Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(86)

“I see,” she gasped. Not directly. He’d never even met her. She put her hand over her mouth, ashamed of the fantasy of an old man having faith in her, feeling like an idiot. He wouldn’t have given Fite to the nicest person in the family if he thought she’d actually be crazy enough to keep it.

“I’ve admitted my weaknesses. How about you?” He pushed the garment rack aside. “Are you ready to admit you just wanted a little fun with the gold medalist? Use him to advance your career? Save your pride? Or are you going to claim to be in love with me—like a really good girl would be?”





Chapter 21

Liam didn’t think she would answer. But they were on a runaway train and, like it or not, they were going to say worse things than had already been said, tumble off the tracks, burst into flames, and fall apart.

Her eyes were turquoise again. The tears she’d been fighting highlighted the green under the blue. He swam in them, lost and angry, wishing they’d separated for the night hours ago before they got so tired they began telling the truth.

“I could love you, Liam.” Bev crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s the problem.”

Definitely should have gone home hours ago.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.”

“What?”

“That’s just what you’re telling yourself.”

“You—you have no idea what I’m feeling.”

“I think I do.”

“The first moment I saw you I knew I had to be careful around you. That I’d get all stupid about you.”

“Ah,” he said. “The first moment you saw me. Emphasis on seeing. That’s not love.” He gave her a look. “It has a name, but nice girls wouldn’t admit to it. It’s too crude. Too shallow.”

“You think I’m blinded by your good looks?”

“No, I think you’re extremely aware of my good looks.”

“You exaggerate your charms.”

“We’re only talking about how I look. If I believed you wanted the real me, the Liam who never deserved a gold medal or to be a fashion exec, then I’d—” he stopped himself, because the image of a long future with Bev in it flashed before his eyes, and he lost his breath.

“You’d what?”

Bev sleeping. Bev cooking. Bev jumping up and down. Bev laughing. Bev naked. Bev eating. Bev everything.

She frowned at him. “It’s more than your looks,” she said, but he was lost in the silent movie playing in his head, and her voice sounded far away.

It was funny that the first time he discovered he cared more about a woman than she did about him, it would be when he could do nothing about it. She was too smart to believe him. Too cautious—like he was. Used to be.

“What if I told you I wanted us to date, like normal people, and see what happened,” he said slowly. “What would you say?”

Her eyes widened. While he waited, not breathing, a cloud of emotions drifted across her face—then settled on unwary. “But we work together.”

“At the top of a privately held organization. Held by you, as a matter of fact.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Liam, it’s late. We’re both exhausted, we’re under a lot of stress—”

“Is that a no?”

“To dating? You mean, openly? With everyone knowing?”

His temper was warring with his pride. “Yes.”

“And then what?”

“Then what, when?”

“When—when we have problems everyone will know,” she said. “It will be harder than it is already to manage people. To get things done.”

A strange feeling came over him, like the nausea before a big meet. He could almost feel his toes curling over the starting block, waiting for the gun to pop, knowing his father was already cursing him out from the stands, that his mother was smiling and trying to rein in his father, that he didn’t have to endure any of it if he had the guts.

If he had the guts he’d refuse to play the game he’d been shoved into. He could make his own rules. Find another way to win.

He looked into her big blue eyes and managed a smile, even though his stomach twisted. “If I didn’t work here would you turn me down?” He stepped closer to her. “Knowing me as you do, with all my faults, would you want to see how far we could go with each other?”

She waved aside his question with a joke. “We’ve gone pretty far already.”

“You know what I mean. You said you could love me, remember.” He managed to keep his voice hard, but he’d never felt so soft in his life.

“It’s more than just us, Liam. More than me. You can’t leave Fite now—you’re—you’re essential.”

“To Fite, or to you?”

She glanced away, then into his face, and smiled. “To me.” Then, while his walls were down, she added, “I never would have survived this long here without you.”

Insult to injury, he thought, chiding himself for being pathetic, for letting himself sink so deep, for still not being able to tell her off and walk away while he still had his pride.

“So if you had a choice between coming home with me tonight, and tomorrow night, and maybe the night after,” he lifted his hand to her soft, creamy cheek, “versus only seeing me at work . . . you’d choose the latter?”