Table for Two-epub (17 page)

“For what?”

“My new company.”

“What is it?”

“Taylor Made.” The sound of it rolling off her tongue gave Liv excited tingles. Or maybe they were nervous convulsions. “What do you think?”

James pushed himself up to sit beside her. It took a while, as he had to maneuver his leg carefully. “I have another name for you.”

“You do?” Corny as it was, she really liked Taylor Made.

“What do you think about Elliot Designs?”

“Uh, it’s…nice?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, though. What is it?”

“A possible new division of Elliot Construction. We’re deciding whether to open it or not.”

“It’s an…interior design company?”

“Yep.”

“Elliot Construction is opening an interior design division?”

James nodded. “Dad and I have discussed the idea.”

“Oh, uh, well, in that case I think Elliot Designs is the perfect name.” Confused, she looked at him. “But why on earth would a construction company open a design division?”

“We build dream homes. Imagine if we could then go the distance and decorate the house exactly how the customer wants it. We could offer them a one-stop service, from start to finish. That’s a pretty comprehensive package. And hopefully attractive enough to draw in more clients.”

His explanation made perfect sense. “It’s a brilliant idea.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded her conviction. “And if you’re looking for interior designers, I have a few names for you. They’re great. Their work is fabulous.”

“We are looking for an interior designer. But we only need one—to start with, anyway.”

“Okay. Selena Felstead would be my first choice. She has a great name in the industry. Or there’s Kerry, who worked with me at Beautiful Homes. I’m not sure how well she’ll work independently, but her finished products are unfailingly beautiful.” Selena was probably the better option, especially if she’d be working alone.

“Liv, there’s only one person I’d consider for the job.” He settled his gaze on her face as though waiting for her to connect the dots.

It didn’t take long. “Wait. Me?”

“Of course you.”

“W-why would you want me?”

“Because you’re a genius with your decorations. And you’d be a welcome addition to Elliot Construction. You’re the only one we’d consider to head up the division.”

She blinked several times, trying to gather her thoughts. A sense of uneasiness slithered through her belly. “Okay, let me get this straight. You’re opening a new arm of your company and you want me to…run it?”

“In a nutshell.”

She frowned. “When did you decide all of this?”

“Recently. Over the last few weeks.”

“After you learned about Marion and Beautiful Homes?”

“Yep. Ever since you told me what happened, I’ve been thinking about it. This is the obvious solution.”

Like she’d just dipped down on a rollercoaster, Liv’s stomach dropped. “Y-you’re opening up a whole new division of your company to…help me?”

James grinned. “It’s a brilliant idea, right? You get to work again—as your own boss, running a company—and we get to grow Elliot Construction.”

“But you’d never have come up with the idea if I hadn’t lost everything through Beautiful Homes?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “It never occurred to me before then.”

She had to unclench her teeth to ask, “So you came up with the idea out of pity?”

“What?”

Feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the confines of her queen-size bed, Liv pushed the covers aside and climbed out. “I tell you I’m out of work and in crisis, and you decide it’s your job to solve my problems?” Just like Anton had, and her parents before him.

Apparently, Liv was unable to find solutions to her own problems. Everyone else—including James—had to do it for her.

“Shit, no, Liv. I found out you were going through a crappy time, and I thought I could help you and me at the same time.”

“By starting a whole new business? One you know nothing about?”

“We don’t need experience in interior design if you’re going to run the division. You’d provide all the necessary expertise.”

Olivia gaped at James, too horrified to answer. Marion’s gambling addiction had destroyed the business and left Liv gutted. It had taken five weeks to begin finding her feet again. Five weeks of crying and railing and swearing and feeling utterly disempowered. Useless. Helpless.

But she was getting over it. She was taking those baby steps and looking for a job. She was capable of taking care of herself. All she’d needed was time to come to terms with her shocking situation. Weeks to grieve everything she’d lost, and then more weeks to pull herself together. She wasn’t there yet. Hell, she’d only just begun, but damn it, she was making progress. Slowly she’d climb back to her previous glory.

