by Kreig, K. L.
Um…I passed and I may have been awkwardly, covertly glancing at them ever since, wondering…
But despite, or maybe even because of her directness, I like Emma, and she’s been my godsend this week.
After only two days of training, Connie’s water broke at work and just three hours later she had a happy, healthy baby boy, whom they’d named Roberto, after her husband’s side of the family. He was like the tenth Roberto or something like that. And what woman has their first baby in three hours? I would never get that lucky. Not that I’ll get the chance.
“Did you see the pictures of little Roberto? Isn’t he so adorable? And all that black hair! It’s so thick, it looks like he needs a haircut already.”
“Yeah, he’s very beautiful.” A little pang of sadness and envy rushes hot through my veins. Sadness at what was taken from me. Envy for what I’ll never have. Because of a monster. My face must have fallen, because I feel a hand on my shoulder and when I focus back on Emma, hers is etched with concern.
“Are you okay, Livia?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
She smiles, but it’s one of sympathy. “How about lunch today?”
I sigh. “I can’t, Emma. I have to get the status on a few patents, file Mr. Nichols’ expense reports, which are late, and try to duplicate last quarter’s presentation for the board meeting next week. Connie was trying to finish all of that before she had the baby, but never got a chance to show me what to do or where to pull the information from.” And on top of all that, PowerPoint isn’t my best skill.
Carrying three plates on each arm? Piece of cake.
Selecting a nice bottle of Sangiovese or Chenin Blanc to complement your mahi mahi? Bring it on.
Importing a document, making graphs and ensuring all fonts are nicey-nice and lined up properly? Not so much. And for some reason, I am reluctant to admit I need help.
“Okay, but if you need anything, please let me know. Don’t try to take it all on yourself. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks, Emma. You’ve been great.”
Emma starts to walk away when she spins back around and says “Oh!” so loud, I thought she’d hurt herself. “I forgot, it’s thirsty Thursday at Gil’s. One-dollar pitchers with a ten-dollar cover. All night long. A few of us usually go after work for dinner and a few pitchers. Join us. You can get to know some of the others.”
I internally sigh. I don’t drink much or make many friends. Friends just ask too many personal questions. While I’ve somewhat perfected my story, every once in a while a question comes up that I don’t have a pre-formulated answer to, and I’ll have to add another lie on top of the already hefty pile. And remember it. I’m something of a subject matter expert at winging it now. But it’s easier to just stick to my short story and stay to myself. Kamryn and Addy know I have secrets, but neither of them pry. Most others don’t take a hint so well.
“I’m going to have to work late on this Emma. It’s the first big meeting I’ve been involved in, and I don’t want to make Mr. Nichols look bad. But ask me again.” Or not. If I turn people down enough, they simply stop asking. It’s a lonely life, but one I’ve accepted. Even embraced.
“Okay. But I’m going to hold you to that, girlie.”
I simply smile as she bounces away, her girls practically slapping her in the chin.
Then I get back to work. Because if I don’t figure this shit out, and fast, I’ll not only be working late tonight, I’ll be here every single night until next Friday’s board meeting.
Then I may just end up saying yes to Gil’s thirsty Thursday dollar pitchers.
Chapter 5
“Well, fucking look harder. She’s here. I saw her with my own goddamned eyes.” I’m about ready to go through the phone and strangle this incompetent asshole.
“I’ll keep trying,” Burt sputters.
“She has to have a goddamned driver’s license, Burt.”
“No, sir. She has an expired license from Michigan.”
Fuck.
“Did you try the guest list from the fundraiser? She was there, so she had to have purchased a ticket.” Once again, she’d just vanished. Like fog. One minute, there and the next…gone.
“I already did that. There was no Livia Kingsley on the guest list. Is it possible she changed her last name?”
Was that possible? I’d been so struck with both shock and relief at seeing her alive that I didn’t even check her left hand for a ring. The thought of another man touching what was mine made me feel murderous. The thought that she would let another man touch her made me violently ill.
