Playing It Close (11 page)

“Yeah, wonderful. Companies are falling all over themselves to hire me. Everyone loves a colleague-shagging whistleblower.”

“Good. I was hoping you hadn’t found anything yet. I have an opportunity for you. Actually, it’s more an opportunity for
me
, and I need your help.”

Tess’s jaw went slack. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was full of fuzzy dryness. “A...a job?”

“Yep. If you want it, it’s yours, but I need you to come to my office, like,
now
. Sorry for the short notice. Are you free?”

She leaped out of bed and nearly collapsed from an exploding head. Biting back a yelp, she sat on the edge of her mattress and dug her fingers into her temples. She bought herself a few moments to recover from the vertigo by saying, “Hold on, let me check my diary.”

After taking deep breaths to settle her stomach, she replied, “Yeah, I’m free. I can be there in about forty-five minutes. Is that okay?”

“Perfect. Cheers, Tessy.”

She hung up and stumbled into the bathroom, where she turned on the sink and cupped her hands under the tap to capture a few palmfuls of water to rehydrate herself. After a quick shower, she could walk nearly upright to her closet.

* * *

After seven years of working in the City, Tess was accustomed to wearing a suit to work, but when she arrived at Kijani Adventures’ office in a converted factory in Shoreditch, she realized her clothes made her stick out like...well, like a suit among a bunch of hipsters.

She should’ve known. With Charlie at the helm, the travel agency was bound to be different. He greeted her in the lobby of the large brick building they shared with several start-up tech companies seemingly staffed by teenagers. A receptionist sat to her left while much of the open-plan lobby was filled with bouncy balls and table football. On a square of AstroTurf in the corner, garden chairs were occupied by several creative types who sipped energy drinks while brainstorming.

Perhaps she should’ve kept her pink hair. At least then she would’ve had a shot at blending in with the zoo of ultra-cool trendies. Instead, she was a brunette with a bob wearing the most outrageous suit she could find in her closet—one with pinstripes.

She’d been thrown off balance even before she’d entered the building. On the wall outside, passersby could still make out the old factory’s name painted in large block letters sometime in the last century: Jones’s Fabric Dyes.

Jones—Liam’s fake name. For the millionth time since she’d abandoned his warm embrace and debated whether to wake him or just leave a note, she tried to push him from her mind. Charlie was offering her a new start, and she wouldn’t spend her first day at work moping because the building made her feel like she was wrapped up in Liam all over again.

“Tessy!” Charlie’s voice boomed across the open lobby. She finished signing her name at the reception desk and greeted him with a smile and hug. He wrapped his arms around her. “How’s my favorite uptight cousin?”

“Ready to whip these slackers into shape. Do their bosses know they’re lounging around playing table football?”

He laughed. “They
are
the bosses...but not of Kijani. I’ll introduce you to them later. They’re working on some really cool apps. You’re looking at the next Google.”

“They can’t be the bosses,” she whispered as Charlie led her past the group. “They’re fourteen. Look—they can’t even shave yet.”

“Don’t need to be hairy to be a tech genius. Come on, let’s go up to our office and I’ll show you around.”

He gave her the grand tour of their fifth-floor office, which didn’t last long since Kijani only had forty full-time staff in London. The rest worked remotely in cities around the world. Charlie introduced her as
my cousin Tess
,
who might help us out with an exciting new project.
She tried not to let her eagerness bubble over into an embarrassing display of emotion. Truthfully, she’d take the position even if the exciting new project was scrubbing toilets. She needed a job. Not for the money—she still had plenty saved from her years of managing multi-million pound accounts. But for the sense of purpose. She’d lost her reason for waking up in the morning, and that could never be a good thing.

Plus, the vibe she got from Kijani was so exciting and different to the corporate environment she was used to. One wall of their office space was covered with a world map that had pins stuck in about twenty countries, including Venezuela. The rest of the wall space was a gallery devoted to National Geographic-like framed posters, some of which she recognized. Charlie’s photos from his travels around the world.

