergency secondary backup, she'd agreed, because his amazing talent and precise control were well known. Though she'd never met him, she'd thought he'd be perfect.

Perfect.

God, he was. He had been. And now she'd pay the price.

'It was very good of you to leave Russia and your projects there to come join our team,' she said evenly. 'Thank you.'

He just stared at her.

'Well…' Her voice trailed off, because for just a moment she wasn't the commander, but Corrine the woman, the one who'd let a man in, and because of that had seen possibilities she couldn't imagine.

The situation couldn't be worse. Well, okay, actually it could; everyone in the room could know she'd slept with him.

That would be worse.

If her team found out, she'd lose her tough, intense edge, at least in their eyes. AD her control would be taken away, and much of their respect, and that would be a fate worse than death because of how hard she'd worked to get where she was.

Straightening both her spine and her resolve, Corrine forced a little smile, hoping he got her silent message and urgent plea. 'You'll want to get started immediately. First we'll acquaint you with what we've been doing. You've got an all-day meeting with the mission specialists, whom I see you already know.'

Frank and Jimmy beamed.

Mike never took his eyes off her, his big, leanly muscled body taut as wire. He said nothing.

'Then tomorrow, at 0800 hours, we'll get started on our SIM,' she said, referring to their simulation in a huge tank of water that projected the approximate weightlessness of the environment in space. She was already wondering how she could get out of that exercise herself. 'After training together for a week, becoming a team, we'll leave for Johnson Space Center, where we'll stay for the remaining months before launch, training on a daily basis.'

He still just stared at her, his mouth grim, and in the depths of his fathomless eyes she saw things she didn't know how to respond to-surprise and shock, not to mention bitter disappointment at the way she'd handled this impossible situation.

Finally, after a long, hard moment in which she sweated buckets inside her far too stuffy suit, he slowly nodded, every inch of him serious and businesslike in a way that made her want to cry.

'See you then,' he said, in a voice made of steel. Turning on his heel, he left the room, and Corrine could only watch him go.

And wonder at the odd sense of loss she experienced.

The rest of the day was pure torture, and it was only day one. She had months left to go before she could be alone to lick her wounds and get over it.

Get over what exactly, Corrine wasn't sure, but she wasn't going to allow herself to