by Liz Crowe
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. I’ll have to do some inventory stuff at most of these places, so there will be time for you to bond with whatever management is on hand. A few of them are ladies—you’ll make their day, I’m sure.”
Unable to stop himself, he touched her again, this time letting himself own the heat that passed between them. “Don’t be jealous, honey. I’d never cheat on you.”
“Ha! I’ll farm you out in a heartbeat, sweetie. You’ll do whatever it takes to increase our bottom line. Hope you took your vitamins.” She yanked her hand out from under his.
Smiling at her once more, he shifted in his seat to relieve the pressure building under his zipper.
He’d been damn close to asking Valerie to marry him, willing to leave her and her bitch of a mother to the wedding arrangements, ready to nod in agreement at what he hoped were the proper intervals. His mother had finally stopped haranguing him, left him to run his brewery in peace and he’d made a similar peace within himself, realizing the Faustian bargain he’d struck.
But now, as he sat in the passenger’s seat of Evelyn’s car staring out the windshield without seeing anything, a long-buried urge almost blinded him. And he knew Valerie was history.
Chapter Two
As if on autopilot, Evelyn pulled into one of her biggest retailers—The Beer Barn—a store that took up half a strip mall on the north-east side of town. During the ride from her office, she’d resisted the extreme impulse to flick her gaze over to him and felt smug about that victory. But now they were parked, and she made the crucial error of looking straight into his eyes. The intensity of his gaze made her whole body tingle in a way she’d not felt in her entire life. It also brought a flicker of resentment to the confusion roiling in her gut.
The moment sizzled, etching a groove in her psyche so deep she could sense its contours. By way of self-defense, she glared at him until realizing she still had a grip of death on the steering wheel.
Yeah, a grip, Benedict, get one.
She ground her teeth and forced her gaze away, nearly tumbling out onto the asphalt in her haste to put some distance between them.
Austin got out of the car and stayed quiet, merely holding out his hand to receive the samples of his two best-selling brews she shoved at him. “Good choice,” he remarked, as she slammed the trunk and squared her shoulders. “This place is pretty mainstream.”
“No, it’s not actually.” She grabbed her smart phone and fired up the ordering program. Might as well make a few bucks while she let him do his dog-and-pony show. The owner of this joint was a self-described beer snob who’d happily throw young Mr. Fitzgerald out on his ear, she knew.
She grinned to herself, realizing why she’d come here first. This guy needed to learn his place in the real-world pecking order. She’d toss him to the wolves right up front, take some orders for the store’s higher-gravity section of beers and be on her way. “Your problem is you don’t really have a good sense of what to make beyond these.” She gave the two bottles in his hand a glance. “Those are fine, but I think you should expand your offerings beyond the basics. Of course, what do I know?”
He raised an eyebrow at her, which she ignored as she made her way to the glass front door, walking through as he opened it for her.
“Evelyn! My gorgeous girl!” Hal Granger came out from behind the counter, a huge smile on his face. “To what do I owe the honor of two visits in a week, hmm?” He kissed her square on the lips and folded her into a bear hug.
She sensed Austin’s gaze on her, but she continued ignoring him as she flirted and small-talked with one of her best retailers for another ten minutes. To his credit, Austin didn’t butt in.
Finally, Hal broke the ice. “Did you bring your new boyfriend to carry samples, my love, or just to make me jealous?”
She flushed and mentally acknowledged her childishness for making the guy stand there like a third wheel.
“Oh, God, no, you know you’re my one and only.” She winked at Austin and he took a step forward. “This is Austin Fitzgerald. Owner and…”
Hal stepped right in front of her and held out a huge paw of a hand, forcing Evelyn to move out of their way.
“Why, of course! I wondered when you’d be stopping by my little store, Mr. Fitz—”
“Austin. Please,” he said. “And this is hardly a little store, Hal. Don’t be so modest.”
