Love Handles (6 page)

“Well, drink up with confidence, then,” she said. “My rate of use is low.”

He drank, willing himself to hide any disgust with the stale taste. But the water was fine. “Your brother works in Hollywood, right?”

“And my father.” She set her drink down and leaned over to pick up the cat. Limp and unresponsive, the animal sagged in Bev’s arms and didn’t complain when she sat down across from Liam and pulled it tight against her chest like a fur breastplate.

“Nice cat,” Liam said.

She snorted. “Nice try, Speedo.”

He squeezed the drink in his hand. “Don’t call me that.”

She shrugged, pulled the cat closer. “All right. Liam.” She sagged back into the sofa and closed her eyes, sighing. “Go ahead. Say what you came to say.”

Displeased by how vulnerable she looked, Liam took a sip of his water and thought strategy. It would help to know why she had been crying before he arrived. “Bad day?”

“Very.”

He waited. Took another sip.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“All right.”

Frowning, she buried her face in the cat. “I was fired this morning.”

Hello
. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Sure you are.”

“No, really.” His mind raced with possibilities. Even shitholes charged rent, and she wouldn’t be living here if she’d had any surplus. No wonder she’d signed the papers already. “It was a surprise?”

“Totally.” She sank deeper into the sofa. “I’d planned—well. Never mind.”

“That’s a lot to deal with, all at once. Your grandfather, Fite, now this.”

Not nearly as suspicious as she should have been, she glanced up at him. Grateful. “I feel bad for complaining. My mother’s going through worse.”

He doubted that. From what Ed had told him, Gail Roche-Lewis-Torres was a spoiled, selfish woman with no sense of family. But he said, “I’m sure it’s hard on her. Just in a different way.”

Over a horizon of white fur, she gazed at him with softening eyes. “Thanks.”

Something inside him struggled against its rusty restraints. His conscience. When she tilted her head to stroke her cheek slowly along the cat’s back, he suddenly imagined her doing the same to him, in bed.

He turned his head away so quickly he sloshed the water into his lap.

“Oh,” she said. “Let me get you a towel.”

“No, it’s fine—”

But she was already up and heading for the kitchen, her round ass swaying out of sight. Thank God.

“Don’t worry,” he said when she returned. “It didn’t get on the leather.” Just on his best pants. He scowled at the dark spot.

The interruption had broken the spell, and she didn’t sit down again. “You might as well go, Liam. Whatever you wanted, you’ll have to talk to Ellen about now.”

“You’re probably right.” He got to his feet. “But humor me. Are you hungry? Let me take you out to dinner. My dime.” In her apartment, she looked entirely too cocooned to take risks.

She hesitated. “I’ve already eaten.”

“A drink, then. Coffee, tea, beer, whatever you want.”

“What I want is to be alone.” She leaned over and stroked her cat, now a fuzzy ball in the corner of the sofa. He wondered if it was real. “It’s been a long day.”

How could he make his offer in a way that would appeal to her financial needs as well as her family loyalty? Which, surprisingly, she seemed to have. “I have a better deal for you than Ellen—”

“Her deal is plenty.”

He held up his hand, “—and it’s not just a wad of cash.” His brain struggled for the magic word. “It’s security.”

“Wads of cash can provide quite a bit of security.”

“For now, maybe,” he said. “But they have a nasty habit of shrinking. Really quickly.”

“I’m not extravagant.”

He glanced around her apartment. “No, but you’d like to be, wouldn’t you?” He stepped closer to her and noticed how tall she was. “You’ve obviously got great taste. Wouldn’t it be nice to use it properly?”

Eyes narrowing, she stepped back. “You’ve got the wrong idea about me.”

“Instead of a single payout, I’m offering you a salary, a share in the profits, a future.” He smiled as warmly as he could. “Which is what your grandfather wanted, I’m sure.”

“Everyone has a theory about that. One that’s convenient for them.” She waved her hand. “Besides, the company’s on the rocks. My little visit was enough to see that. A share in zero profits is zero.”

That was what he’d expected to hear from the start, so he was prepared. “Fite has hit rock bottom, but we’re still here, and can only get stronger with Ellen out of the way. Ed exaggerated the company’s problems to keep the staff from spending his money or expecting raises, bonuses, special treatment.”

