Authors: Kat Latham
“Why did the receptionist tell me you were?”
“Because sadly, that’s my name.”
It took him a minute to figure out what she meant. “Your parents named you Countess?”
She nodded. “Sick, isn’t it? That’s why I go by Tess.”
“What the hell were they thinking?”
“I assume they had aspirations I could never fulfill. Look, Liam, I didn’t really want to be here tonight, but I had no idea that you’d be invited to join this meeting. If I’d known, I would’ve...” She paused. “I don’t know. I guess there’s no way I could’ve got out of it. But maybe I could’ve warned you somehow.”
The fact that she would’ve known how to contact him reminded him that he wasn’t entirely at fault here. “I told you my name was Liam Jones. When did you figure out who I really am?”
She swallowed hard. “Before you told me your name was Liam Jones.”
Reality punched him in the vulnerable spot just below his ribs. “You knew the whole time?”
She nodded.
Fuck.
Everything he’d thought he’d had during those two days—anonymity, a lover who enjoyed spending time with him because of who he was instead of what he did, the opportunity to figure out who the hell he was away from his career and his obligations—none of it was real. It vanished in a puff of smoke. He was struck nearly dumb, and the only thing he could think to ask was even dumber. “Are you really a football supporter?”
She grimaced. “I hate football.”
With most women, he would take this as a sign of extremely good taste. It was the last thing he’d wanted to hear from her, though.
“I asked you before, and I need to know the truth now, Tess. Do you watch any sport?”
Her whole body proclaimed her guilt, from the way her shoulders hunched to the drop of her gaze to the floor. “Yes.”
“Which sport?”
“I mainly watch rugby.”
He tried to keep from cringing. “Who do you support?”
She groaned and swiped a hand over her face. “Does it really matter?”
“Yes.” It mattered more than he cared to admit. “Who do you support?”
She whispered, “Legends.”
“Have you been to any of our matches?”
Her face screwed up in a rueful expression. “I’m a season ticket holder.”
Fucking hell. He was shocked at how hard the sense of betrayal hit him. He’d been delusional in Venezuela, but the blinders cleared from his eyes now. God, how he wanted to tell her exactly what he thought.
I
hope fucking a sporting superstar matched your perviest fantasies.
I
hope you brought home some great stories to tell your friends.
I
hope you didn’t sell any information about me to the tabloids.
And if you did
,
I
hope you kept in mind the water was fucking freezing.
But he couldn’t do any of that. Not without risking his team’s financial well-being. So he practiced what he preached to his teammates and put on his professional cloak of armor. “Then you’ll know we can offer your company a good deal. Our stadium’s packed every game day, and we always strive to keep our supporters satisfied.”
If only he’d known last month that that’s exactly what he’d been doing.
* * *
Tess left the loo first, eager to get back to the table before Mr. Swan decided that he too needed to visit her in the toilet. When she reached the table, Charlie lifted his brows as if to ask “All right?”
She gave him a tiny nod as she sat and laid the serviette on her lap, but inside she was a mess. Why had Liam placed such emphasis on whether she’d recognized him? When they’d first met, she hadn’t thought anything of the pretense. He had clearly wanted privacy, and she’d thought the polite thing was to give it to him.
Should she have confessed at some point during their two days together? Truthfully, when he’d told her he’d found paradise at their watering hole, she had thought she’d discovered the same thing. The weeks since her return had been an ulcer in her life, churning up a burning pain like nothing else. Thanks to the inquiry, she had little pride left to lose. Those two days with Liam had been Eden.
She should’ve realized that her knowledge of his identity would destroy paradise.
She’d somehow hurt him by lying, possibly more so than by leaving before he woke up. Obviously it hadn’t taken him long to get over that, considering the bombshell sitting next to her signing an autograph for the guests at the next table.
The scrape of his chair told her he’d returned. He’d composed himself to the point that she couldn’t see anything other than polite interest.
Mr. Swan laid some colorful papers on the table and glanced around, as though he were checking whether anyone else wanted to start a conversation he played no part in. “I hate to interrupt food with business talk, but as that’s why we’re here...”
