by Joss Wood
“And I appreciate you doing that,” Liam said and after some thought, spoke again. “According to my guy, Joshua’s debt was sold on to an outfit in Vegas. This new group specializes in hard-to-recover debt. They are, according to his sources, looking for Joshua and there’s no doubt that they now know he’s back on the West Coast.”
Liam tapped his finger against his coffee cup. “Did you ask your brother why he gate-crashed that party?”
Of course she had. “He said that he was in a bar back east and he vaguely remembers some girl offering to buy him a drink. That’s when his memory goes fuzzy.
“He remembers thinking that I was in trouble and the only way to save me was to go to the Goblet and confront my enemies. That’s what he was trying to do by standing up and making a fool of himself.”
“So he got drunk on the East Coast and six to eight hours later he still hadn’t sobered up?” Liam asked, skeptical.
Teresa hadn’t had a proper conversation with Josh in weeks and she had no idea about his mental state. Should she tell Liam about the puncture wound on his arm?
Before she could decide, Liam leaned forward, his expression intense. “He was drunk on the East Coast, so drunk that he couldn’t remember what he did or said, but he bought himself a ticket, got himself on a plane and still made his way to Napa Valley and found you? And if he did manage to do all that while pissed, don’t you think he might’ve sobered up at one point and wondered what the hell he was doing?”
She’d had this thought a few days back but she’d dismissed her suspicions. “He had help,” she stated.
Teresa told Liam about the injection mark on his arm and he frowned. “Well, I think that confirms our working theory that he had help.”
“But why would somebody track him down, liquor him up and escort him across the country to ruin an event you were organizing?”
Panic closed her throat and Liam immediately reached for her wrist, his thumb tracing patterns on her skin. Teresa immediately felt her vocal cords loosening, air flowing into her lungs.
“Breathe, honey,” Liam ordered her, his voice soft. But his eyes and expression were anything but tender. “Somebody has it in for you.”
“Or maybe for Matt Richmond?”
Liam shook his head. “Then why use Joshua? No, honey, this is all about you. Maybe it’s the loan shark trying to force you to cough up but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t play around by ruining events. No, they are more likely to cut off little fingers or break a kneecap to get someone to pay. Trust me, they’d go straight for the jugular.”
She was sorry she’d asked. Teresa felt her stomach lurch. “Oh, God.”
“There’s no doubt about it. You need to pay that debt, Teresa. As soon as possible.”
“When he called me, telling me about the debt, a part of me thought that it was a mistake, like the kidnapping was a mistake.”
“They are being deadly serious, Teresa.”
“I don’t have the money...” Teresa saw the offer on his lips and his next sentence confirmed her assumption.
“I can loan you the money. It’ll take me a day or two to get it together but I have it, Teresa.”
She was so conflicted, her pride and her protective instincts at war. She couldn’t risk Joshua getting hurt, not when Liam was providing her with a reasonable alternative. Since she’d be selling her Christopher Corporation shares to him at the end of the year, it would be a temporary loan.
Borrowing money from Liam made sense. Dammit.
But...not yet. “Thank you for the offer...”
“But?”
Teresa shook her head. “No buts, well, maybe a small one. I am just going to wait until they contact me again, making demands for the money. I don’t know how to get in touch with them and they told me not to try. When they do, if they do, I’ll ask you for the loan.”
Relief made Liam’s eyes greener. “When they make contact again, you need to tell them that you want proof that, if the debt is paid, no one else will come after you later. They need to give you a guarantee.”
Teresa nodded, feeling lighter. “Thank you. I owe you. Joshua owes you.”
Liam smiled and his eyes dropped to her mouth, and Teresa knew that he was no longer thinking about money and debts and lenders. He leaned forward, his mouth so close to hers that she could smell his sweet, minty breath, count the individual hairs in his scruffy beard, see the small scar on his bottom lip. She wanted him to kiss her, to take her to bed and away from thoughts of debt and mobsters and inheritances she didn’t want. She wanted him to take her to bed where there was only his touch and his taste and the way he made her feel.
Teresa lifted her hand and rubbed her thumb against his bottom lip, surprised at how soft his lips were. Was he ever going to kiss her?
Liam gently pulled the tip of her thumb between his teeth and bit down. Teresa sucked in her breath at the spark of pleasure-pain and sighed when Liam gently sucked her digit. How could she be so turned on by him kissing her thumb?
“Teresa?” Liam whispered.
“Mmm?”
“Can we try and be friends? Can we also try to work together to get to the bottom of why Linus left you shares?”
Liam’s teeth scraped the side of her thumb and she shivered. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Oh, so I’ll expect to see you at the Christopher Corporation shareholders meeting the day after tomorrow? I should also have the seven million ready for you by then.”
“Okay.”
Teresa heard her response and something about it sounded wrong. Wait, what had he said? She pulled back and stared at him while rewinding the conversation in her head. Her mouth dropped open, then closed and then opened again.
“You’re catching flies.” Liam leaned back, folded his arms and smirked. Teresa wanted to smack him sideways.
“You were trying to seduce me to get your own way!” Teresa accused. “That’s a crappy thing to do! That’s not playing fair.”