“Like functional lighting?”

“Exactly. He liked the psychological effect. Felt it kept everyone on their toes.”

“Jesus. My mother was right. What a miser.”

He gritted his teeth, offended she’d insulted a man he had loved, the one who had just left her his life’s work. “I’ve been Ed’s EVP for years now and have the perspective you lack. Give it some time. I was going to suggest you keep your current job, but since that sudden change in circumstance, I’ll just say that you now have the leisure to find another one that suits you best. Without any time pressure.”

“You’d pay me a salary even if I had another job? Hundreds of miles away?”

“Not me—Fite,” he said, encouraged. “And as owner, you’d have your hands on the profits, too. Not just now, but for years to come—and I assure you, there will be profits. Perhaps not this year, but soon. You’re young now, but someday you’re going to want to retire and have—”

“Hold on,” she said. “All this, for doing nothing?”

“Not for nothing. For the company.”

Her face was blank. “Just because you don’t want Ellen in charge. Is that right?”

“Your aunt may have wonderful qualities,” he said, though unable to think of any, “but managing a business is not one of them. I don’t think she’ll be able to hold on to the company for more than six months, even if she wanted to.”

“Unlike you?”

“Or many, many other people.”

“How about me?” A hard gleam came into her eyes. “You’re happy enough to have me at the top.”

He had to be careful here. “Your grandfather must have left it to you for a reason.”

“And you think that had to be so you could remain in control, right? Because a stupid little preschool teacher would be easy to push around?”

“I have no opinion whatsoever about your intelligence,” he said, then paused to regret how unflattering that sounded, “or about your career. But let’s be realistic. You need the money, and Fite needs . . . to not have Ellen in charge—”

“You almost said, ‘Fite needs me.’ That’s what you mean, all of this. You’re the big important guy and without you, the company will burst into flames and everyone will be out of a job—”

“No.” His own temper flared in response to hers. “This is not about me. It’s about Fite.”

“Please.” She stalked over to the door and jerked it open. “Get out. It’s been a long, horrible day and you are now leaving.”

“Beverly—”

“Get out of my home.”

She’d never listen to him while she was so angry, so he moved over to the door and stopped just before he was out in the hallway. “I’m sorry for whatever I said that offended you. But what you’re doing is not in either of our best interests. Or Fite’s. The company is filled with real people who are going to suffer if Ellen—”

“Out.” She placed her palm in the center of his chest and began to push. “She’s not that bad.”

He was momentarily distracted by the pressure of her hand through his shirt. “All she knows how to do is fire people. She keeps a hit list in her desk—”

One unexpectedly powerful shove, and he was in the hallway. “Goodbye, Liam Johnson,” she said. “If I were in charge I’d be tempted to fire you, too.”

And then she was gone.

He glared at the closed door, heard the clicks and thumps of multiple dead bolts, and cursed himself for screwing that up so badly, not even sure what had set off her temper. Just like her aunt after all, all short-sighted emotion. If she just took a moment to think about what he’s said instead of just flying off the handle, she would see he was right.

Damn
. Not that it mattered now. She’d signed the papers. It was just a matter of days.

He better get back up to San Francisco tonight to start warning the staff.

B
ev carried her tray with its taco and tiny plastic cups from the salsa bar to a table near the front window. She chose an outward-facing seat so she could admire the strip mall parking lot with her getaway car while her father got a burrito.

Although Anderson Lewis was a marketing executive in Hollywood, he avoided trendy restaurants. Except when he was with Andy, of course—her older brother. He had followed in their dad’s footsteps so completely, working ten times as hard as was healthy and earning twenty times as much as Bev, so that if he made time to eat, it damn well wouldn’t be El Cheapo Taqueria off I-5 in Buena Park. And Anderson Sr. wouldn’t expect him to.

She sucked iced tea through a straw and fought back despair. No job, no hope of one for six or more months, and that arrogant jock had made her feel unclean about taking money from Fite.
Stay out of the way, little girlie. Here’s a cookie. Sit over there and don’t interrupt.