“By all means,” Charlie said.
The next half hour was filled with chat about what the club offered their sponsors and what they asked for in return. Mr. Swan showed them examples of previous sponsors’ promotional activities, and Charlie chipped in with several excited questions. She watched him with what she feared was a dopey smile of pride on her face. She’d always known her favorite cousin was great at his job, but she’d never been able to see him in action before. For the first time in a long while, she felt the green shoots of hope pushing up through all the fertilizer that had choked her in the past few years.
Charlie asked her several questions, and she drew out her tablet to make calculations. He wanted Kijani Adventures’ name and logo on the players’ shirts, and Mr. Swan had the nerve to say, “I’m afraid the team kit for this year has already been ordered and delivered. It’ll cost extra to put your logo on the shirts now.”
No stranger to men trying to take advantage, Tess lifted one of her brows and gave him her don’t-fuck-with-me look. “Whose logo is on the shirts now, Mr. Swan?”
“Please, call me Frank.” He obviously thought to distract her with friendliness. Fine, she could be friendly and make sure her cousin didn’t get taken for a ride.
“Thank you, Frank. Whose logo is on the shirts now?”
He tugged at his tie, a sign she’d already decided meant he was uncomfortable. He’d had reason to do it a lot throughout dinner. “Well, they have Sharecore’s logo.”
“So I assume you meant that it will cost
you
extra, as you’ll have to replace those shirts anyway.”
He swallowed hard. “Yes. Of course that’s what I meant.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Liam’s slight grin, but it disappeared quickly—perhaps because the waiter showed up with the mains, and Liam’s three servings didn’t look like enough to feed her, much less him. How on earth did Charlie survive on this? Most of it was tasty enough, but even Tess would have to stop for a kebab on her way home.
Eager to start building bridges, she whispered across the table to Liam as the other two discussed logo ratios and pixel sizes and Samantha chatted with the waiter about how brilliant her new film was. “How is it?”
“All together it makes for a great starter.”
“Maybe your housekeeper can make you something when you get home.”
Oops. Wrong thing to say. His face darkened, and she couldn’t figure out why. Was it the reminder of their time in the lift? Of him feeding her crumbled oats and asking her if she was committed to other food products?
“She doesn’t live with me full time. She works one day a week and sometimes leaves me nice treats, that’s all. I cook for myself.”
“You’re doing better than me, then. I can’t cook. I usually get takeaways.”
“You survive on takeaways?” Liam made a show of gazing down her body, and she knew exactly what he saw. Scrawniness.
She straightened her shoulders, as if that might bulk her up. “Mostly. That and energy bars. Anything you only have to unwrap in order to eat.”
He shook his head. “It’s criminal to do that to your body. You do all that exercise, yet you fuel yourself with rubbish? At least this food’s healthy, even if I can’t find the protein.”
Charlie’s voice interrupted. “Tess, what do you think of that?”
She jerked her attention back to the two men, who were staring at her expectantly. “Sorry, think about what?”
Charlie waved at the brochures and spreadsheets Frank had explained earlier. “The sponsorship deal, for starters.”
“You want my decision now? Don’t you think it would be better if we went away and discussed it?”
Frank leaned in. “I really hate to push, but because of the situation we’re in we don’t have much time. We need to move swiftly. If you decide this isn’t for you, then we’ll need to start over first thing tomorrow morning. I understand it’s a big decision to take—”
“In that case, you’ll understand why it’s important for us to run all the figures. I’m sure you wouldn’t want another sponsor who has to back out because they can’t afford the agreement.”
Frank backed off and cleared his throat. “Too right. Just tell me what you need from me in order to make your decision, and it’s yours.”
Before she could say that she’d like to have until lunchtime tomorrow to check all the figures, Charlie squeezed her hand. “Look at the numbers now, Tessy. In fact—” he shoved her untouched plate of food toward Liam and replaced it with a set of spreadsheets and graphs, “I know you’re just going to stop for a kebab on the way home anyway, so why don’t you concentrate on these instead?”
