by Vivian Wood
“That’s not what we’re here for, is it?” he asked her.
“Can we leave, then?” she asked, crossing her arms. The movement only served to push her tits up, making her creamy cleavage even more prominent.
“I told you, we’re here for a reason,” Liam said, rolling his eyes. “Now sit back and be cool for a bit, lest we be required to repeat this experience. It’s your own bloody brother I’m here to help in the first place.”
“What?” she asked, sitting up at little straighter. “You’re here because of Jack?”
Liam eyed her for a moment.
“Look, sweetheart,” he started.
“Don’t call me that,” she growled.
Liam held up a hand. “I am probably your brother’s oldest mate, no?”
Audrey gave him a grudging nod. “Yes.”
“He’s in a real spot of trouble, now. It’s more than whether he gets this contract, it’s…” Liam paused, trying to decide how much to tell her. It was Jack’s story to tell, after all. “It doesn’t really matter, Audrey. I’m going to straighten it out tonight, if I can.”
The blonde bartender walked up behind them, setting another round of drinks on the table. She leaned down to Liam’s ear and whispered, “He’s here. He’s gone down the back hallway to the left, all the way back to the office. I think if you go right now, you might be able to catch him without his guards.”
“Thanks, love. Watch my lady friend here, for me, and there will be a big reward in it for you.”
The bartender nodded, looking nervous. Liam looked over at Audrey, who was eyeing him with all kinds of suspicion.
“Take this,” he said, giving her a few more bills. “Don’t talk to anyone, love. Keep your head down, sip your drink, tip the dancers. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Wait—”
Liam rose and left her there, striding across the club toward the back hallway. As a young lad, sneaking into pubs and punk rock clubs in the seedier parts of central London, he’d learned how to get into virtually anyplace. The secret was not to sneak at all, but to straighten your posture, smirk a little, and walk straight through like you were meant to be there.
Just as it was when he was seventeen year old with nothing to his name but a mohawk and a grimace, his confidence carried him into the staff hallway and past the dancers’ lounge without any trouble. He went straight back to the grimy gray steel door with the word OFFICE scrawled on it in permanent marker.
He didn’t pause, just took a deep breath and opened the door. A man and a woman stood behind a ratty metal desk. The brunette was just shimmying her skimpy lace dress back down her hips, adjusting her panties. The man, a fifty-something pot-bellied bloke in a wrinkled tan suit, was buckling his belt.
The man turned to glare at Liam. “Who the fuck are you? I got private business happening back here. Get lost.”
The dancer didn’t even look at Liam, like she was used to being exposed like that. It made Liam’s fists clench, knowing that her job probably regularly included these little rendezvous, but it wasn’t for him to interfere. She was just another lost soul.
“It looks like you’re done, mate,” Liam said. “I need to talk to you about Jack Cross.”
The manager’s gaze slid to the dancer. “Go on, Sandi. Leave us.”
The girl glided out of the room, eyes glazed over with total disinterest. Liam figured he’d get high too, if coming to work included fucking this slob of a manager.
“Close the door,” the guy said, waving his hand.
Liam pushed it so it was mostly closed, leaving himself a couple inches to hear what was happening in the hallway. Also, it was always a good idea to plan your escape from these types of situations, and his only way out was through that door.
“Who’d you say you were?” the manager asked, lighting a cigarette and plopping into his squeaky office chair.
“I didn’t.”
“Huh. You look real familiar to me, son.”
“I’m a friend of Jack’s, let’s say. Nothing more to know.”
“Too bad for you. This isn’t a good time to be friends with Jackie Boy. Especially not if he’s been yakking about my business all over town, you get my drift?”
“How much does he owe you?” Liam asked, cutting to the chase.
The guy raised a brow.
“More than you can pay,” he said, looking Liam up and down.
“Just give me a fucking number,” Liam said, feeling heated anger bubbling up from within.
“There is no fooking noomber,” the manager said, doing a piss-poor imitation of Liam’s accent. “It’s a debt of honor now, you understand? He’s made a lot of promises, and now he’s going to work off what he owes me.”
“Work off how?” Liam asked.
“Don’t worry about it. That’s private, between me and Jack. For what he owes me, just be glad I haven’t broken his fucking legs yet.”
“I’ll pay it,” Liam said, trying one last time. “Whatever it is.”
The manager looked Liam up and down. “You ever done any cage fighting?”
Liam stilled. “That’s how Jack’s going to pay you back? Fighting?”
Stubbing out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, the guy blew out a huge cloud of smoke. “You’re boring me. Get out of my club, and don’t come back unless you want to do some business. Big guy like you, with an accent… you’d be real popular. In the ring, or backstage here at the club. We get all kinds of customers in here, they like a little variety.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to let you know,” Liam said, barely containing his fury.
“You do that,” the guy grunted as Liam headed out of the office.
Outside, there were two enormous bodyguards waiting, and they both glared at Liam as he made his way out of the back hallway. Once he was back on the club floor, the first thing he realized was Audrey’s glaring absence.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
He looked around and didn’t see her near the table or the stage. His new friend the bartender sauntered up and winked at him.