“Are all these yours?” she asked, taking a closer look at one with several smiling African women, their necks elongated by colorful beaded necklaces.

“Yep. That’s my most recent. I don’t think I’ve shown you my Kenya photos yet, have I?”

She shook her head.

“Those women are from the Turkana tribe in the north, near the border with South Sudan. Those beads are their wealth, their dowry, so the more they have, the richer they are.”

Tess had always been jealous of Charlie’s travels. He was a few years older, and while she was still in school he’d skipped university in favor of traveling the world without taking a single flight. He’d spent three years backpacking through Europe, Africa and Asia while she’d studied her arse off to get three As and an A-star in her A-level exams. Her head had been filled with maths, business, finance and—just for the fun of it—international politics, while he’d filled his camera lens with stories. She’d gone straight into university while he’d horrified his family by coming home and declaring that he would start his own travel company without having any sort of education to fall back on.

But he’d done it. And he’d clearly made a success of it. At a time when traditional travel agencies were closing their doors, he’d found ways of staying relevant and vibrant. Tess tried not to see that as a reflection of the differences between the two of them.

When he’d finished introducing her to everyone, he led her through the small kitchen to a meeting room that would seat eight comfortably. The company’s only meeting room was a far cry from the boardrooms she was used to. It even had large blue rubber balls like one would find in a Pilates classroom.

“I know you’re wearing trousers today, but I wouldn’t sit on one of those in a pencil skirt,” Charlie said.

“Thanks, I’m familiar enough with them not to try. I’m just not used to seeing them in the corporate world.”

Charlie shivered and closed the door behind them. “Okay, first rule of Kijani. The C-word is banned.”

Thank God
, Tess thought before realizing he must not have been referring to the four-letter C-word her former colleagues had batted around as if it were no more offensive than the words
coffee
or
cat.
“Wait—
corporate?
”

He made gagging noises. She would’ve thought they were a joke except his face turned a strange shade of gray. “Seriously, Tessy. Stop. I’m allergic.”

She laughed and sat in one of the regular chairs. “Okay, that’s the first rule of Kijani. Is the second rule that I can’t talk about Kijani?”

“Absolutely not. You can talk about her all you want.”

She rolled her eyes. “Men and their feminizing of objects they love.”

Drawing his brows together, he gave her a concerned look. “Was that sexist? I didn’t mean to be sexist.”

And this was why she loved Charlie. He was the most sensitive man she knew. He could always read her moods, could be relied on to keep a secret and gave fantastic advice when it came to facial cleansing products. The world needed more metrosexual men.

She reached across the table and patted his hand. “I think you’re okay. Go on, then. Tell me about Kijani and what you want me to do.”

He talked for ages. His company was his baby, but the man didn’t have a finance-oriented bone in his body. He was the creative driver behind the company’s success, but he’d also been born with some sort of gene that helped him identify the perfect staff members to fill key positions. He explained that as Kijani was rapidly expanding, he felt the need to bring on a new project manager. Sounded perfect to Tess, even if he hadn’t given her details of what the project would be.
Any
job sounded perfect right now. She desperately needed to get out of the house and find something to do that made her proud of herself. Being able to guzzle a bottle of wine all by herself wasn’t that thing.

“Anyway,” Charlie said, “we have a new promo opportunity that just cropped up today. I’m really excited about it, and I think it’ll help us reach an audience we sometimes struggle with—middle-aged family men with disposable income who want to do something exciting. But it’s a big commitment—not just financially but time-wise as well. And I need someone with a brain like yours to help me suss it out and determine if it’s the best thing for us.”

“A brilliant brain, you mean?”

“An evil money-making brain. A capitalist brain. A brain that thrives on finding the easiest way of bilking people out of their paychecks.”

Tess pretended offense. “Is that what you think I do?”

“Not anymore. Now you could work for the good guys—a small, thriving business that’s at the heart of the global community. Mostly—at first—I need you to be a number-cruncher, but I thought that might be offensive.”

