Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2) (39 page)

Thinking of Jill, once they were alone after their initial meeting, he’d thought to ask, “How real does this have to look?”

As cool as could be, she told him succinctly, “As real as a relationship with one of the country’s most prominent businessman has to look.”

And what had that meant? Now that Kim was effectively on notice that there was a new pair of Louboutin’s in town, Jill immediately took up residence in his home. She dropped by the office for what had to look like noontime booty calls—with Mrs. Gardner being in cahoots, of course—went public every night for dinners on the town, and with a devilish laugh, had even taken his credit card out for a mega-spin at a bunch of high-end stores.

The necessary PDAs with his faux-girlfriend, however, were making his conscience itchy. What would Rhiann make of it? Having her nose rubbed in a newspaper clipping of him embracing Kim had been bad enough but wasn’t he now just adding salt to the wound? It didn’t matter to him that the bit of playacting was a weapon in the arsenal employed to keep her safe. It just didn’t seem right.

At night, once the daily charade was over, they retired to his penthouse where, as she was doing right this second, Jill went into professional beast mode: scouring his web footprint for clues and doing invasive background checks to just about anyone who he came in contact with.

Gary, who was acting as his security chief now that Roman and he had their very public falling out, was also playing his part without fault. Diligently working off radar, he’d followed up on Roman’s belief that there was a mole at BPG and found that Kim had indeed been manipulating a young dumbass in the legal department.

Confidential documents related to Liam’s connection to Adam Ward were compromised, as was a bunch of internal information that would prove embarrassing if made public.

Everyone now suspected that the people Kim was exploiting for her own twisted reasons—and there seemed to be several—were who broke into Rhiann’s apartment.

Acting like none of this was happening so as not to arouse Kim’s suspicions was more difficult than Liam imagined it would be. Mostly, he wanted to cunt punt the bitch and even that crude reference was tame compared to the dark thoughts he privately entertained.

“Liam,” Jill announced as she came up behind him.

Putting his drink down, he swiveled on the sofa and looked at her expectantly, having picked up on the gruff tones of her voice.

“Problem?”

“You could say that.”

Liam scowled at the dark look on her face and waited for her to elaborate as she moved to stand in front of him.

Gripping an iPad in her hands, she studied the screen and swiped her fingers a couple of times, saying, “The good news is she’s unraveling and getting sloppy.”

Generally, when someone started with good news, that meant serious shit would be bringing up the rear. He wasn’t wrong.

Holding the tablet out to him, she offered an apologetic half smile and asked, “This look familiar?”

Taking the tablet, he glanced at the screen, jumped to his feet and hollered, “Jesus fucking Christ!”

Jill removing it from his hands with a hiss circumvented the temptation to hulk out and smash the damn thing into a million pieces.

“That’s what I thought.”

Running his hands through his hair, Liam paced back and forth, his breathing fast and heavy.

“Where did you get that?” he barked after a good few minutes had passed.

“Marjorie emailed me the image, and she got it from Shayne.”

Hearing Shayne’s name mentioned, he growled, “Are we sure no one knows about her link to my secretary?” The real fear that the young girl was in jeopardy, if her part in what was going down came to light, grabbed him by the throat.

“Nobody. Not even personnel, at either BPG or
Passion,
have made the connection. Marjorie didn’t want to subject you or Shayne to accusations of nepotism so she was careful not to rock the boat. Since it was just an internship and not a paid position, the details didn’t rise further than the department she was assigned to.”

Well, at least there was that. But what he just saw on Jill’s tablet got him worked up on so many different levels that he didn’t know which one to deal with first.

A picture of Rhiann taken by him, that fateful night when he’d rescued her, was making the rounds at
Passion.
And a flattering photo it was not. If he hadn’t immediately recognized the .jpeg as something he himself had taken, Liam might have missed how dangerous its release was. But remember he did and that made it all the worse.

That night in his apartment, Rhiann had whipped a digital camera out of her bag to snap a picture of him working on his Shelby model. As he recalled, what began innocently did not end that way.
Fuck.

“You carry a camera around with you?” he’d asked, shocked by her actions.

Shrugging, Rhiann smirked and deadpanned, “Frat party. Pimps and Hos. Of course, I had a camera. So did everyone else!”

Shaking his head, he marveled at how fucking dumb kids were these days. Digital technology made it possible to record every imaginable inappropriate, dangerous, and sometimes illegal activity of the modern day college student. The instant gratification of .jpegs, without having to get a roll of film developed, just made the whole carrying a camera thing dicey at best. He was pretty sure that one day those photos would come back to haunt them.
Idiots.

Snatching the camera, she’d tried to grab it back, but he slapped her hand away and grinned. “What goes around comes around, little girl,” he taunted. “Turnabout’s fair play, now strike me a pose and then I’ll give it back to you.”

Rhiann had giggled playfully and stuck her thumb in her mouth like a toddler. With an air of naughty innocence, she’d stood pigeon-toed, sucking her thumb, and twirled a lock of her gorgeous brown hair around a finger. She looked like the most fuckable schoolgirl on the planet.

It had actually been a hilarious interlude with Liam as the photographer. His inner pervert posed his guileless human mannequin in a variety of poses that were one hundred percent wrong. In every way. When he persuaded her to bend over the table and look more closely at his car model, he’d crouched low and snapped away at an angle that offered an up skirt peek of her white panties.

The thumb-in-mouth pose was the one making the rounds. He ground his teeth together and clenched his jaw knowing it was likely all over the fucking internet by now.

Where had that fucking picture come from? Surely not Rhiann.

He found it incredibly hard to speak for a long moment. “I’m going to fucking destroy that bitch,” he ground out. “Does Roman know? Has he told Rhiann?”

