Over a horizon of white fur, she gazed at him with softening eyes. “Thanks.”
Something inside him struggled against its rusty restraints. His conscience. When she tilted her head to stroke her cheek slowly along the cat’s back, he suddenly imagined her doing the same to him, in bed.
He turned his head away so quickly he sloshed the water into his lap.
“Oh,” she said. “Let me get you a towel.”
“No, it’s fine—”
But she was already up and heading for the kitchen, her round ass swaying out of sight. Thank God.
“Don’t worry,” he said when she returned. “It didn’t get on the leather.” Just on his best pants. He scowled at the dark spot.
The interruption had broken the spell, and she didn’t sit down again. “You might as well go, Liam. Whatever you wanted, you’ll have to talk to Ellen about now.”
“You’re probably right.” He got to his feet. “But humor me. Are you hungry? Let me take you out to dinner. My dime.” In her apartment, she looked entirely too cocooned to take risks.
She hesitated. “I’ve already eaten.”
“A drink, then. Coffee, tea, beer, whatever you want.”
“What I want is to be alone.” She leaned over and stroked her cat, now a fuzzy ball in the corner of the sofa. He wondered if it was real. “It’s been a long day.”
How could he make his offer in a way that would appeal to her financial needs as well as her family loyalty? Which, surprisingly, she seemed to have. “I have a better deal for you than Ellen—”
“Her deal is plenty.”
He held up his hand, “—and it’s not just a wad of cash.” His brain struggled for the magic word. “It’s security.”
“Wads of cash can provide quite a bit of security.”
“For now, maybe,” he said. “But they have a nasty habit of shrinking. Really quickly.”
“I’m not extravagant.”
He glanced around her apartment. “No, but you’d like to be, wouldn’t you?” He stepped closer to her and noticed how tall she was. “You’ve obviously got great taste. Wouldn’t it be nice to use it properly?”
Eyes narrowing, she stepped back. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me.”
“Instead of a single payout, I’m offering you a salary, a share in the profits, a future.” He smiled as warmly as he could. “Which is what your grandfather wanted, I’m sure.”
“Everyone has a theory about that. One that’s convenient for them.” She waved her hand. “Besides, the company’s on the rocks. My little visit was enough to see that. A share in zero profits is zero.”
That was what he’d expected to hear from the start, so he was prepared. “Fite has hit rock bottom, but we’re still here, and can only get stronger with Ellen out of the way. Ed exaggerated the company’s problems to keep the staff from spending his money or expecting raises, bonuses, special treatment.”
“Like functional lighting?”
“Exactly. He liked the psychological effect. Felt it kept everyone on their toes.”
“Jesus. My mother was right. What a miser.”
He gritted his teeth, offended she’d insulted a man he had loved, the one who had just left her his life’s work. “I’ve been Ed’s EVP for years now and have the perspective you lack. Give it some time. I was going to suggest you keep your current job, but since that sudden change in circumstance, I’ll just say that you now have the leisure to find another one that suits you best. Without any time pressure.”
“You’d pay me a salary even if I had another job? Hundreds of miles away?”
“Not me—Fite,” he said, encouraged. “And as owner, you’d have your hands on the profits, too. Not just now, but for years to come—and I assure you, there will be profits. Perhaps not this year, but soon. You’re young now, but someday you’re going to want to retire and have—”
“Hold on,” she said. “All this, for doing nothing?”
“Not for nothing. For the company.”
Her face was blank. “Just because you don’t want Ellen in charge. Is that right?”
“Your aunt may have wonderful qualities,” he said, though unable to think of any, “but managing a business is not one of them. I don’t think she’ll be able to hold on to the company for more than six months, even if she wanted to.”
“Unlike you?”
“Or many, many other people.”
“How about me?” A hard gleam came into her eyes. “You’re happy enough to have me at the top.”
He had to be careful here. “Your grandfather must have left it to you for a reason.”
“And you think that had to be so you could remain in control, right? Because a stupid little preschool teacher would be easy to push around?”
“I have no opinion whatsoever about your intelligence,” he said, then paused to regret how unflattering that sounded, “or about your career. But let’s be realistic. You need the money, and Fite needs . . . to not have Ellen in charge—”
“You almost said, ‘Fite needs me.’ That’s what you mean, all of this. You’re the big important guy and without you, the company will burst into flames and everyone will be out of a job—”
“No.” His own temper flared in response to hers. “This is not about me. It’s about Fite.”
“Please.” She stalked over to the door and jerked it open. “Get out. It’s been a long, horrible day and you are now leaving.”
“Beverly—”
“Get out of my home.”
She’d never listen to him while she was so angry, so he moved over to the door and stopped just before he was out in the hallway. “I’m sorry for whatever I said that offended you. But what you’re doing is not in either of our best interests. Or Fite’s. The company is filled with real people who are going to suffer if Ellen—”
“Out.” She placed her palm in the center of his chest and began to push. “She’s not that bad.”
