Something to Prove (17 page)

He wasn’t buying it. She was holding back, but he didn’t want to push her. He still
had hopes for spending the night with her.

“Are you and your brother close? You never talk about him.”

Elizabeth studied the pizza in her hand. “We get along. I live in the coach house
on his property. But I wouldn’t say we’re close.”

“Is he in the family business too?”

She nodded.

“Why isn’t he here helping you then?”

“He’s got other projects.” She tossed her pizza down. “How’s your family? I mean with
the new baby and all?”

She obviously wanted to change the topic. Why was her family off limits, but his wasn’t?
“They’re great. First grandbaby and all.”

They sat in silence, but lustful images filled his head. “Why don’t you head out?
We can get back to this tomorrow when we’re fresh and can think straight.”

She shook her head. “We have to close the bar.”

“I’ll close up with Mike. I’m used to these hours. You aren’t.” He brushed a thumb
down her cheek.

“I’m fine. I need the receipts anyway.”

“The receipts can wait until tomorrow. I’ll lock them up in your office.”

He wanted to persuade her. She looked exhausted and she wasn’t feeling well, no matter
what she said. “I’ll bring the receipts to you after I close.”

Her eyes widened at his offer. “Why would you want to drive all the way to my hotel
when your apartment is so much closer?”

“Good point. Why don’t you go back to my apartment to sleep, and I’ll bring the receipts
home with me?”

He smiled, knowing he’d caught her off guard.

CHAPTER 10

E
lizabeth’s mouth dropped open. “Are you asking me to spend the night with you?”

“Sure.”

She immediately wanted to say no, but she stopped herself. Why would it be bad? He’d
made a hell of an argument earlier. They were both too busy to meet other people.
She’d done this before. The only difference here was that he was her business partner.

As if reading her mind, he said, “We’re partners and we make a good team. I get that
sleeping together could complicate things, but we’re both adults. We can handle it.”

She laughed. “I’m an adult. I’m not quite sure about you.”

“Did you just make another joke? Better be careful. It might become a habit.” He leaned
in and gave her a quick kiss. “So what do you say?”

“We don’t know each other that well. And although I was fine with the idea of anonymous
sex when we first met, things have changed. We are partners, and in my experience,
men tend to think that once they’ve slept with a woman, they have the upper hand.”

“What? You don’t understand men at all, sweetheart. We talk a good game, but once
we have sex, the woman holds all the cards.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, but he was so damn cute, she wanted to be convinced.
“Then we need rules.”

“Rules?”

He looked like the word alone would give him a coronary.

“Yes, ground rules. First, no hanky-panky at work. I’m the boss, the owner, and I
need all of the employees to see me that way.”

He scooted his stool closer to hers. “You might find it hard to keep your hands off
me. What else?”

“We tell no one about this. It’s just between us.”

He shifted away from her. “I can’t tell my family?”

“No one. It’s friendly sex, not a lifelong commitment.”

“I can agree to that, but you can’t blame me if they figure it out. Moira’s a reporter
and the nosiest thing on two legs.”

“Third, I expect monogamy for as long as I’m in town. When I head home, we go our
separate ways, no harm, no foul.” She waited for his reaction.

“Long-term booty calls. I like the way you think.”

He grabbed the back of her neck and drew her close for a kiss, but she resisted.

“We’re at work. You’re already breaking Rule One.”

“No one’s here, so no one can find out.”

She slid from her stool and out of his reach. “Looking for loopholes won’t help you.
Do we have a deal?”

He stepped beside her and took her hand. “Are you going to my apartment for the night?”

“Maybe. If we can agree on terms.”

“I agree.” He fished his keys from his pocket. “Make sure you take a nap before I
get home. We’ll be up for a while. I don’t like to be rushed.”

She accepted the keys, but her knees felt weak. She was afraid to move, knowing chances
were good that she’d stumble. His body invaded her space again, causing her skin to
warm.

“I don’t have any clothes to wear.”

“You can borrow something of mine and go back to your hotel tomorrow.”

She backed away again to gather her thoughts. It all sounded too intimate. “How will
you get in?”

