Page 12 of The Marriage Playbook

“Hi, Jenna. I’m Liam,” he said. “You know, I came here today looking for a drink, but I never thought I’d meet such a lovely lady.” He raised his glass to her. “It’s not that often I meet someone so interesting.”

Jenna laughed. “That’s such a line. You must think I’m an idiot.”

It was strange. Ordinarily, Liam would have laughed along with her and changed up his strategy. He would have confessed that it had indeed been a line and asked her a question about herself to change the subject. He knew how to talk to people, and that little indiscretion would have eased the way into a conversation with her.

But for some reason, his temper flared.

“It’s not a line,” he snapped. “Can’t I pay you a compliment without you assuming the worst? God.” He turned forward and took a long swig of his drink. “Maybe I’m wasting my time here.”

A part of him, just hearing himself speak, was stunned. He knew better than this. He knew that talking to a woman like that wasn’t going to end in anything good.

Sure enough, her face settled into a scowl. “I don’t know why I bother,” she grumbled, sliding off her chair. “Every time I think I’ve met a cute guy, he turns out to be exactly the same.” She raised her voice. “Tia! Can we go? This place is full of duds.”

Another girl appeared to sweep Jenna away.

Rage swept through Liam. He hadn’t even been trying to get involved with Jenna, for God’s sake. He had just been trying to chat up a pretty girl. Now she thought she was too good for him?

Was this what his life was going to be like from now on? Everyone thinking they were too good for him?

He slammed his highball glass down on the bar in frustration.

He didn’t even realize, at first, that it had shattered, that a shard of glass had embedded itself in his palm. The cries around him went up before the pain registered. Then people were backing away from him, their eyes wide, their palms in the air as if to show him they didn’t want any trouble.

I’m not any trouble. He couldn’t reconcile it. He wasn’t the kind of man who caused a scene in bars. He had been provoked into that by Sandusky, but when he was left to his own devices he was a pleasant and genial sort…

The pain was hitting now. He looked down at his hand as if it belonged to someone else and saw blood there.

A man tapped him on the shoulder.

Liam turned. This had to be the bouncer. He was even bigger than Liam, something very few men were.

“They want you out,” the guy said, his voice rough and dark. “Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way?”

Liam was shaking his head, unable to believe this was happening. “Hang on,” he said. “I put the glass down too hard by accident. I’ll help clean it up. It won’t happen again. I’m not even drunk. We don’t have to make this into something more than it is.”

The bouncer was shaking his head. “Look, the owner has had his eye on you since you came in,” he said. “You’re the guy who caused all the trouble up in VIP last night, and now you’ve broken your second glass in two days. They want you out, and they want you not to come back.”

“This is a complete overreaction,” Liam protested. “Just let me have a drink, and then I’ll leave, I promise.”

“It isn’t up to me,” the bouncer said. “You can take it up with management if you want to come back in the morning, but not tonight. Right now, you either get up and walk out of here on your own or else I haul you out. So which is it going to be?” He raised his eyebrows and regarded Liam, waiting.

There was no choice to be made, really. There were probably already people with their cameras out. Somewhere, Garrett Sandusky was probably looking down on him and crowing.

Liam got to his feet, scowling at everyone around him, and made his way to the door.

Great. Cara Bailey is going to have her work cut out for her when she sees what I did tonight. It’s going to make it that much harder to salvage my reputation.

Maybe I shouldn’t have come out at all tonight.

Hell, maybe I should spend the rest of my life in the house, where I can’t get into any trouble.

CHAPTER 7

CARA

The new articles about Liam had begun to pop up at about two in the morning.

Cara had still been awake, miles from sleep given the fact that she knew she had to put together a pitch by the following day. That was bad enough, but when she saw the photo of him baring his teeth at a woman in a bar, she began to seriously wonder what she had gotten herself into. What kind of man is he, if this is how he acts when he already knows he’s in trouble?