The Irishman's Christmas Gamble
Page 13

“I was helping you catch up with the new Liam.”
Her body seemed to be catching up faster than her mind. But that created all kinds of other problems. “Now I’m up to date on certain aspects of the new you.”
“You used to be a quicker student.”
The limousine pulled up to the curb in front of the Bellwether Club. Frankie pulled herself together enough to hit the intercom for the driver. “We should go around to the back so we can use the freight elevator.”
Liam gave her an irritated glance. “So I could have bought a bigger tree.”
 
 
Chapter Six

Within fifteen minutes, the club’s staff had delivered the tree and ornaments to her apartment, set the tree up in a stand, and placed a tall stepladder beside it. When the elevator door closed behind the last helper, Frankie looked at Liam as they stood alone in her living room. “Does that answer your question about the competence of my staff?” “You know I was just twistin’ hay to get you out of here.”
She nodded. “But it still annoyed me.”
“It worked then.” He sniffed. “There’s something here that smells even better than the tree.”
“Irish coffee. On the bar, there.”
“Now I’m impressed with their competence.” He brought the steaming glasses over to the coffee table. “And I see they’ve swept all the snow off the terrace except the picturesque drifts on the top of the wall. Nice eye they’ve got.”
Frankie sat on the sofa and took a sip of the coffee, feeling the smooth burn of caffeine, cream, and whiskey slide down her throat. “One of the great things about New York is that people here are smart and hardworking. They appreciate training, so they can move up. And except for a few bloody snobs, there’s not much class consciousness. Not like in Ireland where you stay in your place or get frozen out. I like it here.”
“Yet you had to start your own club.”
“I didn’t like being judged by someone else’s standards. I kept my requirements simple here: one billion dollars that you earned yourself. A high bar but nothing else is necessary.”
“High? Some would argue almost impossible.”
“The membership is small, but the dues are substantial. And I’ve never had an uncollectible bill.” She smiled over her coffee.
He lounged back on the sofa beside her, stretching out his mile-long legs. “Always the head for money.”
“Better than addling my brains by whacking my head into a ball.”
He chuckled. “You used to yell, ‘There goes calculus’ every time I headed the ball. As though I’d ever study higher maths. Did you?”
“No need for it. Accounting, now there’s a useful subject.”
“I sometimes wish I’d gotten past high school.”
“You have other talents,” she said. “Besides, a college degree doesn’t make you smart. I’ve hired more than one M.B.A. whom I had to fire six months later.”
He frowned into his glass. “I’d have liked to learn some sciences, more about how the world works.”
“No one’s stopping you from doing it now.”
“I don’t have time to do homework. I’ve got a team to whip into shape.”
“Well then, after that.”
He swallowed down the last of his drink. “It’s time to decorate the tree.” Tilting his head, he held up his finger for silence so that the faint sound of music could be heard. “Yes, your competent hardworking staff has tuned in to Christmas carols, but we need to turn them up.”
“Control, increase volume three levels,” Frankie commanded.
The music swelled so the lyrics were distinct.
“Control is a very handy fellow,” Liam said. “Where does he live?”
She pointed to a small white panel set into the wall. “Control is the perfect roommate. He doesn’t laugh when I listen to ABBA or tell me that the room is too hot when I crank up the temperature on a wintry day.”
“But can he hang ornaments on a fir branch?” Liam rose with the perfect control of an athlete at peak fitness. Taking her hand, he pulled her up beside him. “Can Control brush your hair away from your face?” He stroked a loose strand back behind her ear, his fingertips brushing her cheek, her ear, and her neck, starting a ripple of awareness that flowed across her skin.
“Maybe not, but he’s damned good at current stock quotes and remembering what movie won best picture in 2001.” Her joke couldn’t stop the vibration Liam had set loose in her body. It made her want to say to hell with Christmas so she could drag him into her bedroom and strip that too-thick sweater off his hard body.
That was a thought she shouldn’t be having.
Liam flipped open a box of ornaments. The sales clerk had thoughtfully provided hooks for the balls. He slipped one on and presented the sphere to Frankie. “You should hang the first and the last.”
She looked at the piles of boxes and at the expanse of unadorned green tree. “I vote we go through two boxes and leave the rest to one of my more artistic staff members. Otherwise we’ll be here for hours.”
Liam put his hands on his hips, drawing her eye to the worn denim pulled taut over his thighs, and surveyed the tree as well. “I’ll be casting my vote with yours. That’s a hell of a lot of branches.”
They started singing along with the carols and then dancing to a few and arguing about why they had chosen that particular ornament. So they’d hung four boxes’ worth by the time Frankie threw herself down on the couch, laughing at Liam’s hip-swiveling rendition of All I Want for Christmas is You. “I’m adding to your nickname. You are now Prince Elvis.”
“But I have no intention of leaving the building,” he said. “Although I think we should adjourn to the terrace to enjoy the last of the afternoon sunlight.”
Frankie inhaled, drawing in the woodsy scent of warmed evergreen. “But it smells so good in here.”
“I promise you that it will smell even better as the tree dries out, until you’ll feel like you’re living in the middle of a pine forest.”
“How do you know so much about—” But Liam had disappeared down the hall that led to her bedroom. “Where are you going?”