“I have a spare set of keys at the bar. Go get some rest.”

He turned away from her and busied himself with cleaning up their dinner. The thought
of sleep sounded so good—the image of being awoken by him for sex, even better.

She wasn’t sure about this, but it couldn’t possibly make her life any worse than
it had been. She’d been in over her head for weeks. What was a little deeper?

Elizabeth drove to O’Leary’s and parked on the street so she wouldn’t draw any attention
to her car being there overnight. She’d never known a man to be so open with his house.
She and Colin had only known each other for a few weeks, and he had not only invited
her to spend the night, but he’d allowed her to go to his apartment without him.

She let herself into the apartment and tossed his keys on the counter where they’d
had sex that afternoon. He’d left a light on in the small kitchen, and it was enough
to illuminate a path for her to find other light switches.

The apartment was nothing special. A leather couch and big-screen TV filled the living
room. A small bookcase held paperbacks, mostly books on mixing drinks, but he had
quite a few trivia books. She imagined trivia was a tool of the trade for a bartender.

A stack of magazines filled a corner. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know
where his reading interests lay, so she didn’t thumb through the pile.

In the kitchen, she opened a few cabinets to check out the contents and find a glass
for some water. The cabinets were empty, but the refrigerator had food. She didn’t
know why this shocked her, but it did. She’d expected a twelve-pack of beer and maybe
a bag of chips on the counter. He had fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator along
with a few bottles of beer.

She took her glass of water down a dark hall and found Colin’s bedroom. He’d squeezed
a king-sized bed into the room, leaving little space. A tall dresser was wedged in
the corner. She scooted around the bed and placed her glass on the lone nightstand.
She pulled open the drawer and saw a box of condoms. That made her feel better.

On top of the dresser were a bunch of picture frames. His family. They all looked
inordinately happy in the candid shots. Her family photos tended to be portraits and
no one looked relaxed or happy. She liked the O’Leary version better. She opened the
middle drawer of the dresser to find a shirt to sleep in.

She chose an old softball jersey. It was bright blue and the team name B
LUE
B
ALLS
blazed across the front in white letters. The cotton was soft and smelled like Colin.
She took the shirt with her to the bathroom to take a shower. She was sure Colin wouldn’t
mind, since he’d wanted her here.

The bathroom was as Spartan as the rest of the apartment. She started the water, and
while it warmed, she removed her clothes and folded them. Stepping into the shower,
she allowed the warm spray to relax her muscles. Between the tension of finding out
about the bowling alley and the effort to clean the place, her muscles ached. She
used his soap, liking the smell of it. After the shower, she hastily braided her hair
and slipped into Colin’s shirt.

She was suddenly exhausted. Sleep sounded better than anything, so she crawled into
his bed and under his covers.

Colin sped through the remainder of his evening with a grin on his face. He’d never
expected Elizabeth to agree to go to his apartment. He tried to remember how much
of a mess he’d left the place and then decided it didn’t matter.

They’d had another decent-sized crowd, which somewhat surprised him for a Tuesday
night. Elizabeth had done a good job by hiring Mike. He knew what he was doing, which
freed up Colin for mingling with the customers after closing up the bowling alley.
Plus, Mike was so big, Colin couldn’t imagine squeezing behind the bar with him. He
looked more like a bouncer than a bartender. As the night wound down, Colin played
barback and restocked the shelves so he wouldn’t have to do it the following day.

As he looked over the display of hard liquor, he noticed an empty spot. “Hey, Mike,
when did you run out of Bushmills?”

“I haven’t poured any. I didn’t even know we carried it.” Mike shrugged and went back
to pouring drinks.

Colin knew there had been a bottle; he’d broken the seal himself last night. Suspicion
crept into his brain. He’d locked up after Elizabeth left. He struggled to remember
whether the bottle was there then, but he couldn’t recall. How could someone have
lifted an entire bottle without him noticing?

He began to check the bottles against what he remembered putting on the shelf. Elizabeth
had tried to reorganize some things in order to make an impression, but he stocked
the liquor. He went to Elizabeth’s office to see if he could find the original inventory
sheet.

