by Jenn Hughes
It was all about taking steps. One after the other. All Lillian had to do was take a few little steps. Have a few little drinks. And confront an old ghost who had haunted her far too long.
Chapter 2
Scoundrels and Sirens at the Cantina
“At least have a table, Rik . . . ” Sam muttered, cursing his lack of x-ray vision as he stared hard into a crowd of drunken cosplayers. “God, what a big mistake.”
Old Henry’s, downtown Port Bristol’s best English-style pub, stayed packed on weeknights and roared on weekends. From the bedraggled staffers of the city’s latest tech startups to pocket-square-sporting executives, everyone piled into the bar on Saturdays for a few good drinks to loosen up after a hectic week.
This Saturday night seemed no exception and, after a tiring day spent alone in his office, Sam Owens regretted agreeing to his friend’s offer of a free drink. Hardly free, though. Sam paid Rik Bryant handsomely to fend off legal attacks for his company and, despite the lure of a glass of bourbon at Old Henry’s, he had a bad feeling Rik had a surprise up his sleeve. And attorneys never dished out good surprises.
From the exposed hand-hewn beams on the ceiling down to the brown and beige checkered tile floor, the pub hummed. Back-slapping boasts of tense coding mingled with talk of tech stocks trading at obscene levels, everyone glad to be out of the punishing nor’easter pouring down several more inches of sleet and snow on the Maine coast.
It was standing room only. The heat from the crowd mingled with an alcoholic fog hanging in the air, leaving Sam combating claustrophobia. Not to mention the undulating barrier of people making it impossible to catch sight of Rik’s carrot-top. Sweat beaded up on Sam’s forehead. He tugged at the collar of his Italian broadcloth dress shirt.
Of all the miserable things to do . . .
But when the laughter of women pinged on his radar like enemy subs, he reconsidered his original assessment. They sounded hot. Laughs like good bourbon, smooth and sweet. He couldn’t afford to stay too long and risk capture. Sam jerked his phone from his pocket and fired off a text.
Super Sam: Where the hell are you?
Rik the Dick: To the right, last table at the windows.
Sam squeezed through the crowd barring his way to the back of the pub. He slipped between some other suits sipping martinis and then on past a couple of cosplayers outfitted in medieval ShieldQuest ensembles. Nearly getting beaned on the head by a resin battle-ax on the younger guy’s back brought a smile to Sam’s sour face. Even left him tempted to ask the kid where he picked up the incredibly detailed prop. But then a far more considerable temptation stole his attention.
A group of gorgeous twenty-something sirens stood near the bar. Ping. Five different flavors, each one offering something a little different but equally enticing. He didn’t think it would hurt to give them a quick hello, but his sly smile and the “Pardon me, ladies,” that tumbled out of his mouth drew several giggles and more than a couple of seductive stares.
That was always the way it went. Off-season meant no dating, no flirting, and nothing that might get him into trouble during the holidays. Exactly when I run into five gorgeous women in a bar. Any other month and he’d spend his evening intertwined with at least one of those women. But it was December, and so Sam kept on walking, right over to the table where Rik waited.
Wire-rimmed glasses and shaggy red hair hanging down in his face, Rik looked less like the well-groomed lawyer from work and more like a college kid ready for a night of fun. The band T-shirt peeking out from underneath a gray cardigan screamed middle-aged and trying too hard, while the smirk he wore on his hawkish face reminded Sam of a cartoon villain.
“You thought this was a mistake the second you walked in here, didn’t you?” Rik shouted as Sam slid across the slick brown booth seat.
Sam looked back over his shoulder. The tall brunette with smoky eyeliner and crimson lipstick stared, the look in her eyes like a crooked finger beckoning him to come over and play. Yes, please. An offer like that was difficult to resist, but Sam shook his head and broke away from the pull of her temptation tractor beam.