She sighed. This wasn’t the first dinner when a boss had demanded she work instead of eat. She was used to caving in to unreasonable demands. Charlie’s demand—delivered in such a hopeful manner by someone she would walk over coals for—seemed neither unreasonable nor demanding.
Liam chimed in, glaring at Charlie. “Tess, if you’re hungry, you should eat.”
“It’s all right, Liam. Charlie’s right. The starter will keep me going until I can get to a takeaway.” She turned her attention to earning her pay, making notations and doing as much research as she could to verify that Frank’s figures were correct. She’d developed an innate ability to block out noise when she concentrated, so the conversation floated around her without weaseling through her thoughts. But when someone slid a plate of raw cacao cake under her nose, she crashed back to earth. She could always break her concentration for chocolate.
“We ordered you dessert,” Charlie said, and for the first time she noticed that he, Samantha and Frank both had chocolaty confections while Liam was munching on a plate of fresh fruit.
“Thanks.”
“So...” Frank gave her an expectant look as he tucked in to his dessert. “What do you think?”
She turned to Charlie. “Can we talk privately?”
He nodded toward the ladies’ loos. “In our office?”
She laughed. “How about just outside our office?”
He led the way around the corner, and Tess laid her tablet on a side table that held a massive flower arrangement. She expanded a couple of spreadsheets. “Here are the figures your finance director sent me. These three lines show your projected growth over the next five years depending on whether the economy grows, stays shitty or tanks even further.” She tapped on the screen again. “And this spreadsheet shows the ROI on your current marketing efforts. What’s the first thing you see?”
He scanned the columns. “We’re spending a shitload on magazine advertising, and it’s not paying off.”
“Exactly. Now, you managed to survive the last financial crisis, and you’re weathering the storm right now. According to your projected growth, you should be okay unless the economy goes completely tits-up, but if that happens then we’re all fucked anyway. Still, I’d recommend not doing anything drastic right now, so...”
His shoulders slumped. “So we can’t do it.”
“Actually, I think you can.”
He looked at her with such eagerness that she wanted to laugh even as she cautioned him. “There are always risks involved in something like this, Charlie.”
“I know.”
“And there’s no guaranteed return. In fact, it could prove quite costly.”
“I know, Tess. But—”
She laid her hand on his forearm. “But, all in all, I can see why it appeals to you. If you offset some of it by cutting back on your magazine advertising—and perhaps thinking about bringing all of this digital work that you’re outsourcing in-house—then it’s a risk I think you can afford.”
The muscles around his mouth and eyes softened. “Really?”
“I don’t see it being a crippling financial burden, so if you think it’s a good promotional opportunity, then go for it.”
He looped an arm around her neck and squeezed her tightly before planting a noisy kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for the analysis, Tessy, and for doing it so quickly. I knew being related to a swot would come in handy for me one day. And you’ll help me manage the deal?”
“Well, really you should have your lawyers be involved in the contract.”
“No, I mean, the things Frank and I were discussing while you were checking the figures. You’ll do it? I really think you’d be perfect for it, Tessy. I need you to do this for me. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with a deal like this.”
God, she would take any job going, and here he was practically begging her when she should be the one pleading for a chance? She let out a deep breath. “Anything for you, Charlie. You know that.”
He led her back to the table, where the sight of Samantha snuggled up against Liam punched Tess in the stomach all over again. She smoothed her suit jacket over her ribs, trying to cover up how wrong and right it felt to see Liam with a beauty like Samantha.
Charlie pulled out her chair before sitting. “We’ll do it.”
Frank and Liam let out audible sighs of relief, their shoulders relaxing.
“And Tess has agreed to help us manage the partnership,” Charlie continued.
Tess glanced around the table, taking in the triumphant expressions Frank and Charlie wore...and the glower on Liam’s face.
What the hell had she just promised to do?
Chapter Nine
Last week a couple of the other traders duct-taped S. to her chair, rolled her to the lift and pressed the sixteen buttons between us and the ground floor. Apparently when she arrived there, someone else pressed all twenty-five buttons, sending her up to the top. After T. finally took pity on her and pulled her out, she had a spectacular meltdown and quit.