Her voice made his shoulders twitch. After a long second, he said, “Ready?”
She wanted to say yes. Turn around and see me. You want to. His sister had said she wasn’t his type, but type or no, Bev was doing something to him. “Just a minute.” She fumbled with the clips on the hanger, her hands starting to tremble. She held the pants up to her body and saw what the customers had complained about—the waistband was cut as wide as the hips.
“Now?” Liam asked.
“Cool it.” Good advice for herself, too. Her face felt hot. She hesitated, looking at his broad shoulders, the clipped hair along the back his neck, and slipped her feet through the leg holes and pulled the stretchy knit over her hips.
And let the air she’d been holding out of her lungs. “All right, I’m decent.”
He turned around. Neither one of them looked at the pants. “I didn’t expect you to do it with me in the room.”
She raised her chin. “I decided a long time ago not to be ashamed of my body.”
As if she’d given him permission to judge the merits of her self-confidence, his gaze flickered downward, slowly and deliberately taking in each limb and curve. He looked back up into her eyes and took a step towards her.
Her heart began to pound high in her chest as though it were trying to climb out for air. She turned her back to him and tugged at the pants, pretending to study herself in the mirror. “What do you think?”
He was right behind her, warm and massive and now looking at her body reflected before them. With a shock of heat, she felt his hands come up around her waist and envelop bare, tender flesh. His lids fell, hiding the expression in his eyes while she held herself still, desperately afraid of what she wanted.
Still he didn’t meet her eyes, but he edged closer, so close she could feel the rough denim of his jeans brush against her bottom. “They’re falling off of you.” His fingers tightened around her waist and slid down over her hips, taking the oversized fabric with them. The tiny black nylon triangle of her panties appeared between the span of his hands in the mirror.
He looked up then. Their darkening eyes were reflected side by side in the glass.
Chapter 11
For a moment neither of them moved. Then, before Liam could claim it was a mistake and hide his desire with a joke or professional bravado, she sagged back against him and pressed her ass against his straining hard-on.
He inhaled sharply. She wants it too.
Her body was everything he had ever wanted, every feminine inch deliciously foreign and unlike himself. Soft, delicate, round, generous. Bundled contradictions. His fingers spread out over her hips to get a better grip. He caressed her in slow, curious circles.
He’d watched her that morning while she slept and hated himself for how close he’d come to touching her. Or pulling the covers down, just a few more inches, to gaze at her for as long as he wanted. He’d told himself that the uncomfortable couch was what had kept him awake long into the night, and his justifiable concern for her well-being—and hell, his own—but it was really this, this lust, that was driving him over the edge.
He dipped his head and drew her scent deep into his lungs, and his lips were so close to her temple he could feel her pulse. With an unsteady fingertip he brushed aside the curtain of hair covering her long, pale neck so he could get closer, and she was letting him, and inviting him, her head tilted to the side.
So close. He rubbed the strand of her hair between his fingers and ached to taste her, to feel her thrumming heartbeat with his kiss. But they were frozen, afraid, looking over the edge of their cliff and imagining how long they would fall before they would hit bottom and break.
From a distance, the chime of a bell. The front door of the store. Voices trailed back to them—Kimmie’s and other women.
“Christ,” Liam breathed, drawing back.
Bev twisted out of his grasp and pulled the pants up over her hips, looking at him in the mirror. She was high contrast, pale skin and dark hair and hot cheeks. He stared back, hands clenching into fists.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and she dropped her gaze.
He should never have spent the night. Hands shaking, he fumbled with the doorknob and stepped outside.
She cleared her throat. “I bet.”
He banged the door between them, walked out of the store, and strode down the sidewalk to his train before he screwed things up completely.
First thing Monday morning Liam called Darrin into his office. “We’re delaying the line meeting.”
As he expected, Darrin threw a fit, closing his eyes and flopping into a chair. “Then I want comp time for the weekend. I flew the redeye, on a Sunday, just to be here right now, here, for this meeting you’re canceling. Through Denver. Fucking Bermuda Triangle, Denver, got laid over six extra hours. Then I got stuck in a row with an obese infant with some sort of digestive disorder, so I’m expensing my dry cleaning too,” he said. “And for what? Why? Just yanking my chain again?”
