Page 36 of The Player

She stood and strolled toward him, deliberately taking her time. ‘I’ll be at the next board meeting.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ he said, resisting the urge to slam the door as she stepped through it.

‘What you’re doing is wrong and your father would be appalled at the risk you’re taking—’

This time he gave into instinct and slammed the door.

Chapter Sixteen

‘There’s a book launch I want to suss out tonight,’ Wade said, barely glancing up from his paperwork. ‘We’re going.’

Liza bristled. She didn’t take kindly to orders, least of all from the man she could happily throttle given half a chance.

He’d been bugging her all week, using subtle charm and sexy smiles to undermine her. She’d weathered it all, had focused on work in the hope he’d forget this ridiculous challenge of trying to woo her.

He hadn’t, until today. Today, he’d been brusque and abrupt to the point of rudeness and no one seemed to know why. She should’ve been happy. Instead, a small part of her missed his roguish charisma.

‘We may have other plans,’ she said, in a manufactured sickly sweet voice.

He glanced up, the frown between his brows not detracting from his perfection. ‘A rival company is releasing a soap-opera starlet’s biography. It pays to scope out the competition, get a few ideas for what works at these shindigs and what doesn’t.’

Liza hated the hint of deflation she felt that his command had been pure business and not a burning desire to spend some time in her presence outside work.

Crazy and contradictory, considering that’s the last thing she wanted and she had gone to great pains to avoid any out-of-work contact since that kiss on her doorstep.

But a small part of her, the part that reluctantly dredged up memories of their scintillating night together, yearned for a repeat.

Needless to say that part of her didn’t get acknowledged these days.

‘Surely you’ve been to heaps of book launches? What’s so special about this one?’

With an exasperated sigh, he flung his pen on top of the towering stack of paperwork threatening to topple.

‘I’ve heard they’re trying an innovative giveaway. Something along the lines of buy the book, get a download of another free.’ He pushed aside the paperwork with one hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. ‘I want to see how well it’s received by readers who prefer to hold a tree book.’

‘Tree book?’

His mouth relaxed into a semi-smile. ‘Paper comes from trees. Paperbacks? Tree books.’

‘Cute,’ she said, a broad term that could be applied to his terminology or the man himself when he lost the ‘shouldering the weight of the company on my shoulders’ look.

He’d been grumpy all day but she’d weathered it, assuming he had profit margins to juggle or worry about. Having him crack a half-smile was a big improvement.

‘My dad used to call them that,’ he said, interlinking his fingers and stretching overhead. It did little to ease the obvious tension in his rigid shoulders.

‘He built an incredible company,’ she said, surprised by his rare information sharing.

While Wade seemed content to interrogate her, his personal life was definitely off-limits. The snippets she’d learned about the enigmatic CEO had come from colleagues, co-workers who’d given her the lowdown on Qu Publishing. A company founded sixty years ago by Wade’s grandfather, a company that had produced many bestsellers under Wade’s dad, but a company that had floundered when Wade’s step-mother had entered the picture and Wade had left to start his own company in London.

While no one would directly disparage Babs Urquart, Liza saw enough glowering expressions and heard enough half-finished sentences to know Babs wasn’t well liked.

Apparently they blamed her for Qu’s downfall. And so did their boss.

‘You started out here too?’

His lips compressed, as if he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Yeah. I left after a few years, started my own company in London.’

‘Bet your dad was proud.’

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