She stared as the huge man practically squirmed with delight. What the hell? Austin’s loose-limbed stance never changed, his casual yet in-charge manner shifting into high gear as he gripped the two bottles by their necks in one hand and gave his pitch.
Hal gushed, preened and stopped just short of falling on the floor and letting the guy scratch his exposed belly. Evelyn’s ears buzzed with fury and something she now recognized as bright white jealousy. They flat-out ignored her for a solid twenty minutes, exchanging industry and local gossip, before Austin segued into one of the cleanest sell jobs she’d ever observed in her life. She leaned back against a shelf and watched Austin work, unable to resist the need to devour him with her gaze.
Without even glancing her way, he held out the two bottles and she grabbed them, found cups behind the counter, and popped the caps off the beers. Trying to remain angry but letting a small bud of admiration blossom, she poured and handed them first the IPA then the wheat ale.
This was where Hal would nail him, she felt certain. Both of these beers were solid but nondescript, and this guy loved his ‘out there’ beers—giant Imperials and heavy stouts alternating with weird, sour Belgians. These two would never make his cut and would never see shelf space in this store. Resuming her position where she could keep an eye on Austin’s ass, she waited for the inevitable.
“Wow!” said Hal.
She shook her head, trying to clear the hazy fuzz of horniness that had crept over her because she obviously had misunderstood that response.
“Austin, I had no idea!” Hal clapped the man on the back while Austin turned and shot her a look so full of ‘told you so’ she nearly choked on her own tongue. “Evelyn, you’ve been holding out on me, you naughty girl.” He downed the sample and held out his cup so she could take it.
She bit back the urge to remind him the last time she’d brought this beer in he’d declared it ‘swill for the masses’. The buyer was always right. Even when said buyer was a proverbial liar. She gave him a weak smile and refused to meet Austin’s eyes.
Back in the car, once again trapped in a small, confined space with a man who was making her breathless with aggravation and no small measure of lust, she entered the embarrassingly large order for the Fitzgerald 420 IPA, the Santa’s Bag Spiced Ale and even the odd winter wheat lager.
“You’re welcome.” His rough voice grated on her nerves and stoked her libido at the same time. She didn’t reply. He sighed and seemed to refocus on his phone as she threw the car into gear and backed out of the lot, already picturing their next stop at a major Michigan-based chain grocery store. The general manager would be around today. She had dated the guy last year and remembered he had no patience for bullshit salesmen. Let Austin try to pull that again.
“Look.” Her jaw ached from all the teeth clenching. “I don’t know what you did in there…” She gestured to the gigantic store where the damnable man had just made yet another huge sale to not one but three of their flagship stores, elbowing out a fake craft beer from Bud and a well-established regional micro represented by one of her company’s biggest rivals. “But you have to know I’ve tried with both those guys… I mean, it’s not like… Oh, never mind.”
She didn’t owe Austin Fitzgerald an explanation. She huffed and puffed her way to the next three stops, all of which resulted in slam dunks for Austin, significant increases in her craft beer sales and more delicious crow-flavored bile for her.
During the twenty-minute drive between their stops, Austin tried to calm the spinning in his brain. He’d been on hyperdrive with the famous Hal Granger,
realizing the moment he’d laid eyes on the guy what she’d done—put him smack in front of the hardest sell in a city full of beer snobs, one that had the power to make or break his company. Impressive, and ballsy on her part.
But setting herself up to fail just to prove he couldn’t sell his own beer?
Not today.
After sneaking a glance at her legs again, he looked back at his phone screen by way of diverting his attention. But all he could envision was the color of her flesh, the smooth line of her thigh. In the big grocery he’d been in an inner frenzy of irrational jealousy as he’d watched the smarmy asshole of a manager keep an arm around her waist about two minutes longer than was absolutely necessary.
The strange jolt of possessiveness struck him in the chest once again.
That pretentious asshole had been with her.
His Evelyn.
He shook his head.