“Your lady is over there in the cleanest leather booth,” she said, pointing. “She’s getting makeup tips from one of the girls.”
“She’s what?” Liam asked, taken aback.
“She liked Tammy’s glitter eyeshadow or something, I don’t fucking know,” the bartender said with a shrug. “I kept her safe, like you said.”
“Right,” Liam said. He pulled out his wallet and gave her a few hundreds, then walked over to the booth.
Audrey was sitting there, talking animatedly with a girl in a silver g-string bikini. The girl was smoothing some dark red lip gloss over Audrey’s lips, and Audrey seemed to be trying not to laugh.
“Hey!” she said, pulling back from the dancer when Liam walked up. “This is Tammy. She’s showing me the best shade for my skin tone.”
Seeing the blood red color of her lips set against her pale skin and flame-red hair, Liam couldn’t disagree with Tammy’s taste. Still, he couldn’t believe that Audrey was sitting there letting a dancer use her own products on Audrey’s skin.
“Let’s go,” he said, throwing a bill at Tammy. He grabbed Audrey’s wrist and tugged her out of the booth.
“But—” she started.
“You want to stay here, in the strip club?” Liam growled.
“Well…” she glanced at Tammy for a second, then shook her head. “No.”
“Right, then.” Liam wrapped an arm around her waist and half-dragged her out of the club, not slowing until they stepped out into the cooling night air. As cool as it got in Atlanta in the spring, anyway.
It struck him, suddenly, how very far he was from London. This was a dangerous game he was playing, trying to fix things for Jack when Liam’s own life across the pond was so bloody fucked up.
“Bring my car, will you?” he snapped at the valet, who sprinted off to get his car.
“You’re awfully cranky now,” Audrey said, pulling out of his g
rasp.
“Yeah, well. I got some shit news about your brother, and then I walk out and see you letting some stripper rub her fucking lipstick on your mouth,” he said.
The car pulled up with a squeal of tires, and he walked her around to the passenger’s side, opening the door.
“What’s wrong with trying on lipstick?” she asked.
Liam shut the door in her questioning face, then tipped the valet and got in himself. He reached over to open the glove box, pulling out a packet of tissues.
“Here,” he said. “Next time, think twice about what a lady does with her mouth before you use her cosmetics, yeah?”
It took Audrey a second to put it together, Liam could tell, but then she looked aghast.
“You don’t think….?” she asked. Then she started wiping the lipstick away, eyes wide.
“I don’t know Tammy, so I can’t say. But some girls do that at those kind of places, yeah.”
“You’re the one who brought me here!” Audrey said, flapping her hands as her voice rose. “Look, Liam. I want you to play for Atlanta Unified. I want my brother to catch his lucky break. I will do whatever I can to make that happen, but…”
She paused biting her lip.
“But?” Liam prompted.
“I don’t know or care how you treated your other assistants, or how you act toward your girlfriends. But I’m here to work, not to hang out with you in strip clubs, or wear…” Audrey waved her hand at her dress. “This is ridiculous. This is unprofessional. There has to be a separation between us. You can’t just bring up what happened between us at the nightclub and expect to have me wrapped around your finger. I don’t operate that way.”
Liam turned to glare down at her.
“You came up to me that night at the club,” he reminded her. “You ordered champagne, you got on my lap. I’m not treating you differently than anyone else in my life. You make it sound like I’m a fucking blackmailer, which I bloody well resent.”
“I am just telling you to be professional, Liam. I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.”
“I swear to fuck, Audrey, you are lucky your brother is one of my best mates.”
“Or what? You’d fire me for not kissing your ass? Is that why you’ve fired all your other assistants, Liam?”
Liam closed his eyes for a second and counted to ten. When he opened them again, he’d managed to rein in his temper.
“Professional it is, then,” he growled.
Audrey didn’t flinch, a challenge plain on her face. She was testing him, laying down her boundaries.
Fine. Two could play at being professional. Just wait until she saw just how professional he could be at work. He was a downright prick as a boss, and he wouldn’t be holding back a bit of it from her now.
He pulled out of the parking lot, steaming mad. Mad at Audrey, for having no common sense. Mad at Jack, for getting into such a bloody mess.
And mad at himself, for giving a fuck about it at all. Liam had his own problems, that was for fucking sure. He drove in silence for a few minutes, working to calm himself down. Those anger management classes had to’ve been good for something, after all.
When he turned to tell Audrey that he was taking her home, he realized that her eyes were shut. She was asleep, or feigning it.
Liam heaved a sigh and tried to be annoyed, but in truth he kept glancing over at her. She was a different kind of pretty when she slept, that challenging scowl wiped away, leaving perfectly pouty lips and delicate ginger brows. He noticed that there were a few freckles on her face, too, on her nose and cheeks.
His gaze dropped down to her chest, then he panicked and realized that he’d let the car veer into the opposite lane. He straightened, then locked his gaze onto the road.
He shouldn’t be staring at Audrey anyway. She was Jack’s little sister, and Liam’s employee. And no matter what she looked like, she was a bit of a bitch, that was for sure.
No more of that, he told himself. Stick to the type of girls you’ve always liked.
