Love Handles (12 page)

After a couple of minutes the car appeared above them, visible through the grate, jerking and squealing. Liam waited for it to settle before he tugged the cage open. He stepped aside for her to get on first, then climbed in after her and banged the door closed. “Let’s start at the top floor and work our way down.” He held down another button and the elevator lurched and rose.

She tilted her head back to watch the floor above them approach, slowly become level with them, then sink below. He noticed her neck was long and pale and had a faint blue vein pulsing below her jaw. He leaned his shoulder against the car wall as the floors groaned past. “You must love kids, to teach preschool. Aren’t you going to miss them?”

“It’s not just about liking children, like I’m just some glorified babysitter who never wants to grow up.”

He’d found a nerve. Filing that away for future use, he asked, “Who said that?”

She turned aside and watched the next floor appear through the gate. “The education of children, especially young ones, is not highly compensated. Some take this as evidence of its unimportance.”

He tried to remember more about her branch of the family. Hollywood types, lots of money. Not the kind to live in a dumpy apartment like hers, or value her teaching career.

“The education of children is more important than anything,” he said. “Certainly more important than exercise clothes.”

Looking suspicious, she tried to catch his eye, but he focused on the elevator controls until the car reached their floor. The elevator jerked and he pulled the gate aside, then shoved the metal door open for her. They walked into a bright, white-walled corridor filled with a dozen women huddled over a row of sewing machines. The rattle and thrumming of their work echoed across the tile. “Behold, the sewing ladies,” he said.

Most of the women glanced up for a second, then went back to their work. “Ladies?” Bev asked in his ear.

“Traditional title.”

At the machine closest to the window, Shirley Hwang, the floor manager, held up a piece of black fabric.

“Mr. Liam.” She wagged it at him, her red bifocals falling to the cord around her neck. “This new stuff. It keeps getting holes. Very crappy material.”

Looking around for one of the assistants, he went over and took it from her. “Do you have the original roll?”

“Feng has it.” She pointed down the hall.

Normally he would tell her to find an assistant to deal with it, but Bev was watching and could use the education. “I’ll have Rachel check it out.”

Shirley nodded her satisfaction and went back to her table as he and Bev walked where she had pointed.

“The cutters are down here, next to the patternmakers.”

“I thought the sewing was contracted out,” Bev said. “Like to China.”

“Production is all over the world. But we need in-house staff for development.” He found Feng and talked to him for a moment until he found the fabric he was looking for and hooked it under his arm. “Feng agrees it’s no good. I’d introduce you,” he said to Bev, pulling her away, “but he hates to be interrupted, and has lots of sharp blades. They’ve got Darrin breathing down everyone’s ass this afternoon. FedEx goes out at three.” Of course, Darrin was pushing them because Liam was pushing Darrin.

They continued walking.

“Do you still swim?” Then she looked away, blushing, as though regretting the question.

He raised an eyebrow and looked down at her. Had she been checking him out? “I hurt my shoulder and never quite recovered enough to compete again.”

Her blue eyes filled with pity. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

Out of habit he didn’t mention how much he’d loathed swimming. For some reason people found that remarkable. Dad had been dead for over a decade—no point dwelling on it now. “I do a lot of running these days.”

She grimaced.

“Not a runner?” he asked.

She propped her hands on her hips. “Do I look like a runner?”

Not minding to have a reason to stare at her body, Liam let his gaze drift down over her breasts. “We make clothes that would help.”

“Help?”

He kept his face blank. “With the bouncing.”

Instead of being offended, or laughing, or looking embarrassed, she shrugged and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I have other problems.”

“Oh?”

“I lack physical coordination. Always have. The rest of my family is fine—jocks, all of them.”

“You don’t have to be a jock to move around.”

She patted him on the arm. “Said by the Olympian.”

“Exercise should be non-negotiable. For anyone.”

“That’s the kind of talk I can’t stand. Who’s negotiating? With whom? This is my body. Nobody else’s.”

“It’s a pact you make with yourself. To be a complete, healthy human being. Basic maintenance, like brushing your teeth.”