Get a grip, Fitzgerald. She’s a lot of things, but yours is not one of them.
He’d channeled one hundred percent of the blinding jealousy into making a huge sale, surprising himself with how easily it had come. By the time they’d waltzed out of the store, his whole body had hummed like a tuning fork. The jumpiness wouldn’t calm, even as she’d tried to convince him she knew how to do her job. Afraid he’d blurt out something utterly inappropriate, he’d just nodded at her, smiled like an idiot, and said something innocuous he didn’t even remember. He needed to get away from her, or he risked disaster. She obviously despised him and the more he sold, the madder she got, in some perverse reversal of logic.
After she’d screeched to a halt in front of another local beer and wine store where he had to strap on the sales hat once more, he took a breath. Staring straight ahead, letting the shimmering energy in the car propel him toward stupidity, he spoke. “You still sleeping with him?” He shut his eyes, wishing to suck the words back down his windpipe.
Without hesitation, she responded. “That would be in the ‘none of your business’ category, I’d say. C’mon, Fitzgerald, gird your show-off sales loins. The lady manager in here is a ballbuster.”
He groaned and ran a hand over his eyes then climbed out, grabbing sample bottles out of her hands without speaking. Within minutes, he honestly believed the fifty-plus battleaxe of a woman who’d glared at him when he walked in would gladly either bear his love child or make him dinner, whichever he desired.
Sensing the heat of Evelyn’s fury as he finalized another large order, he excused himself and made his way toward the restroom. The tuning-fork sensation had morphed into a dull ache centered in his gut, which steadily made its way down to his balls.
When he emerged—after splashing water on his face enough times to calm the hardening in his jeans—he almost plowed straight into her. He gripped her arms to keep her from falling and the impulses that had bounced around in his brain since the morning nearly brought him to his knees. He dropped his hands and looked away, swallowing back the urge to say something, anything, to convince her he wasn’t such a bad guy.
“Sorry.”
Her voice was flat. He took a step back, stopped only when his butt hit the wall. The space between them filled with near-visible silence, but he didn’t move.
“I don’t know how I’m doing it, but the longer we work together, the more sales I make, and the more you hate me. Clue me in here, Benedict. I thought sales were the goal of the day.” He crossed his arms, holding them close to his chest so she couldn’t gauge how shaky his hands had gotten.
She swallowed, and he watched the exquisite warm peach hue of her skin redden. Admiring the line of her neck, her jaw, the plump fullness of her lower lip as she bit it, a nervous tic he’d love to come to love, if she’d let him, Austin sensed himself falling deeper into a very scary hole. Her ongoing silence took on a life of its own.
“Well? I left my secret-sales-goal decoder ring at home. You obviously have a different agenda for today. I get it. ‘Prove to the rich boy he doesn’t have what it takes’ is fine, but we could have saved some time if you’d just told me first.”
She opened her lips, then pressed them together and shouldered past him. He watched, fascinated, as his hand reached out of its own accord and snagged her arm. She stopped, stared at it, then up at him. When he realized the blue of her eyes was brighter because of tears, he hesitated. Female tears always unnerved him, but his chest tightened in a thoroughly alarming way at the thought of having caused her unhappiness.
He let go. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
In a split second, her beautiful face was within inches of his. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m just pissed off. You’ve had that effect on me since I first laid eyes on you, so yeah, I guess I set you up. But apparently, all your country-club, private-school time has been worth it. Bullshitting comes naturally to you. And that’s all this job is. A whole barrel of bullshit.”
She stomped away before he could speak or, even better, grab her and kiss her. The space she vacated quivered with anger. But her crisp perfume stayed in his nose and he had to clench his hands into fists to keep from shoving her up against the wall and kissing her until she saw it his way.
