“He knows we talked to Jessica,” she said.
“How the hell would he know that?”
“Maybe she told him. You heard what she said when she left.”
Mack’s fingers tightened on her wrist. “Go back to my office.”
She yanked out of his hold. “What? No fucking way.”
“Liv, please. Let me handle this. He hasn’t seen you yet.”
He wasn’t sure what convinced her, but Liv did what he asked. Rage turned his vision red as he watched Royce weave through the crowd, greeting fans with peace signs and high fives. He paused to snap a selfie with two women and then let each woman kiss his cheeks.
Mack tapped into his deepest willpower reserves to keep from launching into a full-fledged sprint and knocking the bastard’s ass to the ground. Instead, he slowly walked to the center of the bar, hands flexed into tight fists at his sides.
Royce approached with his TV-show smile. “Mack. Just the man I came to see.” He turned back to apologize to a couple of women who wanted a photo. “Sorry, ladies. Business calls.”
Right. Business. This unexpected visit had all the hallmarks of old-fashioned mob intimidation.
Royce reached across the bar. Their handshake was about as friendly as a pair of boxers squaring off before a fight.
Mack met Royce’s unnecessarily tight squeeze with equal pressure. “What brings you by?”
Royce dodged the question and leaned an elbow on the bar. He cast his gaze in a wide, judgmental circle. “Quite a place you’ve got here.”
“First time in?”
“Never had the pleasure before.” He dragged out the word pleasure just enough to convey the opposite. His gaze lingered on the dance floor, where a sea of cowboy hats bobbed and swayed in unison to a classic Brad Paisley song. His lips curled as if he’d just wandered into the unwashed masses.
Mack had never wanted to hit another human being so much in his entire life.
Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d wanted to hit someone else a lot harder before, but Royce was quickly rising to a close second, and for many of the same reasons. Men who hurt women were the lowest creatures on Earth.
Mack forced his jaw to release its viselike clench. “Can I get you a drink?”
Royce swiveled again, turning that fake-ass smile back to Mack. “Sure.”
Mack gestured tightly to the wall of liquor bottles on the wall behind him. “What’s your poison?”
“Give me your house specialty.”
“That’d be a Snot Rocket.”
Royce’s lips thinned in revulsion. “A Snot Rocket?”
“Shot of Jim Beam with a raw egg chaser.”
“Classy.”
“I can dig out a wine cooler if you prefer.”
Royce lifted his hands. “Hey, I’m adventurous. Snot Rocket it is.”
The bartender, who’d been hovering nearby, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, but Mack waved him off. “I’ve got this one.”
“Making it extra special for the VIP?” Royce asked, not even a hint of self-deprecation in his tone. He really thought of himself as the VIP.
“You know it,” Mack said. He poured a hefty shot, set the glass in front of Royce, and then cracked an egg into the brown liquid. “I’m supposed to warn you that consuming raw egg products can be dangerous to your health.”
Royce turned a soft shade of green, but this was a battle of manhood. He swallowed once, lifted the glass, and shot it back.
“So,” Mack said, bracing his hands on the edge of the bar. “What brings you by?”
“Heard you—” Royce stopped and swallowed hard as he set down the glass. The egg must’ve been sliding back up. “Heard you’re hiring.”
“I am. You need an application?”
Royce adopted the TV-show smile. “Good one. You ever wonder how I got so successful?”
“Not really.”
A nerve twitched along Royce’s jaw. “I like you, Mack, which is why I’m going to give you a pass on a small breech of professional etiquette.”
Mack snorted. “You’re going to lecture me about professional etiquette?”
“It’s bad form to recruit someone else’s employees.”
Warning bells clanged in Mack’s brain, but his mouth didn’t care. “So is sexually harassing your employees.”
Red splotches darkened Royce’s cheeks. Mack realized with a start that this was the face that the public never got to see. The face that had scared Jessica to the point of tears. The face that was going to feel the brunt end of Mack’s fist soon.
“Why don’t you and I stop dancing around this thing? Say what you came to say and get the fuck out of my club.”
“Olivia is dangerous, man. She’s unstable.”
“Is that right?”
