by Chloe Liese
He’s a Brute
Tough Love | Book One
Chloe Liese
Cover Art by
Jennie Rose Denton of Lamplight Creative
He’s a Brute
Chloe Liese
The Tough Love Series – Book One
Copyright © 2019 Chloe Liese
Published by Chloe Liese
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance or similarity to characters in this story is pure coincidence.
Contents
1. Nairne
2. Zed
3. Zed
4. Nairne
5. Zed
6. Nairne
7. Zed
8. Zed
9. Nairne
10. Zed
11. Nairne
12. Zed
13. Nairne
14. Nairne
15. Zed
16. Nairne
17. Zed
18. Zed
19. Nairne
20. Zed
21. Nairne
22. Zed
23. Nairne
24. Zed
25. Zed
26. Nairne
27. Zed
28. Zed
29. Nairne
30. Nairne
31. Nairne
32. Zed
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Chloe Liese
“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
John Keats
One
Nairne
Boston, Massachusetts, 2004
Back in my teens, I had a thing for the bad boys. Rich rebels who smelled like expensive cologne and sexual experience. I’d been beautiful and a little famous. Footballers—soccer players as they’re called in the States—are bloody royalty in Europe. I’d dazzled under stadium lights, in VIP lounges. Expensive liquor, music, and dancing. Attentive touches and alluring propositions. They were reckless days, carefree and careless. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end.
It started on Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year. A tall dark man is supposed to cross your threshold with a strategic handful, and secure good luck for the year to come. An odd-sounding notion probably, but Scots are a superstitious people who observe certain rituals to shape fate, despite the abundance of science that points to life’s reasons and randomness. I’d always observed the tradition, though I was a skeptic at heart. At eighteen-years-old, practically a woman, I was free to do things my own way. So, I’d followed my love of whiskey and risk-taking straight into the arms of a man who fit the description but not its hoped-for effect. A string of misfortunes materialized. Life-changing injury. Months of being followed and the ensuing paranoia. Within the span of a year, I’d lost my privacy, my sanity, and my livelihood.
I learned from that, you could say.
Now life ran like my lab experiments. Controlled variables, sterile environment, a fixed system with limited factors. And the people in my life? One friend left in Paris. Two grandparents buried in Scotland. One sperm donor father who may or may not still exist, wherever the fuck he cared to live. One mother whose ashes had years ago drifted into the Atlantic, the bridge between her two worlds.
That was it. Anyone else made life too volatile. I probably sound absurd. Crazy Nairne, traumatized and overcompensating. Perhaps. But take for instance, table salt—sodium chloride. Harmless enough, healthy in reasonable doses. People were table salt to me. Innocuous, if left alone. Certainly not meant to be isolated, though. Chloride becomes chlorine, a deadly gas of genocidal proportions. Sodium alone is highly reactive. Cut it with a butter knife and watch it burst into flames as it meets the humblest of environments—air. So, I kept my life in a vacuum. No air, no reactivity. It made perfect sense.
It also got me exactly the results I wanted. Scientifically speaking, that was as good as it got—replicable outcomes. One of the world’s best universities for bioengineering. Unparalleled research opportunities. A consulting position for one of the city’s most notable nonprofits.
I looked around the board room, fighting nerves about my first meeting. Ten adults, including me. Six women, four men. An atypically progressive distribution of gender for a nonprofit board. We were short one, though. I tapped my pen, impatient with someone who couldn’t start his own meeting on time. I kept those sharp thoughts to myself where they ricocheted, unchallenged by conversation or engagement with anyone else.
Until the door whipped open. Powerful oxygen flooded my system as I sat at the end of the table, watching a dark-haired, olive-skinned Adonis stride in. His presence was elementally dangerous—each gasp of stuttered air I took fueled my reaction to him. One by one, old zones of my body caught fire and brightened.
“Morning,” he gruffed. Near-black waves fell errantly along his forehead and neck. Too short to pull back. Long enough to tug. He threw down his bag and slid his fingers through that tempting hair. “Apologies for being late. Traffic was a bitch.”
Zed Salvatore was chair of the board, so no one said anything about his tardiness or his language. Everyone around the table smiled or talked among themselves. It was an easygoing group. Meaning, I was horribly out of place. I sat, back ramrod straight, fingers laced, willing the throb between my thighs into nonexistence. He reached into his bag and I watched muscles flexing against his crisp white shirt. My breasts tingled with heat.
The chair of a nonprofit for underprivileged children and communities should not be that attractive. It didn’t make sense. I’d expected someone stodgier, less satanically beautiful.
Zed was trouble wrapped in six feet of impressive muscle, stunning features, and absolute pomposity. He sighed as he sat in his seat. “I know the Sox lost again but Jesus, people are cranky. It’s not just the freeway. The sidewalk’s even a jungle.”
The board murmured in agreement, and their executive director, Tony, laughed. “The plight of the Bostonian baseball fan.”
