4. Adam

"Can you take off your shoes?" Liam's flat tone implied that he expected me to protest. While true that I didn't enter a lot of homes with a shoe cupboard in the entryway, conforming to his preconceived notions was not on my agenda today.

"With pleasure." I tossed him a cheerful smile, set my bag down, and kneeled to unlace my trainers. It also gave me a chance to get my bearings.

I'd parked just inside the gate that encircled the house, located on a road not far off the North Circular that was lined with aggressively average single-family homes. It was a popular neighbourhood with the magical middle class—those who were equipped with enough power that it mattered but not enough to join the big leagues. Five years ago, the Morgans wouldn't have been able to afford even this: a medium-sized plot of land occupied by a house from the seventies with low ceilings, the entrance area cluttered with jackets and shoes. A corridor lay straight ahead while a closed door to my left seemed to lead to the attached workshop I'd spotted from outside. Some of the floor tiles showed cracks.

I returned my attention to Liam—and realised that our positions put my face level with his crotch. Which…God, I still remembered the warm, earthy scent of his arousal, how careful he'd been until he noticed that I could take it. That I wanted to.

Notthe time to pitch a tent.

I rose fluidly and met Liam's eyes. No thirsty thoughts here, move along. "I owe you an apology."

Surprise flashed across his face. "An apology?"

"You were right."

"I…was." He shifted his stance, planting his feet at hip width. "Generally, yes. I am. But what are we talking about specifically?"

"J. Brown. They have been screwing workers over."

Liam dropped his arms by his side, full focus on me now. "You actually looked into it?"

I enjoyed knocking him a tad off-balance. No, it wasn't why I'd done it—but at least discovering a regular contractor's distasteful conduct came with a side of challenging Liam's perception of me. I intended to do a fair bit of that today. Whatever it took to get this moving.

"I sent someone, like you suggested." In fact, I'd asked Cassandra to send someone, right after Liam had left. The Hartleys had their fingers in many different honeypots in the city, and favours for the political elite were part of their MO. Sometimes, that meant organising a skilled undercover detective.

Apparently, this particular case had required no skill—the labour rights violations had been blatant. I'd received her confirmation just before arriving here.

Liam took a moment to digest it, the silence between us offset by pop music that filtered in from the workshop, its heavy bass line thrumming through the wall. "So," he said then. "What are you going to do about it?"

"My father and aunt are in charge of our network of contractors. I'll take it up with them."

He scrutinised me for a heavy moment before he nodded, short and brisk. "Let me know how it goes."

"Sure." Nice and collaborative, that was me. Since yesterday's brute stubbornness approach hadn't worked, I'd try a different angle today. Oh, I would not charm him into liking me—if sucking him off a year ago hadn't done the trick, it would take more than a few sweet words and me dressing down in jeans to change his mind. But if I could circumvent his knee-jerk urge to protest anything I said? We might actually make some progress.

He waved for me to follow him. Wordlessly, we moved along the corridor and into a reasonably sized kitchen that came with a table and chairs. Daylight fell through a window, a glass door next to it leading out into a backyard, the grass dotted with bright spring flowers. To my uneducated eye, the white cupboards and appliances looked dated, but I was hardly an expert on these matters. A rich, smoky aroma hung in the air, mingled with something sweeter.

"Do I smell ham?" I asked, and Liam shot me a curious glance.

"Yeah. I made pea and ham soup for lunch."

"You cook?"

He arched a disdainful brow. "Not all of us grow up with an army of chefs and servants."

Right, I might have walked straight into that one. Thing was, he wasn't entirely wrong—I could probably figure out how to turn on a stove, but cooking a proper meal? Yeah, no. Not happening.

"It smells delicious," I said lightly and let a smile follow.

He watched me through narrowed eyes, the suspicious tilt of his mouth persisting. Tough crowd. When it became apparent he wouldn't answer, I nodded at the door next to the fridge.

"So. This way to your office, I take it?"

He blinked, then his features relaxed with amusement. "That's the pantry."

Oops.

"All right. Which way, then?" I asked.

"This is my office." The corners of Liam's mouth twitched. "The only alternative is my bedroom. Which—maybe not."

It jerked my mind right back to his question from yesterday. ‘Aww, are you telling me I'm not the best you've ever had?' Like he didn't at least suspect that I had little else to compare him to—no, he'd just had to rub it in.

"Thanks, I'd rather steer clear," I told him. "Who knows what I might catch in the vicinity of your bed."

He scoffed. "Funny how I'm not the one cheating on my fiancée."

Yeah, that might have hit a little harder if Cassandra hadn't finished our phone call by telling me not to do anything she wouldn't do. Her tone had implied it was a short list, and anything else was fair game.

