Читать книгу The Elliotts: Bedrooms Not Boardrooms! - Emilie Rose, Maureen Child - Страница 9

“Are you alone? Or is the thug with you?”

Aubrey’s heart stalled at the sound of the deep, slightly husky voice on the phone. “Liam.”

She scrambled upright in her bed, clutching the sheet to her chest and squeezing the phone so tightly her fingers hurt. And then she recalled his question. “That’s none of your business.”

“You are alone.”

“I didn’t say that.” She shoved the hair out of her eyes and squinted at her bedside clock. “It’s midnight. Why did you call?”

“To tell you that you looked beautiful tonight.”

Her lungs failed. The phone slipped in her grasp. She fumbled it back to her ear. “Thank you. So did Trisha.”

She cringed at the jealousy in her voice.

“Did she? I didn’t notice.” His distracted tone made her want to believe him, but the man had gone out with a woman who’d been ballsy enough to pass him her number with Aubrey standing two feet away.

“You shouldn’t have called, Liam.”

“You wanted me to tell you how beautiful you looked with your watchdog standing by ready to stamp my forehead with his Super Bowl ring?”

“Have you been drinking?” He sounded sober. Tired, but sober.

“Haven’t had a drop since that lousy wine at dinner. But I couldn’t get to sleep.”

She knew the feeling. “So you decided to call and wake me?”

“Did I?”

“Did you wake me?” She should lie and say, yes, she’d been sleeping dreamlessly. But she didn’t. “No.”

She scooted back under the covers and laid her head on her pillow. She shouldn’t ask, but her mouth didn’t listen to her mind. “Why can’t you sleep?”

The sound of a heavy breath and the rustle of sheets traveled through the phone line. Aubrey closed her eyes and a picture of Liam naked and kneeling above her on his king-size bed filled her head. She lifted her lids and turned on the lamp. Listening to Liam’s sandpaper voice in the darkness and remembering him naked wasn’t a good idea if she wanted to sleep any time in this century.

“I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about you. About Monday afternoon.”

Her heart would very likely sustain permanent damage from its frantic battering against her rib cage. Her fingers crushed the sheets. She bit her lip.

“It was good.”

“Good?” she choked out in disbelief.

His low chuckle made her shiver. “Better than good. Fabulous.”

She smiled. “That’s more like it.”

“Incredible. Stupendous. Phenomenal.” She could hear the laughter in his voice and then another rustling sound. “And it’s a crying shame that it can’t happen again.”

Her grin faded at the seriousness and accuracy of the last statement. “But it can’t.”

“I know. But I don’t have to like it.”

Neither did she. “No.”

The silence stretched for a dozen heartbeats. “Good night, Aubrey. Sweet dreams.”

“You, too, Liam. Sweet dreams.” She cradled the phone, turned off the light and then rolled on her side and tucked her hand beneath her cheek.

Odd phone call. So why was she smiling?

Seeing Liam again was out of the question. If she did, her father would expect her to weasel information out of Liam about EPH and she just couldn’t stomach the duplicitous role. Her father had been angry enough that she hadn’t brought him anything useful after her lunch with Liam. Oh, Matthew Holt hadn’t yelled. He never yelled. But he’d treated her to that same silent stare she’d come to know so well.

She couldn’t continue letting her father down. She’d worked her fanny off to be the kind of employee and daughter of whom he could be proud and she’d failed. She owed him for taking her in when he hadn’t wanted her. He hadn’t wanted custody during the divorce from her mother, and he hadn’t wanted custody after Aubrey’s jerk of a stepfather had crawled into her bed and offered to keep her from getting lonely while her mother was out of town.

Aubrey had heard her father arguing with Jane after she’d revealed that dreadful secret. His bellow had carried through his closed office door. “What in the hell am I going to do with a teenage girl?”

Aubrey hadn’t heard Jane’s reply. In fact, Aubrey hadn’t heard anything from either of her parents until hours later when her mother had stormed into Matthew Holt’s office with Aubrey’s belongings and dumped them on the floor. She’d glared at Aubrey and said, “Look what you’ve done with your lies,” and then left.

Pamela Holt Curtis hadn’t asked for Aubrey’s side of the story. She’d chosen to believe her young husband’s version. He’d claimed Aubrey had invited him into her room and that she’d been flirting with him for weeks.

Aubrey had been left with a mother who no longer wanted her around and a father who had never wanted her in the first place.

“Liam.”

Liam blinked his unfocused eyes and looked up from the papers on his desk to the man rapping on his office door. Cade McCann, the executive editor of Charisma, EPH’s high-fashion magazine, also happened to be Liam’s good friend, probably his best friend.