Liam’s patronizing attitude had inflamed the hunger she’d been feeling to make something bigger of herself. To be in charge, making decisions and taking risks.

If anyone would understand that hunger it would be her father. Worried about her future, disgusted with her poverty, he’d been after her to get an MBA for years. A real job. Use her brains for evil, he liked to say, only half-joking.

He walked over to her, humming to himself and carrying his tray with one hand while he returned his wallet to the back pocket of his dark-wash jeans. He was tall and big-boned, like Bev, but with the sinewy physique of a fifty-year-old man who never watched TV unless he was on a treadmill.

“Since when don’t you return your own father’s calls?” he asked. “You’d think I was trying to sell you an indie picture about skin disease in a third world country.”

“Sorry, Dad. It’s been crazy.”

“Crazy.” He snorted and frowned at the foil-wrapped log on his plate. “Crazy is this thing on my plate. It’s bigger than your head.”

If Bev ever argued with her father, she would have pointed out the restaurant was his idea. “Do you want to switch?” She offered him her taco.

“That the pollo or the carne?”

“Carne.”

“Can’t,” he said, brow furrowed. His third wife, Tia, was in charge of what he was allowed to eat, a moving target of restrictions and obscure supplements that only she could remember. “Is it good?”

“Don’t know yet.” She took a bite and couldn’t resist smiling. “It is. You sure you can’t—”

His face stretched longer. “No, I promised. That’s what you get for marrying somebody from Santa Monica.”

And somebody a third his age, she wanted to add. “So, you heard about my grandfather.”

“Of course I heard about him. Both your brother and sister called me to complain about it as soon as they heard.” He pierced his burrito with a plastic knife and began to saw. “You’re still sulking about Tia.”

She stopped chewing. “I’m what?”

“You never liked her. I’m supposed to say, that’s your prerogative, give agency to your pain or some bullshit, but I won’t. She’s part of the family now, so get over it.”

Bev put down the taco. Anderson had been married three times. Twice in the past ten years, both to women in their early twenties. His second wife had lasted three years, the marriage ending when she got pregnant by an anesthesiologist from Las Vegas. Tia, his new wife, already had two children of her own from two previous relationships, neither of their fathers lasting more than the gestation period, and loved to talk about when she and Anderson would finally have children of “their own.”

Given her father’s terrible taste in women, Bev was understandably prejudiced against anyone he liked. But this time, her reluctance to talk to him had nothing to do about his love life. “I didn’t get back to you because I didn’t want to argue.”

“I never argue.”

She snorted. “I knew what you would say, and I’d already made my decision. But now I’m not so sure.”

He stuck the fork in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“About the company. Taking the money instead of moving up there.”

“You think I’d want you to move to San Francisco?” He stared at her, his cheeks bulging with burrito. “You mean, to work in the fashion business?”

She hesitated. “You never did think much of my chosen career—”

“Career? Oh, you mean the little kid thing?”

“See?” She tried to roll her taco back together. “You’ve always wanted me to go corporate. Devote myself to making money.”

“Nothing wrong with making a living,” he said. “Which is why you shouldn’t try to rescue a struggling business you know nothing about.”

She gave up on the taco and put her hands in her lap. “I thought you’d pressure me to give it a shot.”

“Hardly. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck being an underpaid babysitter for the rest of your life. I don’t think you like kids as much as you think you do,” he said. “At least, not other people’s kids. Maybe you’ll change your mind when you have kids of your own, I don’t know. How the fuck—excuse me—how the hell would I know. I’m not a goddamn shrink.”

His face always got red when he was upset, which was much of the time, one of the reason’s Bev avoided him. Nothing she said seemed to prevent an argument. Her thoughts scrambled back over his words. “You don’t think I could do it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re considering it?” He wiped a stream of salsa off his chin. “Listen, Bev, Ed Roche was one class-A manipulative jerk. Pardon me speaking ill of the dead, but he was. If he left his company to you, it wasn’t for anyone’s benefit but his own. He had no reason to benefit you in particular, so you can be sure it’s something you’d be better off without.”

She lifted her iced tea. “Why wouldn’t he have any reason to benefit me in particular?” She tried not to be offended to hear him say nearly the exact same thing she’d told Liam.