Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(8)

The ten men and women around the table broke out of their paralysis. The designers mouthed furiously to their assistants to finish putting up the boards, and the assistants—all female—jumped up with their scissors and glue sticks and swatches and tear sheets and tried to look fashionably invincible while everyone stared at their thin, athletic backsides in action.

Darrin, angling for Liam's job like he always did, pretended not to care; he licked a skinny finger and flipped through the pages in Men’s Fitness.

Jennifer, the designer for women’s, stood up and straightened one of the boards. She spent most of her days defending herself from Ellen’s critical oversight, and the strain had begun to make her look closer to forty than the thirty she probably was.

“Green!” She said suddenly, slapping her hand on the board dangling behind her. Everyone jumped. “American native plants, mostly from California. The color story is gold and lupine blue, with lots of small embroideries throughout evoking wildflowers and the natural earth—”

Jennifer continued to rattle on about environmental populism while Liam scanned her presentation board for the new sketches he'd asked for. Satisfied, he tuned out the rest of her speech.

He felt old. It wasn't his body. He was fitter, stronger, faster than he'd ever been—well, maybe not ever, but he was in damn good shape for thirty-three, and didn’t stay up late partying anymore. He was disciplined, but his runs and his lifts were accomplishments of sheer will; he had to drag himself out of bed in the morning and push himself outside in the evenings, as though it just wasn't fun anymore.

“Liam?” Jennifer sounded terrified, and he realized he was scowling again.

He looked down at his hands to rewind the small part of his brain that had been listening to her. “Green is getting old. But it doesn't matter. I've never believed these themes do anything for our bottom line. I know Ed loved the marketing sociology but I don't. From now on, cut the bullshit. Show me the bodies you're cutting and the fabric you're buying and tell me why some woman at Macy's is going to pull Fite off the rack and hand over her plastic.”

Jennifer sat down and propped her hands on the table in front of her, biting her lip. “Because they want something fresh, because they love the idea—”

“To hell with the idea,” Liam said. “People can't afford just an idea anymore. What will we actually give them that they want? The only idea they like right now is not being separated from their money.”

“I think we should rework the fit,” Wendi said, and Jennifer’s lip curled.

“The fit is perfect,” Jennifer said to Liam. “I can’t wear anything else.”

Liam raised an eyebrow. Jennifer looked like she could crush ice between the cheeks of her ass. An undoctored picture of her abs was on the Fite webpage. Her shapely arms could lift Liam over her pretty head and throw him across the San Francisco Bay.

“There have been some complaints—” Wendi began, then drew back when Jennifer snorted. It was good Wendi didn’t work with her anymore.

“From her mother.” Jennifer threw up her hands and shared a smirk with a merchandising assistant. “Wendi’s idea of market research is to take her sixty-year old mom to Target.”

“She's fifty,” Wendi said, “and what's that got to do with anything?”

“She’s not our customer,” Jennifer said.

“She’d like to be.”

Jennifer glanced at the ceiling and sighed. “She’s fat.”

All eyes were on Wendi’s face, now flooded with color and looking dangerously close to saying something fatal in reply. Liam had already saved her job once today; he couldn’t rescue her again without sticking a bull’s-eye on her ass. He held up a hand. “Stop. You’re wasting our time.” He pointed at Darrin. “You’re turn.”

Unusually relaxed, and not just in his typically affected way, Darrin smiled and slowly got to his feet. “Personally, I like ideas. Ed and I were always on the same page on that one.”

Liam didn't let his surprise show on his face. Darrin didn't usually contradict him directly, preferring to skulk about in secret with his many complaints. For him to suddenly claim kinship with the late Ed Roche, whom he loathed with a passion, could only mean one thing.

He thought Liam wasn't worth sucking up to anymore.

“Bring a board, Darrin?” Liam asked. “Or are your ideas too brilliant to actually move into the third dimension?”

“You know what I'm wondering?” Darrin traced his finger along the stack of overlapping boards hanging on the wall. “If Ed wanted Liam to take over, why didn't he go ahead and leave the company to him outright?” And then he smiled at everyone sitting around the table like he was their best friend. A phony, back-stabbing friend with perfect teeth.

The only sound in the room was the rattle of the furnace vent.

Liam cultivated a tired look on his face and crossed his legs. “Didn't finish the board in time again, Darrin?”

Darrin continued to smirk.

“That wasn't a rhetorical question,” Liam said. “Have you got it ready or not?”

Shrugging, Darrin sat down. “You can see it in two hours as planned.”

All eyes darted back and forth between the two of them at either end of the table, waiting to see what Liam would do, which pissed him off more than he was already. He slowly got to his feet. It was past time to make an example of the troublesome prick. And it might make Liam feel better. “Just as well. It'll be easier to look at without you around.”