“Now just think how much nicer everyone would be”—Zed flipped through papers, and while his fingers curled around the pages, everything south of my equator grew dangerously hot —“if they spent that same amount of energy and dollars on your local professional soccer team.”
People groaned and his face split into a grin. As he turned back to his papers, his dark lashes fanned over his high cheekbones. From the pile, he counted and separated papers, then sent them down the table.
“Right,” he said. “I’m done preaching about soccer to you masochists. You’ll see on page one that I want to—”
His gaze landed on me and he froze. Eyes widened, then narrowed as they flicked over my face. Tiger eyes, rimmed in coal black. The irises were pale blue-green, flecked with gold. Fire and ice. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, then he glanced from Tony to me. “Who’s this?”
Tony opened his mouth to answer, but I spoke for myself. “Nairne MacGregor, Mr. Salvatore. Your public health consultant.”
His fingers drummed on the table as his eyes slipped down my neck to my breasts. The bastard. My nipples hardened and I hated him. I’d heard the rumors. Mafia prince, bad boy, arrogant jock. He was despicable and he was making me wet.
He turned toward Tony without acknowledging me. “Her?”
Tony’s eyes widened. “Yes, Zed. This is Nairne. She’s a senior at MIT, double majoring in biomedical engineering and public health.”
He glanced at me, face hard. “You?”
I tipped my head to the side as my blood boiled. “I’m sorry, I’m struggling with the monosyllables.” My voice came out smokier than normal. That would be the ache of arou
sal clogging my throat. I cleared it and pressed on. “What are you asking?” I folded my arms, leaned on the table. I projected my strongest front. I was stable. Unreactive.
He mirrored my stance and leaned in. “I’m asking how it’s possible for a woman who hasn’t even graduated college to be a public health expert, and if she’s not, what the hell she’s doing here.”
The woman next to him sucked in a breath and kicked him under the table.
I exhaled slowly and smiled. “I’d say the unanimous decision by your board in your absence indicates that I’m qualified for the position.”
His own mother to be precise. She’d sought me out, after she saw me present on the promise for communicable disease vaccines in light of science’s recent coup—sequencing the human genome. When I met her for my interview, she’d been skin and bones and a silk head scarf. Cancer. Not long after she’d given me the position, she’d passed away. He was obviously unaware of her role in my selection, and I might be a cold-hearted bitch, and in the past, a hot-headed spitfire, but I wasn’t cruel. I didn’t throw it in his face.
Tony glanced uneasily between us and rifled through his papers. “If you still have the memo that I sent you, Zed, it has the details. Nairne’s an incredible addition to the committee. Not only are her academic accolades of the highest caliber, but she grew up in an underprivileged town outside a major city. She knows firsthand what it’s like to struggle on the outskirts, and she really wowed us with her empathy and knowledge about community revitalization.”
The gorgeous bastard’s jaw clenched, and he smiled tightly as he peered down at the paper, then back up at me. “I see that. No offense meant, Ms. MacGregor. I’m still skeptical how someone your age could have the experiential knowledge that we need, but I trust the committee, and I look forward to being proven wrong.”
His voice was low and rich, and it raised my body temperature ten degrees. I sat back and folded my arms tightly across my hard nipples. “Noted.”
Angry. I hadn’t been angry like this in a long while. My cheeks were warm, and I fantasized about slapping his face, then biting his lips with kisses that made him bleed. I was a scientist. I knew anger and arousal had a neurochemical overlap. Didn’t mean I liked how rigorously they coalesced in my brain, thanks to him.
It really was specifically his fault. Other men didn’t irk me like this. Nice blokes. Polite fellows. With gentle smiles and deference. He was exactly what this woman didn’t touch anymore—dangerous, devious, rude, and too sexually forward.
The meeting rolled on, and twice I caught his eyes on my breasts, then my mouth. He had lips that weren’t full but still managed to be nearly too sensual for a man. Classically beautiful features roughened by a long nose that had a slight bump on the bridge. I watched his pointer finger swirl in a slow circle on the table, imagined it tracing my nipples, slipping down my stomach to my clit.
I cleared my throat again and looked up at him. He smirked as he stared at me too long, noticing I’m sure how easily my fair skin blushed. I was incinerating inside, and I hated my inability to hide that.
The meeting ended, mercifully, and Tony dropped next to me. “I’m sorry about him. He’s a little—”
“Rude?” I offered. I opened my bag on the table and shoved my papers in.
Tony glanced toward the other end of the room, then back to me. “Well, yes. But he means well. He’s got a lot on his plate, and he doesn’t sugarcoat things.”
“Clearly.” I zipped my bag shut and smiled at Tony. Zed wasn’t his fault. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I don’t scare easily.”
Tony ran a hand over his bald head. “Well, I appreciate that. Just know we’re really glad to have you here for this project. These health clinics were the heart of Deirdre’s vision. She wanted them to happen more than anything, which is why she was so adamant about you.”
I smiled. “I know. I’m glad I’m here, too.”