“Got a minute?”

“Sure, Cade. Come in.” Considering Liam’s mind had been elsewhere since this morning’s monthly meeting with the editors in chief of the different magazines, Cade wasn’t interrupting anything. Liam hated the tension invading the formally congenial meetings.

This week he’d been distracted by thoughts of Aubrey and he’d barely managed to relate the pertinent facts and figures. For a split second Liam considered asking Cade how to wipe a woman from his brain, but nixed the thought. His friend hadn’t been too successful on that score, a fact proven by his recent engagement.

“What brings the rooster out of the henhouse?” The question was a running joke between them. Cade was a rare male on Charisma’s predominantly female staff. A lesser man would have been henpecked into submission, but not Cade.

“Are you having woman troubles?” Cade asked as he settled in the chair in front of Liam’s desk.

Alarm straightened Liam’s spine. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I called you three times before you answered.”

Liam silently swore. His mind had been on Saturday night and the phone call he shouldn’t have made. Pretty damned stupid of him to throw fuel on a fire he was trying to put out. “What’s up, McCann? Spit it out.”

Cade’s direct gray gaze said he wasn’t fooled by Liam’s evasion. “Okay, if you want to play it that way. You’ll have to lay your cards on the table eventually.”

“Cade—”

“I want you to be my best man when I marry Jessie next month.”

Jessie Clayton was the Charisma intern who just happened to have stunned them all with the revelation that she was Aunt Fin’s daughter—a daughter Fin had been forced to give up for adoption twenty-three years ago. Until Jessie had revealed that shocking secret, Cade had questioned her loyalties and suspected her of being a plant from another magazine.

No doubt about where Aubrey Holt’s loyalties lay. Liam rolled his shoulders, but the knot at the base of his neck didn’t ease. “I’d be honored to stand up with you, Cade. Being your best man means I get to give you one hell of a bachelor party.”

“I’m all for that. Jessie might not be. But no naked women. I have the only one I’m interested in looking at.”

“What about the rest of us?”

Cade leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “Want to talk about her?”

Her. Cade didn’t mean Jessie. “You’re offering to give me dating advice? Last month you were asking for it.”

Cade snorted. “And some good you were.”

“Hey, I told you to go for it.”

“Well, I’m telling you the same thing. Last month I was battling the current and trying not to get sucked into the love whirlpool. Looks like you might be in the water this month. Don’t fight it, man. Let it pull you under. You’ll be glad you did.”

Love? Hell no. He’d only spent a few hours with the woman. But lust? Oh, yeah. He had a bad rash of that and it itched 24/7. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s—” Damn. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Because the only problems I’m having are EPH problems. She’s been a bitch of a mistress since January, compliments of Patrick and his damned competition.”

Cade shook his head. “You’re lying through your pearly whites, pal. When you want to talk, let me know. In the meantime, see if you can clear your calendar for the weekend after this one. Jessie’s father’s throwing us an engagement party in Colorado next Saturday. I’d like you to be there. I don’t want to be the only city slicker on the ranch.”

Liam looked at the stacks of files and reports on his desk. With his workload, dropping everything and flying to Colorado sounded insane, but it might be worth it if putting some mileage between him and a certain female could get her out of his head. “I’ll be there.”

“I’m heading for the cafeteria. Coming?”

“No, I have an errand to take care of.” A fool’s errand.

Aubrey stood in front of her father’s desk, feigning calm she didn’t feel. Why had he requested this late afternoon meeting?

He kept her waiting while he scanned the blueline in front of him. Checking the magazine proof was the production manager’s job, but her father tended to spend a lot of time looking over everyone’s shoulders—especially hers. He second-guessed each decision she made, which made the rest of the staff do the same. He claimed he hadn’t gotten to the top by letting others do all the dirty work, and delegating wasn’t something he enjoyed.

Finally, she asked, “You called?”

He put the blueline aside, revealing the folded newspaper beneath it. Aubrey’s tension eased. She suspected he’d seen the photo in the society section. He should be pleased. She and Buck Parks had done exactly as he’d requested and garnered a little free publicity from not only the newspapers but a few celebrity magazines as well.

But that wasn’t an approving smile on her father’s face.

“You sat beside Liam Elliott at the dinner. What did you learn?”

She concealed a wince. Yes, Liam’s face was easily recognizable in the picture. She’d hoped her father wouldn’t notice. “Um, nothing. Buck was my date. I talked to him, not to Liam Elliott.”

