Beautiful Scars (16 page)

“Yes. I need Chaili back doing my site, Ilona. But I need it done in a way that’s not going to look…”

“Ham-handed?” she offered.

“Yeah.” Shoving open the door, he headed around the back and popped the trunk. He grabbed as many of the groceries bags as he could, one-handed. He’d make a trip for the rest of them in a minute. “I want a total redesign. Tell her we’ve just been unhappy with the current company or something and I want to go back to the way I used to have the site, but with a more modern feel or something like that.”

“Maybe you should talk to her,” Ilona said.

“If I talk to her, she’s going to figure out something is up.”

“Something
is
up, damn it,” Ilona snapped. “You’re pushing work her way, aren’t you?”

“No!” Groaning, he juggled the bags and managed to get the key in, pausing to disarm the alarm system before making his way into the kitchen. Why in the hell was the kitchen on the other side of the house? “Yes. Not exactly…fuck. Look, my website looks like shit now. The idiot doing it has it looking like a garage band. It might have been okay for us ten years ago, but it’s not now. I need a better site. It looked better when Chaili did it and you know it. I want her doing it again.”

“Then why can’t you just tell her that?” Ilona said reasonably. “Look, if I’m the one doing this, she’s going to wonder why you didn’t bring it up. Just tell her the crazy bitch you stupidly hired on as a manager fired her with no input from you. And you, being who you are, just now figured it out. Chaili knows how you are, right? She’ll understand. Tell her you want her handling the website again. What’s going to cause the problem?”

The images of those bills flashed in front of his eyes.

Sighing, he dumped the bags on the counter. “If you were her, how would you feel about it?”

“Well, it wouldn’t happen.”

He scowled. “What?”

“You two are screwing, right?”

Marc passed a hand over his face. “Ilona, you’re such a romantic. I don’t know how Miguel can possibly hope to keep you happy, considering what a soft, poetical-type heart you have.”

“Ha! I knew it. And that’s why it wouldn’t happen. Marc, you’re hotter than hell and if I wasn’t married to Miguel and shit-faced in love with him, I might have a few wet dreams about you, except…well. I know you. You either frustrate the hell out of me, or you freak me out. And if it wasn’t
that
getting in the way? I’d have to deal with the crazy bitches who always manage to find their way into your life. So…it wouldn’t happen. But…” She sighed. “Chaili’s known you most of your life, right? You’re probably more of a real person to her.”

“I am a real person,” he said sourly.

“Not to a lot of people,” Ilona said quietly. “They put you on a pedestal and worship you. And when you don’t act like the god they think you are, they demonize you. Chaili just sees you. I just see you. That’s not a bad thing, pal. Look, I get what you’re asking and I suspect Chaili is having some money problems otherwise you wouldn’t be all gung ho to get this done
now
. But this isn’t complicated. She did a kickass job on the site before and you want her handling it again. Just whatever you do…
don’t go giving her handouts
. That’s
not
good.”

Scowling, he stared at the groceries. He’d almost bought some stuff for her place. Thinking about those mostly bare shelves had pissed him off. Bothered him. Badly. “What’s a handout?”

“Giving her money. Paying her bills. That sort of thing.”

He groaned. Paying off her damn medical bills was exactly what he wanted to do. That, and maybe buy her some fucking groceries…but he couldn’t do that, either.

“Okay, so if I hire her and like offer bonuses and shit, that’s fine, right?”

“Yes.” Ilona sighed, but there was something mocking, teasing in the sound. “You see, you’re expecting her to work for it, right? You’re not going to hire her to do a job and then think it’s okay to let her do a crappy one and still pay her, right?”

Heading back out the garage, he grabbed the rest of the bags. “You’ve seen her work, right? Chaili—she’s the perfectionistic type who sent me like twenty different mockups before we settled on the last redesign? She doesn’t
do
crappy.”

“Okay, then. You’re hiring her to do a job and you’re expecting her to do the job, right?”

“Of course I am.” Kicking the door shut behind him, he dumped the rest of the bags on the counter. Maybe he’d make extra. If he made extra and just bitched about hating to have leftovers or something…that could maybe work…

“Now you’re following. Paying her to do a job she’s capable of is different from just giving her money.”

Rubbing the heel of his hand over his chest, he turned and stared out over the water.

“How bad are things?” Ilona asked, her voice hesitant.

“Bad. But this is between us.”

She sighed. “I figured that much. Good luck…you can do this. You aren’t anywhere near as lousy with talking to people as you used to be. And when they matter, you’re usually pretty decent.”

Decent, he thought, shoving the phone into his pocket.

That wasn’t enough for Chaili.

She deserved more than
decent
.

Chapter Ten

With her gym bag, a spare set of clothes and her laptop stowed in the back of Marc’s car, Chaili rested her elbow on the door and studied the man behind the wheel.

He was nervous, edgy about something. He’d been that way ever since he picked her up, but now that they were in the car, it was worse. Her heart twisted as she tried to figure out the cause behind his nerves. Was he tired of this already?

That didn’t seem right.

If for no other reason than because her heart was still in overtime from the kiss he laid on her when he picked her up ten minutes earlier.

But something had him worked up.

If there was any one thing she knew about Marc, it was that he
moved
.

He was never still.

When he drove, his hands tapped out a beat on the steering wheel. He paced. He sat at his piano and played.

When he was still, it was because he was thinking, nervous…or pissed.

As they made the drive to his place, it seemed as though all that wild, chaotic energy had been sucked inside him. She didn’t think he was pissed. So he was either nervous…or thinking about something really hard.

If he was thinking, whatever it was had to be pretty heavy. He clutched at the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone bloodless. Smoothing down her skirt, she crossed her legs and tried to figure out if she should ask him what was up or just let it go.

