Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2) (31 page)

So, she fretted when she was home and got up every hour or two during the night to make sure everything was locked tight. No sleep plus the non-stop stress of a huge work assignment was making her a little
off.

Today, she was in full-tilt-boogie mode, with the big New Year’s Eve event looming large in her thoughts. Rhiann and her team had been in the studio all day with a handful of models posing for the staged photos that would accompany the outdoor shots.

As usual, Katherine Martin was proving to be a royal pain in the tochus. She liked to trot around with her iPhone and look important while snapping pics of everything and texting non-stop. It was like having an evil shadow lying in wait to pounce and fuck shit up for the sheer pleasure of being a cunt. She was, without a doubt, Kim Walsh Jr.

Had thinking about her nemesis invited interaction? Rhiann rolled her eyes when she heard the fake dulcet tone of Junior’s Northern twang calling out her name.

“Wilde,” Katherine snapped.

She saw her assistant look up with interest and groaned inwardly. Juan might be doubly good at what he did, but the man was a bitchy gossip who loved to dish the dirt.

Refusing to snap to attention if for no other reason than because she felt it rude to be addressed by her last name, Rhi counted out a couple of beats then calmly spun around and met Katherine’s dismissive gaze with one of her own.

“Yes?”

Hearing Juan snicker softly at the tone Rhi used almost made her laugh, but she kept it together and managed to look somewhat bored by the woman’s interruption.

“How much longer will this go on?” she asked, waving her hand dismissively at the studio filled with people.

Oh, for god’s sake. What was the real question, she wondered. She was busy, dammit, and would appreciate a bit of directness rather than . . . whatever this was.

Shooting Juan a caustic glare of warning, she half ignored Katherine, answering smoothly, “Until it’s finished,” as she used a couple of hand signals to get someone’s attention.

“Are you always this rude?” Katherine griped. “I’m talking to you, Wilde. The least you could do is look at me.”

Two could play this verbal game.

Quickly scribbling on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard that one of her team shoved under her nose, Rhi offered a malevolent smirk to her adversary when she put the pen down, cocking her head to one side to look the woman up and down. Dismissively.

“I hear you talking, Katherine,” she remarked snidely. “You see that we’re busy here so dropping everything to look at you only takes me away from the important stuff.”

She saw the woman’s eyes flare with fury at the obvious implication that she wasn’t important. Immediately coming back with the second part of a verbal one-two, she added, “And where I come from, addressing a professional by their last name is considered the height of rude.”

Boom! Nothing worked faster at putting an idiot in their place than inferring that they lacked manners.

The expression,
Paybacks are a bitch,
rang in Rhiann’s mind as she deflected Katherine’s dirty look. She didn’t doubt that Kim Walsh’s unctuous toady was going to make her regret this confrontation,
er . . . conversation.

Through eyes narrowed with clear dislike, the bootlicker who was hell-bent on raining on Rhiann’s parade, sniped, “Yes, well . . . feel free to take that up with Mrs. Walsh.”

The unspoken,
if you dare,
hung in the air between them, which was positively pulsing with animosity. Juan was all but taking notes as he watched their interaction with avid interest.

Slapping a simpering smirk on her face, she ignored the implied threat and asked, “Speaking of whom, will Kim be joining us at any point?”

Rhiann already knew the answer. Of course, she would. No doubt about it. The Ice Queen wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to belittle Rhiann in front of an audience.

Juan gave an exaggerated cough and jumped off the high stool he’d been perched on and shot Rhi a warning look.

Now what?

“Miss me, have you, Miss Wilde?”

Well,
fuckaluckadingdong
—but in an FML kind of way. Who opened the crypt?

“Hello, Kim,” Rhiann replied as she turned toward her antagonizer. The flash of hatred shining from the Ice Shark’s squinty eyes spoke volumes. Everyone else on the damn planet might bow and scrape for this . . . woman—and she was using the term loosely—but Rhi wasn’t having any of that crap.

Dismissing her troll with the wave of a boney hand, Kim immediately invaded Rhi’s body space, trapping her against a table.

“Have a nice holiday? Your sister’s wedding, right? I hope Liam’s bridal gift arrived in time.”

Wanting to smack the smarmy female across the face, Rhiann instead opened the Dictionary of Snark in her head and searched for every available snipe to describe Liam Ashforth.
Motherfucker,
of course, was at the head of the line.

Every time she was reminded that he and this bag o’ frozen bones had done the dirty, she wanted to lash out and hit something. He’d fucking told her about the wedding? Told her about the gift for Brynn?
Goddammit.

There was no way she was going to give this woman the satisfaction of answering any questions about her personal life, and she didn’t give a flying fuck if Kim fired her at this point. She could only take so much. Only so much hurt and sadness because of that man.

“What can I do for you?”

Kim laughed at the unmistakable deflection and stepped back, smirking in triumph. Tossing a newspaper on the table in front of them, Rhiann glanced down and froze. There, for all the world to see, was a shot of Liam and Kim plastered against each other in what looked like an affectionate embrace and the caption:
JFK Airport Holiday Round-Up—Liam Ashforth, President and CEO of BPG arriving at Virgin Atlantic.

The sound of all the blood in her head rushing south was loud enough to make her wince. At that moment, she’d never hated anyone as much as she did the woman in front of her and the man who was making a fucking career out of breaking her heart.

“Don’t pout, little girl,” she purred. “I told you not to fuck with me. You won’t win, no matter what you think.”

Throwing caution aside Rhiann answered the cruel taunts with biting precision. “This is getting old, Kim,” she growled. “Almost as old as you. So, why don’t you save us both some time and fire off the rest of your ammunition so I can get back to work.”

