There was no bullshit when it came to Cecily and me. I didn’t like relationships, labels, or being tied down to any one girl; and she liked guys who demanded control. It was the complete opposite of who she was, but I wasn’t going to question it. She wasn’t shy about her need to be at the top of everything—including a company—nor was she shy about her willingness to step on any and everyone to get there.
She wanted my job, I’d known that before we started sleeping together, but she couldn’t have it. And despite our current status and her greed-filled eyes, she wasn’t one to sleep her way to the top—we just happened to be a nice distraction for each other at work.
I looked up just in time to stop myself from running into the man standing in the hallway. He hadn’t been moving; he was just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow raised as he studied me.
“Excuse me,” I said, and moved to walk around him—he moved with me. My eyebrows slanted down, and I looked up at him. Yeah. Up. I was six-two. To have to look up at someone was saying something. “Can I help you?” I asked when I noticed his mirrored movement hadn’t been a mistake; he was still staring down at me with a calculating expression.
The man didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything. With a huff, I gave him a once-over and smirked. My dad owned a boxing gym, meaning I’d grown up around some of the leanest, deadliest fighters around, as well as some of the biggest meat heads. But this fucker was massive. “If you don’t mind, I have somewhere to be. And lay off the steroids, old man.”
When I went to move around him this time, he let me pass; but when I looked over my shoulder, he was turned around and glaring at me with that same expression before he glanced behind him toward my office.
My footsteps faltered and I racked my brain trying to think of any mention of another guy Cecily might be seeing—one who would come looking for her at work—but I came up with nothing. And somehow I knew in the way he was glaring at me again that he wasn’t looking at me like he was ready to fight. He looked like he was frustrated with what he was seeing in me.
Shaking my head as if to clear it, I looked ahead of me and continued down the halls to my boss’s office. Before I got there, I stopped at his secretary’s desk. “Hey, call security. There’s a guy in here I’ve never seen before, and I don’t think he’s supposed to be here. Height is probably six-five. Weight is around two seventy or two eighty. The guy is solid muscle, tan, Caucasian, black hair.” I watched as she jotted everything down. “Got it?”
“Yeah,” she said as she grabbed the phone, but I didn’t wait to hear the conversation.
Walking toward the office beside her, I knocked on the door as I opened it, and flashed a smile at my boss, Eli Jenkins.
“Hey, Liam, come in and have a seat.”
I sat in one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk, and waited for whatever he had to say as he sat directly next to me. Despite what I’d told Cecily, I wasn’t worried about losing my job. I knew Eli liked me and my work, and I was on the same path he’d taken in this industry. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know about Cecily and me, and our interoffice relationship wasn’t exactly allowed.
Before he could say anything else, his eyes snapped up when the door to his office quickly opened.
“Two hundred and seventy to two hundred and eighty pounds? Hardly.”
I turned quickly at the deep voice, and my eyes widened at the roided-out guy from the hall.
“Two hundred eighty-five, actually. I’m proud of those extra five pounds.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, standing up from the chair. Turning to look at Eli, I pointed at the guy. “I had security called on him.”
“He called me ‘old man,’ can you believe that?” The guy snorted. “At least you were right about the height. Good one, kid.” He walked around to sit in Eli’s desk chair, and I looked back and forth between him and where Eli was sitting next to me.
Eli rolled his eyes. “Liam Taylor, it’s not exactly a pleasure to introduce you, but this is Mason Gates. He’s a close friend of my sister and her husband.”
“You still don’t like me?” Mason asked Eli. “It was twenty-three years ago.”
Eli shot him a hard look. “She’s my sister. No, I still don’t like you.” Glancing over to me, Eli explained, “He also dated my other sister.”
Mason snorted a laugh at the word dated, but didn’t say anything else to piss off Eli. Nodding in my direction, he said, “He’s good. Probably dumb as shit, but he’s funny, and he was pretty spot-on about me. Minus the steroids.”
“I’m lost,” I whispered to the room, and then looked at Mason. “What was your deal in the hall?”
“I already knew I wasn’t going to like you. Any other questions?”
“Mason,” Eli barked, then looked at me. “Act like he’s not here. For whatever reason, he felt the need to be here when I talked with you.”
“Okay . . .” I said, drawing out the word. “Talk to me about what?”
“Mason just brought my nieces to California from Florida so they could get away from a situation going on back home, and they’re not exactly happy about being here. They know they need to be here, and that’s all that’s keeping them from going back to Florida, but they need something to do to keep them busy. A job, friends . . . anything. And I was hoping that you would be able to help with that.”
I waited to see if he would add anything, and when he didn’t, I shrugged. “I—sure. I mean, I don’t know how much I can do to help them find friends, but if they’re old enough for the gym, I know my dad is looking for a few people.”
Mason cleared his throat, and Eli gave him an annoyed look before saying, “We also need to make sure that one of them, Kira, doesn’t try to run back home. She has a boyfriend and is taking the separation harder than her sister. My sister and brother-in-law trust my judgment to find someone who can do that. I trust you as much as I trust my own son, and I think you and your connections will be exactly what they need to settle in here.”
I laughed hesitantly and looked at both of them for a few seconds. “Are you serious? I’m not a babysitter, Eli; we work in advertising. Besides that, I’m twenty-four, what do you expect me to do with these girls that will make it seem okay for me to even act like their friend?”
“I knew I didn’t like him,” Mason blurted out, and stood. “Meeting over.”
“Sit down,” Eli ordered, but didn’t look to make sure he did. “Liam, my nieces just turned twenty-two, they’re close to your age. And no one is asking you to babysit them.”
“You want me to make sure one of them doesn’t run back to her boyfriend! That sounds like babysitting,” I argued.
“Still don’t like him,” Mason chimed in, but Eli and I didn’t bother responding to him.
“I don’t need you to watch her every move, I was just hoping that you could maybe include them in whatever you and your friends are doing one or two times over the weekends. See if the girls get along with you or your friends, try to get them to have a good time so they won’t focus on how much they don’t want to be here. You don’t have to give up your life for them, Liam. And if you aren’t willing to do that, and if your dad does have space at the gym for them, that would be more than enough. I won’t ask you for anything else.” When I just sat there staring at him, Eli leaned closer. “Please. I’d have my son do this, but you know he’s backpacking through Europe this summer with his friends.”