James’s offer was akin to a slap in the face. In one fell swoop, he’d knocked her right back down. Instead of giving her a chance to save herself, he was saving her.

And damned if that didn’t feel just as disempowering as Beautiful Homes going into administration. Or as Fix-it Felix changing her light bulbs. Or her parents making decisions for her.

“We’ve had fun, James. The sex has been good. Spectacular, actually, but I don’t need you riding in on your white horse to save my ass. I’m perfectly capable of saving it by myself.”

Talking about her ass, it felt altogether too exposed. She grabbed the first thing she could find and put it on—James’s T-shirt. It fell down past her knees, but at least it covered her.

“Christ, Liv, that’s not what I’m doing.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, as though intent on walking to her, but grimaced and hissed out a pained breath.

Every instinct told her to go to him, check he was okay, but as quickly as the grimace crossed his face it disappeared.

“Not even close,” he said. “I don’t pity you. I’m not trying to solve problems for you. This is a sensible business proposition. One that would benefit us
and
help you out of a tight spot.”

“I can help myself, thank you very much. But good luck with your new project. I hope it’s hugely successful.” She shoved her feet into a pair of thongs, and for the first time since James had come to stay, she wished he wasn’t in her room. All she wanted now was the privacy of time alone and the comfort of her own, empty bed.

With that option not available, she walked to the door.

“Jesus, Liv, where are you going?”

“Out. Somewhere you’re not.” Somewhere she could be alone. Alone to fix her own problems.

“You’re leaving? Because I tried to help you?”

“I’m leaving because I can’t face being your next good cause. Your next choice of charity. It was bad enough when Anton tried to fix all my problems, or when my parents guided me in the direction they felt was best for me, but when my friend sees me as someone who needs to be saved, as poor-Liv-who-lost-her-job, it’s pretty damn unbearable.” 

“You’re overreacting.”

No, overreacting would be picking up one of his crutches and beating him with it.

Without another word, she opened the door, stepped outside and closed it softly behind her. Then she grabbed her bag and headed off to the one place she could think of where she’d be alone. The one place James wouldn’t be able to reach her.

Liv paced the length of James’s lounge room, walking from one wall to the other repeatedly, trying to burn off the anger and shame. The two warred inside her for dominance.

She didn’t believe James had set out to humiliate her. Knowing him, his offer came from the heart. He had an incessant need to help people. He spent tireless hours working on charity drives every year. If, like this year, the drive was a raffle, he had no qualms phoning up everyone he knew asking for prizes.

He got them too. This year’s first prize was an all-expenses paid, one-week trip for two to Fiji. Second prize was two return air tickets to any destination in Australia. The drive had been running for a month, and James had already raised upwards of twenty grand.

But Liv wasn’t a charity case. She didn’t need him to solve her problems or find her work. And she definitely didn’t need him to open up a whole new division of his company just for her. That was insane.

Sure, she’d been through a crap time, and when she’d first told James about it, she’d probably been at the lowest point of her life. But that was weeks ago. Things had changed. She’d changed. She’d been forced to pull herself out of her funk and seek out new work. The entire crappy experience had made her stronger, taught her how to bounce instead of crash.

Liv was no longer the trusting, naïve employee she’d been eight months ago. She no longer gave other people the power to influence her decisions—like she had with her parents. Standing on her own two feet was tough, but she was doing it. She was determined, and there was no way James would knock her down when she was just finding her balance.

Who knew if the bank would loan her money? They might not, but if she didn’t approach them, she’d never have an answer. If she didn’t do whatever she could to get her life back on track, she’d forever be the failure who made a bad business decision and got burned as a result.

The thing was,
she
had to do it.
She
had to be the driving force behind any decision she made or work she chose to do. Not James.

Frustrated, cold and exhausted, Liv gave up pacing and went into the bedroom.

