Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(34)

She stepped inside and frowned at the number plate. Sure enough, one of the middle buttons had been taped over with a square of scrap plastic. Shaking her head, she scraped it off with her fingernail and pushed it, happy to feel the car creak and rise, understanding her. She rolled up the plastic and tape and stuck it in her shoulder bag, feeling powerful as the doors opened into the gleaming wood floored hallway, right in front of the glass door to her grandfather’s lair.

Lair. She needed to think of a name for the place. It was hardly an office, with all those toys in it. She pulled out the set of keys she’d acquired the day before—a fist-sized wad—but the door was already open.

Reclining in a leather recliner with his back to the door, Liam had a phone to his ear, his feet up on the window, and didn’t bother to look over when Bev came in and dropped her bag next to him on the floor.

“Good morning, Liam.”

He didn’t move except to tilt the phone closer to his ear. “That’s shit. We can’t hold production that long.”

Bev waited, knowing it was the first of many attempts to put her in her place. She looked at her watch. Maybe she could go get her coffee, fortify herself, buy some time.

“Tell him to call me before lunch or forget it.” He leaned back and shoved the phone into his pocket. Chewing his lip, he frowned at the city.

“I was just going to get coffee,” Bev said. “Would you like to join me?” Getting out of the building would help diffuse some of his cockiness. Get him off his home turf.

“Venti cappucino. I’ll be in my office.” He got up and walked out the door, Bev staring after him.

Then she laughed. So that’s how he was going to play it.

She would go along for now, see how badly he wanted to fight her. She walked back out of the building to the café on the corner, added a ginger-spiced muffin for him, and returned to his office with a tray balanced in the crook of her arm. The door was closed, so she knocked. Waited, knocked again.

Finally, he shouted, “Come in!” and Bev went in, tray in hand.

There, sitting around the conference table at the far end, a large group of smirking, well-dressed people stared at her, at the dorky owner who had apparently been sent for coffee like an entry-level design flunky.

Only one person didn’t look over. Liam, at the head of the table, was absorbed with an orange track jacket he was holding at arm’s length.

Feeling her face get warm, Bev gripped the tray in her hands and made herself walk across the floor to him. She hadn’t met most of these people yet, these cool-looking young women with perfect makeup and exposed, toned upper arms. Some of them looked away, lips pressed together, while others glued their eyes on Liam to see what he would do next. From the tension in the air, Bev figured they all knew who she was.

With each long, awkward step across the room, Bev tried to remember the details of all the mean-girl teen movies she’d seen over the years to decide her best next move. The hostility came in waves off one woman she’d met on the tour—Rachel, with the gray tape across her cubicle opening—and worse, shimmering with her enjoyment of Bev’s situation. Two women at the opposite end gaped at her feet like they’d never seen Danskos before.

One woman began to laugh, barely trying to hide it. The sound of her amusement crawled up Bev’s spine like a sleek, poisonous spider.

Bev wondered what Liam was planning next: the coffee wasn’t right, artificial sweeteners were metabolically damaging, the muffin wasn’t low-carb, there wasn’t an available seat so could you please go get us a few more chairs?

She stopped walking, balanced the tray in one arm, and pulled out her cell phone with a shaking hand. She pretended to study it, pushed a button, then looked up. “Excuse me, everyone, but I’ll have to delay our introduction a little longer,” she said, forced a smile. “Liam, you can catch up with me later.” Then she turned around on her heel and marched out of the room, still carrying the coffee in one hand and pretending to answer the phone in the other.

Instead of the elevator she hurried into the stairwell and ran up the stairs, the cardboard tray listing to one side, and reached her executive suite winded and shaking.

Maybe clogs weren’t going to cut it in this business. She looked down. She was in another black suit, which that morning had felt like firm authority but now felt like suburban dentist. She went over to her desk and set down the tray, picked up her coffee, and gulped it down hot. She would not fight Liam head-on. She would not. There were better ways—quieter, gentler ways—of—of—

Of what? What was she doing?

She sat down. She was taking over the company. Not just playing around, she really wanted to do it. She would do it.

She reached over, picked up Liam’s cappuccino, and sucked that one down too.

Now she could think. With her veins pumping caffeine and her nerves straining like rubber bands, Bev paced the office and worked through her options. First, she would not fire anyone. Secretly she thought that was why her grandfather had chosen her, because she would find a way for everyone to get along. Second, she would learn everything about everybody in the company and choose one of them as her right-hand woman. Or man, though she hadn’t seen many of those. Which brought her to her third point: she would stop thinking about Liam.

No, first she would stop thinking about Liam.

She sat down and stared out at the vent pipes on the neighboring rooftops, thinking about Liam. About the way he’d looked, his hair slightly damp like he’d just come out of the shower. How his dress shirt fitted his shoulders. The hint of guilt in his eyes while he was trying to put her down, that he probably didn’t think she could see.