Page 16 of Persuading Liam

I give him a wan smile.Great, another task on my growing list of impossible missions.“I will do my best.”

But I can feel my stomach sink further as I watch her struggle to open the door with her phone in one hand and her Gucci clutch in the other.

Once she’s inside, she lifts her oversized sunglasses and looks around the room. When her bright blue eyes land on her grandfather, she smiles. It’s stunning. Like a live Barbie just walked into my job. “Grandpa Charles,” she coos, scooting across the floor as fast as her heels will let her to wrap him in a hug.

He holds her at arm’s length after the embrace. “Finola, darling, you look stunning.”

“You too,” she comments, straightening his pocket square. “Tom Ford looks good on you. I knew it would.”

He chuckles and nods toward me. “Finola, I’d like you to meet your new boss and the head of everything here, Marley Green.”

I hold my breath as Finola’s eyes scan my red, puffy face, my off-the-rack leggings, and my flannel that’s almost entirely hole-free. I hold out my hand to shake hers. “It’s wonderful to meet you.” I offer. “Glad to have you on board.”

“Oh, my goodness, your eyes are gorgeous.” She puts her hand in mind and pumps it up and down. “They’re like green sea glass.”

“Thank you?” Is all I can get out.

“And those freckles,” she shakes her head. “You know people are getting those tattooed now.”

I smirk. “I wish I could tell ten-year-old me that. She hated them.”

Finola laughs, Mr. Schuster laughs, and I laugh because if I don’t, I’ll cry, and my eyes are already puffy enough.

What did I get myself into?

10

LIAM

“What’s that face for?” I ask Marley when she walks in that evening from work while I’m swiffering the floor. Every muscle in her face is tight and her shoulders are so high she looks like a linebacker. An adorable linebacker, but I’m not allowing myself to think like that.

“Is it that obvious?” She sighs, her shoulders slump to the point that her shoulder bag slides down her arm and catches on her hand.

“I mean I’m pretty good at reading people, but I think your stress might be visible from space.”

“Great,” she mutters, slumping to the sofa and collapsing forward like an exhausted toddler, her cheek resting on the back of the couch, the rest of her body in the fetal position.

Biting back a smile, I keep swiffering. “Want to talk about it?”

She lets out a groan and rolls over so her rump is on the cushions. Her coat is still on, her bag is still hanging from her hand, and she looks like a harried mother of seven after a trip to the grocery store. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. We haven’t talked much at all, much less about how our personal lives are going. Mostly bydesign on my behalf because I’m not good at relationships of any kind. The only reason I still have my brothers is because they are required to put up with me. Short of the condition of the building on her first day, I know very little about what she’s been up to. “Tell me how it’s going at the Post.”

She lets out a dry laugh and follows me with her eyes as I keep working. “I’ve never met anyone as clean as you,” she comments. “Who cleans the toiletevery day?”

I stop my progress and give her a narrowed look, unwilling to tell her I also disinfect the kitchen every night after she goes to bed. It’s the only way I know how to keep control of everything. It’s how I’m still kicking after… I shake the thought away. “I do, and you’re avoiding the subject.” I swiffer toward her, and she lifts her feet for me to keep going.

“Crazy, weird, exciting, stressful, overwhelming,” she answers after a heavy sigh. “I could keep going.”

“Please do.”

She narrows her eyes at me as if she’s trying to decide if I actually want to hear it. “The contractors have done a lot of work in a short time, so the building itself is getting sorted. But Mr. Schuster, the owner, wants to do a printed paper.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Exactly,” she answers. “I thought we’d want to see how the digital version went first before we even dreamt of a physical paper. But he has it in his head that I’m some sort of miracle worker that will strike gold immediately.”

I stop my progress around the room and lean on the Swiffer handle. “That’s a lot of pressure.”

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