“Charlie, I will crunch any number you need me to. Tell me more about this opportunity.”

“Well,” he said, a grin turning up his lips, “you know how I told you a certain rugger bugger was at the hotel in Venezuela the same time you were?”

No.
Oh mother of God
,
no.

“His team have just lost their biggest sponsor. I’d contacted them earlier this year about possibly doing some promo work with them this season, and they called this morning to see if we’re interested in doing something bigger. Something really exciting.” He leaned forward, his face lighting up like it had on Christmas twenty years ago when he’d been given his first point-and-shoot camera. “Tessy, I want to sponsor London Legends.”

Tess bit the inside of her cheeks so hard she tasted blood.
Fucking hell.

* * *

Several streets away from the restaurant, Liam threw his car into park and whipped his mobile out of his trouser pocket so he could tap out a message to Frank to explain his tardiness.
Traffic.
No parking near restaurant.
Be there in 5.
Need an extra seat—brought a guest.

That guest leaned over and nuzzled him behind the ear. He tried not to pull away from the uncomfortable wetness of her tongue.

“Tell me again how committed you are to this dinner,” Samantha murmured before taking his earlobe between her teeth.

“Very. Sorry, Samantha. I know it’s not an ideal start to your visit.”

“Call me Sam.” Her hand snaked up his thigh. “And I bet I could change your mind...”

“Bet you can’t.” The sultry promise in her voice irked him instead of arousing him. He removed her hand from just below his groin and put it back in her own lap before lifting his hips so he could slide the mobile back into his pocket. She pouted, so he leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “I really am sorry.”

“You’ll make it up to me later tonight, though, right?”

He didn’t say anything, and her patience snapped.

“Liam.” She must’ve seen the answer on his face. “You have to be kidding me.”

“I can’t help it that you flew in the night before a match, Sam. I have to get to bed early.”

She exhaled so hard she wilted against the car seat. “You’re fucking joking.” She jackknifed up again and twisted to face him across the center console. “The whole twelve hours I was stuck on that plane, all I could think about was what I wanted to do to that big, hot body of yours when I landed. I was going to fuck you every which way to heaven. I had to jerk myself off in the airplane bathroom
twice
—do you know how difficult that is for a woman? But I was desperate and so eager to see you, and now...now you want me to come to some fucking boring business dinner without any payoff?”

The funny thing was that she’d made a name for herself playing virginal teenager characters in family-friendly films, and she’d struggled to break that image. If only the Hollywood producers could hear her now.

“Sam, you have no idea how badly I want you to do those things to my big, hot body.” Except the thrill of that fantasy had worn off the second he’d heard Tess’s surname today. Truthfully, he hadn’t been all that interested when Samantha had contacted him yesterday, but he wasn’t going to say no, either.

“Liam, this is my first night in London and I have a shitload of energy to work off.”

“I’m sorry, but I have commitments.”

“I don’t give a shit about your commitments—”

He gathered together all of his patience. “Well, I do. So you can join us for dinner, or you can take a cab back to the hotel. Alone. Make up your mind quickly. I have to go.”

At some point in all of his so-called relationships he found himself having to lay down the law, though usually not this early on. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Tess that he was attracted to mouthy women who could put him in his place, but he also wasn’t afraid to let them know when the place they tried to shove him into didn’t fit.

“Fine.” Her voice had turned pouty, as if she thought that excused her from having to say
sorry
. Not that he cared to hear it. In fact, that was part of his problem. He just didn’t care enough about most of the women he was with to be upset when the relationship fractured under pressure.

What about Tess?

Yeah, well, she’d been the big exception in more ways than one, hadn’t she? And look how that’d turned out for him.

Samantha capitulated with a sigh. “I’ll come with you. I’m only here for a few days, and I won’t be back until the premiere just before Christmas. Let’s make the most of it.”

He nodded and reached for his door handle. For the first several years of his career, women had been one of the greatest perks. Now he just felt...empty.