“Bishop knows. I sent him the .jpeg. He’s going to ask Rhiann about it and will let me know what he finds out.”

His mind firing on all cylinders, a thousand thoughts ran rampant inside him.

“What did you mean by she’s getting sloppy? Can you trace the release of Rhiann’s private photo back to her?”

Jill’s eyes narrowed—her mouth tense and grim. “So the photo was in her possession? Is that what you’re saying? You didn’t have a copy stashed somewhere?”

Liam held her piercing gaze and responded with certainty. “Her camera. Her photo.”

Jill crossed the living room. He could see her face reflected in the windows that she stared through. She looked businesslike and fierce. He could practically hear the gears clicking in her head.

“I’m sending someone to Rhiann’s apartment in the morning. Will you be available to answer questions if I need you?”

“Why?”

“Why would you need to answer questions or why is someone going to her apartment?”

Both,” he told her. “And just so you know, I have zero information about her living space.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged like that nugget of information was neither here nor there. “But you know her and that’s what matters. Did you know that Rhiann kept a set of keys to her home in her desk at the magazine?”

He just looked at her blankly.

“Well, she did. And when she talked to the security guy at
Passion,
she neglected to divulge that fact.”

Feeling like he should defend Rhiann, he muttered, “I’m sure it was an oversight. She was probably rattled and just forgot.”

Squeezing the back of his neck, Liam rolled a shoulder and massaged the tension building there.

“Don’t worry, Liam. I know she’s the victim in all this. Luckily, that assistant of hers, Juan, knows quite a bit about her habits and let the info about the key slip. It’s no longer on her desk and since she didn’t go back to the
Passion
offices after the accident in the studio—she couldn’t have taken it.”

“How do you plan to get in without a key?”

She chuckle-smirked and glanced away. “Just leave that part to me.”

“Okay, Princess, let’s see. You owe me $180 for landing on Baltic Avenue. Bet you’re bummed about those three houses, huh?”

“Ooooh, you just wait. I’ve got all the railroads now, buster, and you’ve been pretty consistent about landing on at least one of them each time around the board!”

“How much money you got there?” Roman asked as he peeked at her stash and grinned. “I knew I shouldn’t let you play the banker. How do I know you’re not slipping a hundred into your pile every so often?”

“Wah, wah,” Rhiann cried with glee. “It sucks having your butt handed to you by a girl, hmm?”

The sound of Roman’s “
Macho Man”
ringtone echoed through the room when his phone went off, triggering an exaggerated eye roll from Rhiann. Every time she heard it, she couldn’t help but snicker. The Village People. “Macho Man.”
Sheesh. Men.

She liked that he knew how funny it was and to her complete delight never failed to flex his muscles as he answered.

“Sorry. Excuse me,” he said. Grabbing the phone, he answered and walked to the other side of the open great room.

Straightening up the Monopoly board, Rhi counted her play money and silently mused over the events of the past couple of days.

Roman Bishop had proven to be an amiable housemate. Well on his way to being a neat freak, he’d snickered with good humor when she teased him about it, telling her old habits die hard. She hadn’t been particularly surprised to learn he was old school Marine. Of course, he was. Made perfect sense.

Right away, the two established a rhythm that helped ease her continuing anxiety. Every morning he ran with her along the beach and even matched his gait to hers so she didn’t drop in the first ten minutes trying to keep up with him. This morning, she noticed that a couple walking their dog on the long stretch of sand appeared at pretty much the same time they did. Were they the people he had watching her? Seemed likely that they were.

After the morning run, each of them disappeared to shower and dress, with Roman reappearing at some point to whip up a disgusting looking concoction in the blender that he swore was delicious. Some protein shake that looked an awful lot like baby poop to her.

He left her alone after that as she fired up her laptop and let the words come. Just for shits and grins, Rhi was logging her daily word count but beyond that, her writer’s journey stalled. She avoided her social media, refused to ride her book sale data, and absolutely refused to read any reviews. She had enough stress in her life at the moment. All she really wanted to do was write and cocoon. The quiet isolation was good for her soul.

And what did he do while she played Jane Austen? She had no clue, but she was sure it involved work. And talking to Liam. She knew this for a fact because every day without fail he came to her just before lunchtime with his phone extended in his hand and a hopeful expression on his face. And every time he did, she pursed her lips and refused.

Lunch was generally a quick and easy throw together after which they ran errands or went sightseeing. He seemed especially taken with the Wright Brothers Memorial, even going on and on about the mission of the National Park Service and what a bang up job they did of preserving the nation’s natural treasures.

In drill sergeant mode, he’d dragged her ass up the humungous dune at Jockey’s Ridge twice, leading her to declare it the best butt workout she’d ever had.

Every night, they went out to eat, sampling local favorites like true tourists. They acted like a couple, and it seemed as though he was trying to be seen in public with her. They certainly put on quite a show, especially considering he was certain someone was watching them.

They spent evenings in front of the TV or making good use of the awesome theater room. There was nothing quite like surround sound and a giant-ass TV.

“Dammit,” she overheard him mutter. “I don’t like where this is going. You’re totally right, of course. Thanks, Cam. You’ve been a huge help. Hey, how’s your boy doing? He’s what? Like six months old now?”

Rhiann made a run to the kitchen for a drink, passing close by Roman as he laughed into the phone.

“Can’t believe your moldy special feces ass is married and has a kid. Shit. What’s the world coming to?”

Special feces? Well that expression certainly had the ring of an inside joke to it. Married and a kid? Relieved he wasn’t talking to Liam, she relaxed. More than one refusal to speak to Liam in a day was quite enough thank you.