Playing Pretend by Cassie-Ann L. Miller
Six
Liam
My assistantand I amble out of our third bar of the night, and while I’d never admit it to her, I’m feeling better than I have in weeks.
As we move down the crowded street, Eliza looks up at me, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “I can’t believe that pub has a cocktail named after you on their menu. When you walked up to the bar and ordered a Kline-a-colada, I was sure that last guy was going to laugh in your face.”
I shrug like the smug bastard I am. “Just the perks of owning half the district.”
Normally I don’t throw my weight around. But I’m in that type of mood tonight. Something else I’d never admit aloud? I feel the need to impress Eliza. Don’t ask me why.
I’m a man with influence. Power. Authority.
And I want her to know who the fuck I am.
What can I say? Every man likes to have his ego stroked by a pretty girl now and then.
I hold open the door to a kitschy little souvenir shop and Eliza struts in ahead of me. My gaze hooks on the luscious sway of her hips in her curve-hugging navy blue skirt. Lust roars through my groin.
My male ego isn’t the only thing in need of a good stroking tonight.
Wow—does my hungry cock ever chill out? Apparently not when Eliza Jenkins is around.
Goddammit. When we left the office earlier, I promised myself that tonight would be strictly business. No drinking. No flirting. No letting my mind get carried away.
I’ve already broken all of those rules.
As we roam through the gift shop, I take a moment to remind myself that the sole purpose of this outing is to collect valuable data that will improve my company’s future marketing campaigns. After the crapshoot that the Varner file turned into, I need a new strategy for selling impending business prospects on the merits of bringing their establishments to Sin Valley. In order to accomplish tonight’s task, I need to be sober and level-headed. And so does Eliza.
But in the very first bar we went to, we were offered a free sample of the cocktail of the week—something with way too much peppermint syrup and not much of anything else. The thing tasted like rum-spiked toothpaste on ice.
Absolutely disgusting.
We escaped that drinking spot only to run head-on into an energetic costumed duo who insisted on giving us an impromptu samba lesson right there in the middle of the sidewalk.
Then, Eliza tugged me toward a street artist who made a vivid caricature of the two of us in sixty seconds, flat.
We stopped to listen to the busker playing Mariah Carey’s greatest hits on his bagpipe outside of the Quickie Inn.
She had me eating za’atar flat bread from a sketchy-looking food truck and stuffing twenties into the outstretched caps of the magicians and puppeteers and other buskers performing along the street.
Any time I’d try to hustle her along, she’d tug on my arm and insist that it’s all part of the Sin Valley experience.
I may have missed out on the fun of the Strip over the past couple of years but tonight, with Eliza by my side, I’m more than making up for it.
I’m reminded why I fell in love with this place. Why I was motivated to throw my whole life into developing my middle of nowhere hometown into something unforgettable, something that will leave a mark and live on long after I’m gone. I know that the idea of Sin Valley is unconventional, but it deserves a fighting chance.
We stroll in and out of dozens of businesses along both sides of the strip. As much fun as Eliza is having, she has not once lost sight of the fact that this is a work-related outing. Every business we enter, big or small, she showers the workers with questions pertinent to our research. She keeps meticulous notes of the valuable information she collects on her phone.
Halfway into our night, Eliza begins teetering in her heels. I guide her into a cavernous, hole-in-the-wall dive bar named The Cathedral and we stumble into a quiet booth at the back.
The thick concrete pillars, ornate pointed archways and colorful stained glass windows create a cozy mood in the place. The lighting is extra dim and guitar-heavy country music plays low in the background. The booths are designed to resemble church confessionals with wooden pews and woven dividers separating the tables.
After we’ve placed our order, Eliza pulls up the notes on her phone and starts scrolling away.
“Let’s see what you’ve got there,” I say, playfully bumping my thigh against hers beneath the table.
Her face lights up with excitement when I say that. She leans across the table, angling her phone so I can read the screen. “Well, I’ll say this—Sin Valley is bursting with opportunities for making horrible life choices. Nightclubs, casinos, and so…many…wedding chapels!”
