“Shocking that you know how to do something,” Liam drawled. His voice was scarily calm and measured.
“Fuck you!” the asshole guy shouted. “And fuck her for making you fire Fiona and her team.”
It happened so fast. One moment, Liam stood in front of me, and the next, he had his fists curled into the idiot’s shirt.
“One word. One more fucking word about my wife, Shane, and I promise you’ll regret it.”
Shane’s eyes went big with fear, but he still notched his chin up a few inches. “Oh yeah? You’ll be the one with regrets when you lose this company, and I’m the one sitting in your precious little seat.”
He tried to pull away from Liam, but the man’s grip was relentless. Liam’s knuckles were white, and even from where I stood, I saw the muscle in his jaw pulse furiously fast. He seemed one second away from ramming his fist into Shane’s face but shoved him backward instead.
“Get the hell out of my office.”
Falling over his feet, Shane hurried to the door. He muttered something I couldn’t quite make out, then slammed the door shut with the same intensity he’d thrown it open a few moments ago.
Liam immediately turned to me. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“What’s he talking about?” I swallowed. “You fired Eventique?”
“Yes.”
My frown deepened. “Why? They’ve always done the Nouvelle Femme Year-end Function.”
Liam’s jaw hardened. For a few breathtakingly long moments, he just stared at me.
“What they did to you wasn’t right. I couldn’t make it right for you, but I could do this.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Besides, I don’t want people who don’t value honesty and honorability working on anything for Nouvelle Femme.”
I had no freaking clue what to do with that. I wholly understood the second part of his statement. If I had my own company, I absolutely would want to be associated with companies with integrity.
It was that first part, my brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around.
He’d revoked a contract they’d held for almost a decade becausewhat they’d done to me wasn’t right.
“Liam, you can’t—”
“Don’t.” His long legs ate up the distance between us in a few easy strides. Wrapping his fingers around mine, he held my hand against his chest. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t necessary. Or that I shouldn’t have done it. It was, and I should have. I’d do it again, too. You didn’t deserve to lose a job you loved because my asshole cousin promised the girl he was screwing something she wasn’t entitled to.”
“That’s not why they fired me,” I admitted softly.
Liam’s lips twitched like he was holding back a smile. “I know about the staplerincident.”
“It…just happened.”
This time, he didn’t hide his grin. It was wide and beautiful. My knees did that wobbly thing again, and the butterflies in my belly went crazy.
“I would’ve paid a lot of money to see that.” Liam brushed a thumb over my cheekbone. “I bet your cheeks were the same pretty color they get when you’re turned on.” His gaze shifted from where he’d watched his stroking thumb to meet mine. “Those eyes were probably big and shiny like two scorching green flames.”
He licked his lips. My breath caught in my throat.
“Fuck.” Dropping his forehead to mine, he wound his arms around me. “The thought of you pissed the hell off probably shouldn’t turn me on.” Liam’s hand slid down my back to cup my butt. Digging his fingers into my skin, he brought our hips together. “But here we are.”
Oh, yeah. He was turned on, all right. And so was I.
To be fair, though, we only had to be in the same room for my lady bits to go nuts.
I licked my lips like he’d done earlier, but since we were so incredibly close, my tongue slid over his mouth, too. An oh-so-deep groan vibrated through his chest and skittered over my skin like a live wire in a puddle of water.
I flattened my palms on his chest and tasted him again. He’d anticipated the move and parted his lips, so I licked into his mouth. He caught my tongue easily, sucking on it like he couldn’t get enough.