Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(82)

Her face froze. She swiveled away in her chair. “No.”

“It would go great with her sporty, adolescent girl-power schtick.” He squatted down to her eye level and gripped the arm of her chair. “Just one picture. She can email it to us.”

“We’d be implying some kind of endorsement deal we don’t have. No way.”

“So just ask her to wear it on her next jog through the paparazzi. The size of that logo down the arm—nobody could miss it.” He put his hand over hers. “What harm is there in asking? She’s obviously not shy about selling out—”

Bev pulled her hand away. “She is sixteen years old! You make her sound greedy when she’s just a kid way over her head.” Her beautiful eyes gazed into his, wide and distressed. “And it’s all my fault.”

Ah. “For introducing her to your father?”

“Yes! And now—you’ve seen the tabloids. She’s never going to have a normal life. She’ll probably get into drugs and sex and lose all her money to some parasite with a nice smile and it will be all over the news—” She squeezed her lips together and looked furious. More furious than sad.

“And what?”

“And Hilda will be right!”

Confused, Liam moved up into a chair next to her. “Who’s Hilda?”

Bev slapped her hands on the table and began rifling through the sketches. “Forget it. We are not using Annabelle.”

“She’s a friend?” He saw the disgust ripple across Bev’s face and guessed, “No, a co-worker.” Remembering she’d been fired, he nodded his head. “Your boss. Your old boss.”

“How the hell did you guess that?” She shook her head. “I don’t care. What do you think of a hangtag advertising the contoured rise on the yoga pant?”

“You need to stop caring what people think of you.” He reached out and rested his hand over her arm. “People who don’t matter, anyway.”

“She wasn’t honest with me!” Bev said. “I worked for this woman for years and thought I was getting a promotion. I was going to buy a partnership with her with the Fite money. And she fired me because she thought I was too attached to the kids. ‘Like a stage mom,’ she said. That I manipulated them and sucked their natural life force out of them or something. Me! I loved them. I loved them, and I had to say goodbye to every one of them.” Her eyes, glistening with tears, had turned a bright turquoise.

He brushed a tear off her cheekbone with his thumb. He had the urge to find this Hilda bitch and put her out of business. “She didn’t get attached to the kids?”

She brushed his hand away. “She said it was our job to teach, not love.”

“And people left their little kids with this lady?”

“We had dozens on the waitlist.”

“Because of you, I bet. I wonder how long her waitlist is now that you’re gone.”

Through her tears, Bev’s eyes warmed with mischief. “Not very, I hear.” She patted her eyes. “The other teacher and I were friends. We email.”

“So business is suffering without you.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I can easily imagine that.”

“I thought I was a power-hungry bitch. That’s what you said.”

“Power-hungry, yes. Bitch, not so much. Alas.”

“Alas?”

“Otherwise you’d be constantly trying to manipulate me sexually.” He shook his head. “Instead of fearing I was doing the same to you.”

Her eyes got wide.

“Am I right?” He rolled his chair closer, so close he could smell the lemon—he ducked his head and drew her scent into his lungs—in her hair. It must be her shampoo.

Bev drew back a few inches. “I don’t believe you’re trying to manipulate me sexually. Half the time you ignore me.”

“Only half?” He swiveled her chair so their knees were touching. In a swift, determined move he hauled her out of her seat and into his lap.

“Oh!” She struggled, but he wrapped his arms around her waist more tightly, savoring the pressure of her soft ass. “Stop it,” she said. “All kinds of people are around today.”

“I’ve decided to only ignore you a quarter of the time.” He slid his hands up her belly to her breasts and cupped them, stroking and squeezing while his heart pounded against her back.

She wriggled, ripping a groan out of his throat. “I admit I find you very hard to resist, but—” she pried his fingers loose, “—use that twenty-five percent ignoring time now, because if we don’t get this line figured out I won’t be able to sleep at night.”

He let her slip away, took a deep breath, and ran his hand through his hair. “You don’t look like you’re sleeping too well as it is.”

“I just need to get through the next couple of weeks,” she said. “Without letting Fite go out of business.”

Taking a series of deep breaths with his eyes focused on the walls of the conference room instead of her flushed, aroused face, Liam waited for his body to calm down before he got up and went back to his chair on the opposite side of the table. “We won’t let it,” he said. “I won’t let it.”