Yes, I know I'm a goddamn hypocrite.
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. Get me the security footage of the fundraiser. She was with a woman that night. If we can identify her, then we can track Livvy down.” I should have cornered that woman after Livvy ran, but she spent the rest of the night attached at the hip to a wealthy man I’d recognized from other events. And he looked like he’d take out anyone who came near the beautiful blonde.
“On it. It will take a few days and probably some Benjamins.”
“I don’t fucking care what it costs. You get me that goddamn tape and you track down this blonde friend of hers or I assure you, you will never work in this city again. It cannot be that hard to find one woman. Jesus!”
“Yes, sir.”
I slam down the phone just as Ash walks through my door, but my thoughts are distracted by the news that Livvy’s father died three years ago from pancreatic cancer, and the house that was once his now belongs to a young married couple with a baby on the way. I’ve tried Livvy’s sister, Alyse, twice with no return phone call. I’m about ready to get into my car and drive to Detroit to track her down and make her tell me where Livvy is.
“Looks like a week hasn’t improved your mood any,” he says as he saunters in uninvited and flops in the chair across from my desk.
“Did we have a meeting?” I snip.
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on with you, Gray? You’ve been a class A prick for the last three weeks.”
I lean back in my black leather desk chair just as Conn pops his head in. “Am I late?” he asks. He glides in and shuts the door behind him.
I take a quick look at my daily calendar and see I have a meeting scheduled with Jake Campbell, the CEO of HMT Enterprises right now. “As much as I’d love to sit and gossip about my feelings and shit, I have a meeting with Jake right now.”
Conn grabs the other free chair across from my desk and takes a seat, getting comfortable like it’s a fucking barbecue and I should hand him a beer. “No, you don’t. I had Bonnie put that on there because I knew you wouldn’t take a meeting with us since you’ve been avoiding both of us all week.”
Fuckers. He was right, but still. My temper flares.
“What is this? Some sort of goddamn intervention?” I spit. I love my younger brothers deeply, but they can be a pain in the ass sometimes. They constantly stick their noses in my personal business.
When Livvy first disappeared, my brothers were my rocks. Hell, Ash nearly single-handedly pulled me back from the brink of self-destruction when I was drinking myself to death. Or trying to.
After a year dragged by, they each tried their hand at setting me up on blind dates in hopes that I would move on, but I shut that shit down right quick. Ash’s taste in women runs a little edgier than I like, and Conn runs through them faster than a high-speed paper shredder. God knows his dick had probably been in half the women he tried setting me up with. After the countless women I’d fucked in my drunken stupor that I didn’t even remember, I was now more selective about who I spent my limited time with.
“See what I mean?” I heard Ash say. “You talk to him and he just zones out, like there’s a fucking carnival going on in his head. If he does that at the board meeting next week; that will not be good.”
“Nothing is wrong,” I pipe up. “Jesus, stop being so damn melodramatic, Ash. I thought yo
u gave up acting in like the ninth grade.”
“Hey, I told you that was just a phase, asshole. Jesus, let it go already.”
“Not a chance in hell,” I chuckle. Asher hated it when we brought up his “theatre days.” He played Putzie, one of the lesser—or should I say unknown—members of the T-Birds in the ninth grade musical Grease. To this day, we’ll still randomly plant pictures of birds, or crudely cut “T’s” in his car or his apartment or a meeting folder. But we stopped calling him Putz a few years ago when he planted me on my ass with a wicked right hook.
“Ash is right, brother,” Conn interrupted, veering us back to their misguided path. “You’ve been moody, short-tempered and very distracted. You’re usually nose-to-the-grindstone non-stop. Camille told me you’ve missed two meetings with her over the last three weeks.”