In fact, she’d done her best to ignore Liam throughout the mediocre meal and the soporific speeches afterward. Her best hadn’t been good enough. She’d been hyperaware of each shift of his body. And any change in the ventilation of the stuffy banquet hall had wafted his cologne in her direction. As if that weren’t bad enough, his phone call Saturday night had only worsened her preoccupation. Warmth swept through her at the memory. She bit her lip and vowed once again to quit thinking about him.

Very slowly her father lowered the paper. “You missed your chance at lunch. You could have redeemed yourself at the gala. How many times do I have to tell you? Never let an opportunity to find out what the competition is doing slip by.”

A heavy blanket of failure settled over Aubrey’s shoulders. “Yes, sir, I understand. But Liam Elliott is tight-lipped about EPH. You couldn’t pry him open with an oyster knife. I can’t—”

“There is no such thing as can’t, Aubrey. Something is going on at EPH. Patrick Elliott runs a first-class armada.”

He extracted a page of handwritten notes from one of the neat piles on his desk. “Patrick’s son Michael has been out of the office more than he’s been in while his wife has undergone chemotherapy. Michael’s oldest son is running Pulse. Patrick’s second son, Daniel, has stepped down as editor-in-chief of Snap magazine in favor of his youngest son. Patrick’s daughter, Finola, suddenly has had a secret offspring emerge from the woodwork, and Elliott’s granddaughter—one of the twins—has taken off with a rock star and left her ex-fiancé engaged to her sister.”

He lowered the paper and focused hard eyes on Aubrey. “That’s only the news my clipping service has found in the papers. For this many ships to be adrift in Elliott’s port there must be a storm stirring the water. I want to know what kind of storm and when it’s expected to make landfall. Find out.”

Flabbergasted, Aubrey gaped at him. “I’m the VP of single copy sales not an investigative reporter.”

“I’ve given you a direct order, Aubrey. You know Liam Elliott. Use him as your inside contact.”

Use him. “I—I don’t think I can help you.”

“I didn’t ask you to think. Do it,” he commanded in an end-of-discussion tone.

My family’s in enough turmoil without throwing an affair with the enemy’s daughter into the pot. Liam’s comment echoed in Aubrey’s head. Her father’s obvious disappointment in her tempted her to throw out this tidbit to prove that she wasn’t a complete failure, but she was no Mata Hari who slept with men and then shared their secrets.

“I’ll see what I can find out.” But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—go back to the source. Advertising sales directors maintained high-level contacts within advertising agencies. She’d speak to Holt Enterprises’ sales directors and get them to pump the clients they shared with EPH. If there was anything amiss at EPH, maybe some of the advertisers had noticed. And then she’d collate that info and report back to her father. That way she wouldn’t be sharing anything Liam had told her in confidence.

Asking for the report still felt dirty, though.

Her father turned back to the proof, dismissing her without words—an all too familiar experience. Aubrey headed for her office. There were days she hated her job. This was one of them. She reached the threshold of her office and stopped in surprise. An exquisite floral arrangement in a crystal vase sat on her desk.

Roses and Asiatic lilies in the palest pink filled her office with a heavenly scent. Who would send her flowers? Other than the obligatory bouquet her father sent on her birthday, which had been months ago, she never received flowers. She hurried forward and inhaled deeply before extracting the card buried in the lush greenery. Aubrey slid a fingernail beneath the envelope’s sealed flap and extracted the card.

“The color of the flowers reminded me of your dress and their fragrance reminded me of you. Thanks again for your help with the painting. L.”

Liam. Her dress for the gala had been beaded pink silk. He remembered. Aubrey pressed a hand over her racing heart. She glanced at the bold handwriting and then scooted behind her desk and dug in her purse for the business card she had yet to throw away. The bold script was identical. He’d written this note himself rather than anonymously phone it in to a florist. Why that mattered she didn’t know.

Don’t turn this into something romantic, Aubrey. It isn’t and can’t be.

Now what? Should she e-mail Liam and thank him for the flowers? She didn’t dare do that from here where all incoming and outgoing e-mail was saved on a huge server, but she could from her personal computer at home. Maybe she should send a polite but distant thank-you note via U.S. Postal Service. Or should she call? Again, not from here and not the wisest choice since hearing Liam’s voice weakened her knees and her resolve to resist him.

Until she could make up her mind, Aubrey tucked both cards in her purse and tried to keep the telling smile off her face.

Liam Elliott had no business sending her flowers.

And she had absolutely no business being tickled pink to receive them.

