Bad Boy Brit (A British Bad Boy Romance) (11 page)

“That’s what I like to hear,” he said.

“Too many great-looking women out there to be tied down to one.”

“That’s the Liam Croft I know,” said Brian, but I thought there was a slight edge to his voice. “Better off for the girl as well.”

“Definitely,” I said, hating myself every second. “She’d only end up getting her heart broken.”

“Well, that too,” Brian conceded. “But I meant it’d be the end of her career.”

“What?” A cold sensation had claimed my stomach.

“Well, think about it,” Brian went on, a pleasant tone veiling the steel beneath. “I wouldn’t just call her boss to tell him to give her a little slap on the wrist if I knew she was seeing you. How unprofessional would it be to sleep with the guy she’s supposed to be interviewing? If I told her boss…well, that’d be the end of her at that magazine. And I wouldn’t mind betting that it’d burn her at any other place she tried to get a job. Bad deal for her all round, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

When Brian had said he’d call her boss, I’d known it could get her in trouble, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it could spell the end of her career. I couldn’t let that happen. No fucking way.

“Anyway, bring her along,” Brian said, keeping up his chummy act to the end. “I’m sure it’ll be fun for her to see you with all those models. And it’ll make a great section for this article she’s
still
writing. Bloody slowpoke Americans.”

***

When I’d finally hung up on Brian, I made myself a drink and sat down to think. Bringing Allison along to the car show now seemed like a lot less fun, but I hadn’t left myself a lot of choice. If I didn’t bring her, Brian would ask why, and then more lying would be necessary, which could land Allison in yet more trouble. Worse still, if I didn’t take Allison along and then she saw my picture in the news with models draped all over me, then she was bound to think that I had deliberately kept her away so I could have fun with other women.

No, I would have to bring her along, and I would have to be honest with her about what had happened and about how I had screwed things up by making Brian suspicious, which could in turn cost her her job.

I thought about that for a moment longer.

On reflection, the truth suddenly didn’t seem like such a great option. The first date had gone so well, so spending the second explaining why she could possibly be out of a job if we made one wrong move was not ideal, and I didn’t want to drive her away from me before we’d really had a chance.

So I came up with a new plan instead. I’d ask her along to the event—I didn’t have any choice about that now—and I’d try to avoid being touched, stroked or otherwise flirted with by any of the models while the only girl I wanted to touch, stroke and flirt with was watching. And at the same time I would have to avoid any touching, stroking or flirting with that girl whenever Brian was watching. 

How fun.

That of course raised another question: could I even keep my hands off Allison for a whole evening? It wouldn’t be easy, not if last night was anything to go by. When we were together all I wanted to do was touch her, kiss her…and a whole host of other things that I was never going to be able to do with her at a car show. And, on top of that, I wouldn’t be able to tell her the reason for my sudden distance. In fact, I couldn’t even tell her that she wasn’t allowed to touch me, which was going to be a very difficult thing to pull off without it looking as if I was rejecting her.

I sighed as I picked up the phone. All things being considered, this was going to be a pretty fucking lousy second date, but at least we would be there together…sort of.

Shit.
It was going to be a long and frustrating night.

Chapter 11

Allison

I didn’t want Liam to think that I’d been waiting by the phone for him to call, and so I’d let it ring a few times before throwing patience to the wind and finally answering when he’d called me earlier. He’d invited me to a luxury car unveiling that he was helping to host, and while a fancy car show wasn’t as much my idea of a good time as last night had been, it was flattering and touching that he wanted me there. It was an event that he couldn’t get out of; part of the ugly media side of his job, but he’d said he couldn’t bear to spend an evening without me, and so he’d asked me to come along. After he’d said that, I’d been delighted to accept.

Once I’d agreed to go, I started to look forward to it all the more. It would be a lavish and glamorous evening, and there would be other sports stars there…maybe even movie stars too! Most importantly, I’d be with Liam on our first public outing.

When he picked me up outside my hotel room, Liam was obviously glad to see me and kissed me as passionately as he had the night before. Despite that, I felt as if I could detect some slight tension in him; some nervousness. Could he be anxious about how I might behave at this big, flashy event, seeing as I wasn’t accustomed to these things? That didn’t seem like the Liam I knew, but I was stuck for other explanations.

I brushed the thought aside as we drove to the venue, putting it down to silly insecurities. Once we arrived at the event, however, things became swiftly stranger and I really started to worry. Last night Liam had barely been able to keep his hands off me, but tonight it was like he was a different person. He seemed strangely cold and unaffectionate. He didn’t kiss me, didn’t even touch me, and, most curiously of all, when I tried to take his hand, he hastily pulled it away.

“Sorry. Cold hands,” he said, as if that was an adequate explanation for how he was acting.