The wretched woman tossed back her head and laughed. To Rhi, she sounded maniacal but to anyone paying attention? It probably looked like the two were sharing jokes.

“I should tell Liam to keep you around for a bit. It’s fun watching you fall on your face.”

“Unless you have something of importance to say, I suggest you jump on your broomstick and fly away because we’re working here. Oh, and take your flying monkey with you. She’s outstayed her welcome.”

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississi . . .

“I eat young things like you for breakfast, Miss Wilde. It would do well for you to remember that before the next time you imagine that being a cunt to me is a wise move.”

“Nice,” Rhi snapped. “You kiss your father with that filthy mouth?”

“Liam likes it filthy.”

Alrighty, then.
That shut Rhiann down pretty fucking fast. Her mind shrouded in a haze of contempt and rage, she tried to leave, but Kim reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Don’t walk away from me, you little bitch.”

And just like that, a scuffle broke out between them. Rhiann jerked her arm out of Kim’s frigid grip with a grunt. Reacting defensively, she used her elbow to shove the crazy woman away.

Kim immediately screeched, “Get your hands off me!” which got every head in the room turning their way to see what the commotion was about.

After that, a bunch of things happened all at once—mostly it was a blur. Next thing Rhiann knew, her body was falling in slow motion to the floor after something got in the way of her feet. Kim’s gloating, triumphant sneer followed her descent to the hard concrete.

How she managed to miss the edge of the craft table with her head, she didn’t know. Flinging out her arms to break the fall, her hand hit the floor first as she yelped in pain and rolled to her side.

Within seconds, people surrounded them. The shocked faces of her team and shouts of, “Help her up,” and, “What the hell happened?” ensured that this spectacle was going to get maximum exposure along the gossip chain that existed in most work environments
and
on everyone’s social media.

As she looked up in agony from her sprawl on the cold, hard floor, she spied at least two people being assholes enough to capture the moment on their cell phones.

“Are you okay, Miss Wilde?”

Rhiann met the concerned and horrified gaze of her intern, Shayne, as the young girl swooped to her knees to help.

Was it possible to look even remotely dignified when your dress hiked up wa
aaaay
too far and a shoe, one of her favorites, had come off and skidded away? Probably not.

The next minutes flew by in a whir as Shayne helped Rhiann to her feet while Rhi cradled her injured arm and tried not to burst into tears.

She heard people talking. Heard the whispers and the comments. But it was that awful woman chiming in with her evil speculation that was the icing on the cake of Rhi’s day.

“Do you think she’s drunk?” she heard her ask in a voice loud enough for everyone and their aunt to hear. “Maybe getting started a bit early for the holiday?”

Didn’t really matter what happened after that. She knew damn well Kim’s comment had sealed her fate at that moment. If Kim didn’t find a way to use this to get her canned, she was going to fold anyway. Fuck this shit. Bitch was cray-cray and Rhiann couldn’t deal with it—any of it—any longer. That damn news photo was the end for her.

The EMTs arrived in a flash, and after making sure she hadn’t banged her head, arranged for her transport to the emergency room. Her arm was either broken, fractured, or severely sprained and would need immediate medical attention.

Happy Fucking New Year.

I
T WAS A TYPICAL FRIDAY night in the booming college town at the beginning of a new school year and as usual, Liam was holed up in his postage stamp sized studio apartment.

While everyone else was out and about, on the move in search of the endless parties and gatherings that took place in the Frat Houses, party spots and watering holes frequented by the rowdy students, he was having none of it.

Though only a couple of years older than the youngest incoming freshmen, Liam felt like an old man when it came to the excesses and fuckery the kids engaged in. Not even his peers in the master’s program, who partied with a bit more circumspection, could persuade him to let loose and join the fun. He always begged off by insisting he had shit to do.

And his shit to do this fine evening? Tonight, he was assembling a Shelby Cobra from a model car kit he’d bought from eBay.

Liam liked the intense focus required for model building. It quieted the racket in his head, forcing him to concentrate and follow directions. Plus, he liked the process as a whole—researching his next purchase, finding the best possible deal—even clearing a space on the only table in his small space so he could spread out the pieces. It was all good.

In the background, he heard the crackle of activity coming from a police scanner. He’d acquired it in a barter with a junior in the engineering program who desperately needed a tutor if he hoped to survive.

Liam liked snickering at the dumbasses that the cops hassled for public drunkenness and noise infractions because somehow their stupidity made him feel superior. And superior worked for Liam. Feeling that way may made him something of a social leper, but in the end, he knew that sort of hubris was going to help him go far. And going far was what this was all about.

Ignoring the racket coming from the house party underway across the street, he sat in the old, wooden captain’s chair he’d trash picked and studied the model building instructions tacked to the wall.

With autumn still weeks away, he had the windows open to enjoy the warm late-summer evening air. Occasionally, the odor of marijuana wafted through, something that always made him shake his head.

Stupid fuckers
, he thought. Didn’t those shitheads realize that someday, probably at the worst possible time—like before taking an oath to office or getting a banging corporate promotion—someone would step forward and blab about getting high back in the day and what a stoner they once were.

Getting up from his seat, he went to lower the window. He was just twenty-four, for Christ’s sake, and wasn’t opposed to the occasional joint and certainly didn’t back away from an ice-cold six pack, but he would prefer not to get high tonight from a cloud of second-hand smoke that didn’t seem to be backing off.

Glancing across the street at the rager getting underway, he noted the gaggle of college kids clustered everywhere. On the sidewalk, in the street, five or six people deep in the driveway and even a few dozen openly partying on the lawn. He wondered how long it would take the campus police to roll by—then remembered it was Friday night and snickered. They’d be rolling by a dozen parties just like the one he was seeing and would have their hands full all evening. Being a campus officer must suck donkey dick.