Tempted By Scandal. Karen Booth

had with himself over not telling his mom the truth. He walked up to The Opulence’s bar and flagged the bartender. Early afternoon, and it was quiet, with just a couple sitting at one of the tables. “Club soda with lime, please.” He craved something harder, but that would have to wait. He and Matt needed to have a long talk about Teresa.

      “Coming up,” the bartender said.

      Liam took a seat at the bar. Dark thoughts and questions continued to tumble around in his head. And then it dawned on him—if Matt was so eager to give Teresa St. Claire a free pass simply because she’d worked for weeks on planning the retreat, maybe Liam needed to do some digging into her life. After all, Liam knew very little about her, and where there was one misdeed, there were often many. Maybe Liam needed to give Matt more reason to fire her.

       Three

      Teresa took solace in one fact—today could not get any worse. Between the threatening phone call about Joshua and running into an inexplicably irate Liam Christopher, she couldn’t have imagined a more miserable beginning to her twenty-four hours at The Opulence.

      “Let’s get started.” Matt clapped his hands. “I have a million things to get to today.” He took a seat at the conference table, leaning back in the black leather chair. Despite being one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the business world, Matt wore dark jeans and a charcoal-gray dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was famous for rarely wearing a suit.

      “Yes. Let’s.” Teresa sat opposite Matt. She pulled out her binder, already bulging with papers and notes. Matt had brought nothing but himself to the meeting, but she was used to that by now. Matt Richmond kept everything in his head. “Shall we start from the top? The guest arrival on Friday afternoon?”

      Matt’s blue eyes lit up. This event clearly meant a lot to him and he was excited by the prospect of knocking people’s socks off. “Yes. Perfect.”

      Teresa began to brief Matt on the latest details. She showed off artist’s renderings of the decor for The Opulence’s lobby and samples of the custom room keys being printed for the weekend. She went over each item in the goody bags guests would receive, which included complimentary personalized luxury skin-care products, a $12,000 Tiffany & Co. watch with a custom cobalt blue face, and a seven-day stay at the all-new Kapalua Lanai Resort in Hawaii, the latest in Richmond Industries’ hotel-management portfolio.

      Matt was sparing no expense since it was his company’s fifth anniversary, nor was he holding back his opinions. His reactions were mostly enthusiastic, but even the elements he was wowed by still required changes to please him. Teresa nodded and made endless notes, realizing it would be a miracle if she got any sleep at all before the retreat. There was a lot to be settled and Matt expected nothing short of perfection, and that meant she had to be perfect, too. But there were outside forces in the mix—the mystery man, the Joshua problem and Liam. If any of them blew up in her face before the retreat, she was sunk.

      “I’d like you to go over the Saturday night gala menu with Nadia and Aspen. Nadia knows the dietary restrictions of our VIP guests and Aspen should be apprised of all catering decisions.” Aspen Wright was the events manager for The Opulence, but Matt had pushed her aside in favor of Teresa. This had already created friction.

      “Nadia and I have a meeting scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Aspen is away from the hotel today, but I’ll make sure she knows everything.” Teresa had met Nadia a few times, and they’d communicated about the retreat, but their working relationship would intensify over the coming weeks. Teresa hoped it could be a good one.

      “Great. You two can have your meeting while Liam and I go over the details of Saturday morning. As soon as we’ve decided on everything, I’ll bring you in.” When Matt had first hired Teresa, he’d asked her to block out one hour of the retreat schedule Saturday morning for an undisclosed event.

      “Liam is involved with the top-secret project?”

      Matt nodded. “Something we’ve been working on for years. We’re keeping a very tight lid on it. He’ll be running the presentation, but I won’t be able to give you details until a day or two before the retreat. Sorry. It’s just the way it has to be.”

      “Of course.” This made Teresa all kinds of nervous, not only because she needed to know her role in this mysterious announcement, but also because the topic of her would invariably come up in Matt’s meeting with Liam. She had to speak to Liam today, privately, to find out what he’d meant when he said that she ruined his father’s life. Linus had been nothing but a fabulous mentor to her and she’d always shown her deep appreciation. He was the reason she got her start in event planning at MSM. He’d made the call to get her the interview with Mariella Santiago-Marshall. That was a professional leap that would have taken an average person years to make. It wouldn’t have been possible without Linus Christopher’s help.

      “Are you okay?” Matt asked. “You seem distracted.”

      Teresa was mortified that she’d let her mind wander. “I’m perfectly fine.”

      Matt sat forward and smoothed his hand over the glossy wood table. “Do you want to tell me how you know Liam?”

      “We met a long time ago. His father was one of my professors. It doesn’t go beyond that.”

      “Liam seems to think it does.”

      Teresa drew a cleansing breath in through her nose. “I honestly have no idea what he was alluding to. Whatever it is has no bearing on my ability to plan your party.”

      Matt leaned back again and folded his hands over his stomach. “It seems to be affecting your concentration.”

      “Not at all. If I seem deep in thought, it’s only because your comments gave me some ideas I’m eager to start on.”

      “I can’t afford a single misstep, Ms. St. Claire. One whiff of trouble and I’ll bring Aspen in to coordinate. She was unhappy with me for giving you the job.”

      “There won’t be any problems. I can promise you that.” She was used to demanding clients by now. She’d dealt with tons of them while working for MSM. The betrothal of Delilah Rhode and Alex Dane certainly stood out as a bad one. Between the happy couple’s parents warring over glitz and over-the-top decadence vs. understated elegance, and the pre-wedding party that ended with the mother of the bride duking it out with Mariella Santiago-Marshall’s sister over a handbag, Teresa had seen it all on that one day alone.

      She’d thought coming back to Seattle would be easier, or at the very least, calmer. But now she had two very different ghosts from her past staring her down. Either could be her undoing. “Is there anything else, Mr. Richmond?”

      “I think it’s all well in hand for now. Liam should be heading in any minute. What do I say when he asks me what you said about your past?”

      Teresa hated that this was still being discussed and she was eager to put an end to it. “I’m happy to stay for that part of the conversation. As I said earlier, I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

      Matt shook his head. “It’s okay. I’d rather skip any fireworks today. I have enough of that going on already. Let’s just make sure you and Liam are ready to play nice by the time this retreat comes along.”

      The notion of playing nice with Liam nearly made her laugh. Oh, she’d like to play with Liam if he could drop the attitude and get back to being the sexy, brooding guy she quite enjoyed looking at. Unfortunately, she was certain he had no interest in her. “I’m always ready to play nice. As for Liam, I’m not quite sure what it will take to make him happy.”

      * * *

      Liam filed into the meeting room minutes after Teresa left, but as near as Matt could tell, those two had not had a run-in. Liam seemed remarkably calm as he closed the door behind him. “I saw the TBG story.” He rounded to the other side of the conference table and took a seat. “I don’t