Liam laughed. “Honey, nobody ever said life was going to be fair.” Standing up, he dropped a hard, openmouthed kiss on her lips. When he pulled back, he smiled at her and Teresa felt her stomach, and her liver and her kidneys, do backflips. “But damn, it can be fun. Later.”
Liam walked out of the kitchen toward her front door and Teresa tried to think of something cutting to say. The “I hate you” she tossed in his direction fell well short of the mark.
At the door, Liam turned and smiled again, causing her poor organs to take flight once more. “No, you don’t.”
No, she didn’t. Not even close.
Six
Liam lied.
The board meeting was as horrible as she’d thought it would be. As Liam guided her out of Christopher Corporation’s ultra-modern boardroom, Teresa glanced back into the room to check that the blond hardwood floors weren’t, actually, blood-stained.
Because it felt like she and Liam had been drained of a pint or two.
Teresa glanced up at Liam’s hard face and grimaced at the anger she saw blazing from his eyes, the tension tightening his jaw and the frustration thinning his mouth. How he’d held his temper, kept so even and calm, while his father’s contemporaries attacked him from all sides, Teresa had no idea. He’d remained calm when their ire was directed at him but when one of the members turned his vitriol on her, Teresa saw the first crack in his seemingly impenetrable armor. As long as she lived, she’d never forget his cold, hard words spoken in defense of her.
“You can criticize me, criticize my leadership and my work ethic and my decisions but Ms. St. Claire is off-limits. Am I clear?”
Teresa shivered at his ice-cold, CIA-interrogator voice and she’d watched, reluctantly fascinated, as the board members leaned back as if to avoid the wave of Liam’s ire. When nobody made a counter
comment, Teresa knew that she could, fractionally, relax.
And she tried to, she did, but then one of the members passed a motion suggesting that Liam be removed as CEO. Teresa knew that Liam didn’t expect the meeting to go well but that was a rocket he hadn’t expected to be launched, nor detonated. She was seriously impressed by his self-control.
Teresa watched as he simply smiled, leaned back in his chair and loosened the button of his immaculately tailored suit jacket. He tapped the point of his capped pen on the surface of the sleek table and locked eyes with his opponent. Liam’s quiet words, his sensible response, knocked that rocket right out of the sky.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are all getting ahead of ourselves. Yes, it’s been a rough couple of months. Yes, things have happened that haven’t placed the company in the best light but I have a contract and you cannot fire me without cause. And if you do, I will sue the pants off you and, trust me, that will not be in the company’s best interest.
“Now, may I suggest that we all take a deep breath and start thinking instead of reacting emotionally?”
“Your father wanted you to be CEO, Liam. Not all of us agreed with that,” the chairman of the board pointed out.
“Noted. But according to company policy, I am entitled to some time to prove myself,” Liam replied, looking unfazed and even bored. Teresa, furious for him, sat on her hands and clenched her teeth in an effort not to defend him. He wouldn’t appreciate it and she respected him enough to allow him to fight his own battles. This was, after all, his arena.
“And we will be watching you. And may I suggest that you distance yourself from Ms. St. Claire, Liam?”
Liam’s face hardened further and Teresa saw his fist clench. “You’re out of line, Bosworth.”
“I am protecting this company.”
“Christopher Corporation is my responsibility, mine to protect.”
Bosworth smiled and gestured to the rest of the board members. “Actually, with this new distribution of shares, it’s all of ours to protect, look after, to steer. And should Ms. St. Claire decide to divest her shares to someone other than you, this situation will become very interesting indeed.”
Like that would happen. She had no idea why Linus left her his shares but she’d never consider selling them to anyone but Liam. They were his. Did he know that? With all the other craziness happening around them, had she even explained that to him? Could he be in doubt of where her loyalties lay?
Teresa raised her hand to speak and Bosworth gave her a condescending smile. “I think we’ve wasted enough time on this subject. Moving on to item six...”
“But—” Teresa protested.
“Moving on, Ms. St. Claire.”
She’d been dismissed and disrespected and Teresa had to exert a substantial amount of self-control not to demand to be heard. Besides, it didn’t matter what the board thought, as long as Liam knew that she would never sell her shares to anyone but him. That was all that was important.
But jeez, she wouldn’t mind educating Bosworth and his cronies about equality and fairness.
Teresa felt Liam’s hand on her back as he guided her down the long hallway to his executive office in the corner of the building. When they reached his office, Duncan, his PA, jumped to his feet, his expression worried.
Liam stopped by his assistant’s desk and the two men exchanged a long look. “Was it as bad as you thought?” Duncan asked.
“Worse.”
Duncan ran his hand over his mouth before defiance sparked in his eyes. “Screw ’em. What do we need to do?”
Liam’s mouth finally kicked up at the corners in the tiniest of smiles. “They are a necessary evil.”
Duncan folded his arms and rocked on his heels. “They,” he stated, looking annoyed, “are a bunch of rickety old geezers who should’ve been put out to pasture decades ago.”
Teresa grinned. She really, really liked Liam’s young PA.