“Yeah, well, lucky for you I was bored this evening. Made your blue-moon offer to pay doubly appealing.” He took a sip of bourbon from the glass waiting for him on the table. “Mmmm, that’s good. Tastes expensive. So, what do you want?”
Rik didn’t even try to deny it. He smiled again and held up his hand, his thumb and index finger about a half-inch apart. “I need a very tiny favor.”
Sam groaned. “I should have known from that getup you’re wearing. Listen, I’m not in the mood to be your wingman. My name’s not Goose.”
“No, no, no. Tonight’s different. Remember the woman I mentioned a few weeks ago? Lillian?” Sam squinted, and Rik rolled his eyes. “No, of course, you don’t. It didn’t involve you, so you weren’t listening. Okay, so Lillian and I had a thing back at Boston University before I got engaged to Emily.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Lillian’s the lucky lady who dodged the bullet that is you. So, you two didn’t speak for over a decade and then linked up on . . . uh . . . LifeLink? Or Jabber?”
“LifeLink. I’m not on Jabber. Attorneys don’t understand the concept of saying something in a hundred and fifty characters when they can charge outrageously to say the same thing in a much longer and complex way. That’ll be five hundred dollars, please,” Rik added, his laugh trailing off into a nervous cough when Sam didn’t join in. “Anyway, she landed a job she couldn’t refuse and then moved up here from Boston. A few months back, I heard she was in town, so I looked her up on social media and she accepted my link request. It was a miracle, and that’s no exaggeration. So we’ve been catching up. Did the messaging thing and talked on the phone a few times and, well, now . . . ”
“Let me guess—she’s meeting you here tonight.”
“It’s not what you think. Lillian made it very clear that the past is in the past. Friends with absolutely no benefits, and I’m fine with that.”
Sam snorted. “Right. This from the guy who christened the entire month of November ‘Bangsgiving’ in honor of his impending divorce.”
Rik raised an eyebrow and held up his finger. “Ah, but that’s the thing. I’m not getting divorced. Not with Lillian in town. Emily will have a green-eyed Jersey cow on our front lawn when she finds out I’m seeing Lillian again. I need an in with Emily, and this is it. Therapy didn’t do the trick. Separation sure as hell hasn’t done it . . . I want my wife back, and since Lillian wants to be friends, she won’t mind helping a friend out.”
“This sounds very juvenile and sneaky and weirdly complicated for no reason.”
“You just stole a line from my marriage vows. So are you in?”
“In for what, exactly? Why do you need my help?”
“I need an escape hatch in case this all goes up in flames. Like if Lillian filtered her LifeLink photos into an alternate reality and she doesn’t look nearly as good as I think she does. This plan has to be believable.”
A smug satisfaction settled over Sam. “And you’re always telling me I’m shallow.”
“You are shallow. That’s why your bedroom has a revolving door. One New York fashion model enters while an actress leaves, and so on, and so on . . . Ad infinitum.”
“I’m not shallow. You don’t have a clue . . . ”
Sam took a swig of bourbon. Rik and Emily Bryant were the poster children for avoiding commitment. They needed to get divorced. But one look at Rik’s sad, spray-tanned face—holy shit, he looks like an orange on steroids—and Sam felt sorry for the guy.
Big Bad Rik Bryant, a litigating Lucifer in the business world, looked about as pathetic as, well, a forty-year-old man in a band T-shirt and cardigan trying to save the remnants of his crumbling marriage. Sam rolled his head and groaned.
“Fine. I�
�ll be that annoying little reminder that pops up on your phone and won’t go away no matter how many times you swipe at it. If Lillian isn’t what you expected, give me the signal. I’ll fake chest pains or something.”
“Great. Thanks. What’s the signal?”
Sam smiled. “Flash me the Galaxy Trek salute.”
“C’mon, that’s not subtle. I don’t even think I can part my fingers like that. How am I supposed to work it into a conversation?”