“No, it’s a chore to look good to other people. If you’re not into it—and I will never, ever be into it—you do it for the status. People don’t talk about brushing their teeth like, ‘Oh, sorry I’m late. I was brushing my teeth. I’ve been brushing my teeth so much lately and it’s really wearing me out. I’ve been working with a dentist on how to brush my teeth more effectively.’ And then their friends jump in, ‘Oh, I can totally tell. They’re so white! so strong!’, and, ‘who’s your dentist?’”

He stared at her. Had Ed known this about her when he put her in the will? “You have just inherited a fitnesswear company.”

“No shit. Thank God it’s clothes, because if this was like a gym or something, I might be in trouble.”

Momentarily speechless, Liam led her into a carpeted hallway away from the sounds of the sewing machines. Maybe her aversion to exercise would make it easier to keep her out of the way, which was a good thing.

He lifted the bolt of bad goods in his arms and strode past a short, fuzzy cubicle wall with a strip of two-inch wide gray facing material pinned across the entrance, like the yellow tape of a crime scene warning away intruders. Rachel resented anyone who had a real office.

“You have to get it lower,” Rachel said into the phone. She wore a fitted white t-shirt, black slacks, and silver ballet flats—her typical uniform. Practical, like he was; Liam wished the other assistants would follow her example. “They’re narrow goods. There’s no way we can retail over thirty.”

“Rachel.” Liam shoved the fabric under the tape across the entrance. “Shirley says this stuff is crap. Keeps getting holes.”

Rachel swung around in her chair, her phone to her ear under the angled bob of her reddish-brown hair. She gave Liam an unimpressed eyebrow lift, took the fabric without moving the phone away from her shoulder, and slid her gaze over to Bev. Surprise flickered in her bright blue eyes, then was gone; she threw the fabric down to the ground and swung back to her computer.

Liam gripped Bev’s elbow and guided her down another hallway to the stairwell. “I would introduce you, but she’s obviously busy.” She’d have plenty of opportunities to meet Rachel later, like it or not. He grinned to himself in anticipation.

Bev looked around with a smile on her face, immune to the lip-curling looks of merchandising assistants around the walls of their cubicles, the way they stared at the car wreck of her black clogs and uneven black ponytail. “It’s cool. I didn’t realize the desk people would be right next to all the action.”

When he got her into the stairway Liam stopped walking, eager to relieve her of any glamorous fantasy as soon as possible. “The desk people hate all the action. It’s noisy and full of fumes and they get constantly interrupted.”

“But it’s exciting.” She rubbed her hands together. “People are making things.”

“Making each other insane, usually.”

“You’re just burned-out. When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

“Me, burned-out.” He laughed and shook his head. “Since your aunt quit, I’m the most senior non-exempt or non-union employee in the building. I do not burn out.”

“Having been here for too long is evidence for my case, not against.”

He leaned back on the stair railing and giving her a pointed look. “Careful. You just might convince me to take a really long sabbatical. Now, when you need me the most.”

“Maybe not right now, but as soon as I can learn my way around.” She smiled at him, eyes wide and innocent, adding, “Or once I can hire somebody to back you up.”

“Like a replacement?”

“More of an understudy.” She crossed her arms and studied him down to his feet and back up, a slow, pointed look that made him uncomfortably aware of how her pose propped up her deep cleavage. “You look healthy, but who knows—you might get hit by a bus.”

Surprised, he pulled his gaze back up to her face. A strikingly familiar, hard, blue-eyed beauty stared back at him. But instead of the disgust her aunt’s face usually inspired, he found himself uncomfortably turned on.

The preschool teacher had an edge.

“You aren’t as nice as you pretend.” His low voice reverberated against the concrete walls.

She stopped smirking and frowned. “Of course I’m nice. Too nice, everyone says.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Just because I pick on people my own size—”

He pushed up to his full height. She was tall, but hardly as tall as him. “I think you’re just as mean as anybody. Maybe more. Just spend a lot more effort hiding it.”

For some reason he didn’t understand, she flushed dark pink and started blinking her eyes. Another nerve.

“I am not mean,” she said.

“And you’re hardly Switzerland,” he said. “’Doesn’t like to fight’, my ass. You just smile a lot and hope nobody notices you’re telling them the exact opposite of what they want to hear.”