He didn’t even seem to want to stand next to me, and he kept moving away every time I got close. My heart sank, and I racked my brains for something I might have done to deserve this, but right now all I could think was that at some point between the hotel and here, Liam had turned into a first class jerk, which was worrying, because it could mean my initial impressions of him had been correct. After all, I didn’t exactly have to look hard into his history to find a whole bunch of incidents of jerkish behavior. All it took was a quick Google search.

So had last night been an act? Was that simply how he got women into bed?

If so, why on earth had he invited me as his date to this car show?

I shook my head to dismiss the negative thoughts; surely Liam wasn’t that good of an actor, and like I just said, there was no reason for him to invite me tonight if he was done with me. None that I could currently think of, anyway. Tonight he was here on business, and I had to accept that that meant he had to behave differently. Besides, we’d only
just
started dating. I couldn’t expect him to be all over me at all times.

I was just being paranoid, that was all.

“I’ve got to go unveil this car,” Liam said as the evening neared its climax. He glanced around like a hunted man, as if he feared that people might be listening in, although I couldn’t have imagined why. “When we’re done here we can go back to mine, and I’ll make you a proper dinner,” he said with a wink. “Those little canapés they’re serving here are bullshit. I’ll make whatever you feel like.”

I smiled—clearly I’d been worrying about nothing, because he still wanted to spend the night with me and cook for me like a real gentleman. “That’d be really nice. Thanks.”

I reached for his hand, but he jerked it away from me again.
What the heck
?

Maybe I
wasn’t
just being paranoid.

“Sorry, I…” Liam’s voice trailed off as the broad, grinning face of Brian Thomas suddenly loomed into view.

“Good evening, Miss Flores,” Brian said.

“Evening, Mr. Thomas,” I said with a polite smile.

“I was just…” Liam began to speak again, but Brian cut him off.

“They’re ready for you on the podium,” he said.

“Ah. Right.” Liam nodded like a condemned man beginning his walk to the gallows. 

I wondered if perhaps he simply didn’t like public appearances that didn’t involve football. That would explain all of this, wouldn’t it? Well…it didn’t exactly explain why he wouldn’t let me touch him, but it suggested a possible root cause to his odd behavior.

I thought about it for a moment and decided that I’d now arrived at the point of reaching for absolutely any explanation, no matter how ridiculous.

Damn. I was turning into one of
those
women.

As Liam made his way to the podium, Brian turned back to me and gave me a quick look up and down. “Congratulations on getting the exclusive.”

“Thanks,” I said, polite smile still firmly plastered on my face. I’d automatically disliked this man after our first meeting, and seeing him again was doing nothing to change that. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was really something dodgy about the guy; something else aside from his rampant money-hunger.

“Liam must have taken quite a shine to you,” Brian said, still eyeing me.

“I guess so.” But had he? After his behavior tonight, I still wasn’t quite sure what to think.

Brian smiled. “No recorder or notebook tonight?”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Why would I have brought my notebook or any recording devices? “No, not tonight,” I said.

“Indeed.”

On that perplexing and yet strangely ominous note, Brian headed for the podium on which Liam stood, and I noticed that Liam now looked comfortable, confident and in no way worried about appearing in public. I waved at him as I caught his eye, and he immediately jerked his gaze upwards and over my head to the people behind me, as if he hadn’t seen me. I knew he
had
seen me, though. He was just pretending he hadn’t so he wouldn’t have to wave back to me.

I sighed and walked away from the platform. I’d been looking forward to seeing Liam do his thing, but right now I didn’t feel as if I could look at him at all anymore. What on earth had I done wrong? Why was he treating me this way? I’d been making all these excuses on his behalf, but deep down I knew the truth—he was giving me the cold shoulder, and I had no idea why.

I heard a nasal feminine voice coming from somewhere near me a moment later.

“Of course, it’s no surprise to me that they’re saying it was Liam. Announcer’s booth in a football stadium? That’s kid’s stuff compared to what he and I did!” the woman said. “He fucked me like crazy!”

I froze, then ducked behind a convenient car before peeking out again to look at the speakers.

In my wandering, I’d happened to walk into one of the event’s ‘offstage’ areas, and two car show models—both blonde, tall and so thin that it almost hurt me to look at them—were having a chat before their next arduous bout of pointing at things and batting their eyelashes at strangers.

The younger model gasped. “You’ve actually slept with Liam Croft?” she asked, wide-eyed.

The first, who I’d already mentally dubbed ‘the skanky one’, laughed. “Oh, who hasn’t, love?  You’re new to this game, but trust me, your time will come. Just keep your figure and all the famous guys will want to fuck you.”

“Where was it that you hooked up with Liam?”

“Backstage at Paris fashion week,” the skanky one declared in an airy tone, as if it meant nothing. “I thought the dressing room was empty, but there he was. And before I know it—well, I barely had time to make myself presentable before the other girls came back in.”