Shit. Camille is my head of Human Resources. Bonnie is retiring in only a few short weeks and I need to find a new assistant. Fast. Half of me is in denial. Bonnie has been with me since I started working at my father’s company over six years ago. She knows me inside and out. She knows my style and she anticipates my needs. She’s simply a treasure and will be impossible to replace. I even tried bribing her with a huge pay increase to stay, but her husband retired last year and has been pestering her to do the same so they can travel and spend more time with their kids and grandkids.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Well, you’re going to be admin-less if you don’t get your shit together. And you can’t have mine,” Conn quipped. Conn’s assistant is a young, voluptuous hottie that I’m quite sure my brother only hired because she has a healthy set of DD’s that she readily puts on display. I warned him against tapping that, but I highly doubt he took my advice. Conn has a hard time keeping the one-eyed snake in his pants around any beautiful woman. And with his rough, magazine-cover good looks, he has no issues landing them.
“What gives, Gray? If you can’t talk to us, who can you talk to?” Conn asks me softly, genuine concern creasing his forehead.
I silently stand and walk the short distance to the window, putting my back to them. For some reason, I’m unable to look at their faces when I tell them that I’ve found her again, and this time I’m not going to give her up. They will not be happy and they will not be supportive. Livvy not only broke my heart, she broke my spirit, and my brothers were left behind to pick up the bloody, shattered pieces as best as they could. She changed me. Not for the better. I can’t bear to see their disapproval when I tell them I plan to hunt her down and make her mine again.
“I saw Livvy at a fundraiser a few weeks ago. I think she’s living in Chicago. I’ve hired a private detective to find her.”
Ash stood up so fast, the chair he was sitting on went flying behind him. “What the fuck, Gray! That bitch ruined your life!”
Now I do turn back around, and the look of rage on my face makes my little brother freeze, but my calm, icy voice is even more menacing. “If you call her that again, I can assure you that your pretty face won’t look so fucking pretty after I get through beating the shit out of you. Try explaining that at the board meeting, brother.”
At six feet two inches, both of my brothers are the same height, but I tower above them by a good two inches and at least twenty pounds of solid muscle, thanks to the time I put in with my personal trainer three times a week. I can take Ash down easily and he knows it. Over the last couple of years, Conn has put on quite a bit more muscle, but I still think I could take him if he pushes me.
And they know I’m not blowing smoke up their asses with my threat.
Ash laughs, and some of the tension fizzles. “Is this going to be another repeat of Penny James?”
Penny James was the last girl we got into physical blows over. When I was a freshman in college, unbeknownst to either Asher or I, Penny started dating us both. But while the cat is away, the mice will play. Turns out it didn’t matter which Colloway brother she was fucking, as long as she wormed her way into one of our hearts…and our wallets.
It all came to a head when I came home for Christmas break. Penny said she had some family obligation and Ash was out on a date. Let’s just say things got pretty heated on Vincent and DuPaul streets when I saw them walking out, hand in hand, on my way into Rizz’s Tavern across from the diner they were leaving. Ash ended up with a broken nose and a cracked tooth and pretty healthy shiner for about two weeks. Last I heard, Penny had filed for her third divorce.
“You’re not fucking Livvy are you?” Of course, I knew he wasn’t, but if I thought another man’s hands on my woman had my vision turning a hazy, violent red, the thought of one of my brothers’ hands on her made me homicidal.
“Jesus Christ, Gray. You need to get ahold of yourself, man. After what she did to you, if I ever see her again, fucking her is the last thing I’ll do,” Ash bellowed.
“We’re just worried about you, Gray. She destroyed you before,” Conn said.
“I know,” I sigh, sitting back down. “There is no possible way I can make either of you understand.” Conn had a thing for a girl way back in high school, but nothing serious since then, and Ash had his heart stomped on by the woman he was about to propose to, so he’s pretty cynical about relationships in general. I’m not sure either of them could possibly understand the bone-deep love I have for this woman. She’s part of me, surely as if she’s been woven into my own flesh. Neither of them had yet met the woman who breathed the very life into their lungs. I had.