She looked at the floor. The corner of her mouth curled up. “Child Development 101.”

“Yes, well, I’m not five, so cut it out.”

Her smile fell and she stared at him. He became aware of how dark the stairwell was. The only sound was the distant staccato of machinery. And then he smelled her lemon soap again, or whatever the hell she was bathing in.

She frowned. “Smiling is a good thing. You should try it.” She lifted a finger and wagged it at him. “One of my reasons for coming here at all was to help improve the morale. There are too many miserable people. I don’t care what you or my—what other people say, that’s not good for business. Even my aunt admitted that morale was low.”

“Bragged, more like.” He wondered about Bev, the limits of her niceness or her ability to lie to herself.

Bev gestured down the stairs. “Think we could keep moving, or do you need more rest?”

He took a step down. “I needed a minute to reflect upon the discovery that you and your aunt share more than just your looks.”

She snorted.

“Your grandfather’s floor is the next one. One half of it is storage, though.” He pulled open the fire door—marked AUTHORIZED VISITORS ONLY—and let her walk ahead of him. A long, well-lit hallway with wood floors and buff-colored walls stretched in either direction. Ed’s office was off to the right, through a frosted glass door with CAPTAIN printed on it with gilt block lettering.

“Captain?”

“He thought of Fite as a ship,” Liam said.

“Not very democratic, ships.”

“No.”

She walked towards the glass door. “Don’t tell me there were floggings.”

He stopped and gave her a hard look. “Listen, Bev. You can change a lot of things, but if you get rid of the flogging this place is going to fall apart.”

She came to a halt and stared at him. Then whacked him hard on the arm. “I had to get the comedian.”

He rubbed his stinging arm. “So much for not flogging.”

“Executives deserve it. I just wish the rest of the company could have seen it. Good for morale.” She walked over to the glass door and tried the handle, but Liam had to pull out his keys to let them in.

“At least these still work,” he said under his breath. He had to get her tucked away where she wouldn’t cause any trouble. My God, he’d almost been flirting with her.

More like a frat house lounge than an office, Ed Roche’s private suite stretched along a wall of windows overlooking SOMA San Francisco. Gym equipment scattered around islands of modular furniture like lily pads: an elliptical trainer, a treadmill, a stationary bike, other bulky machines with pulleys and straps. Free weights stacked up with bars in racks along one wall, reflected in the wall-to-ceiling mirrors behind them. A jukebox huddled in the corner, powered-up and glowing.

“Lord,” Bev said, squinting. “Is that an ice hockey table over there?”

“Vintage.”

“It’s very male, isn’t it?”

Liam sighed in satisfaction. “It’s awesome.”

“Do people hang out in here?”

“Ellen and me and—are probably the only ones in the building today who’ve ever stepped foot in here.” He’d almost said ‘and Rachel’ but that wasn’t for him to say. All kinds of rumors floated around, most false.

“I’m sure they’re grateful,” she said. “I was thinking he made everyone exercise or something. As a condition of employment.”

“They’d be lucky to be able to. Gyms are expensive.”

She walked around the TV throne to a kitchen alcove. New stainless steel appliances, marble countertops. She went through a sliding door to Ed’s bathroom and came out shaking her head.

“He could have lived in here.”

With a grief he didn’t try to hide, Liam said, “I think he did.”

“What about the house in Oakland?”

Liam crossed his arms over his chest, disapproving of the family that left an old, lonely man to fend for himself. “Usually empty.”

“I barely knew him, you know.”

Liam shrugged.

“What about Ellen?”

“Are you kidding?”

“But she loved him. Just not the rest of us. And she has a son, my cousin. Are you angry at him too, or just the females?”

“I’m not angry.”

She gave him an annoyingly knowing look. “Sure you’re not.”

“Your grandfather was a great guy. Flawed, but who isn’t? When I needed him, he was there, and I'm not the type to forget it. That’s all I’m going to say.” He pointed towards a side door. “His office space is back there. You can check it out after I show you Engineering. Purchasing is on second. HR and Finance are on first, back near Richard. Or rather, where Richard was. Then I have to get back to work.”