Evelyn leaned against the bathroom’s metal door, turning her head so she felt the ice-cold surface against her face. She closed her eyes, but when all she saw behind her lids were a dark denim-covered ass, large hands, just-shy-of-perfectly-handsome face and deep-green eyes, she groaned. She had no business whatsoever obsessing over this guy. He was so far out of her league he could be on another planet.
Besides, she had no time for a quick roll in the hay, although her thighs tightened at the prospect. Her goals were set for the year. She’d be independent, free of her mother’s debts if she met them. No time to hassle with the playboy owner of a brewery, no matter how drop-dead, movie-star compelling he was.
So, yeah, snap out it.
She splashed water on her face, then flushed the toilet to make it sound as if she’d come in here for a reason other than to hide. Opening the door, she frowned at the sight of his annoyingly attractive self, still leaning back against the wall, staring at her in that infuriating, skin-pebbling way he had.
“Let’s go,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as wobbly as she felt. “One more stop then we’ll eat.” But she stopped in front of him. “Unless we need to clear the air now.” She matched his stance, crossing her arms but keeping less than a foot between them. “Do we?” She refused to break their eye contact. The grin that broke out across his face, somehow igniting the green in his eyes, made her want to weep, throw things, and launch herself into his arms. “Guess not.” She turned and walked back into the store, blinking in the sudden glare of her own need.
Chapter Three
By the time they dropped into a semicircular booth across from each other for a late lunch, Evelyn was convinced she was either madly in love with the guy or sick with jealousy over any woman who had her claws into him. He’d sold—and sold and sold—increasing her craft beer profit dramatically in just three hours. All with an easygoing attitude, clever but precise brewing chatter and self-deprecating charm that left her breathless.
She listened as he regaled her with stories of his life in the brewing institute in Munich.
“No, no really, I’m serious. You should see how we minions literally have to haul giant hot boulders from the forge with these old iron tongs and keep putting them under the brew kettles. And God help you if you let the fucker get a half-degree cooler than it’s supposed to be—or warmer for that matter. Frankly I’m surprised I survived it.” He smiled at the waitress.
Evelyn repressed a rush of anger at the girl’s simper. “Well, you did what you loved. You were lucky.” She bit the inside of her cheek at the self-pity that surged out with that comment.
Stop it! He doesn’t give a crap about your sad-sack story. Just eat, get through the day, and drop him off at his Maserati or wherever.
“Yeah, I did.” He ordered and handed the menu to the girl.
Evelyn looked away, then back at him. A zing flew from her scalp to her toes before nestling in around the vicinity of her panties at the intensity of his gaze.
“And I am lucky. But I work hard, contrary to popular opinion.”
“I know. I can see that now.”
He’d regaled the beer shop owners with stories of late nights spent babying batches of brew, poring over the books and brewing logs, trying to match supply to demand without going too far into the red.
Something between them had snapped, crackled and popped its way into a strange camaraderie by the time they’d left the last stop. It was a relief to talk, really talk, and not spend so much energy being pissed off at him. She sipped her water, knowing she was giving away her nervousness, but had to put the glass back down her hands shook so hard. She clutched them together in her lap.
“So, lovely Evelyn, I’m gonna attempt to start over. You ready?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Boyfriend? Fiancé Does a guy have a chance or will I get flattened by the former-NHL-star-turned-CEO who surely claims you as his?” His eyes were guileless, open and twinkling.
She swallowed hard. “Uh, no. None of the above. But, why, I mean…” She lowered her gaze, mortified by her flustered state. Without a word, he slid closer, never taking his eyes from hers, his arm draping over the back of the worn leather of the booth.
“Say no more.” His lips were dangerously close to her ear.
Her scalp prickled and she glanced around, hoping no one was watching, but suddenly unable to care. His body felt so warm, so solid. And so completely utterly wrong on some level. She moved a few inches away from him, anger returning in a sudden wave of self-protection.
“I don’t need this.” She grabbed the beer the waitress plunked down in front of her.
“Need what?” He sat back and sipped his own amber-colored brew, his face impassive.