by Parker, Ali
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “It’s not in my nature.”
Fuck me. She was hot. And fierce. And so far out of my reach it hurt.
She licked her lips. “Would you ever consider working security detail?”
My mouth worked before my brain fully processed her question. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said before letting her bag slide off her shoulder so she could rummage through it. She pulled out a sleek gold-plated container, popped it open like a little book, and pulled out a business card, which she handed to me.
I flipped it over and read the name printed on the front in classy slanted text. “Genevieve London.”
“That’s me.” She smiled.
The name suited her. Elegance and sex, all poured into one tall drink of water.
I watched as she dropped the business-card holder back into her purse and then took out her phone. She asked for my number, which she plugged into her contacts. Then she pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head to look me in the eyes. “I’ll call you and discuss possibilities of working together in the future when I have a bit more time on my hands. I’m running around all day with Tracey and Daniel here, viewing other shelters.”
“How about I tag along?” I offered. “Consider it a working interview.”
“Initiative,” she purred. “I like it.”
How the stars were aligning to make me the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole damn city, I had no idea. But I wasn’t going to screw it up.
“I have no plans. I’m all yours.”
Genevieve nodded appreciatively. “Very well. We were about to catch a cab to the next site.”
“Let me,” I said before turning and stepping out toward the street, where I pressed two fingers to the corners of my mouth and whistled bloody murder.
We had a yellow cab in less than ten seconds, and as soon as it pulled to the curb, I opened the back door and gestured for her to get in.
She brushed past me and trailed her fingers over mine, resting on top of the doorframe. “I said security. You don’t have to open doors for me and hail cabs.”
“I want to.” Do I ever want to.
“Very well,” she said before ducking down into the seat. The others joined her, and I looked over the hood across the street to The Crow, where Jamie was still sitting at our table by the window.
We locked eyes, and she gave me a grin while shaking her head.
I shrugged apologetically.
Jamie waved me off and mouthed the word “Go.”
I grinned, hopped in the front seat, and swore to myself I would repay Jamie for this as soon as I had the chance.
Because this could potentially be the best thing that ever happened to me.
Chapter 6
Genevieve
Tracey had her folder of documents open in her lap while she sat in the middle seat in the back of the cab. She was a thin woman with narrow shoulders, so I didn’t feel cramped sharing the back of the cab with two other people. Daniel was pretty small too, but he had the self-awareness to cram himself tightly up against the door panel to avoid any potential scarring of his ego at his boss’s hands.
Tracey was a no-nonsense woman. I appreciated that. But she still seemed a little out of sorts after our run-in with Annie’s dumbass bull of a partner.
I put a hand lightly on Tracey’s forearm. “Are you okay? You can take a minute, you know? You don’t need to go through all this right now.”
Tracey let the folder flop open in her lap as she looked over at me. “I’m sorry. I’m still a little rattled. I’ve never…” She shook her head.
“Me neither,” I said, understanding what she was getting at.
Being in that position back there had been a first for me too. With my lifestyle, it was rare that I was ever exposed to a man like that. A beast. There was no other word for him.
It was also rare that I was rescued by a dashing young man with roguish good looks and a panty-dropping smile.
And dimples. The guy had dimples, for fuck’s sake. My absolute kryptonite.
I spared a quick glance toward the front seat of the cab where my potential security guard sat facing out the windshield. I’d already caught him stealing a couple of looks back at us, but I hadn’t said anything, and he’d spent the first ten minutes of the drive chatting pleasantly with the driver.
I bit my bottom lip. “So, what’s your name, anyway?”
He looked back over his shoulder at me and fixed me with his bright blue gaze. His dark black hair was an untamed mess atop his head, but it suited him in a devil may care sort of way. He had sharp features, a strong jaw, broad shoulders, and arms made for pummeling bad guys. The muscle was decorated in dark, swirling, menacing tattoos that seemed a little out of place on him. His eyes were kinder than his appearance. That was for sure.
“Liam.”
I nodded. “This is Tracey and Daniel.”
Everyone exchanged polite hellos, and then Daniel got to asking Liam about his boxing skills. Liam indulged him in conversation until we arrived at our next shelter in a nicer part of the city. The street was thrumming with pedestrians and street performers alike. Music and laughter floated around my head as I stepped out of the cab and fixed my purse on the crook of my elbow as I got my bearings.
Tracey stepped out behind me. “To your right and two doors down, Miss London.”
“Genevieve,” I reminded her.
Tracey nodded apologetically before gracefully sweeping around me to take the lead. She clicked her tongue at Daniel, who fell into hurried steps at her side, and they bowed their heads to discuss something I, the client, was apparently not privy to. I assumed she was giving him shit about something or other. That was how their dynamic seemed to go.
I didn’t realize Liam was right beside me until he spoke.
“So what exactly is it that you’re doing?”