“Bev isn’t ready. She needs another day.” Long enough to forgive and forget what happened in that store. A humiliating meeting—orchestrated by himself last week—would be just the push she would need to fire him. If she hadn’t decided to do it already.
“We’ll have it without her. She’s not important, is she?”
Liam’s mind seized up at the question. He choked out a humorless laugh. “Not important?”
“Ellen told me all about her.” He laughed and picked at his teeth. “Ugly Betty with big tits. Forget her.”
“Hey. Watch the language.”
“Why? Has she got the place bugged?” Darrin looked around. “Though I did see her headed this way just a minute ago, at least I assume it was her. Matched Ellen’s description well enough, even the shoes. Holy shit—clogs?”
“Wait a minute. When did you talk to Ellen?”
“Came by the showroom to say goodbye.”
“In New York? When?”
“Friday. Visiting her son all week, she said.”
Ellen had been in New York last week? But—
“You canceled the meeting!” Bev was at the door looking just like she’d rolled out of bed. Back in the old Fite pants again—clearly soiled with something edible—and swamped by an insanely large sweatshirt. She looked adorable.
He sprung to his feet. “Bev, this is Darrin. The designer for Men’s.”
“Oh!” The furious panic on her face froze, then transformed into a soft, motherly smile. “I am so sorry to interrupt. Nice to meet you, Darrin. I’m Bev Lewis.”
Darrin’s sneer melted into a syrupy simper. “What a pleasure.” He got to his feet and took her hand. “I hear you’re giving us another day to get our line together.”
Bev frowned at Liam. “I am?”
Liam gave her a level look. “You needed another day, Bev. To get ready.” To get dressed, at least. Did she think wearing Fite would win them over? And he wasn’t finished designing the boards for her to present.
His telepathy failed him. “No, I don’t,” she said, lifting her eyebrows at Darrin. “Am I the only reason for the delay?”
“So far as I know,” Darrin said.
“And everyone else is ready?” she asked.
“Of course. My team worked through the weekend.”
Liam wanted to smack him. And Bev was buying it, giving Darrin those big sympathetic eyes of hers.
“Then we have to have it today.” She raised her eyebrows at Liam. “At ten, like you said last week.”
“Darrin was just telling me how tired he is. One more day will—”
“I’m fine,” Darrin said slowly, looking at Liam then back at Bev, measuring and calculating, the transparent weasel. “Whatever works for Bev works for me.”
Bev gave him two thumbs up. “Great! See you then.” And disappeared.
Liam picked at a thread on his sleeve, his remorse thickening. He had set her up. This was his idea. But that was last week, before—
Before. He ran his finger down the edg
e of his desk, remembering the feel of her impossibly soft skin under his palms. Whatever happened now was all his doing, and he’d have to live with it.
Smirking, Darrin got to his feet. “This should be good. I’ll go alert the troops.” He walked out of the office, obviously gleeful at having a new power structure to unbalance.
Liam felt queasy. He ran his hand down over his chest and rubbed his stomach, wondering if people still got ulcers from stress. Last week he hadn’t known Bev was under attack from other forces. Last week he’d been convinced he was doing her a favor in the longterm by making her life at Fite so unpleasant she would go away.
Last week he hadn’t liked her so much.
All Sunday he’d tried to call her but she didn’t answer, and he didn’t want to risk seeing her in person away from the office again. He got up and began clearing off his conference table for the meeting, a job he usually left to one of the assistants, then picked up his ball and began adding more dents to the walls. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
By nine fifty-five he sat at the head of his conference table chewing on his thumbnail. The design team was frantic, chatty, picking on each other and gluing last-minute bodies on the boards.
Bev didn’t know what she was getting into. She didn’t know what they were like. Two designers, each of their assistants, the merchandising coordinator, a couple of sales guys, himself—all gathered around the table to tear off heads and shit down necks.
