“We open at four,” a woman at the bar said without even looking up. She had a jagged purple haircut and an attitude that Liv would’ve admired in other circumstances.
Liv approached the bar. “I’m Liv. I’m looking for Mack.”
“He’s not here.” The woman still hadn’t looked at her.
“Where is he?” Liv asked, parking herself on a barstool.
The woman looked up, one pierced eyebrow arched over vibrant green eyeshadow. “Not here and none of your business.”
“See, it is kind of my business because I need to talk to him.”
“You and every other woman in Nashville. Take a number.”
Liv faked a gag. “Stop. I have a sensitive stomach.”
The woman suddenly grinned. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Tell him it’s Olivia.”
The woman picked up a phone and punched a couple of buttons. A moment passed before she spoke. “It’s Sonia. There’s some woman here named Olivia who says—”
There was a pause, a quick okay, and then Sonia hung up. “He’ll be here in twenty minutes. You can wait in his office.”
Liv slid off her stool to follow Sonia down a hallway behind the bar.
“So who are you?” Sonia asked, looking back over her shoulder.
“Huh?”
“Mack doesn’t do this—let random women sit in his office. So you must be someone.”
“He got me fired last weekend. I’m here for revenge.”
“Can I watch?”
“I’ll even let you help.”
Sonia opened the door to a back office and waved her arm for Liv to go inside. Liv sank into Mack’s desk chair and kicked her feet up on the surprisingly tidy surface.
Sonia grinned. “His file cabinet is color-coded. Sometimes when I’m mad at him, I mix them all up.”
Liv laid her hand over her heart. “Can we be best friends?”
“Yep.”
As soon as Sonia left, Liv leaned back in the chair and studied the office. The decor was spare but professional. A couple of file cabinets lined one wall beneath a framed black-and-white photo of what was probably Temple before it became Temple. The only personal touch in the room was a line of photos tacked to a fabric pinboard beneath the prefab cabinets that matched the desk.
She tried and failed several times to avoid staring at them, so she finally just gave up and studied them. They were obviously family. They all looked like Mack—dark hair, big smiles, same eyes.
“Comfortable?”
Liv danced her feet along the desk to swivel the chair around. Mack stood in the doorway wearing jeans and a black button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He leaned against the wood frame with his arms crossed, smiling like a man who knew he was good-looking and was used to getting his way because of it.
Liv rolled her eyes. “You practice that pose in the mirror?”
He winked. “Every day.”
“Your office is clean.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I figured you the type for an overflowing trash can and dirty coffee cups.”
“Then you figured wrong.” He pulled away from the door and walked inside, pointing at the photos. “That’s my family.”
She shrugged.
“You’re not even curious?”
“Not really,” she lied.
He moved closer to her and started rattling off names. “That’s my brother, Liam. His wife, Allison. Their two kids. They’re pretty much the cutest kids on the planet.” He pointed to the last picture. “And that’s my mom.”
Liv would’ve known that even if Mack hadn’t pointed it out. He had the same dark hair, golden-brown eyes, and long lashes as the woman in the picture. Not that Liv had spent any time studying Mack’s eyes or the length of his lashes. They were just obvious, like the plumes of a peacock. A person could admire the beauty of the bird while hating its aggressive mating behavior.
Liv crossed her legs at the ankles. “Your manager thought I was some girl you’re stringing along.”
He chuckled. “She has no filter.”
“I know. I like her.”
Mack sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. “So do I. She’s been with me since I opened my first club.”
“Poor thing.”
“I’ve gotten used to the attitude.”
“I was talking about her.”
He winked again. “Give it time. You’ll start to like me. Everyone does.”
“Only if you have Chinese food to replace the leftovers you ate.”
“Damn, you still salty about that?”
“I take food very seriously.”
“Gavin said I could eat them,” he defended.
“They weren’t his to give away.”
“Is that why you don’t like me? Because I ate your lo mein?”