“That should be our slogan.” I smirk. “The ideal place for making some horrible life choices. At a fraction of the cost.”
“There’s a lot of good happening here, too,” she interjects with a giggle. She reads from her screen. “The bar and grill we passed by earlier listed a bunch of job postings specifically for students from the community college. The twenty-four-hour diner feeds first responders for free every weekend. And one of the casinos down the block donates twenty percent of their profits to local charities. So, in the bright of day, Sin Valley is a pretty special place.”
When she smiles at me like that, I can’t help the pull to lean closer to her. So close I can feel her body heat from across the table. “I’d have to agree. It is special.”
My gaze flickers down her pretty face, catching on those strawberry lips. I wonder how they’d feel on mine. My eyes dart to the hint of cleavage revealed at the neckline of her blouse. I briefly visualize how her breasts would feel cupped in my palms.
Dammit, she’s gorgeous. And she smells so good. And I feel like I’m about to do something dumb.
Thankfully, the waitress shows up right then. The woman places Eliza’s platter of sticky chicken wings on the table along with my football-sized hamburger, a large basket of French fries and two beers.
Eliza aims her brilliant smile at the waitress then merrily digs into her chicken wings. “Hey! I’ve got something else to add to our list,” she chirps, wiping her fingers on a napkin and tapping on her phone screen again. “Another plus in the Sin Valley column. A well-balanced mix of foot traffic and convenient parking options,” she says slowly, speaking as she types with her thumbs.
I pick up my burger. “Good add. No one wants to struggle with parking a mile away and dealing with shuttles.” I bite into the sandwich and it’s absolutely delicious. “What else?”
“Small town people.”
I laugh. “Okay. And would that be a pro or a con?”
She smacks me on the bicep and I get another whiff of her berry-scented shampoo. “A pro, of course. Small town people are so freaking nice. Go to Vegas or Atlantic City, and you’ll be lucky to hear a ‘pardon me’ me or see someone hold a door open for a stranger.”
“You’ve got a point.” I hold up my finger as another realization strikes me. “Another thing—crime. I have a ton of data on Sin Valley’s crime rates. It’s practically non-existent.”
“Oh my god. Yes,” she breathes, typing away. “So true.”
“You make a wrong turn in our competition’s cities, you’ll be beginning your initiation tasks to join an underground criminal organization.”
She laughs throatily. “Make a wrong turn here, and you’ll end up sipping tea with someone’s grandma on their porch swing.” Her laughter slowly floats off and she thoughtfully bites her juicy lip. “But...we don’t have a beach here. How do we compensate for that?” Her little pout is goddamned cute.
I shrug. “We also don’t have Atlantic City’s city-wide flooding issue. When you park your car in a parking garage around here, we can guarantee it won’t fucking swim away.”
Eliza beams. “Oh, I’m totally quoting you on that.”
Our list grows longer, as we add more and more reasons why big shot developers should partner up with Kline-Simmons to bring their resorts to town.
Finally, she puts down her phone and hungrily digs into her basket of chicken again. She bites into a wing and barbecue sauce smears those strawberry lips.
“My god—this is so good. I think I’m obsessed!”
Watching her, I chuckle to myself. Not only is she unafraid to eat, but I love how she’s not afraid to get messy while doing it. When she closes her eyes and groans quietly around a chicken bone, I almost lean forward and devour her damn mouth.
I search my mind for the last time I was on a date like this. With a woman so totally unafraid to be herself.
This isn’t a date, dumbass.
This woman is my secretary.She’s not here because she enjoys socializing with me. She’s here because tolerating my grumpy ass is part of her job description. I can’t allow myself to lose sight of that.
I’ve got to stay in control.
I don’t have time for a woman in my life. I need to remain focused on my business goals and ambitions. After all, I didn’t amount to today’s success by giving in to distractions.