Darrin sat at the opposite end of the table. “Let's get as much done today as we can. Even with the heiress.”
The table was quiet until an assistant who ran with Liam on occasion during lunch, spoke up in the timid-but-eager voice of an underling looking for points. “I heard she lives in L.A.”
“Has some kind of problem,” another designer muttered. “Drugs or something.”
“Meth, I think,” somebody else said.
Liam sat up straight. “That is not true.”
“Explains the hygiene. And convenient, too—God knows we never sleep around here,” Darrin said, not looking at him. The group around the table laughed. “Do you have my Barney's samples, Rachel?”
“Here.” Rachel lifted up a shopping bag. “But I don't think it 's meth. Nothing like that.”
Liam nodded, relieved somebody in the building had some morals. Flabby though they were. “You shouldn't listen to Ellen,” he said. “You know how she is.”
“Oh, I didn't hear it from Ellen,” Rachel said. “I'm pretty sure this is true. From somebody who would know.”
“Heard what?” the other designer asked.
“How would anybody here know anything about her?” Liam asked, knowing he should keep himself out of it. He couldn’t afford to look chummy with her; that was the point. She had to be the outsider. The satellite. The temp.
“Ellen mentioned she had problems,” Darrin said. “So, Liam. Do an intervention yet?” and the gang laughed.
Liam gave him his coldest stare and everyone around the table stopped laughing, even Darrin. Two years ago, at the request of a young assistant's family, he had participated in an intervention. He'd been discreet, but word got around when she quit to go into rehab. “She's in no need of one. Whatever you've heard, it’s crap. Ellen’s crap.”
Darrin regarded him, eyebrow raised. “Don’t get excited. Some of the old-timers here could have heard about—Bev—over the years.”
Liam dropped his voice to cold steel. “Her name is Beverly Lewis, she's in Ed’s old office, and she is the new owner of this company. I suggest you all shut the hell up.”
The room fell silent as the group stared at him over the table. Then, one by one, their heads dipped to avoid his glare and he was staring at the tops of a dozen expensive haircuts.
Just as Liam drew a breath to lecture them to behave during the meeting—to warn them that anyone who laughed or rolled their eyes would be processing the FedEx packages for a year—he heard the creak of the door swinging open.
“Hello?” said a cheerful voice behind him. “I'm Beverly Lewis. Mind if I come in?”
Liam considered bolting out to pull the fire alarm. He wanted her to be subtly discredited—not die a painful death while he watched.
Darrin struck first. With Bev's question hanging in the air, he turned his back to her and reached inside the Barney's shopping bag on the table. “Looks like she'll need your chair, Rachel,” he said. “And since you'll be up you might as well get our visitor something to drink.”
Snake, Liam thought. Darrin had managed to insult Bev and make Rachel resentful, with Bev to blame, at the same time. “Divide and conquer” was such an effective strategy at Fite it should have been screen-printed on their t-shirts.
Liam stepped aside and pulled out his chair. “She can have mine,” he said, unavoidably triggering suspicions in the room that he’d already slept with the new owner. Instead of only trying to. “And I'll do a coffee run.”
Rachel paused, mid-rise, giving Darrin a questioning look. Liam could see Darrin was about to override him and insist that Rachel get up when Bev came the rest of the way into the room and put her hand on Rachel's shoulder. “I don't need a chair.” She smiled at everyone. “I just wanted to introduce myself. I brought treats.” She looked over her shoulder to the door, where George—George, the Troll of the Back Door—was hovering with a wide, open box in his arms.
“On the table, Ms. Bev?” George asked, staggering over.
“If that's all right with you guys,” she said to the surprised, speechless group. Unlike an hour ago, she was wearing a fitted pink sweater with dark designer jeans and heels, and looked adorably harmless and perfect and put-together. She caught Liam staring at her, and her smile faltered. “How about over here?” she said to George, gesturing to an uncluttered patch on the table.
George, who seemed to have strawberry jelly on his nose, nodded gratefully and dropped the box on the table. He gave Bev a goofy grin.