The sun dipped behind the buildings on the other side of the street, so I took my sunglasses off, secured them in the case in my purse, and nodded up at the shelter where Tracey and Daniel had both stopped. “I’m spending the afternoon canvassing women’s shelters in the city so I know where the opportunities are.”
“Opportunities for what?”
I flashed him a smile. “I’m going to build one of my own. A better one. A bigger one. One that doesn’t make women leave right away or run out of beds or get served shitty food because it’s all they are funded for. I’m going to create a haven.”
“Damn,” Liam breathed. “That’s a big project, isn’t it?”
“I have the funds and the resources to see it through.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
We stopped at the front doors, which Daniel pulled and held open for us. Then we stepped inside, me in the lead and Liam hot on my heels with the others following suit.
This shelter was somewhat more pleasant than the last. There was music playing in the lobby, a nice touch I thought, and it didn’t have such a strong odor. Yes, there was still a smell, but it was a mild one, and it more or less just smelled like musk, a place where a lot of bodies congregated.
I stopped in the middle of the lobby and looked up. There was a skylight straight above my head, but it was about six stories up. Balconies wrapped along the sides where doors to rooms, which I assumed were sleeping quarters, could just be seen from where I stood. I liked the open concept and the bright natural light, but I wasn’t so sure I liked the lack of privacy.
We were not permitted to walk through this shelter ourselves, so we were assigned a guide. Her name was Blaire. She was twenty. She’d just started working there last summer.
Blaire took us on a tour of the ground floor first. We walked across the open lobby, our shadows dancing along beside us from the light of the skylight above, and we stepped through a double-wide archway into the cafeteria.
It was nearly noon, so employees were getting food ready, and there were a few women taking up seats at tables. A couple sat together talking sof
tly, while others sat alone with their children.
I wished I could spare all of them this and reminded myself that in time, I would.
Blaire walked us along the cafeteria line, where I saw firsthand the selection of food being provided: mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, potato salad, rice, fruit salad, fresh veggies and dip, and soup.
“How does the shelter come by the food?” I asked.
Blaire turned toward me. “We receive it in donations.”
That made sense. Their money was being spent elsewhere. Luckily for me, I had money galore to offer better meals than this, and if all went according to plan, I’d be able to eliminate the whole cafeteria environment entirely, swapping it out for a more hotel-styled service.
Uncle Tom thought I was a bit delusional in my vision of my shelter and had told me at the beginning of last year that I might want to lower my expectations of what I was going to be able to pull off. Ordering a five-star meal to their room like hotel room service might not be in the cards.
But damn it, I was going to try my best.
After the cafeteria, we went to the rec room. It was a decent-sized room with a kids’ section set up in one corner boasting old toys and an even older television set upon which cartoons with no sound played. A couple of real-life kids were playing contently on one of the blue mats on the gym-style floor.
The rest of the room was for the women. Craft tables, books, places to sit near the window, three computers that were all turned off, board games, cards, and another television set.
Blaire clapped her hands together. “And that’s pretty much it in here. I can take you up to see one of the rooms now.”
“Is this the only common room-type area in the shelter?” I asked.
Blaire shrugged. “Sort of. On each floor, there is a small sitting area with a couple of sofas. In the morning, one of the employees rolls a trolley down the halls and stops at those spots to serve coffee, tea, juice, and pastries. It’s one of the women’s favorite parts about being here.”
I liked the sound of that. A nice personal little treat to kickstart the day.
The room Blaire showed us to was quite small and had four single beds in it. The floor was a gray linoleum and was peeling up in the corners. There were no baseboards. None of the bedding matched, and when I ran my hand over it, I found it to be a little too coarse for my liking, like a shitty motel comforter. Not that I knew firsthand what they felt like.
But I imagined this was it.
Liam hung back in the doorway and watched as I walked around, pausing to run my finger through the dust on the windowsill.
There was nothing else in the room besides the beds.
“How long are women able to stay here?” I asked.
Blaire clasped her hands together and gazed around at the empty beds. “It always changes. Sometimes, a week if the shelter is really busy. Sometimes, two or three if we can get away with it. We focus on rehabilitation as best as we can.”
“How do you mean?”
Blaire continued. “We want women to come here, and our goal is to help them get back on their feet and stop them from going back to the place they ran from in the first place. You won’t believe how many women end up going back. It’s—it’s devastating. You meet someone, and you connect with them, and you hear what they escaped from, some of them barely with their lives, and then you come into work two days later and they’ve left. Gone back to him.” Blaire shook her head.
“So, rehabilitation?” I pressed.
Blaire nodded. “Yes. The idea is to give them the tools to see that going home isn’t an option. They’ve already taken the hardest step, which was leaving in the first place, and we are here to help them during the times where their resolve wanes. We’re here to remind them how strong they are. We have classes and group therapy which seems to be making a difference, and we do our best to set them up with affordable housing when we can so they have a place to go. It’s tricky because we don’t want their husbands or partners to find out where they’ve gone, so it can take a long time to pull off. Lots of red tape.”