Tearing my gaze away from Eliza, I return my attention to the task at hand to keep from doing something dumb. Leaping across the table and tackling her with my tongue, for example. “Of all the reasons we’ve come up with, here’s the most important one: Low crime and easy accessibility will attract more than just your average party crowd. You’ll get the older generations, too. The ones with real money. The ones who like to play golf all day. And if that doesn’t win Varner over, he’s not as smart as he’d like everyone to believe.”
“Agreed, boss.”
In the dim light of the bar, I see the corners of Eliza’s mouth curl up slightly. Fuck, she’s adorable.
“Why are you smiling?” I shoot at her, trying to sound annoyed.
“You like to act like you don’t care about anything.” she says observantly, spinning her cocktail glass around on the table. “But this means a lot to you…”
“I never said I don’t care about anything.” I bite into my burger.
“But you act like you don’t.” After a brief hesitation, she leans her elbows on the tabletop. “Can I ask you something? Why do you want to close the Varner Resorts deal so badly? I mean, I’m fully aware of the financial implications, but we’ve seen big cases come and go at the office. Yet, I can see that this one matters a lot to you.”
I pull in a breath and scan her eyes for an instant. I never go into personal matters with my employees but there’s something in Eliza’s face. Something that makes me want to open up. Just a little.
“Sin Valley was my father’s dream. He had big plans to turn our midwestern town into a booming resort city that rivaled Las Vegas and Atlantic City. I grew up hearing about all his big ambitions, seeing all the blueprints and drawings for my father’s plan. It was all he talked about.” My lips press together before I carry on. “But none of those dreams came true…because of Dad’s business partner.” My blood boils at the thought of Rocco Romano. The fucking bastard. “He sabotaged the whole operation. He took all of my Dad’s resources, all of his contacts, and headed off to Vegas.”
Eliza’s warm hand falls gently on my forearm. “Oh my gosh. That’s awful.”
I shake my head, warding off the negative energy that comes along with these memories. My gut tightens particularly at the idea of how Dad just rolled over and accepted defeat. That’s the part I hate most. He didn’t fight back. He didn’t defend his dream.
“That’s what lit a fire under me,” I say. “It started out as a mission to realize my father’s dream, but I guess at some point, it turned into my dream, too.”
“I’m really sorry that happened to your dad.” Eliza speaks in a soft voice.
“It is what it is.” I try to make it sound like it’s no big deal. But what Rocco did to my family has eaten at me for years. “Anyway, Dad’s ex-business partner is competing against me for the Varner deal and it would kill me to see the project awarded to that bastard.”
“Oh…” Eliza slowly nods her head in understanding. She’s silent for a moment before saying. “The Strip is such an impressive district. And to think—you built it from the ground up. How did you even go about doing that? Especially at your age.”
“I was barely out of high school when I started gathering up investors and started building.”
She blinks, looking surprised. “Really? How did you do that? How did you get all those big shot investors to believe in you?”
I laugh dryly. I slip my business card out of my wallet and slide it across the table toward her. I point out the bold logo imprinted at the top in royal blue calligraphy. “What does this say?”
“Kline-Simmons Realty Developments…?” she reads the card.
“You ever ask yourself who this ‘Simmons’ person is?” I grab a napkin, ball it up and blot at the smudge at the corner of her lip.
She shrugs, her cheeks pinkening as her hand falls over mine. She takes over the task of wiping away the barbecue sauce. “I…I figured he was a silent investor or something.”
“Right. Most people assume the same thing.” I slip the card back into my wallet. “Simmons doesn’t exist.”
Her jaw falls open. “What…?”
“When nobody would believe in me, I refused to give up. I chose to become creative instead. So I put an imaginary person’s name on my letterhead just to gain a bit of credibility.”
Eliza is riveted to my every word, chin propped in her palm, eyes glued to my face. “Fake it till you make it…”
I nod ruefully. “Fake it till you make it…” I clear my throat to chase the emotion away. “Now, we’re ten years in, and the district is coming around. It’s not quite where I want it. That’s why I work so hard.”