Prissy American girls like Audrey were a million miles away from Liam’s social circle. He liked his women overtly sexy, close-mouthed, and agreeable. Models, usually blondes. Women who knew exactly what their role in Liam’s life would be and stuck to that.
Not short, stuck up little redheads who only made his life more complicated.
No, there was no world where Liam Packham and Audrey Cross collided and became anything but boss and assistant.
And Liam would do his damndest to keep it that way, keep it professional.
God knows that will make straight-laced little Audrey perfectly happy, he thought.
Glaring into the night, he sped down the road, suddenly eager to have her out of his sight.
Audrey Cross was already complicating his life, and he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do about it.
4
Audrey
“Shit shit shit,” Audrey muttered under her breath. “Don’t stall, don’t stall…”
And of course, then her car stalled out for the tenth time that morning. She cranked it once, twice, three times until it came back to life, then pulled it around the corner and parked it. It was a couple blocks from the stadium, but it would have to do.
She was late for the fourth day in a row, and Liam was going to be pissed.
For the last week, Liam had fulfilled his promise of keeping things professional. In fact, he’d gone over and above with it, coolly taking her to task for any tiny misstep.
If she’d wanted him to stop teasing her, treat her like a regular employee… well, she’d got that wish granted in spades. It’d made for a very, very long week.
She trotted to the stadium, cursing her inability to run in heels. Liam had sent several racks of clothes over to her house, with a note saying that his assistant needed to dress the part. Aside from the flashy dresses she’d already seen, there were two full racks of trendy, somewhat work-appropriate clothing.
Today she was wearing a long, high-waisted black skirt with a silky white tank top and her own cute yellow cardigan and a pair of black heels. Her hair was already escaping its neat top knot bun when she made it to the stadium’s offices, where she was meant to meet Liam every morning before practice began.
When she walked into the large lounge area, she was surprised to see Liam waiting there with one of his suited employees. She felt her mouth pull down into a frown.
Was she being fired? she wondered. She checked her slim silver watch. She was only three minutes late.
“Hello, sorry,” she said, brushing back a wisp of hair from her forehead.
“Car trouble again, I assume,” Liam said, giving her a hard look.
“Well… yes, actually,” she said. “I left my house two hours early, but…”
Liam’s brows went up. He gestured to the man at his side, whose sleek haircut and expensive suit made him out for a lawyer.
Audrey gulped.
“This is a third-party lease agreement for a new car,” the suit said. “Mr. Packham will assume all financial liability for a year’s time, but there are certain terms.”
Audrey looked up at Liam, shocked.
“I’m tired of you being late,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I can’t accept this,” she protested.
“It’s your company car,” Liam said. His voice was flat, emotionless, but she could see the tension growing around his mouth. He was impatient with her. “Just sign the damned papers, Audrey.”
Audrey took the pen and flipped through the papers quickly, then signed them. Liam tapped his foot the entire time, looking just short of a display of temper.
“Your new vehicle is parked right out front. Just use this key fob,” the lawyer said, offering her a ring with the fob and a few keys.
“Mercedes!” she yelped, looking up at the lawyer. As if he could help, somehow?
“You’re dismissed, Jared,” Liam said to the lawyer, who was quick enough to get out of the office.
“This is way too much, Liam. You could have gotten me a Camry or something,” she said. “I can’t accept this.”
“You’re being a right pain in the arse right now, you know that? It’s just a year’s lease. Let’s move on.”
“Um. Well, thank you anyway.” She was quiet for a beat, but Liam didn’t respond. “Do you have any errands for me today?”
“Whose house did you sleep at last night?” he asked.
Audrey blinked.
“Sorry?” she asked, blindsided.
“You said you left two hours early this morning.”
“Well… yes.”
“Your apartment is five miles from here. If you left two hours early, you could’ve driven around the city a dozen times.”
“Ah. Uh. Well, that’s Jack’s apartment. I was just crashing there. He’s got a new lady love, so… I can’t really stay there.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Audrey. I asked whose house you slept at last night.”
“I’m staying with a friend right now.”
Liam stepped closer, until he was only inches away. He looked down at Audrey, his dark green eyes burning into hers. He’d clipped his facial hair short today, and she could smell his aftershave. For some reason, it made her mouth water.
“What kind of friend?” he asked.
“Oh… just an old school friend,” she said, dropping her gaze to his chest. He was being strangely intense, and she couldn’t quite handle it head on.
“Male or female?”
“I don’t see why that matters!” she protested. “You’re probably out with a different girl every night, and you don’t see me judging!”
His lips quirked downward, nearly disapproval.
“A man, then. Where’s this house?”
“Marietta,” she sighed. “It’s like an hour north. The traffic between here and there is really bad. Plus my car kept stalling… that’s why I’ve been late.”
Liam’s hand dropped to the front pocket of his jeans, and he fished out his keys. He started taking a couple off his key ring, but didn’t say anything else.
“Are these for an errand?” Audrey asked, glancing up at him.
Trying not to stare at the colorful tattoos covering his sculpted forearms, trying not to notice the veins in his hands and wrists. For some reason, both attributes made heat pool low in her belly. Why should she find simple things like that to be so… riveting?
