8. Liam
LIAM
“All right,” Cara said. “The idea is to find someone you have decent chemistry with, so that the press will find you believable as a couple.”
“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” Liam said. “We should just be picking the hottest woman who applied.” He thumbed through the head shots and pulled one out at random. “What about her? She’s cute.”
Cara glanced at the picture. “Well, for one thing, she’s twenty-four and you’re thirty-two.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it necessarily, but it won’t do anything for your reputation if she can’t match up to your level of maturity.
We need someone who looks like she belongs with you.
People are going to be suspicious enough with this marriage coming right on the heels of your scandal.
It’s going to look like you’re trying to grab the news cycle back.
It’s important to find someone who looks like you might actually have fallen in love with her for her personality. ”
Liam sighed. “So I have to pretend to go on dates with all of them?”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Cara said tersely. “This isn’t how I want to be spending my day either, you know.”
“At least you’re getting paid,” he pointed out.
She snorted. “Don’t act like you’re doing this for my benefit. Just have a drink with each of these women and let’s see what the energy is like between you, all right?”
“We should at least serve alcohol,” Liam said, gazing mournfully at the iced tea on the table Cara had set up for him in the corner of the coffee shop where they would be meeting women today.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “By the time the fifth person came in you’d be sauced.”
“Do you think I’m such a lightweight?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t intend to find out,” she said.
“We’ve got this coffee shop rented out for the next four hours, and we have that much time for you to meet as many women as possible.
If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to settle on someone for you by the time we’re done here.
Why don’t you go sit down, and I’ll go outside and show the first person in? ”
“She’s already here?” Liam glanced toward the window. The curtains had been drawn, and it occurred to him all at once that that was probably a deliberate choice.
“There are several of them outside,” Cara said. “I gave them scheduled arrival times so they wouldn’t have to wait, but I guess people decided to show up early.” She sighed in obvious frustration.
“Well, I could’ve told you that would happen,” Liam chuckled. She might be decent at public relations, but she didn’t know everything. He took a seat at the table. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Cara went over to the door and paused before opening it. “Just…be nice,” she implored him.
He scowled. “I’m always nice.”
Cara rolled her eyes. She opened the door and leaned out. “Melissa Fitzsimmons?”
A long pause. Then a girl with stick-straight brown hair appeared in the doorway.
She was skinny, with bony elbows and huge facial features.
She looked like she might be a model—probably was, Liam decided.
He suspected a lot of the women he was going to meet today would be models or out of work actresses.
Melissa nodded thanks to Cara and made her way over to the table. She sat down, flashed Liam a smile, and nudged her ankle against his underneath the table.
Had that been on purpose? Surely she wasn’t putting the moves on him before they had even been introduced?
No, she definitely was. He could feel that she’d slid her foot out of her shoe, and now she was tracing it up the back of his shin. He slid his leg out of her reach. “It’s nice to meet you, Melissa,” he told her.
She frowned. “Am I the first one you’re meeting? My agent told me that I would be the first.”
Cara cleared her throat. “We’re not really at liberty to talk about the casting process,” she said, then stepped back so that she was up against the wall.
Melissa leaned closer. “I don’t mind if she leaves,” she whispered. “I know you think you probably have to have her here for liability reasons, but I think it’s really best for us to work this out on our own, without interference from anyone else. Don’t you?” She winked at him.
Liam gritted his teeth. Though he hated to admit it, he could see what Cara had been talking about when she’d told him they couldn’t just pick the most attractive woman from a pile of photos.
There was no world in which Melissa was going to be a good choice.
He’d have gotten rid of her right now if he’d seen any way of doing it, but his reputation was already so deep in the mud that he didn’t think he could afford to piss anyone off.
He suffered through the twenty minutes she’d been promised and then thanked her for coming.
She lingered in the doorway as if hoping to be offered the position of temporary wife right then and there, but Cara stepped in—thankfully—and ushered her to the door.
“We’re hoping to make our decision in the next day or so,” she said.
“We really appreciate your time.” She shut the door quickly behind Melissa and turned back to Liam. “So that one was a no.”
“A hard no,” Liam agreed. “Are you sure I can’t have a drink?”