I’ve never spoken to anybody about this so I don’t know why tonight is any different, why I’m saying these things to my secretary. I glance around at the room. Maybe it’s the cozy atmosphere of this dive bar, the church confessional booths. Maybe it’s the smudge of barbecue sauce on the corner of Eliza’s strawberry lips. All I know is I hear myself spilling my past out across the heavy wood table between us without reservations.
Eliza’s eyes are shining and misty. “Wow—that has to be the most incredible story I’ve ever heard.” She wipes a tear from her eye.
Rather than sink into the emotion brewing in the air, I fake being annoyed at her. “Just how unprofessional can you get, woman? Look at you here, covered in barbecue sauce and crying in the middle of a work meeting. What is this?!” I snatch another napkin from the dispenser and blot at her tears.
“Shut up!” Laughing, Eliza slaps my arm. “You did the brave thing when giving up would have been easier. That was incredibly courageous of you, Liam. I mean—Mr. Kline.” Her cheeks flush slightly when she calls me that. I want to tell her that I like it. That I want her to call me by my first name all the time. But that would be far too personal.
Instead, I turn the conversation in the opposite direction. “I just wish I could get Varner to see how special this project is. I’m just so fucking frustrated. I don’t know what else he wants from me. I’ve run the numbers for him again and again. I’ve shown him all the data but…”
“Pro tip—maybe you’d get better results if you try to sound less stabby over the phone with his assistant.” Her puffy lips spread into a slow grin.
I glower at her face, struggling not to be blinded by how fucking pretty she is, especially when she’s wearing that smug expression. “I’m attempting to think of a very manly alternative to rolling my eyes right now.” I snarl. “I’m coming up with a blank.”
Her expression seamlessly transitions into a genuine smile. “In all seriousness, it’s not about the data. It’s the experience. It’s the vibe. That’s why people fall in love with Sin Valley. Can’t you see that?”
“I guess you’re right,” I concede, pushing my empty beer bottle aside.
I must be making a face because she laughs a little. “Y’know, you’re awfully uptight and stuffy for someone at the center of a glitzy, exciting place like Sin Valley.”
“Did you just call me stuffy?” I challenge, sort of offended.
She holds out a hand appeasingly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” She snickers some more. “I just mean I can tell it’s been a long time since you’ve done something spontaneous.”
My eyes flicker down to her lips. “I’d say I’ve been plenty spontaneous tonight.” And I’m barely restraining myself from completely crossing the line.
A sketchy-looking guy lowers into the booth across from us. His hollow eyes are pinned on Eliza the whole time. If he thinks he’s about to hit on my assistant, he has a whole other thing coming to him. Her attention is all mine tonight and I have no intention of sharing.
I send him the message with my sharp glare. He responds by pulling his gray Panama hat lower over his face. Then he rises from the booth and cowers away.
I bring my attention back to Eliza. Silence has fallen over our table now. When we both reach into the basket of French fries at the same time, our fingertips brush.
“Oh, uh, sorry.” A blush rises along Eliza’s cheeks.
I slide the basket her way. ‘Cause I’m a gentleman, dammit. “Go ahead. Eat.”
But the French fries are forgotten. We sit there. Staring at each other. Getting swallowed up by the heated tension devouring our table.
Eliza Jenkins is gorgeous, smart, compassionate, comfortable in her own skin. More and more, I’m struggling to remember why I need to keep my hands off of her.
Involuntarily, my teeth sink into my bottom lip as I stare at her. I quickly draw my lips into a flat line, not wanting to send her the wrong message.
Stay in control, Liam.
Snapping out of my trance, I clear my throat. “Okay, let’s get out of here…”
She gives me a good-natured smile. “Let’s do it.”
We do some more walking around and I take everything in with fresh eyes, like it’s all new to me. Eliza just has this way about her that makes me look at the world around me from a different perspective.
When we duck out of Kissy Kissy Bang Bang, the most popular chapel on the Strip, we’re nearly back to where we started, right around the corner from the office.