“Did you talk to her at the fundraiser?” Conn asked cautiously. I knew where this was going.
“Briefly.”
Ash and Conn looked at each other knowingly, and I knew exactly what they were thinking. I was thinking the same thing, which is why I agonized over calling Burt. If she wanted to talk to me, she would have given me her phone number. She wouldn’t have run. I wouldn’t have had to hire a private detective to track her ass down. And if she really wanted me, she would have found me. Hell, she never would have left me to begin with.
I know this. I know it all. And I don’t give a shit. There is something bigger going on here. I feel it seething in my gut. Even more deeply than the day she left me. I’m going to find out what the hell it is, because while Livvy’s lips told me she wouldn’t see me, her body, and more importantly, her eyes, didn’t relay that same lie.
The moment I touched her, I heard her breath hitch. I saw the flush of desire on her fair skin, and there was no mistaking the lust and longing in her expressive emerald eyes. I know, because she had the same effect on me. Her feeble attempt at cool and aloof fell flat on its face.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Gray,” Ash sighed as he stood to leave.
“I do.” What I don’t add is too. Thankfully they both depart without another word. I understand their concern because if the roles were reversed, I’m pretty sure I would react the same way. The Colloway brothers are enormously protective of one another.
My cell rings. It’s Lena. I roll my eyes, not answering. I normally didn’t keep women around as long as I had Lena. I never should have let this thing with her go on as long as it did, but quite frankly, I’ve gotten lazy. I’m tired of trying to find new women to sate my needs. It’s not particularly easy finding a mentally stable, somewhat intelligent, attractive woman who wants a no-strings relationship.
But now that Livvy was back, I wasn’t going to have to go through that process anymore. Because, unbeknownst to her, that woman would be her. But there would be so many fucking strings attached, she’d never get untangled this time. Just as soon as that incompetent PI finds her.
Livvy is hiding something, or behind something, but come hell or high water, I will find out what it is. I will incinerate it. I will obliterate any and every barrier that stands between us and the happiness we deserve.
Because out of everything that I saw that night at the fundraiser, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I saw love still swimming in her teary eyes as she turned and fled.
> Chapter 6
He’s on one knee in front of me and I can’t breathe. I can’t hear anything through the roar of blood rushing like Niagara Falls in my ears. I watch his mouth move. I watch him pull out a fancy jewelry box from his coat pocket and open it. I watch a lone tear slowly streak down his cheek.
Then I’m on the ground with him, throwing my arms around his neck, whispering yes, yes, yes and kissing him everywhere my mouth can reach.
I don’t care that we’re in public, kneeling on the dingy, greasy floor of Rocky’s. The only thing I see is the man I love with every fiber of my being. The only thing I hear is him murmuring words of undying love in my ear. The only thing I feel is his strong, comforting arms cradling me tightly to his hard, sinewy body. A body that I want more than anything else at the moment.
“Take me home and make love to me,” I beg. I don’t want to be here anymore and I don’t know if I can wait the half hour drive to his apartment before he sinks inside of me. In fact, I know I can’t.
Standing, I take his hand and drag him from the floor, quickly walking through the restaurant to the Employees Only area, which I can easily access because I work here. Pushing the door open and pulling him through with me, I shut and lock it and pull his mouth to mine on a groan, turning our bodies so his back presses against the door. I fumble with his belt buckle as I break our kiss and trail my lips eagerly down his neck.
“What are you doing, angel?” he rasps, his breathing erratic.
“I need you in my mouth. Right now.” I now had his jeans pulled down his thighs and was already on my knees in front of him, sinking his throbbing cock impatiently between my lips. The taste of his pre-come had me moaning, taking him deep.
“Christ, Livvy. You suck me so good.” His hips push forward, and his hand threads tightly through my hair. I look up to snare his hooded, desire-filled eyes with mine. “Harder, angel,” he demands. When I increase my pressure, his eyes break contact with mine and roll back as his head falls against the wood. “Fuck, yes. Just like that.”