Why torture yourself? Do what she said. Throw the thong out and get some sleep.

But Liam didn’t pitch Aubrey’s lingerie into the trash. He lay in bed staring at the black satin in his hand.

He’d gone to bed early to try to catch up on some of the shut-eye he’d been missing, but so far all he’d done was toss and turn and fight the hunger thickening his blood and tightening his skin. Her scent clung to the lingerie. He pitched it onto the nightstand and then turned out the light and rolled over. The sheet clung to his overheated skin. He kicked it off, but it didn’t help. Resting one hand beneath his head, he hunkered down for another night of staring at the ceiling.

What was it about Aubrey Holt that made her so damned hard to forget? Her violet eyes? Her slender figure? Her summer-roses scent? Or the way she’d driven him wild in bed? If he could understand her allure, then he’d be steps closer to eradicating her from his thoughts.

And what was it about him that always drew him to the wrong women? In college it had been his freshman academic advisor. He hadn’t known she was married until after they’d been sleeping together for a month. He’d ended the affair immediately, a little older, a little wiser and a lot more wary. His junior year he’d become involved with a woman on the rebound. He’d lost his heart when she’d returned to the jerk who’d dumped her.

For some reason attached women sought him out. His sister, Bridget, claimed it was because he was a good listener. But, hell, problem solving was what he did best. He listened to both sides, weighed the evidence and then worked out a solution. Working out the solution was his favorite part—like solving a riddle. But he’d learned the hard way to find out a woman’s marital status before asking her out.

Aubrey’s single.

Don’t go there, man.

The phone rang, jarring him, but he welcomed the interruption. He glanced at the bedside clock. Eleven. Probably Cade calling. He picked up. “Hello.”

Silence greeted him. “Hello,” he repeated.

“Liam.”

The breathless voice sent his pulse rate soaring. Not Cade. “Aubrey.”

“I’m sorry to call so late. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.” The words came out in a rush, as if she’d been practicing them for a while.

“You’re welcome. They reminded me of you.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Probably not.” No probably about it. And Aubrey shouldn’t have been the first thing he thought of when he spotted the arrangement in the florist’s window during his morning run. But she’d been in his head all week. Why would this morning be any different? He’d dashed to the florist at lunch to place the order when he should have stayed at EPH and eaten in the company cafeteria with Cade.

“Well … I should go. I just called to … well, thank you.”

He didn’t want to let her go. He reached for the thong, brushing his fingers over the satin. “What are you doing?”

“What?”

“What are you doing? Right now.”

He heard a rush of air, as if she’d exhaled into the receiver. “Getting ready for bed.”

“I beat you to it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m in bed.”

“Oh. Oh my God. Are you alone? Did I inter—”

“Aubrey, you didn’t interrupt anything. I’m alone. You?”

“Am I alone? Of course … I mean, yes, I am.”

A smile tugged his lips. “What are you wearing?”

“Liam. You shouldn’t.” Her scandalized voice trailed off.

He’d crossed the line. He wouldn’t be surprised if she slammed the receiver down.

“A white satin nightgown.”

The image instantly filled his head. He bit back a groan. “Short or long?”

“Long.” Another pause stretched between them. “What are you wearing?”

His heart thumped harder. “It’s just me and your thong.” What had possessed him to reveal that?

“You’re wearing my thong!”

He rocketed up in bed, his body hot with embarrassment. “Hell no. I’m holding it. In my hand.”

Her chuckle, low and sexy as hell, marched down his spine. “You had me worried for a minute.”

“That I was a cross-dresser?”

“Yes. Are you?”

Was she yanking his chain? “God, no.”

“Good. Not that it matters, since we’re not seeing each other.”

“No, we’re not.”

“I should go.”

He scrambled for a way to detain her and recalled a comment she’d made at lunch before she knew his identity. “Did you want to run screaming from the building today?”

“You mean work? Yes. I’m having a lot of those days lately.”

Was she lying in bed or seated on the edge? He wanted to ask, but didn’t. “Same here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ditto.” For once Liam wished he had someone to confide in. In the past he’d talked his problems through with his grandfather or Cade, but both were off-limits this time. His grandfather’s plan was the cause of Liam’s stress, and Cade worked for EPH and was, therefore, part of the trouble. Liam felt like a bone in the middle of a pack of starving dogs. Everybody wanted something from him, something he couldn’t deliver. The staff. The advertisers.

He opened his mouth and then shut it again. Aubrey worked for the competition. Not a safe sounding board.

“Any chance your week will improve?” she asked.

“Doubtful. I’ll be working through lunch all week.”

