Page 19 of Power Play

I couldn’t avoid it anymore.

Ben was washing glasses and Amber had begged for a bathroom break. It was just me left to serve the kings at the end of the bar.

“Another round?” I asked, standing behind the bar in front of the three hockey heroes. They were big. Really big. Larger than life. Flush with victory and drunk on adulation.

Liam was smiling as he turned to face me, and slowly, so slowly, his smile faded. I watched him process the whole thing, right there on his face. That I was here. That I was behind the bar. Then his eyes dropped to the uniform.

I’m not ashamed of my job. I’m not ashamed of my job.

“Kit?”

“In the flesh.”

Henrik turned at the word flesh and smiled at me. “Hello, gorgeous woman. Can I get another…” he lifted his glass and looked at it like he wasn’t sure what he was drinking.

I pulled out the top shelf bourbon that cost more money than I could make in two weeks and poured a generous amount in this glass.

“What are you doing here?” Liam asked.

“Living the dream.”

His eyes wandered down my body for a second, slow and sleepy. “You work here.”

“And people say you’re dumb.”

Those blue eyes sharpened, and I regretted more than I could say making that dumb joke. I’d deliberately provoked him because I knew it was something he was sensitive about. It was the same with all my dad’s victims. How dumb must they be to invest money without doing their research first?

Evil Liam, because that’s who he transformed into whenever he was around me, laughed and smacked Staski in the shoulder.

“Hey,” Liam said with a flash of snark. “Do you know Kit Barrington?”

“Hi, Kit Barrington,” Staski said, flashing his silver tooth. He was a handsome man if you liked them extremely dangerous looking. “Your name. It sounds familiar. Should I know you?”

All the blood drained from my face. I could feel it. That cold chill of humiliation. Because there was no escaping it. I would never not be Bill Barrington’s daughter.

I lifted my chin and looked Liam right in the eye.

Do it.Tell him who I am. I don’t care. I can’t change it.

I was saved by a woman who pulled Staski into another selfie with a bunch of her drunk girlfriends.

The crowd and the bar faded away. It was just Liam staring hard into my eyes and me staring right back. Feeling like a mouse in front of a lion.

He pushed his glass towards me. “Scotch, neat,” he said.

I got him a fresh glass and a finger of Lagavulin. I pushed the glass towards him and he caught it and my hand.

I would have loved to not react. I would have given all eleven dollars in my bank account to have been able to look up at him and show him nothing. The truth was, he touched me, and like a match to dry wood, I went up in flames.

Worse, I knew he could tell.

I was blushing, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. My fucking nipples gave me away every time.

He held onto my hand until I was forced to look at him. Pretending to be all cool while I was the color of a tomato. Of course, he was smiling at me with that stupid mouth of his. That dumb dimple. Those piercing blue eyes.

Then he winked, as if to say,your secret is not safe with me.

After, he turned away, like I was a toy he was bored with.

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