He was momentarily distracted by the pressure of her hand through his shirt. “All she knows how to do is fire people. She keeps a hit list in her desk—”
One unexpectedly powerful shove, and he was in the hallway. “Goodbye, Liam Johnson,” she said. “If I were in charge I’d be tempted to fire you, too.”
And then she was gone.
He glared at the closed door, heard the clicks and thumps of multiple dead bolts, and cursed himself for screwing that up so badly, not even sure what had set off her temper. Just like her aunt after all, all short-sighted emotion. If she just took a moment to think about what he’s said instead of just flying off the handle, she would see he was right.
Damn. Not that it mattered now. She’d signed the papers. It was just a matter of days.
He better get back up to San Francisco tonight to start warning the staff.
Bev carried her tray with its taco and tiny plastic cups from the salsa bar to a table near the front window. She chose an outward-facing seat so she could admire the strip mall parking lot with her getaway car while her father got a burrito.
Although Anderson Lewis was a marketing executive in Hollywood, he avoided trendy restaurants. Except when he was with Andy, of course—her older brother. He had followed in their dad’s footsteps so completely, working ten times as hard as was healthy and earning twenty times as much as Bev, so that if he made time to eat, it damn well wouldn’t be El Cheapo Taqueria off I-5 in Buena Park. And Anderson Sr. wouldn’t expect him to.
She sucked iced tea through a straw and fought back despair. No job, no hope of one for six or more months, and that arrogant jock had made her feel unclean about taking money from Fite. Stay out of the way, little girlie. Here’s a cookie. Sit over there and don’t interrupt.
Liam’s patronizing attitude had inflamed the hunger she’d been feeling to make something bigger of herself. To be in charge, making decisions and taking risks.
If anyone would understand that hunger it would be her father. Worried about her future, disgusted with h
er poverty, he’d been after her to get an MBA for years. A real job. Use her brains for evil, he liked to say, only half-joking.
He walked over to her, humming to himself and carrying his tray with one hand while he returned his wallet to the back pocket of his dark-wash jeans. He was tall and big-boned, like Bev, but with the sinewy physique of a fifty-year-old man who never watched TV unless he was on a treadmill.
“Since when don’t you return your own father’s calls?” he asked. “You’d think I was trying to sell you an indie picture about skin disease in a third world country.”
“Sorry, Dad. It’s been crazy.”
“Crazy.” He snorted and frowned at the foil-wrapped log on his plate. “Crazy is this thing on my plate. It’s bigger than your head.”
If Bev ever argued with her father, she would have pointed out the restaurant was his idea. “Do you want to switch?” She offered him her taco.
“That the pollo or the carne?”
“Carne.”
“Can’t,” he said, brow furrowed. His third wife, Tia, was in charge of what he was allowed to eat, a moving target of restrictions and obscure supplements that only she could remember. “Is it good?”
“Don’t know yet.” She took a bite and couldn’t resist smiling. “It is. You sure you can’t—”
His face stretched longer. “No, I promised. That’s what you get for marrying somebody from Santa Monica.”
And somebody a third his age, she wanted to add. “So, you heard about my grandfather.”
“Of course I heard about him. Both your brother and sister called me to complain about it as soon as they heard.” He pierced his burrito with a plastic knife and began to saw. “You’re still sulking about Tia.”
She stopped chewing. “I’m what?”
“You never liked her. I’m supposed to say, that’s your prerogative, give agency to your pain or some bullshit, but I won’t. She’s part of the family now, so get over it.”
Bev put down the taco. Anderson had been married three times. Twice in the past ten years, both to women in their early twenties. His second wife had lasted three years, the marriage ending when she got pregnant by an anesthesiologist from Las Vegas. Tia, his new wife, already had two children of her own from two previous relationships, neither of their fathers lasting more than the gestation period, and loved to talk about when she and Anderson would finally have children of “their own.”
Given her father’s terrible taste in women, Bev was understandably prejudiced against anyone he liked. But this time, her reluctance to talk to him had nothing to do about his love life. “I didn’t get back to you because I didn’t want to argue.”
“I never argue.”
She snorted. “I knew what you would say, and I’d already made my decision. But now I’m not so sure.”
He stuck the fork in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“About the company. Taking the money instead of moving up there.”
“You think I’d want you to move to San Francisco?” He stared at her, his cheeks bulging with burrito. “You mean, to work in the fashion business?”
She hesitated. “You never did think much of my chosen career—”
“Career? Oh, you mean the little kid thing?”
“See?” She tried to roll her taco back together. “You’ve always wanted me to go corporate. Devote myself to making money.”
“Nothing wrong with making a living,” he said. “Which is why you shouldn’t try to rescue a struggling business you know nothing about.”
She gave up on the taco and put her hands in her lap. “I thought you’d pressure me to give it a shot.”
“Hardly. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck being an underpaid babysitter for the rest of your life. I don’t think you like kids as much as you think you do,” he said. “At least, not other people’s kids. Maybe you’ll change your mind when you have kids of your own, I don’t know. How the fuck—excuse me—how the hell would I know. I’m not a goddamn shrink.”
