Liam gripped the coat hanger in his fist so tight he felt it crack in his hand. “I warned you—” “Chill. Geez you guys are uptight. She gave as good as she got,” he looked down at himself. “Obviously. Look at me.” “Go and get changed,” Liam said. The studio door opened and Liam turned, expecting to see Mia, but instead, Carter walked through the door. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking at Liam with a frown. “I just saw Mia running through the office looking like she was going to burst into tears. Did one of you fuckers do something to upset her?” Liam sighed. “No one did anything,” he replied. “So what the fuck is going on?” “Her first attempt at styling Darius wasn’t so great.” Carter got up close to Liam. “You need to fix this.” “I thought the whole point was for it to be a competition. Why should I fix it?” “Because if she fails, we all fucking fail,” Carter hissed. “There is more than just the popularity of your blog riding on this Liam. We’re staking the repu
Mia dragged herself through her door and closed it behind her, leaning against it and thumping her head a couple of times before taking the fourteen steps to her bedroom and flopping face down on the bed. It had been the longest, worst, very saddest day ever in the history of bad days. Not only had she made a complete fool of herself in front of Darius Freaking Carathurs, but her brother had been there to witness her absolute failure too. Not to mention Liam. Sexy, brooding, totally off-limits Liam had seen her make the grandaddy of all mistakes and had been mother-freaking nice to her about it. Cheese-its! She wished he’d yelled at her, she would have known how to deal with that, but having him come to her all sympathetic and pitying and offering to help her and using stupid Frankie’s job as motivation for her to go back and face Darius and her brother…she didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know where that slotted into her impressions of him. On one hand, she had the man
“You were bound to have one and it wasn’t so bad that you got fired, so that’s a win, right?” Mia sighed. “Yeah, but it’s not just the absolute fool I made of myself,” she said. “It was watching Liam work and the way he just seemed to know exactly what to do. It was…Geez, I can’t even explain it. Have you ever just watched someone work and the way they did things, with complete competence and confidence, was more impressive than what they were doing?” “Competence porn? Oh yeah. It’s my favorite kind.” “Right, so here I am after having completely fluffed up in front of Darius and Frankie, and Liam just walks in and bibbity-bobbity-boo he fixes it. And he was explaining what he was doing while he was doing it but I couldn’t even listen to the words because I was too mesmerized by him in his element. I realized there will never be a time when I am as confident in myself or my abilities as he is. There is no way I can do the job he does and I’m an absolute fool for thinking I ever c
“Are you talking to me as an investor?” Liam asked. Jonathon and his friends were all silent investors in The Playbook. Carter hadn’t told anyone of their involvement until a few months ago and Liam still didn’t know how he felt about it. There was a whole convoluted story involving secret societies and brotherhood that Liam wasn’t really sure how to absorb. Had Jonathon gotten involved with The Playbook because he knew Liam was his brother or was it totally coincidental? Jonathon assured him it was purely fate, but Liam still wondered. And if indeed Jonathon had known about Liam prior to Liam tracking him down, why had he never said anything? “No,” Jonathon replied with a frustrated sigh. “I was just…shit, I don’t know what I was trying to do, make conversation I suppose.” Liam let a little of his resentment go. “Yeah,” Liam said. “Darius could potentially be a problem but we’re hoping his coaches and managers have him in line. He knows another scandal could end his career. We’re
Liam shrugged. “Yes, no, maybe. I don’t know. I just know that I didn’t expect it, especially not from her, and it pissed me off and then there were tears, and, shit man, what are you supposed to do when they cry? She looked like that GIF of the cat with the big eyes, you know the one I’m talking about?” Jonathon was looking at Liam with a raised eyebrow. “What did you do?” “I told her to suck it up and get back to work,” Liam groused and then shook his head. “No, I didn’t do that. Not exactly, anyway. I told her she had two choices. She could give up and go home or she could learn from it.” “Sounds to me like you handled it okay, so what’s the problem? Did she quit?” “No,” Liam said. “Is it bad of me to wish she did? Fuck. That makes me a bastard. I don’t really wish she’d quit. She’s talented and she’s got all this potential, but it’s complicated, you know?” “Complicated how?” Liam swallowed and cursed under his breath. He hadn’t meant to say that but now it was out ther
“We have the proofs back,” Liam said. He stood in the doorway and watched as Mia approached him with a coffee cup from the cafe downstairs in her hand. “Were you out?” he asked. Mia smiled and lifted the coffee cup toward him. “I was having coffee with Darius. Here I brought you one.” “You met with Darius?” She nodded. “After the debacle last week, I just wanted to go over a few ideas I had. He was in the city and we met at the cafe downstairs.” She frowned at him. “That was okay, wasn’t it? You said I could go down there to work if I needed to.” He nodded sharply as he took the proffered coffee. He shouldn’t have felt the irritation he felt at her spending time with her client but he did. “Did you say something about proofs?” she asked when he just stood there staring at her. “Oh yeah, right. I got the proofs back and I thought you might like to go through them with me so we can choose which ones we want for the blog,” he said. “Oh, yeah, that would be great.” Liam tu
The only thing that would make it better would be if there were no clothes separating her skin from his greedy fingers. His brain lit up with bells and whistles and buzzes when she bit his lip and tugged. He growled, intending to return the favor when the ringing noise he thought was in his head grew more obnoxious. He lifted his head, breaking the kiss. The ringing was his phone. They both seemed to come back to their senses at the same time, but for a fleeting moment, he got to see Mia’s dazed, lust-filled gaze as she looked at him like she wanted to lick him all over. He would definitely be down for that except… “Fuck,” he breathed softly as Mia scrambled off his lap and straightened her shirt and then her hair, turning away from him and escaping out the office door before he could say a word. The phone rang again. “Fuck,” he said again, reaching for it. “Speak,” he growled.Mia ran like a bat out of H-E-double-L to the women’s bathrooms…okay, maybe run was the wrong word
He took a step closer but kept his hands in his pockets although it looked like it pained him to do so. “I’m not sorry for kissing you, Mia,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since that night. I’ve dreamed about kissing you. I’ve dreamed about that night over and over again. But I am sorry that I did it without your consent and in our place of work. If you want to go to Carter and make a complaint about me, I won’t stop you.” Mia put her hands on her hips and gaped at him. “You want me to report the kiss to Carter?” “No,” he said, shaking his head and taking another step closer. “I want to kiss you again, but I won’t, not unless you tell me I can.” Mia stepped toward him until there was barely any space between them. She tilted her head up to him, her eyes coasting over his lips before reaching his eyes. “And if I want you to?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “What does that mean for us, for the job?” Liam pulled a hand from his pocket and li