Page 8 of Masquerade

“Not hard enough.” Kate returned to the window and the offending billboard. Liam’s ignorance about the billboard had sat in her belly like one too many undigested margarita cupcakes. “I’m in this to protect myself. He’s stumbled onto the stage in the dark just in time for lights up. If I were him, I’d want blood. Niall’s for dumping him in this. Ours for being accomplices.”

“How ruthless is he?” Anna switched to battle-goddess mode again. “Are you worried about Ms. Sexy Higgins? We could revisit the option to use an avatar to go with your author pseudonym.”

“Kate Higgins remains a blonde with green cosmetic contact lenses and a professional makeup job.” Kate had agonised before choosing an image as far removed from Ms. Dowdy Researcher as she could find. Anna had christened her Ms. Sexy Higgins. “I’ve done a preliminary photo shoot. And, to be blunt, I can’t imagine the steely-eyed, cynical Liam Quinn has ever wandered, even accidentally, into the romance section of a bookshop.” Ms. Sexy Higgins was designed for Kate’s famous playwright father, who’d never supported Kate’s dreams.

“Is your job at Clelland’s at risk?” Anna excelled at the hard questions.

“Hard to know.” Her ongoing queasiness made that a lie. She didn’t share Anna’s confidence that Liam could be appeased, especially if the billboard campaign jeopardised his chance at a promotion.

“Could he refuse to work with you?”

“Possibly.” And her chances of finding an equivalently well-paying contract at short notice were zero. This job was a guarantee she’d meet her publisher’s deadlines for her three-book contemporary romance series.

“Then he really would be a narrow-minded, head-in-the-sand mule,” Anna snarled. “You’re the best.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” But if Liam told the world her Ms. Dowdy Researcher persona was a disguise, she’d be searching for a new place to hide.

“Okaaaay, we make sure he never guesses it’s you on the billboard.”

“It may not be that simple.”

George’s project needed confidentiality. It didn’t matter if Niall was the model. Liam’s face would be recognisable to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people within days, making it impossible for him to do discreet fieldwork on a non-IP project.

Ambitious men often lashed out with vicious precision when thwarted. Her father and Andrew had taught her to tread carefully in the presence of unchecked egotism. Liam was another man on his way to the top. His arsenal of weapons would be impressive.

* * *

Liam returned to thelarge windows after George left. The Botanic Garden, Sydney Harbour and the open sky stretched before him. Losing himself in the view was usually a surefire way to clear his head. Today the natural vista was a humbling reminder of the career he’d lost.

He’d been lead lawyer as well as the public face for a community organisation suing Futureproof Mining for breaches of their environmental conditions to operate. Cocky, sure of his facts and convinced he’d win. In truth, he’d been a naive idiot ripe for plucking. His mistake had brought the organisation to the brink of losing the case, their reputation and all their assets. They’d asked him to stay. He’d stepped aside. Misplaced pride? Maybe.

Irrelevant when he’d learned his father—like him—had been shafted, and the wage Liam had been pulling wouldn’t stretch to cover the interest on his father’s debts.

Liam glanced at Kate’s report. His criticism had been out of line. His body remembered the provocative little shimmy that had gone hand in hand with her verbal slap down when he’d criticised her research. The rush of lust when he pictured her was a multi-headed Hydra, constantly growing.

Niall’s instant celebrity status could deliver the knockout punch to Liam’s chance to discreetly reenter environmental law. His fingers curled into fists. He’d already prioritised the top three cases, felt the itch along his spine to get his hands and boots dirty. It also wasn’t as simple as his face on a billboard. It was Genosearch. Not every medical research company was environmentally solid.

He texted his brother.

Can we meet after work? The Lancaster Arms at six.

The pub was halfway between his office and Niall’s workshop.

Yes.

He could count on one hand the times they’d met for a drink since Niall’s return. Liam’s choice. He didn’t trust himself not to let something slip about their dad if he spent any time with his brother. Niall would have come home if he’d told him, would have sacrificed his hard-won mentorship, whereas by the time Liam had uncovered the extent of their father’s debts, it hadn’t mattered what Liam did. He’d wanted the escape of work and the money it provided. He’d taken any he could get, including gopher for toffee-nosed barristers who’d earned six-figure sums off the back of his research.

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Niall was standingat the end of the bar studying his beer when Liam arrived.

“Hey!” The barman threw up his hands. “Twins?”

“How can you tell?” Liam mimicked the barman’s gesture.

Niall’s head lifted. “The Mighty Quinn. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“You tell me.” The nickname zapped Liam back to childhood. He’d been four, naked and covered in mud with chicken feathers stuck behind his ears when his father had first used it. A phrase from a Bob Dylan song about an American actor playing the discredited trope of a noble savage; “you’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn.”

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