Love Handles (30 page)

Gail shrugged. “That’s an intriguing idea. Perhaps, down the line, if there’s a need,” she said. “But no. I figured you’d enjoy a little more time up here, enjoy some time off, travel and go home. Andy told me he could find you a temp job at the studio while you apply for teaching positions for next year.”

Bev looked over at Kate, who was frowning but silent. “And how about you, Kate? That sounds like a good plan?”

Kate shrugged and took another sip from her water bottle. “Oh, sure. Now you want my support. As soon as you need something from me.”

Bev glanced around the house then at her mother and sister’s hostile faces. “I don’t need anything from either one of you.” She strode away from them to her bedroom and slammed the door.

She lifted her cat off the end of the bed and nuzzled her neck, fighting tears. “Change of plans, Ball,” she said softly. “We’re moving to San Francisco.”

W
hen Liam heard the door swing open in the neighboring office, he jerked his head up from the sketches on his desk. Usually, he liked having his Saturdays to himself, but—

His pulse reacted to her presence even before she poked her pretty head into his office, offered a wave and a pinched smile, then disappeared, hauling a large plastic box.

He looked back down at the sketches and tried to regain his concentration. Running after her wouldn’t look good. The first holiday delivery should have crops over the knee, almost to the ankles. Shorts would come back for the last November delivery, in basic colors to survive Christmas—

He pushed himself up from his desk and walked over to Bev’s office, pausing in the doorway and leaning his hip on the jamb. She was using a piece of red reflective piping as a headband and had resurrected the green sweater he’d vowed to destroy. He licked his lips, feeling hot. “Are you still angry at me?”

She continued flipping through the binder in front of her on the desk, chewing her lips. The motion caught his attention, and he lost himself in the vision of white teeth pressing up against pink, swollen flesh.

She finally glanced up. “And why would I be angry?”

He came into the room. “I broke the cardinal rule.”

“Being an asshole?”

“No, you seem to like that.”

She sighed and rested her cheek in her palm. “True enough.”

“The rule I broke,” he said, coming over and sitting across from her, out of groping distance, “was to mention my mother.”

“I like your mother.”

“So do I, actually. But at that moment I was making an unflattering comparison, and I’m sorry.”

“You are?”

Liam fought the urge to pull her into his lap. “Yes.”

“All right, then. I accept,” she said. “I’m sorry too.”

He didn’t know why she would be but didn’t want to argue, because then she might not let him touch her again, so he avoided her eyes and imagined her naked. Then clenched his jaw. That was not going to get them the account at Target.

He noticed a plastic box at her feet. “You brought your cat to work?”

She opened and closed her mouth, glanced at the carrier, and nodded. “She was lonely.” The little door was open and tufts of fur stuck out through the slots.

“Spry little lady, isn’t she?”

Bev leaned over to pet her cat, and the neckline of the baggy sweater flopped open, exposing hills of delicate, round, flesh and—black lace. His mouth went dry.

“She’s old. Ancient, really.” Then she sighed and went back to the papers on her desk. “There’s so much to do. I don’t know how I can pull it off. Between this Target deal and the financial nightmare that keeps getting worse, not to mention family squabbles, I’m beginning to wonder if they’re right.”

“Your mother after you again?”

“She got me, actually. She often does.”

Liam hated to see her beaten down. “We could work together if you think that might help you fight off the demons,” he said. “Pool our resources. Take over the lobby conference room.”

Her eyes lit up. “Together?”

“We haven’t tried that yet. Maybe we should.”

“I thought you’d be mad,” she said. “About me sneaking projects to Jennifer.”

“So instead of talking to me about it, you went behind my back.”

She bit her lip again, drawing his eyes.
Damn it
. “I didn’t want to argue,” she said.

“And you’re pathologically non-confrontational.”

“Fuck off,” she said, grinning. “How was that?”

He smiled back, in spite of himself, and got to his feet. “Great. I’ll meet you in the conference room with the three groups I’m working on and the latest sales figures.”