“Thanks so much, George. You’re an angel.”
“My pleasure, Ms. Bev,” he said, and Liam felt light-headed. What the hell had she done to George?
Then people began to rise, their bottoms coming out of their chairs to peer inside whatever it was. One by one they broke into smiles.
“I'm sure this is all wrong for a fitness company,” Bev said, “and I probably made too many. But what the hell.”
Liam could smell the unmistakable aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from his side of the table, and saliva pooled in his mouth. One of the designers reached inside the box and froze, frowning. “Are they . . . warm?”
Bev nodded. “The third floor has an oven.”
Every pair of eyes around the table grew wide. “You made them?” Rachel asked, now fully on her feet with her face in the box. “Oh, my God. Snickerdoodles.”
“Hardly an ideal breakfast,” Liam said, but nobody seemed to hear him. They were all on their feet reaching into the box and pulling out cookies and muffins, tubs of cream cheese and jam, plates, napkins, cups, Odwalla juice (several varieties), and miscellaneous paper bags.
An assistant held up a bag. “What are the marshmallows for?”
“There's hot chocolate in the thermos,” Bev said.
“No donuts?” Liam asked.
“In the white box,” she said. “I didn't make those. They're from the place up the street.”
“You got us Gerard's?” Darrin elbowed Rachel out of his way. “Oh, I love you. Their almond croissants are fatal.”
“Which is not a good thing.” Liam slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Have anything with a lower sugar-to-nutrient level?”
Bev gave him a hard sideways look that said please, and he pressed his lips together in a hard line. Her dark hair was pulled back into a headband, exposing the shell curve of her ear and her creamy, soft neck, a hint of collarbone, the hollow of her cleavage under the vee of the sweater. Under his gaze, her face flushed as pink as the knit, and she looked away.
“Nice to
see you again, Darrin,” Bev said. Darrin was dressed in black cashmere and jeans that, combined with his black hair and pale skin, made him look like a gay, trendy vampire. Bev held out her hand. “I was just hearing about what amazing things you've done with the Kohl's buyer.”
Clutching his almond croissant and the compliment, Darrin took her hand and smiled with genuine pleasure. “You heard about that?”
“Obviously I'm just a newbie,” she said, “but anybody can see you've made the company a lot of money. We'll have to be very careful you don't get stolen away from us.” To that last comment she added a raised eyebrow that froze Darrin mid-bite. As he sank into his chair, his eyes had the fixed, calculating gaze of a man pondering a larger apartment.
Next Bev turned to Jennifer. “I know that—since Ellen left—you’re the designer for all of women’s now. But everyone told me how, back when you were just out of school, you designed the top-selling Fite Foundations bra.” She smiled. “Just this week I met a woman down the street who wanted me to thank you personally. She said it was obvious a woman was in charge of the Fite bras. She won't wear anything else, not even to work. I swear, she was about to hug me when I told her I was connected to the company.”
Jennifer glowed. “It’s the cups. No loaf.”
“Really, she was so grateful for what you make here. I can’t wait to watch you work.” Bev touched her on the shoulder. “Make sure you get one of the treats before they're all gone.”
Liam watched in awe as Jennifer, who in the eight years he'd known her had not once eaten anything other than raw vegetables, organic home-made yogurt, and refrigerated probiotic supplements, reached forward and withdrew a chocolate-glazed donut the size of her face. Not that she ate it, but she set it close to her then licked her fingers.
Bev was already moving on to her next victim, and her next. Liam watched her with growing admiration, amusement, and alarm. She was good. Very, very good. Somehow she knew everyone by name and immediately pinpointed the person’s most valuable contribution to the company. She congratulated Wendi on her recent move to Men’s as though it had been a promotion. She even came up with a compliment for Grace, an associate merchandiser in men's who he could vow had cost the company far more than she’d contributed, but had once stopped fifty dozen units of vertically-striped Fite the Man Tees from being sewn up horizontally, a fact that Bev pointed out as she offered Grace a second chocolate chip cookie.
Love Handles (A Romantic Comedy) Page 15