She hesitated at the door. The only time she ever came in here was to have sex. She pretty much tackled James into his room in her eagerness to get to him. And to get him naked.

But sex was the last thing on her mind. She doubted she and James would ever have sex again. The thing about sleeping with a man was Liv had to feel they were on equal footing. Up until now, they had been. She’d felt equal to James on every level—except physically. But then she’d never compete with his massive muscles and abnormal strength. She never wanted to.

Now the balance in their relationship had shifted. 

James no longer saw her as his equal. He saw her as a needy cause he had to help.

A nasty thought hit her. Had he viewed her this way since the beginning? Their relationship had changed the night he’d discovered she had a problem. No, he hadn’t known then what the problem was, but he’d offered her a shoulder to cry on. And things had pretty much spun out from there.

Had things never gone wrong at work, would she and James be lovers today? Would he be sleeping in her bed now? If Liv had never leaned on him or confessed her problems, would they still just be friends?

Was James’s need to help her, to save her, the primary reason he was interested in her?

Didn’t he know yet that Liv neither wanted nor needed to be saved? Her parents had tried, Anton had tried, and now he was trying.

She made her way to his bed and climbed in. But the second she pulled the doona up and over her shoulders, she was immersed in James’s scent. Damn it. The sheets smelled of chocolate and fresh-baked cookies and…and testosterone. Whatever the hell that smelled like.

His shirt smelled the same.

She was surrounded by his delicious scent. And just like that, her exhausted, traitorous body sprung to life.

No. No, no, no. This was not the time to be aroused.

It didn’t matter that she’d just had the most intense sexual experience of her life, or that for a while there, she’d never felt closer to a man. It didn’t matter that she craved James like an addict craved drugs, or that her friends’ merciless teasing at the hospital had reflected her deepest, secret desires.

She and James were over.

They had to be. There was no way Liv could continue sleeping with him knowing she was his charity case. His needy lover. She had too much pride for that. She had too much experience with that, thank you very much.

But why, if this was unequivocally the right decision, did a band tighten around her heart and squeeze so hard pain radiated through her chest? And why, when her body and her mind were bone weary, did she find it impossible to sleep?

Instead of closing her eyes and pretending the pain wasn’t tearing her apart, she stared out the window, contemplating those questions. For hours, she gazed at the black sky until it slowly turned a dark navy and finally a light blue and the sun sparkled off the ocean in the distance.

With the sunrise came answers, but the conclusions Liv drew left her even more unsettled than before.

Her pain wouldn’t be this intense if she didn’t have deep feelings for James. His words and actions wouldn’t have hurt her this badly if she had no emotional investment in him or in their relationship.

But Liv was emotionally invested. In a big way.

Big enough to suspect she might even be in love with him.

By the time James reached the top step of the final staircase, his leg throbbed, breath sawed from his chest and his armpit burned where the crutch rubbed against it.

He took a moment to wipe the perspiration from his brow and position the second crutch under his other arm before making his way to his front door. Neither rugby nor weight training had ever been this taxing or exhausting.

Perhaps if he hadn’t had a sleepless night, the task wouldn’t have been so strenuous. But James had spent hours working out what he’d done or said that had insulted Liv so intolerably. How had he managed to put that horrified look on her face?

He’d also spent hours working out where she’d gone. Ava hadn’t known, and dialing Liv’s number resulted in her mobile ringing next to her bed. It was only when the sun rose and James had looked out the window and seen her car parked down the road that he’d figured it out.

He unclenched his teeth, releasing the key he’d been forced to carry there. His pants had no pockets, and he’d needed both hands to get upstairs. Under normal circumstances, he’d have waited another week or so to attempt the mammoth climb, but James needed to get to Liv.

It felt weird being back in his flat after all this time, knowing it was so close, yet so inaccessible. Both the lounge room and kitchen were in pristine condition, tidier than he’d ever kept them, but the air was cold and slightly musty.