For such a young woman and a new employee, Blaire was very knowledgeable, not to mention professional. When the time came, I wanted to have an employee like her in my ranks. She clearly cared about the women at this shelter. I could tell by the way her eyes had gone glassy when she talked about them going home.
“You have been extremely helpful, Blaire.” I smiled, shaking her hand. “Thank you so much for taking the time to go through everything with me. You have no idea how much I’ve learned from you.”
Blaire smiled. “I’m glad I could help. I think it’s so cool what you’re doing. You’re filling a very big need in this city. The women who you’re going to impact? It’s unimaginable.”
I fished a business card out of my purse. “Call me in a few months, okay?”
Blaire blinked down at it.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not trying to poach you. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Just call me, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
We said goodbye to Blaire and made our way back outside, where Tracey had to take a call from the next shelter we were going to see. It would be the last one of the day. She wasn’t on the phone long before she hung up and stomped over to me. “Sorry, Genevieve. We can’t see the last one today. They had an incident of some sort.”
“An incident?”
Tracey nodded. “They wouldn’t tell me about it. It had to do with one of their clients, I believe. Personal.”
“Oh, no worries. I feel like I’ve already soaked up a ton of information. Thank you, Tracey. And Daniel. You two have been expert guides for me today. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” they said in unison, smiling at me like schoolgirls.
I knew I had a certain effect on people. Marley said it was the money. Uncle Tom said it was a combination of the money and my regal, assertive, classy personality.
Uncle Tom was always trying to boost my ego.
After saying goodbye to Tracey and Daniel, I turned toward Liam.
“Well, looks like we’re calling it a day. Thank you for chaperoning us through the second shelter. I felt very safe.”
Liam grinned, and his dimples winked at me. I almost melted. “My pleasure, Genevieve.”
“I don’t know what else I can tell you about the job. It wouldn’t start until my shelter was up and running of course, which could be months to even a year away, depending on permits and licensing and insurance and all the other shit I need to sort out still.”
“You’re sure you don’t have a position for me now?” Liam asked, cocking his head to the side.
I gnawed the inside of my cheek. How bad could it be to have a guy like Liam on my speed dial?
“I could offer you an on-call position,” I blurted out.
He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and nodded approvingly. “I’d accept that. Call me any time. I’ll be there.”
His words made my knees tremble, and I realized I might be biting off more than I could chew. A man like Liam was a very large, very handsome, and sexy distraction. And distractions weren’t what I needed right then.
But he and his body might also offer a great stress reliever.
I flinched at my own dirty thoughts.
I needed to get my boy-crazy mind under control before it ruined me.
Chapter 7
Liam
The sun was shining, and the air was crisp when I pulled my bike up the drive to Axel’s shop. One of the bay doors was open halfway, letting out the sounds of power tools and grinders to the street. There were several unrecognizable cars parked in the lot that told me Axel had his hands full, business wise. No wonder it had been so long since I saw him, up until the birthday party.
I swung a leg off my bike, hooked my helmet on the handlebars, and slid my hands into my jean pockets as I made my way up the drive to the bay door. I ducked under it and was plunged into
darkness. I stood half blind, blinking until my vision adjusted, and then looked around the shop to wave at Ellie, Axel, Sabian, and Jamie.
Jamie was sitting on a stool at the back of the shop, sipping a soda while the rest of them worked on various tasks; priming a Corvette for paint, sanding a bike, pulling a motor. The usual things that went down at Axel’s shop on a daily basis.
She wiggled her fingers at me and then patted the empty stool beside her.
Watching where I stepped, I made my way across the shop to sit beside my friend. I leaned over and shouldered her gently. “Sorry about Tuesday morning.”
“About abandoning me for a hot piece of ass, you mean?” Jamie asked innocently.
Sabian looked up from where he was half buried under the hood of a black sedan. “Say what now?”
The others were stopping their work now too, except for Axel, who wiped his hands on a rag and nodded at Jamie. “You all take a break. I have to make a call in the office.”
After the door closed behind him, Sabian and Ellie joined us, and I found myself wishing I had somewhere to hide as they all fixed me with curious stares.
“Who’s the chick?” Sabian asked, his dark eyebrows lifted in curiosity.
Ellie crossed her arms over her chest. She was wearing a white tank top that was covered in oil and dirt. “Yeah. Spill the beans, Liam.”
I looked to Jamie for help. That was a mistake. She grinned broadly and turned toward the others. “Well, Liam and I had plans to go for coffee and sandwiches on Tuesday, you see. And everything was going smoothly until this woman dressed in white passed the window. He started drooling on the spot.”
“I was not drooling,” I said sharply.
“Your mouth might not have been,” Jamie retorted.
Sabian snickered. “So you ditched your lunch date in favor of another woman? That’s cold, man. Real cold.”
“Hey—” I tried to defend myself.
Ellie cut me off. “Did you at least score a date with her or something to make it worth it?”