His face always got red when he was upset, which was much of the time, one of the reason’s Bev avoided him. Nothing she said seemed to prevent an argument. Her thoughts scrambled back over his words. “You don’t think I could do it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re considering it?” He wiped a stream of salsa off his chin. “Listen, Bev, Ed Roche was one class-A manipulative jerk. Pardon me speaking ill of the dead, but he was. If he left his company to you, it wasn’t for anyone’s benefit but his own. He had no reason to benefit you in particular, so you can be sure it’s something you’d be better off without.”
She lifted her iced tea. “Why wouldn’t he have any reason to benefit me in particular?” She tried not to be offended to hear him say nearly the exact same thing she’d told Liam.
He looked at her in surprise. “You think he got sentimental in his old age.” He gave a dismissive snort and lifted his drink. “You know what he did the day your brother was born? His first grandchild?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“Look, Dad, I’m not saying he was some big, loving guy—”
“And then you were born. The great man sent a card,” he said. “For your birthday, two and a half years later.”
“I’m not defending him,” she said, though she was. “People change. Especially in their old age.”
He grimaced. Anderson Lewis was hostile to reminders of his own mortality. “You might think that’s no big deal now since you don’t have children of your own. But some day you will—” She opened her mouth and he waved his hand between them. “—And if you don’t, it’ll be a damn waste.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
He raised one white eyebrow and shoved a large bite into his mouth. “My point is, your grandfather did have children, which should have triggered some human feeling. But no. The year before your mother and I started, uh, dating,” he said, “your grandmother died. He'd never been much of a father, working all the time, but it got worse. I’m sure that’s what drove your mother to chase after some poor dope who didn't even know she was in high school.” He flicked his temple with an index finger. “Then she got pregnant. Barely seventeen, her mother recently dead, and Daddy kicks her out of the house. Of course I had to take care of her. And then two kids. She never forgave him.”
It was never easy to hear the same, bitter story. Too young and poor to start a family, her parents had divorced before Bev was in preschool.
“What happened with Ellen? Everyone talks about her like she's pure evil or something, but she was even younger than Mom.”
“Took her father's side. Called Gail a slut, hid in her room, didn't unlock the front door.”
“But she was just a teenager,” Bev said.
Her father shrugged. “Whole family loves to nurse a grudge.”
Sadly, it was true. Bev didn't understand it—why fight with the only family you'd ever have? “He left me a picture of my grandmother, through the lawyer.”
“Sounded like a nice lady,” Anderson said. “I bet he didn’t appreciate her any more than he appreciated your mother, or you and Andy.”
Or Kate, she thought, though Anderson didn’t know Bev’s half-sister very well. “But he did leave her the house. And, of course, left me the company.”
He dropped the remains of his burrito on the plate. “And for Andy? The one who could actually do something with a business? No, Bev. He was just stirring up trouble, probably to teach Ellen a lesson. Make her work for it a little harder. If he could have figured out a way to prevent you from profiting in the end, he would have.”
Bev looked away, out to the parking lot where a woman was strapping a pug into an infant car seat. “Why do you think I couldn’t do it?”
“Know what? I’m getting Andy on the phone.” He pulled out his cell and slid his thumb over the screen. “First you’re mad because you think I want you to go into business, and now you�
�re mad I don’t.”
“I just wonder why you think I can’t. Like it’s totally impossible or something.”
He wasn’t listening. “Sorry to bother you, son. Got Bev here. She’s having delusions of grandeur. Fashion executive. Yeah, I know—” he paused, listening, and raised his eyebrows at Bev. “She’s sitting right in front of me.” He held out the phone.
Bev frowned and made no move to take it. “I didn’t say that.”
Anderson jabbed the phone at her. “Listen to your brother.”
Listen, not talk. She took it. “Hi Andy.” A couple years older, Andy had grown up cheerfully protecting her from all the insults and disappointments of life. She’d been quiet and sensitive; he’d been loud and tough. They were a balanced pair. Sometimes it had worked too well, locking them into habits with each other that were hard to change.
“Hey,” Andy said. “Are you nuts?”
“Dad’s got it all wrong,” she said. “I was only talking about my options.”
“One of those being nuts?”
“Andy,” she said, then raised her voice to be heard over the yelling she heard on her brother’s end of the line. “You sound busy. Dad shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“I thought you liked teaching.”
“Of course I like teaching,” she said. “Dad shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“The fashion industry isn’t as glamorous as it sounds, you know. I know how you love clothes, but apparently it’s not so fun making a living at it.”
“Actually, Andy,” she said, “I’ve been there. Just last week, actually.”
“I heard. I thought you sold out to Ellen.”
She hesitated. “I am—I was—oh, Andy, I don’t know. Some of those people seemed so . . . eager to have an outsider come in.” She turned her thoughts away from one eager person in particular.
Andy snorted. “So you are considering it.”
“I’m not delusional.” She glared at her father on the other side of the table. “I feel guilty. Not about Grandfather, but about everyone in that company. It’s not the happiest place in the world. And you’ve heard the stories about Aunt Ellen.”
He exhaled into the phone. “You’re running away from something. What happened?”
Love Handles (A Romantic Comedy) Page 5