“I’ve got some sample yardage I’d like you to see.” She beamed. “But I don’t know if it’s a good vendor or not. Plus, it’s narrow goods and might bring up the retail too high.”

“Bring the tag, and we’ll talk about it.” He walked back to his office to gather all his stuff, strangely proud of the nursery school teacher with her hot fashion lingo. He knew he liked her too much, thought about her too much, wanted her too much—but she was doing a pretty good job with his company, had stood up to her family, and spending a Saturday afternoon talking shop with her wouldn’t kill him.

He was hanging up his favorite samples on the conference room walls when she stumbled in, her arms full of binders and magazines and garments, invisible under the pile.

She dropped the armful on the table. “How did they sew up all this stuff so fast? I just asked them a couple days ago, and there’s already a rack in my office—with all of it. I hope Jennifer didn’t hurt anybody.”

“Not physically, anyway.” Liam picked up an armful and began hanging them on the opposite wall. Pants, shorts, crops, jackets, tees, support tanks. Thoughtful, he rearranged them, then moved them around again, then went back for another pile. Bev joined him and added more, saying nothing. When all the samples were up on the walls, each of them stepped back to study them.

“Oh,
God
,” she said finally. “Say something.”

“I told you. I snuck in during the week and thought it was good.”

“But you haven’t seen these yet.” She walked over and ran her hand over the jacket that had immediately caught his eye—a charcoal gray hoodie with the identical red piping she wore in her hair. And printed onto the sleeve, a new “Fite Gear” logo in metallic silver reached from shoulder seam to wrist in bold block letters four inches tall.

He went over and tested the weight of the material between his thumb and forefinger. “These are the goods Jennifer was talking about.”

She nodded. “If we order enough of it, we can afford it.”

“Meaning, if we can sell enough of what we make out of it.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Liam!” She sat down at the table, dropped her head in her hands, peered up at him through her fingers. “What do you
think
?”

He had no illusions about himself. He knew he was the type of man to enjoy having power over others, the power to praise or put down, correct or dismiss. Usually, his pleasure in this power wasn’t on display, but Bev’s looked so worried—

“Will you stop smiling at me like that!” she cried. “I can’t tell if you’re gloating because it sucks so bad, or because you think it’s totally fantastic.”

He gained control of his facial features and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s fine,” he said. “Great. How’s the fit?”

She sank down into her chair as the air left her lungs and looked up at the ceiling. “You said ‘great.’”

“How’s the fit? Or did Rachel refuse to—”

“No, she tried everything on. Not this latest stuff, but the core bottoms over there, and they’re awesome. Those patternmakers and sewers are amazing. And Rachel’s butt looked even more fabulous than usual.” She got up and patted the samples. “I figure if we can sell a woman a decent pair of pants and make sure she knows our name, we can sell her another pair next time she comes in for paper towels and shampoo.”

“That’s the idea. But we have to be on spec. Consistently. Luckily that’s one thing we can do. Ed was a stickler for QA. Our problem is that our women’s specs have been consistently bad.”

“But this is a chance to start over. What do you think of the new Fite Gear logo for them? Think Macy’s will complain we’ve gone downmarket?”

“We have no choice.” He turned back to study the rest of the samples, glad his back was to her, because he was impressed. “I like the logo. I like the palette. I like the hippie global warming thing in that group, and the girlie flower thing in that one. It’s good. Solid.”

“But is it enough?”

He leaned back against the wall and shrugged. “How the hell would I know? I’m just a dumb jock.”

She flopped back down into a chair. “Yeah, well, you’re all I’ve got, so answer me anyway. What’s your gut tell you?”

He gave her a long, steady look, and she flushed.

“Other than that!” she said.

Funny, he hadn’t been thinking of sex. While his mind had been admiring the profit potential of a massive deal in the third quarter, his gut had been feeling grateful she hadn’t gone back to Orange County just yet to teach fingerpainting. Which reminded him of a previous, interrupted conversation. “I think we’d nail it with a picture of Annabelle Tucker in that hoodie.”

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.”

The grief vanished, and her face broke into a wide, goofy grin that hit him across the table, grabbed his heart in a fist and squeezed.