“I should’ve fired her a long time ago.”
Mack nearly cracked a tooth from the tight clench of his jaw.
“I don’t know what she told you, but you listen to her at your own peril. She makes shit up.” Royce shrugged. “It’s sad, really, because she’s talented in the kitchen, and”—his mouth curled into a lecherous sneer—“in other ways.”
A blur of curly hair passed in Mack’s peripheral vision before he realized what was happening.
Oh shit. Liv. “You disgusting, lying sack of shit.”
Royce laughed. “Olivia. What a surprise.”
Mack grabbed her arm, but she yanked free. “I have never slept with you. Jesus, I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs first.”
Royce shrugged again in the kind of way that said he was getting exactly the response he’d hoped for. “Told you, Mack. Unstable.”
“Shut the fuck up, Royce.”
“I should’ve kicked you in that shriveled-blob fish dick of yours when I had the chance,” Liv sneered.
Royce’s face exploded in red splotches.
Mack wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against his body. “Stop,” he hissed into her ear. “This is what he wants. We get riled up and make a scene, and suddenly neither one of us has any credibility.”
Liv pulled from his grasp. “You are not going to get away with this,” she said, pointing.
“Hey, Olivia?” He winked. “I already have.”
“Get the fuck out of my bar,” Mack growled.
Liv let Mack pull her away from the bar. “Come on. Let’s go.” He slid his hand down the back of her arm and clasped her hand so he could tug her along behind him to his office. Curious whispers and stares cataloged the entire thing. It would be a miracle if no one had caught some of it on video.
Liv stomped into the office, hands shaking. “I have never slept with him.”
“Christ, Liv. I know.”
She turned around to face him. “He’s going to spread that rumor about me, isn’t he?”
“I won’t let him.”
Sonia suddenly ran in. “Shriveled-blob fish dick?”
Liv shuddered. “It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her snark was short-lived. Her knees wobbled, and she sank against the edge of the desk. “He really is going to ruin me. The entire culinary world is going to think I had an affair with him.”
Mack closed the distance between them and gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Look at me.”
He tilted her face upward.
“We will stop him.”
She held his eyes, and something caught in his chest. Her eyes were like mirrors, reflecting every emotion. He watched, transfixed, as anxiety hardened into determination, turning hazel into fiery green.
“You’re goddamned right we will,” she breathed. “Whatever it takes.”
He made a fist and held it out. “Partners?”
Liv bumped her fist against his. “Partners.”
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning, Mack dropped into his normal seat at the diner where he and the guys ate breakfast every other week. He was the last to arrive, which was unusual. But so were the circumstances. This wasn’t their normal week.
A mug of coffee was waiting for him. He pushed it aside and leaned on his forearms.
“What’s the big emergency?” Malcolm asked, tone tinged with uncharacteristic annoyance. “My wife and I have plans today.”
A waitress made her way to the table and asked Mack if he was ready to order. He spared her a quick glance. “Just the coffee, thanks.”
There was a moment of silence after she walked away. “What?” Mack asked.
“Wow,” Del said quietly. “You didn’t even smile at her.”
“Who?”
Malcolm pointed. “The waitress. You didn’t flirt with her.”
Mack shook his head. “I don’t have time for flirting. I need to talk to you guys.”
“Obviously,” Del deadpanned. “You dragged us out of bed.”
“This is serious!”
“You get dumped again already?” Gavin asked.
Mack flipped him off. Gavin returned the gesture. Malcolm started to stand. “I don’t have time for this.”
Mack grabbed his arm. “Sit down. You need to hear this.”
Malcolm returned to his seat with a stern glare. “This better be good.”
Mack sucked in a breath and dragged a hand over his hair. When he exhaled, he settled his eyes on his friends. He knew he should feel guilty about doing this without talking to Liv first, but this was an emergency. “This needs to stay between us.”
“This really is serious, isn’t it?” Gavin said, growing somber.
“It is. And it’s about Liv.”
Gavin’s whole body went rigid. “What about Liv?”
“She didn’t tell you the whole story about why she got fired.”
Five minutes later, the guys reacted to the story exactly as Mack knew they would because they all lived by the same code he did.