“Maybe next week will be better.”

It wouldn’t unless his grandfather cancelled this damned contest. “Hope so. And I hope yours is, too. Good night, Aubrey. I’m glad you called.”

“Me, too. Good night, Liam. I won’t say, ‘See you around’ because I won’t.”

“No. Guess not.” And for some reason, that disappointed him.

A rainy day had its advantages.

The inclement weather forced Liam to relocate his usual morning run to the executives’ section of EPH’s private gym—the one place he could be certain to find his grandfather before the workday began. Since Liam needed to talk to Patrick, he could handle the two chores simultaneously, efficiently. Privately.

Judging by the sweat ringing the neck and underarms of his grandfather’s T-shirt, Patrick must have been on the treadmill for a while. It was only 5:30, but his grandfather had started early. As usual, the TV in front of the machines streamed CNN.

Liam hoped he was as sharp as Patrick mentally and physically when he hit seventy-seven. Then again, maybe his grandfather was slipping. This retirement selection process wasn’t a smart move.

Liam stepped onto the treadmill beside Patrick’s as he’d done dozens of times before. The room, thankfully, was empty except for the two of them. “Morning, Patrick.”

“Liam.” Patrick didn’t slow his stride.

Liam worked up to his optimum speed. Once his muscles loosened and he’d reached a comfortable pace he decided to broach the subject that had been keeping him up at night.

The other subject. No way would he discuss with his grandfather his nonrelationship with Aubrey Holt.

“Your contest is tearing EPH apart. You have to end it.”

“Not time yet.”

“Yesterday’s meeting was a combat zone.”

“EPH will be stronger once we’re done,” Patrick said with conviction. Or was it just stubborn pride?

Liam made a conscious effort to unfurl his fists. “Not if the team disbands. We’re fighting ourselves instead of the enemy, Patrick. It’s only a matter of time before our advertisers pick up on the infighting.”

Patrick turned a hard eye on Liam. “The enemy. Holt.”

Liam’s neck prickled. “He’s not our only competition.”

“Your grandmother showed me the picture in the paper. Unfortunate error, the hostess seating you beside Holt’s daughter.”

If Patrick found out that error had cost Liam fifty bucks, his grandfather would hit the ceiling. For Patrick Elliott appearances were everything and consorting with the enemy never looked good. Liam said nothing. Instead he increased his pace and directed his attention to CNN.

Minutes later Patrick turned off his machine and Liam did the same even though he hadn’t yet reached his usual distance. “Patrick, I don’t know if the family relationships will survive this contest. We’re cutting each other’s hearts out. Reconsider. Please.”

“I’ve set a course. I’ll see it through.” Patrick wiped the sweat from his face with a white towel bearing the EPH monogram.

“No matter what the costs?”

“No matter what the costs.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“I don’t think so, son, and I’m willing to wager the company on that.”

“Good, because that’s what you’ve done. I hope you don’t live to regret it.” Hoping to ease his frustration, Liam climbed back on the treadmill and set himself a mind-numbing pace.

“Your lunch is here.”

Liam looked up from the spreadsheet. He hadn’t ordered anything. Ann, his administrative assistant, must have. “Thanks, Ann. Put it there. I’ll get to it as soon as I finish this.”

She set a bag on the corner of his desk. The Ernie’s Pub logo on the receipt caught Liam’s attention, slamming his train of thought against a wall. Nobody at EPH knew about his penchant for Ernie’s—an intentional omission. “Could you close the door on your way out?”

Her eyebrows rose. He never closed the door unless he had a private meeting. “Certainly.”

As soon as the latch clicked he shoved his paperwork aside and reached for the bag and the receipt stapled to the outside. “Bookmaker’s Special,” he read. His favorite sandwich and he knew damned well no one in this building knew that.

His heart stuttered as he tore open the folded-down top and pulled out the ordinary Styrofoam container inside. The note taped to the top of the box wasn’t in any way, shape or form ordinary. He ripped it off.

“Sorry you have to work through lunch. Enjoy. A.”

Aubrey had sent him lunch.

He didn’t know what to make of the gesture, but he sure as hell knew he shouldn’t be smiling. He tried to wipe the grin off his face, but it returned. In the midst of the tension at work his and Aubrey’s secret game was pure pleasure. Forbidden pleasure. He reached for the phone with one hand and his wallet with the other, planning to dig out her number, call her and thank her. But he set the phone back in the cradle and shoved his wallet back into his pocket.

He couldn’t call her from here. He’d call her tonight.

Tonight when it would be just the two of them.