Maybe—

“I need to ask you something. It’s not personal, but I’m probably going to blunder and fuck it up, so can you cut me slack when I do?” he asked, shooting her a look before checking the mirror and cutting over into the next lane of traffic.

Chaili propped her head on her hand, eyeing him narrowly. “You know, you never used to worry so much about blundering with me. What’s the deal?”

“I wasn’t fucking you before,” he muttered. “It’s a little bit different after I’ve had your sweet pussy around my dick. Because now I’m worried I’m going to piss you off and I won’t get to have it again.”

Stifling her groan, she clenched her thighs together. “Well, you’ve already pointed out it’s not personal, so I assume it’s not about us having sex, right?”

“No.” He started to beat his fist on the door. “It’s about my website. Why in the hell didn’t you tell me you weren’t working on it anymore?”

Something twisted in her belly. Absently, she toyed with the fringe on her wrap skirt. Anything to keep from looking at him. Hell, when she’d lost that account, it had almost gutted her, and not because of how she felt about him. That had been the biggest chunk of her income and if she hadn’t lost that account…well, she had. It didn’t matter.

“What do you mean why didn’t I tell you?” she asked. “It’s your site. Why should I tell you what’s going on with your site?”

“Because I didn’t know,” he said, his voice sour. “My ex-manager, Lily, is the idiot who did all of that. I just figured it out when I was checking something on the page. I wanted to talk to you about some updates and shit and I noticed the logo down at the bottom. It ain’t yours. And the damn site sucks. I should have figured it out before now. Why in the hell didn’t you say anything?”

One of the many knots, one of those ever-present aches that had been in her chest, unclenched…unfolded. He hadn’t dumped her. Yeah, it wasn’t a break-up, but she’d felt like she let him down when he stopped using her service and it had hurt. Badly.

Swallowing, she shrugged. “It was a business thing, Marc. I just figured you knew.” Hell, Lily had
told
her Marc knew about it. Her words…
Marc knows he needs a little more…sophistication in his designer, but he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Look, we can be grown-up about this or you can continue to cling to him. It’s your call
.

“I didn’t fucking know.”

“You swear too much, slick,” she told him, fighting the urge to squirm in the seat. Lily had lied to her. Lied to her and cost her the biggest account she had, made her feel like a fool…of course, she’d been so tired and sick at the time—the chemo had been taking its toll.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to think past the headache creeping up on her.

“What the fuck does it matter how much I swear?” he demanded. He shot up the exit ramp and then had to hit the brakes to avoid ramming the car in front of them. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”

“Because I thought you knew what was going on,” she said again. “It’s your website. You’ve always kept a hand in things and I thought you knew.”

“I’m telling you I didn’t. Hell, it’s still your design.” He paused and then said, “Your design but it looks awful.”

“Yes.” She smiled, crossing her arms over her chest. “It does. The idiots doing it don’t know what in the hell they’re doing. They’re trying to smash a bunch of shit together with no idea whether or not it works together, and it’s lousy.”

“You’re taking it back over.”

She slid him a sideways look. “You know, generally when somebody wants to use my services, they put in a request. Ask for a quote. Give me an idea of what they want and then we talk it out and see if we can come to an agreement.”

He grunted. “You already know the sort of style I like, but the entire thing needs to be trashed. I’d rather you just put a placeholder thing up—whatever they call it—and start from scratch. And if you get it done within a decent amount of time, I’ll even throw in a bonus. I’m tired of looking at that eyesore.”

“A bonus?” she asked. Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. “How much of a bonus?”

“Shit. I dunno.” He drummed his fingers on the wheel as the car edged up the ramp. Finally, he was able to turn and as they took off down the road, he named a figure that almost had her jaw dropping.

“Are you
serious
?”

That…what… Damn it
. She licked her lips. “Marc, that’s a little steep for a bonus.”

It would take care of a few of those bills,
she thought, dazed. Not all of them, but a couple of them. She could maybe stop living on peanut butter and ramen noodles.

She could buy some new clothes…

And she’d be taking advantage of him. “That’s too much for doing a job you’re going to pay me for anyway,” she said, her voice weaker than she’d like to admit. Damn it, she needed that money.

“Not if you get it done in the time frame I need it. We start working on the new CD in six weeks and I’d like to be able to post updates and stuff to the website. I keep getting told I need to update how the social media shit plays into the website and I figure you can do that too. I can’t do anything with that disaster of a site I’ve got now. If you can get it done in time to launch it in…maybe five weeks?”

“Five
weeks
?” she squeaked out.

She thought it through—she could do it. She’d have to work it in around her current workload, but if she didn’t accept any other projects in the meantime and if she stayed up a little later…maybe. Maybe. And assuming he was a little more communicative than he normally was when it came to this sort of thing. “Ah, you said you want it redesigned. Just what did you have in mind? And are you going to be around for me to show the ideas to? I can’t send you fifty emails and wait days for answers.”

His hand curved over her thigh and her breath skittered out of her lungs as he squeezed. “Oh, I’m going to be around plenty,” he said, his voice a low, sexy growl. He glanced down at her skirt, eyed it and then grinned, flipped it open and slid his hand up, up, up…
ahhhh
. She gasped as he pulled her panties aside and flicked his finger over her clit.

“Weren’t we talking…um…business stuff?”

“Yes.” He grinned, his teeth flashing at her. “You’re doing the website. I’m paying you a chunk of change to get it done fast. Business talk done… We can talk personal stuff now. I’m going to play with you until you come right there in that seat.”

Chaili clutched at the armrest, turning her head and staring blindly out the window. They were speeding down the road, but by no means were they the only car out there. “Damn it, Marc, other people can see…” She shuddered as he circled her entrance.