Begin Again novel Chapter 58

When Eden walked into the marketing meeting forty-five minutes late, she expected Liam to chew her up and spit her out. But he was surprisingly nice.

As she took what felt like a very long walk to one of the few empty seats in the room, Eden wondered if maybe he has an undiagnosed split-personality disorder or something equally severe.

The Liam in the front of the room, with his gentle tone and soothing words, was very different from the terrorist in Linda's office just an hour ago. It was almost as if something had shifted in him between the time she left him outside his therapist's office and now—

"—Ms McBride?"

Eden snapped her attention back to the front and gaped at the man still tormenting her thoughts. He was waiting for something from her, and she had no frigging clue what.

"Yes, Mr Anderson?" She pushed her glasses up her nose and gave him what she hoped is an earnest, focused look.

She's only been at Anderson Logistics a little over a week, but she's sat through enough meetings to perfect the look, along with scribbling nonsense in her notebook to make it seem like she knows what she's doing when in fact she has no business sitting at the big boys' table.

"Your thoughts?" Liam leaned over the backrest of his chair and gave her his undivided attention.

"On what?" She asked in a small voice, bracing herself for a proper tongue lashing from him for spacing out during his meeting.

Matthew, sitting a few places from her, cleared his throat and brought her up to speed, "We're looking at influencers, and we were about to check out Lydia Edward's page when you came in."

The mere mention of her friend sent Eden into a tailspin. She was instantly alert and lucid, her sense of self-preservation kicking in, hitting her hard and fast like a shot of adrenaline.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she blurted out, immediately wishing she hadn't when fifty-thousand faces turned to her, their eyes shining with curiosity.

"Why not?" Liam was just as intrigued.

Maybe because your son is splashed all over the blog, she wanted to shout. But, she chewed her lower lip instead, biting back her panic as she forced herself to calm the fuck down.

"So?" Liam prompted. "Why can't we check out Lydia's page?"

Good grief, Eden thought frantically as she wiped the thin film of sweat lining her brow with the back of her hand. Was this a test to see how much shit she can survive in one day, and who the fuck was writing the script for the straight-to-DVD disaster movie that's her life?

"Her page's down," she lied when she couldn't come up with a plausible reason. "She told me this weekend she'll be doing maintenance."

"She did now?" Liam nodded slowly, his face as impenetrable as the look in his eyes, the tension in the room reaching fever pitch the longer he held her gaze.

She squirmed and fidgeted in her seat, wishing there was a way she could avoid this train wreck. But it seemed inevitable.

"Her page was fine just a few minutes ago," Matthew put her out of her misery and exposed her for the little liar that she is.

For the first time since she moved to his area, Eden hated him a little, and she wanted to whack him on the head with her notebook.

"How about I do you one better," she suggested in a deathly calm voice as she threw him a dazzling smile to hide her annoyance.

But it's Lucy, his assistant, who drawled softly beside him, her voice dripping with something very close to sarcasm. "And what could that possibly be?"