“Don’t know. You’ll come up with something. You’re good at thinking on your feet. It’s what I pay you for, remember?”
Rik sneered. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Trying to.” Sam glanced back at the group of women still standing at the bar. Two smiled at him. One winked. He looked over at Rik and sighed. “Probably could enjoy it a lot more if it wasn’t so close to Christmas.”
“Oh, right. Must be hell for you, not getting laid for a whole four weeks.”
“Better than asking out one of those women behind me and then the next thing I know I’m waking up Christmas morning at her parents’ house and opening gifts with her family while she talks to her mom about whether or not she should hyphenate her last name after we marry or keep things modern and stick with her family name.”
The memory, although four years old, came out in one long, panicked breath. Fresh sweat beaded up on Sam’s forehead. He’d been called a fox before, but that morning was the first time he’d been hunted like one. He was better off spending December neck-deep in work and not . . . other things.
“When you put it that way, a month of celibacy does sound preferable.” Rik sighed. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. He slid across the booth seat, and then stood up next to the table. “Here she comes and, wow. So far, so very good . . . ”
Sam looked over his shoulder again. Sirens still at the bar and throwing some not-so-subtle glances his way . . .
But a woman squeezing through the crowd caught his attention. One woman, locked on a trajectory toward them. Dark hair, the color of walnut lit by a fading fire, fell past her shoulders. Sam couldn’t help but follow the cascade down, his eyes tracing every curve of her body. Something flashed, and he looked up in time to catch her smile.
A great smile. Better than great. Infectiously beautiful. Lillian’s smile coaxed the corner of Sam’s mouth up into an uncontrollable grin, even as she looked right past him. Her inattention, albeit unusual in Sam’s opinion, gave him a chance to study her even more.
She had a kind, welcoming face and perfect lips. Legitimately perfect—Sam had tasted his fair share to know, and her exquisitely full lower lip had to be heaven. Lillian was gorgeous in an understated but overwhelming way, although that didn’t strike Sam as quite so important in the overall scheme of things. Looks didn’t matter then. What mattered was the weird little feeling in his diaphragm, the one migrating up his chest—right to the cardiac area. Flapping flip-flops. Very weird.
Gas. It’s gas. From the bourbon. Yeah, that’s it.
When Lillian stopped in front of Rik, Sam tried to belch quietly. Nothing came out. Everything came on worse the closer Lillian stood to him. He focused even harder on her to take his mind off the possible coronary sending his heart straight to dance fitness class.
She had to be close to forty but didn’t look it. In the low light, her pale skin, the color of foamed milk next to her cappuccino-brown locks, struck Sam as seductively smooth. Touchable. Yes, please and thank you.
Sam watched from the sidelines as Lillian smiled up at Rik, not a trace of nervousness on her face. Rik blundered the awkward reintroduction, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning and repetitively pushing his hair out of his eyes. It was like watching two preteens at a dance. Sam might have thought it was kind of cute if he hadn’t suddenly hated being ignored. He cleared his throat, and Lillian spun around.
Her eyes caught him and widened. “I didn’t realize we were having company,” she said, looking back at Rik with a polite smile.
“We aren’t. Sam’s leaving.”
Sam ignored Rik, too busy watching Lillian slide off her fur-lined tan parka. Her white blouse looked a size too large, but her jeans more than made up for it by hugging her ass just right. Sam couldn’t stop staring. He didn’t want to stop. The flip-flops in his chest scurried down below the waist.
He got hard. Only the table saved him by hiding his lower half. Several conspicuous seconds passed. Rik coughed, and Sam’s lingering gaze snapped away from Lillian and over to Rik. His friend jerked his head in the direction of the exit. Then came two pathetic attempts at the Galaxy Trek salute.
Oh, no. Sorry, buddy.
“Yeah, Rik and I bumped into one another and started talking shop. Don’t worry, I won’t hang around too long. Only long enough for Rik to buy that last round he promised.”