The office had Elizabeth stamped all over it. It looked so different than it had just
a week ago. Gone were the rickety, rusty file cabinets along with the layer of smoke
scum on the walls. Sitting on her desk were three file folders, one clearly marked
Inventory
.

Sure enough, stapled to his handwritten list was a copy of the invoice. They’d only
ordered one bottle to see if it would move, but it shouldn’t have moved that fast.

He scanned the list and brought it to the basement with him so he could check it against
the stock there. They were missing two bottles of Jack Daniel’s. He remembered pulling
one up toward the end of the night, so they should still have one down here.

Maybe Mike had sold a lot of shots tonight. He certainly hoped so, otherwise someone
had to explain where this missing liquor had gone. With inventory sheets in hand,
Colin went back to the bar. One bottle of Jack stood in its place and was still half
full. “Hey, Mike.” When he had the man’s attention, he asked, “Have you opened any
new bottles of hard liquor tonight?”

“About a half hour after I started, someone ordered a Jack and Coke and there was
no Jack here, so I grabbed a bottle from downstairs. That’s where Elizabeth told me
to get stock. I wrote it down next to the register so I wouldn’t forget to tell you.”

“What happened to the bottle that was here?”

“There wasn’t one.”

“I brought it up myself last night.”

Mike raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Anger tumbled through Colin. Someone had to have stolen from them. He eyed Mike and
the two waitresses. They had better chances of stealing something than a customer
had of getting around the counter. He’d have to check them when they left. If they
were good, though, they would’ve just passed it on to a friend and no one would know.

Fuck. They’d been feeling so successful, they hadn’t even thought to worry about theft.
How was he going to tell Elizabeth? She was already so stressed about the bowling
alley.

Maybe he’d wait until they’d had sex and she was relaxed. The thought of her tense
and rigid body made him reassess. Maybe after the second round of orgasms she’d be
ready for bad news.

Suddenly, he wanted to go home. Bad news or not, he had a warm and willing woman waiting
for him.

Unfortunately, he needed to deal with this problem first. He helped clean up the bar
while keeping an eye on all three employees. Instead of sending anyone home early,
he kept them all until closing so he could talk to them. Elizabeth would probably
accuse him of trying to usurp her authority by having this conversation without her,
but he felt that an immediate strike was important.

When the last customer left, he called Mike, Erin, and Marissa to the bar. “First,
I want to say that Elizabeth and I are really happy with the way the first couple
of days have gone. We’ve had good crowds and we’ve kept them moving. I haven’t gotten
one complaint.”

He paused and looked into each of their faces. He was a good judge of character. He’d
hired Marissa and Erin, and although Elizabeth had hired Mike before Colin came on
board, Colin had a good feeling. “I have found one problem that needs to be addressed.
We have two bottles of liquor that have gone missing. A bottle of Jack and a bottle
of Bushmills. If it had been only one, I might be able to chalk it up to miscalculation
on my part. But both going missing on the second night open points to theft. I don’t
want to make any accusations, but you need to be aware that theft is cause for immediate
termination.”

As he spoke, he watched all three sets of eyes widen. Either they were good actors
or they were surprised.

“If the bottles suddenly reappear on the shelf, I’m more than happy to forget about
this.”

“I’ve never even stepped behind the bar,” Marissa said.

Erin added, “I left before you did last night, and I haven’t been behind the bar tonight.
Mike’s a little territorial.”

“I think
territorial
is a harsh word,” Mike said to her. Then he turned his attention to Colin. “I told
you, I didn’t even know we had Bushmills. And why the hell would I want to risk my
job to steal a bottle of Jack? I don’t even like Jack.”

“I’m just throwing it out there. We’re only on day two of being open. This is not
the way I run a business.” The words felt awkward and heavy in his mouth. He’d never
run a business, but he imagined what Ryan or his dad would say in this situation.
Another doubt pricked him. They wouldn’t have left brand-new employees in a position
to be able to steal.

“When you’re done cleaning up, you can head on out. I’ll be in the office.” He had
absolutely nothing to do in Elizabeth’s domain, but he thought if he was out of sight,
the culprit might return the bottles.