Cara chuckled. “I would give you one if I could. That was intense. I hope they aren’t all going to be like that.”
“Probably will,” Liam said gloomily. “This was a good idea, don’t get me wrong, but I am not having a good time here. I’m living for the day when I’ll be back on the Stingers and this will all be over with. I just want to play ball.”
Cara paused, her hand on the door. “Football really means a lot to you, doesn't it?”
“It’s the only reason I’m doing any of this,” he said. “What did you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I thought maybe you just didn’t want to give up your lifestyle.”
“Well, I don’t,” he admitted. “Who would? But football is the biggest component of that. I love playing. I like the news articles and the VIP treatment, but the best part is when I run out onto the field and the whole game is ahead of me. There’s nothing in the world like it.
Getting kicked off my team and not being able to find a place anywhere else…
” He looked down into his lap. How could he explain this to someone like her?
How could he make her understand that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, or ever could?
Cara was quiet for a moment. “Don’t worry,” she said at last. “We’re going to get you back out on the field. That’s my job.”
There was a steady certainty in her eyes, and for the first time, the turmoil Liam had been feeling since all this had started died down ever so slightly.
He believed her.
For whatever reason, she cared about this as much as he did.
She wanted this idea to work as much as he did.
It wasn’t just about the money, he didn’t think.
His contract didn’t stipulate that the firm got paid more if they were successful here.
She probably did want to keep him as a client, but there was something more than that in the way she was looking at him.
She was taking it seriously.
Someone was genuinely on his side in all this.
He nodded slowly. “Thanks,” he managed. “I’m…glad you get it.”
The next two hours passed slowly. One by one, Cara showed women into the coffee shop, and Liam spent a few minutes with them, talking and getting to know a little more about each one.
None of them shocked them with their behavior the way Melissa had, but no one really impressed him either.
All he kept thinking the whole time was that he was deeply grateful they’d all signed a nondisclosure agreement, and that no one had yet been told the full reason they’d been called in.
These women knew that Liam Sims was looking for someone to help him with a new venture, and though they might have guessed what it would entail, nobody knew for sure.
It would be Cara’s job to explain it to the one who was chosen, and to ensure that the proper legal protections were in place to stop all the others from talking about this meeting.
At least he knew he could trust her. He kept looking up at her.
She didn’t move from her place by the door, just stood there watching him as he spoke to one woman after another.
Finally, after a pretty woman with wavy brown hair had left the building, she stepped forward out of the shadows.
“I think we might be done,” she said, smiling at him.
“Was that the last of them?” He slumped in his chair. “Thank God. This has been exhausting.”
Her smile faltered slightly. “No, I mean…there are others out there, but didn’t you think she was the one? You two got along great, and she seemed really easy to talk to.”
“What was her name again?” They had all started to blend together in the past hour.
Cara looked at him in exasperation. “Stephanie,” she said. “Her name was Stephanie, and I thought you two were really hitting it off. You didn’t think so?”
“I don’t know.” Liam raked a hand through his hair. “She was fine. Do you think she would do it? That’s all that really matters. I just want to get back out on the field.”
Cara nodded. “I think we could convince her pretty easily,” she said. “I can talk to her about it. But I need to know what you think. We can’t move forward with this if she wasn’t right in your eyes.”
Liam didn’t have the answer she wanted. She was waiting, he knew, for him to say he thought Stephanie was great.
That he liked her and wanted to work with her.
But he couldn’t manage it, because all he really wanted was the feeling of being restored to his team.
Going out under the lights, running for a pass, the ball slapping into his hands…
He’d do whatever it took to get back what Garrett Sandusky had stolen from him. He would have married a lizard if it meant he could get himself out of this situation.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said.
Cara nodded slowly. She seemed to hear what he wasn’t saying, but apparently she had decided to let it go.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll reach out to her and see if we can make the arrangements.
With any luck, we’ll get this squared away quickly, and we’ll have you back on the field as soon as possible. ”
Liam got to his feet. The whole thing had him feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and he found he wanted nothing more than to get out of this coffee shop as quickly as possible.
He’d agreed to this solution, and he stood by it. But even so, this seemed like an awful lot of trouble to have to go to for the sake of doing what he loved.