Rik glared beady daggers at Sam. Then he looked over at Lillian with a smile and asked, “You still like dark beer?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But you don’t—”
“Back in a minute,” Rik grumbled, scowling at Sam before stomping off toward the bar.
Sam smiled at Lillian, whose raised eyebrows wrinkled an otherwise flawless forehead. “Have a seat,” Sam said, pointing at the other side of the booth. “He’ll be more than a minute.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, sitting down on the booth seat sliding across. “So, you and Richard were chatting about work?”
“Yeah, he does legal work for my company. You two met in Boston, right?”
Lillian smiled. “Yes. We were . . . friends.” She squinted and tilted her head to the side. A strand of hair fell from resting on her shoulder and brushed against her pale neck. “You and I have met before.”
Sam smiled softly and lowered his head. They hadn’t, but being recognized came with the territory, and he rarely minded fans. “You probably saw my face on the latest cover of Hacked.”
She laughed. At him. Heat bloomed across Sam’s cheeks, and his soft smile curled down into a firm frown.
“Oh, no. I know you’re Sam Owens. I knew who you were the moment I saw you, but not because you’re a cover boy for all those hip tech magazines. We are intimately acquainted.”
Chapter 3
Sleeping with the Enemy. Yes, Please.
Swooooshhhh and thunk.
Lillian had wounded his pride like an arrow in an ogre’s soft underbelly. She’d called him a cover boy. Like he was in a boy band, and not the CEO of Origin, the best software and tech development company in the country. Scratch that—world. And despite that fact, she had yet to flirt with or flatter him . . .
Hold up. Intimately?
Where had they met? Where had they intimately met? He’d remember touching a body like that . . .
Hot cocoa.
When he looked at Lillian, hot cocoa came to mind. Not helpful in the slightest, except for the affirmation he was probably in the midst of a coronary and his brain starved of oxygen.
“Riiiiight. Yeah, we met at that . . . uh, that—”
“Don’t panic. I was joking. It wasn’t intimate at all. It was six months ago, and we only shook hands,” she reassured him.
It didn’t help. Sam couldn’t even remember where they’d shook hands. He pressed his lips together and felt his eyes bug out like Panic Pete. Lillian groaned melodramatically and then laughed.
“I’m on Preston Lavery’s legal team. You gave a terrific speech at the cloud development symposium in New York City. Preston introduced us afterward.”
White hot rage coursed through Sam. The mere mention of Preston Lavery was as good as a cold shower. He slid his hand below the tabletop and hid his clenched fist, pressing it down into the vinyl seat.
“Well, that explains why Rik didn’t elaborate on you any more than he did. You’re the enemy.”
“Fine. But you work for the competition which means you are the competition.”
Her eyes glared behind a smile. Sam had to work at maintaining his offensive stance because even in their tension-filled standoff, Lillian managed to remain utterly stunning. “And competition is a good thing. It drives progress, and where would you be without that?”
Sam kept silent. Cool down time. Any attempt at arguing with an attorney equated to asking the wind not to blow, and this attorney held a black belt in unreadability. A flash of anger or humor or flirtation now and then, maybe, but otherwise Sam couldn’t get a bead on her. He felt naked and vulnerable and different when she looked at him and . . .
Damn it. Again? Really? Thank God for this table.
He’d gain nothing from antagonizing Rik’s old . . . new . . . sorta-flame. He didn’t even want to try, and quickly lost himself in the flecks of gold sparkling in her brown eyes. He did manage to remember that flirting with a woman generally provided more benefits than arguing. Sam flipped the charm switch back on and lit his thousand-watt smile.
“Nowhere. You’re completely right. Listen, it’s late, and work is the last thing in the world I’d like to talk about, especially with such attractive company.”
The glare softened, and the corner of her mouth curled up. Sam had earned his black belt in flirting. “I agree. Let’s talk about anything other than work.”