“Ms. MacGregor?” Low. Short. Demanding. His voice brought out the old impudence in me, and the fact that I was so easily baited by his simple domineering pitch sent warning signals firing in my brain.
Run far away.
As if I could.
He stood, staring at me from nearly the entire length of the conference table, like I had a transmittable pathogen he wanted to avoid. He glanced at Tony and silently told him to beat it.
Tony leaned my way. “Let me, ahead of time, just apologize for whatever he’s about to say.”
I sighed and stared at the man whose eyes were burning into me. “Don’t worry, Tony. I can handle trouble just fine.”
Two
Zed
From where I stood, Tony looked like he was apologizing, most likely for my behavior. I wasn’t sorry for how I’d acted, but I was a little curious as to what she had to say about it.
She smiled, patting Tony’s hand as he stood. His cheeks went bright pink and he giggled. He fucking giggled. I leaned against the far end of the table and hoisted my suit jacket and ream of papers higher in my arm.
“Ms. MacGregor—”
“Nairne, please,” she said.
An interrupter. Just lovely. She sat back and eyed me up. Her color went a little higher and her nipples hardened underneath her white blouse. I caught the edge of a lace bra as she shifted. I wanted to rip her prim propriety with my teeth and bite the tender skin beneath. She seemed to sense my depraved thoughts, because she crossed her arms and scowled at me.
“Nairne,” I conceded. “Please understand, I’m not here to insult you. I’m simply not interested in wasting anybody’s time, and I want this organization to be everything my mother dreamed it would be.”
I took a few careful steps toward her because something about her made me uneasy. From the other end of the table, she’d been lovely. A pretty face with a pouty frown. By the time I was one third the way down the conference table toward her, she was devastating. I stopped because she was affecting me plenty from twelve feet away. Long and glossy dark auburn hair. Ivory skin. Fine bones, a smattering of freckles, and a warm glow to her cheeks. Her eyes were the real showstopper, though. They were an unfairly high chroma green, like blades of grass darkened after rain. They glittered with defiance and not a little contempt for me as she spoke.
“Understood, Mr. Salvatore. I look forward to showing you how misplaced your concern is. Until then, I’ll remember not to take such stingy optimism personally.”
No one spoke to me like that. I was Zedekiah Lazaro Salvatore, Deirdre O’Shea and Brando Salvatore’s firstborn. Boston fucking royalty, king of the soccer field, and prince of the city’s Italian criminal underworld. People kissed my ass and rolled out the red carpet. They bowed their heads and averted their eyes. Nobody gave me shit. Except Nairne MacGregor, apparently.
I dropped my grip on my jacket to hide the boner her sharp mouth gave me and feigned a smile. “You’ll excuse me.”
Waiting for her polite acknowledgment was out of the question. If I stuck around, she’d know exactly what her sass did to my body. I stormed out, knocked shoulders with someone and muttered an apology, then barreled toward the exit. I wasn’t normally clumsy—both of my professions were predicated on exceptional coordination and hyper-awareness—but I chalked it up to ninety-five percent of my blood gathering in my dick rather than my brain. Finally, I landed outside where I sucked in a breath and oriented myself.
Observing her during the meeting had been torture. Elbow on the table, jotting things down, then setting her pen exactly parallel to the paper’s edge. Precise. Perfectionist. She’d listened while her wide green eyes darted between people as they spoke. Nairne was neurotically observant, cunning even. Watching her gears turning had turned me on. Big time.
She hadn’t spoken much, but when she had, I’d noted her vowels were off. She had an accent, and it wasn’t Southie. I couldn’t place it, and just like her hair that wouldn’t make up its mind between mahogany and rich red, her speech was another wrinkle in my morning. I’d n
ever been this simultaneously annoyed and aroused.
I pushed off the wall and was halfway across the sidewalk when a hand caught me and pinched my hip. My one weak spot. I hated being ticklish. I spun out of it instinctively to figure out if the touch merited fight or flight. I didn’t have the luxury of assuming my safety. Four people knew about that tickle spot. One was dead, two of them I knew for a fact were doing other things right then, which left—
It took all of half a second. My realization came out somewhere between a laugh and a roar.
Molly, Mom’s best friend and my fellow board member. The one who’d kicked me under the table when I questioned Nairne’s credentials.
Her features channeled motherly disapproval. “You didn’t have to be such an ass.”
I shrugged and glanced at my watch. “Molly, put yourself in my shoes. You show up to run your first board meeting, and out of nowhere there’s a twenty-year-old sitting at the other end of the table telling you she’s got your answers for one of Boston’s biggest public health challenges. I just don’t buy it. This shit takes time to learn, hands-on experience.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a man sometimes.”
I laughed again and took her by the elbow. “I’d hope so. Walk with me, I have to get going.”
Molly winced as we crossed traffic amidst honks and blaring horns, but cars stopped as needed, and we made it to the other side in one piece. She turned and faced me as I unlocked my car and threw my armful in the backseat.