“No. I don’t like you because you spend more on hair products than I do.”
“It takes a lot of work to look this good, honey.”
“Exactly. No woman could ever compete with that. I bet you have a mirror in every room of your house and practice smiling into them.”
“Don’t you?”
She snorted.
“So you seriously don’t like me?”
She gave him another side-eye. “You say that like it actually surprises you.”
At his silence, she stared, incredulous. “It does surprise you.”
He shrugged. “Everybody likes me.” He hooked an ankle over the opposite knee. “I take it you changed your mind about the job?”
Liv dropped her feet to the floor. “Yes, but not for me.”
He squinted, sending a spray of minuscule crinkles around his eyes. “Not sure I follow.”
“If you really have openings—”
“I do.”
“—then I need you to hire a girl named Jessica. She’s a hostess at Savoy, and I need to get her out.”
“Why?”
“Because I do. That should be enough.”
He shrugged again. “It’s not.”
“Well, I can’t tell you why. But you said you wanted to fix this.” She pointed at him. “Those were your exact words, and this is how you can fix it.”
“How does hiring someone else fix your getting fired?”
“I’m not asking you to fix that. I’m asking you to help a young woman get out of a bad situation.”
It might have just been her imagination, but Liv could’ve sworn that a vein popped along his jaw. “What kind of bad situation?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
She gave him a blank stare. “It’s a bad situation.”
Mack stood abruptly, walked to the door, and swung it shut. When he turned back, he adopted a bouncer’s stance and a stern expression. “How bad?”
“Really, really bad.”
“Does this have something to do with you getting fired?”
“Does that matter?”
“It does if you want me to hire this girl.”
“You have openings. I know someone who needs a job. The details shouldn’t make a difference.”
“Humor me.”
It took her five minutes to get the entire story out, but it took all of one for Mack’s blood pressure to rise and his vision to blur. He couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. He jerked his hands through his hair and forced himself to sit down in the chair opposite his desk.
That sonuvabitch. He was going to destroy him. He was going to tear the motherfucker apart.
“Did he—” Mack had trouble getting the words past the thick swell of I will fuck someone up that was blocking his vocal chords. “Did he ever do that to you?”
“No,” Liv said, hesitating for a split second. “But I don’t think this was the first time he’s done it. He was way too confident about it and way too unconcerned about being caught.”
“We have to do something,” Mack rasped.
Liv gave him a look. “We aren’t going to do anything.”
“He can’t get away with this.”
“I don’t plan on letting him, but the only thing I need you to do is to hire Jessica.”
He needed water. Rage was turning his throat to sandpaper.
Liv stood up. “I’ll be in touch. And if you could please not tell Gavin or Thea about any of this until I figure out how to do it, that would be great.”
She walked toward the door, threw it open, and breezed through. Holy shit. How many times was this woman going to walk out on him?
Mack leaped up and followed her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. Where are you going?”
Sonia, who was sitting at her cubicle outside his office, swiveled in her chair and watched the drama with unabashed amusement. Yeah, yeah, so he’d never literally chased after a woman before. Big fucking deal.
Mack gripped Liv’s elbow and tugged her back to keep their conversation private. Liv sighed, exasperation written across her face. “What?”
“What the hell did that mean?”
“Which part?”
“The part about making the bastard pay.”
She gave him a duh look. “It means what it means. I’m going to expose him and ruin the bastard.”
“By yourself?”
Liv shrugged. “Why not?”
“You can’t do this by yourself. If he really does have a history of this, then he knows how to hide it. How exactly do you think you’re going to expose him? You can’t just go to the media and tell them what you saw and heard.”
“That’s not my plan, but thanks for treating me like an idiot.”
“What is your plan, then?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will. Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Mack said, feeling his equilibrium return for the first time. Because, of this, he was absolutely certain. Men who abused women deserved to pay. He didn’t care what it took. If Royce Preston was preying on women, Mack was going to stop him. “I want in.”