“I think the football stadium’s a bit more impressive,” the younger model said, clearly disappointed by the banality of a backstage dressing room fumble.

“Oh, no, sweetie, that was just the first time,” the skanky one hastened to add. “After the show, he took me up the Eiffel Tower. Up at the top we managed to find a corner, he slipped out his own Eiffel Tower and off we went. Tourists around and everything! I swear there was even a Japanese family filming us!”

The younger girl clapped a hand over her mouth in giggling astonishment. “So was he…”

“Very!” The older model enunciated the word with relish. “These celebrity philanderers seldom live up to their billing—Jon Bakersfield was a proper wash-out—but Liam Croft…wow. In every department, if you know what I mean.”

“Did he recognize you? Today, I mean.”

“Did he?” The skanky one laughed. “You don’t forget someone you enjoyed a quickie on the top of the Eiffel Tower with. He spotted me straight away. In fact,” she leaned closer to her friend and I strained to listen. “He slipped me a note, asking me to meet him later for a repeat performance. He said he just has to slip that boring-ass date he came with first. Have you
seen
her? Urgh. I overheard them talking with his manager earlier, and I think she’s just a reporter anyway, so it shouldn’t take him too long.”

I felt as if I’d just been stabbed in the heart with an icicle, and I didn’t stay to hear what the younger model thought of the other’s revelation. Even if I’d stayed, it was unlikely I would have heard anything anyway, because all I could hear now was the blood pounding in my ears.

What a fool I’d been. What a prize idiot.

All of my earlier questions flashed in the forefront of my mind.
Why was Liam not touching me? Why wasn’t he showing me any affection? Why was he barely acknowledging my existence?
I knew exactly why now—because he didn’t want people to know we were here together, and he didn’t want people to think he was in any sort of a relationship. Not the great Liam Croft; that sort of thing might cramp his style. He had models to bang, and god forbid some little reporter get in the way of that.

At the back of my mind, yet another question rose again: why the hell had he brought me along if he was just going to ditch me for the first model he saw? Surely this could still be some misunderstanding?

But my mind steadfastly refused that notion. Perhaps he’d brought me in case he was unable to pick up anyone better. Perhaps it was just so he could break things off with me with the minimum of effort. All he had to do in that case was show me that I was one of many, and I would make myself scarce without the need for an unpleasant scene. Or perhaps he was just arrogant enough to think that none of this would matter to me.

After all, he was Liam Croft, and I should apparently consider myself lucky that he’d selected a girl like me for a night when he could have anyone he wanted. And if he picked up a few other girls along the way, what did that matter? Surely I hadn’t thought that I would be the
only
woman in his life when he had so many to choose from? Surely I hadn’t imagined that he actually cared? How ridiculous, right?

Totally friggin’ ridiculous.

The car show continued, but to me it was no more than a vague buzzing in the background as I stumbled for a side door, struggling to find my cell phone in my bag. I finally located it and dialed, and my voice almost broke as I spoke when the other end of the line picked up.

“Hi,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I need to get home. Now.”

***

“If you don’t mind me saying, love, you don’t look so happy tonight.”

Mikey glanced back at me in his mirror.

“I’m not, Mikey.”

“Thought not,” he said. “Soon as you started crying I thought….Mikey, this girl’s not the happy camper she was yesterday morning.”

Yesterday morning? Was that all it had been? Things moved fast in the screwed up world of Liam Croft.

“Bad night,” I said.

“If your fella’s done you wrong then, if you like, me and my brother will take him out back and give him a lesson in how to treat a lady.”

“No thanks, Mikey. It’s okay, really,” I said, a half-smile quirking my lips up. Mikey was always amusing to talk to, and the idea of him and his brother beating up Liam in an alleyway somewhere almost made me giggle out loud.

“I mean, we’ll kick seven shades of shit out of him.”

“I know,” I said. “And thank you, I really appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.”

“Well, love,” Mikey continued, “they do say it’s always darkest before the dawn. And as a cabbie I can confirm that they are correct in this. Very dark before dawn. Dark most of the rest of the night as well, but really very dark right before the dawn. Course, that may be just because at that point you’re comparing it to the dawn, which is quite bright, whereas the rest of the time you lack that sphere of comparison. So it may all be a matter of perspective.”

“That makes sense.”

Mikey looked back at me again. “Would you rather I shut up, love?” he asked kindly.

“No, of course not. Please, keep talking.”

“Right you are. You look very nice tonight, by the way.”

“Thanks. I got this dress on sale earlier today.”

“I keep telling my wife she should get a dress like that. I think it’d suit her. You’re about the same height as her, and it suits the heck out of you. So now I have proof it would look great on her!”