Liam briefly clasped the younger man’s shoulder before opening the door to his massive office and gesturing her inside. “Coffee would be good. It might help me maintain my ‘haven’t killed anyone yet’ streak.”
Liam closed the office door behind him and Teresa, rested his forehead on the door and banged his head against the wood, releasing colorful combinations of curses. In his own office, away from prying eyes, he could release his iron-tight grip of control and allow the rolling waves of anger to consume him.
Folding his arms above his head and resting his forearms on the door, Liam closed his eyes and tried to make sense of the past two hours. Oh, he knew that the board wouldn’t be happy about the recent events. He and Christopher Corporation had received some negative publicity but he genuinely believed that the dip in share price was mostly due to current economic conditions and nothing to do with his leadership or Teresa or the shares. But the board members were using it as an excuse to oust him, to put someone else behind his desk. Why?
Why didn’t they want him running the company his father created?
Because, unlike his father, he wasn’t a negotiator; neither was he easily swayed. He did things his way, set a course, and the board either came along for the ride or was left on the sidelines. He wasn’t a yes-man and he wanted autonomy. His father ran the board like a democracy; he had no intention of allowing a bunch of, mostly, doddery old fools charting the course of his modern, technologically rich company. They feared what they couldn’t understand and Liam wanted to take the company into places and markets they didn’t understand and couldn’t relate to.
They were scared, and scared men did stupid things. Like firing him from his own company.
But Jesus, they’d crossed a very big line when they attacked Teresa. Yeah, he had a million unanswered questions about her but she knew that she’d never do anything to harm him or Christopher Corporation. Despite everything she’d been through, she’d held her head high and marched on through the flames. Today she’d been polite and brave and kept her dignity while those around them lost theirs. She was an asset to the corporation and, yeah, to him.
He couldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her go. When he’d first seen her seven years ago, sitting across the family dining table, he’d instinctively recognized that she was important to him, to his happiness.
He’d known her, recognized her. He wanted to claim her, to make her his. He wasn’t that young man who saw everything in black-and-white anymore; he knew that life was a lot of gray. But his possessiveness toward Teresa remained as strong as it always had been.
And he was damned if he’d allow anything else to happen to her. From this day on, she was under his protection. And protect her, he would.
Liam pulled away from the door and walked over to his desk that sat at right angles to the floor-to-ceiling windows. If he looked south, he could see, on clear days, Mt. Rainier; north, the iconic Space Needle and west, West Puget Sound. If he looked east, the view was of his door and Teresa, staring at him with big, round eyes.
With her hair pulled backed into a loose bun and dressed in a tight black skirt and a tailored, open-neck white shirt she looked every inch the corporate drone. But if one looked at her feet and noticed her tangerine heels, that impression of a tightly wound, composed woman was blown out of the water.
But really, he just had to look into her expressive blue eyes to see what she was thinking. Her eyes reflected every emotion lodged in her soul and yep, confusion and concern reigned.
“Would you like to explain what just happened in there?”
Teresa was a bright woman; she knew he’d just been put on notice. She was really asking whether he had a plan. He didn’t need one; his position was safe for at least six months and by then, he would’ve completed a few deals and seen some projects come online, like the joint Sasha Project with Richmond Industries. The share price would be up and those fickle bastards would be satisfied. He wasn’t worr
ied about the company; he was worried about Teresa.
Her company was in dire straits; she needed to secure her brother’s safety; she looked like she was on the edge of falling apart. Except that she wouldn’t because she was too damn strong to do that.
She needed someone to stand in her corner, to show her that she wasn’t alone, to be there for her.
That could all be easily accomplished if she married him.
Liam swallowed, tried to push the thoughts of being married away but couldn’t dislodge the thought. As his wife, Teresa would be quickly accepted by the highest echelons of Seattle society. That acceptance would translate into business for Limitless Events and his business associates would also funnel their events her way.
If she married him, he’d have a reason to immediately pay off her brother’s debts—he’d tell her that he couldn’t afford for anyone to discover that his brother-in-law owed mobsters money. Quickly settling her debt would ensure her safety and that was intensely important to him.
And if they married, she wouldn’t be alone anymore.
Was he in savior-complex mode? Liam heard Matt’s question in his head and pulled his eyes off Teresa to look out his window. Matt often accused him of wanting to save everyone and everything because that was what his mother demanded of him, and his father, growing up. Linus had refused to rush to her rescue, to pay attention to her every want and need, so Liam provided her with the attention she craved.
Matt was convinced that he was conditioned to wanting to help if someone was in crisis. It was, his best friend told him, his biggest weakness and his most powerful strength. Matt also frequently told him that his savior complex would come back to bite him on the ass.
So be it. Teresa needed help and he was going to give it to her. But how best to do that? Was marriage the only answer?
“Take a seat,” Liam told her, gesturing to his sleek white couch she was standing behind.
Teresa sat down and tucked one orange heel behind the opposite calf. She was so very graceful, every movement fluid. He just wanted to take her to bed. Hell, a bed wasn’t even necessary; he could lock the door and make love to her in the late-morning light, stripping her naked as the world went on outside without them.