This night has gone better than I imagined. She’s really struggling in her heels now. I was trying to figure out how the hell she managed to lumber around the Strip in those things all night. Now, I’m practically holding her upright.
She nudges me with her elbow and looks up at me with twinkling eyes. “So, would you say that tonight was a productive night?”
“Definitely.”
“Good. Can you admit that my idea to explore the town was a good one?”
“I can admit that. I can give credit where credit is due.”
She does a cute little fist-pump to celebrate. “Now, I’m gonna need you to take back that thing you said about me being replaceable. Like all your previous administrative assistants.”
“Well you might be pushing it with that.” I chuckle.
“No. Let me hear you say it.” She cups a hand around her ear and waits.
I expel a heavy breath. “Fine. You’re exceptional. Phenomenal. One of a kind.” My lips swing into a teasing half-smile. “My business might just crumble without you. You sure you don’t want to head back inside the chapel? I might have to marry you to make sure you don’t abandon me.”
She laughs, catches her heel on the sidewalk, and then titters some more. “Oh I’m sure HR would have a field day with that one, boss.”
“I’m the one who signs off on the employee handbooks. Won’t be too hard to get that amended.”
“Of course. How could I forget? The king always gets what the king wants.”
“Exactly,” I supply. “So what do you say?”
We’re on the sidewalk, under a bright street lamp just a few steps away from the chapel. My feet stop moving. Eliza meets my gaze. Her amusement dissolves in a cute little puddle on the ground. She looks adorably terrified.
“Oh. Umm…I don’t…Maybe this is a conversation we should be having when we’re sober.” She completes her suggestion with a hiccup.
“Jesus. I’m joking. You should see your face.” I throw my head back and laugh, louder and harder than I have in a long time.
But Eliza doesn’t join me. Instead, she takes a step closer, squinting, her eyes focused on my face.
“Why are you staring at my mouth?” I demand.
Tell me you want to kiss me. Tell me you want my mouth on yours.
She takes a step closer. “Is your…is your tongue green? Wait—your tongue is green!” Now, she’s giggling. The sound is kittenish, high-pitched and deliciously genuine. “Your tongue is green!”
And yours is watermelon pink. And I want it inside my mouth.
“Desiree’s son gave me a green lollipop earlier.”
“Oh, a green lollipop? That’s a relief.”
“A relief? How so?”
“I know how much you like money. I figured you were probably making out with a pile of hundred dollar bills or something when nobody was looking.”
I wanna make out with you…
Again, I forcefully remind myself that this is not a date. But truthfully, I haven’t connected with anyone like this in forever. I can’t remember the last time I talked to a woman on this level. Eliza Jenkins does something to me.
I roll my eyes. “Haha! Funny.”
She shrugs. “Who knows?! Billionaires do weird shit.”
I can’t help laughing. We laugh together until it eventually peters away.
And now, here we are, on a street corner, with the towering sidewalk post clock inching toward midnight. She’s more beautiful than I ever allowed myself to notice. The strawberry lips and the curves and the hair. And after talking to her all night, I’m even more turned on by how smart she is, how easy it is to talk to her. It’s so damn rare to meet a woman on my level.
Hell, if I were an honest man, I’d admit that Eliza Jenkins is out of my league and I’m damn lucky I got to spend the evening with her at all.
I want to lose control.
I want to press her to the brick wall, knot my fingers in her wavy hair and kiss her.
This woman is driving me crazy.
“Do you know what happened to the last secretary who tried to give me half as much sass as you do?”
Her gaze flicks to my mouth again and she licks her supple red lips. “I can handle whatever you have in mind for me, boss…”
My heart starts beating out of tune and the blood pumping in my ears is so violent I fear it might burst my eardrums.
I lean down, our faces just a breath apart. Eliza’s eyes gloss over as she leans closer, too.
But panic swoops in from out of nowhere. What am I doing?! What am I doing?! What am I doing?!
Instead of pulling her against my body and claiming her lips with mine like I want to, I take a step away.
I hear myself say, “You’re fired.”