"Remember how I told you that she isn't?" I shot him a dismissive smile. "Anyway, you didn't seem to have any reservations when you were fucking my mouth."

His focus dropped to my lips, the moment so brief I might have imagined it. Then he gave a what-can-you-do shrug. "Funny what alcohol can make us do."

"Ah, the classic ‘blame it on the booze' defence. Such a convenient scapegoat for lacking self-control." I might have just shot myself in the foot, so I continued quickly. "What's next—‘the dog ate our project proposal'?"

He assessed me with all the arrogance of someone who knew that it would take very little to have me fall to my knees for him. Or maybe I was projecting, God. He made my blood boil, but I wanted him, too—the way he'd brought me off, teeth against my throat, our muffled groans in the darkness, his fingers in my hair. The fact that he was a hint taller than me, leanly muscled, no longer the lanky boy he'd been in school. His air of confidence that was subtler than mine, less practised and rather a result of having worked his way up the social ladder.

I forced my attention away and remembered that I'd planned to be nice today. Awesome job, me.

"Our project proposal is just fine." He sounded infuriatingly unaffected. "Sorry if that comes as a disappointment."

No, he wasn't.

I inhaled and shook off my emotions like a layer of dust. "That's quite all right. In fact, I come armed with a compromise."

"A compromise." He said it like one would react to a gift basket filled with snakes.

"Your lack of faith saddens me."

"Harringtons aren't known for compromising."

We were not—he had me there. But there were three types of people: those who'd bend over backwards to please everyone, those who ignited into self-driven dynamos once convinced that something made sense, and those who dug their heels in more the harder you pushed. Liam fell into the last category. Playing hardball would get me nowhere.

I could be smart about this.

"No, we're not," I said. "But for better or worse, you and I are in this together. Might as well start acting like it."

With a theatrically pained groan, Liam rubbed a hand over his neck.

"What?" I asked.

"Just trying to recover from the whiplash."

"That's funny," I said in a tone that implied the opposite. "Should I run the laugh track?"

"Nah, that's quite all right." He dropped into one of the chairs at the table and gestured for me to do the same. I complied at a leisurely pace lest he think I did his bidding. Meanwhile, he poured us both some water and nudged one glass towards me. In the spirit of playing nice, I bit back my comment about his hosting skills rivalling those of a cactus.

"Thank you," I said instead, leaning back with a lazy smile as I curled my fingers around the water glass. "So kind of you to ward off my impending dehydration. It's almost like you don't hate my guts."

He countered my smile with one of his own. "Well, ensuring your survival might serve my interests."

"How reassuring." Straightening in my chair, I met his gaze. "Now, anyway—let's get down to business. I took another look at your proposal, and there are promising ideas in there, I'll give you that."

"Wow," he said flatly. "What a rousing endorsement."

"You're welcome." I flashed him my most charming, most sarcastic grin, then reminded myself I'd come in peace. "So, how about we go through my list of everything that I think could bring real value to the project?"

Daylight caught in his eyes and brought out the blue of his irises. "Let me guess—your list has two lines?"

"Try eighteen."

"Eighteen," he echoed slowly, like he was waiting for the catch. Smart guy.

"Eighteen." I started ticking off my fingers. "Like your fire-enhanced cooktops, and the rainwater-harvesting solar tiles. Or using earth magic to increase storage capacity and water magic to cool the IT infrastructure in the commercial area. All clever ideas." I paused. "If you can make them work, that is."

Just then, footsteps creaked on the floor above us. It made me wonder if Liam had told his whole family to hide until the big bad wolf was gone. Probably. He had a habit of attending events alone, and I sure didn't think it was an addiction to hogging the spotlight.

In my family, it was sink or swim. No one thought to protect you from the harsh realities of life, and even Gale, who avoided the magical community, had to put in an appearance once in a while. In a nutshell, if you couldn't handle the heat, it was your own bloody problem.

Between my lack of a hard edge and the unfortunate event of my sexuality, I could have easily crumbled. It was damn lucky I'd had Cassandra and Gale in my corner.

"Go on," Liam said, face inscrutable.

"We define targets and delivery timelines specific to each idea." I paused, leaning forward. "And we define kill criteria."

A small wrinkle showed between his eyebrows. "Kill criteria?"

"If this, then that. If by date X you haven't managed to deliver on Y, we pivot to another solution."

"Which is to say a solution of yours."

"Obviously."

He pursed his mouth as he fixed me with a flat stare. "Only if we do the same for anything that you haven't implemented at scale before. Like those energy-generating penises."

I clung to my pleasant expression. Not many dared to doubt us so openly—but I was here to move things along. If Liam needed to feel like this was a partnership of equals?

By all means.

* * *

In the next two hours,we made actual, tangible progress. I wasn't sure who was more surprised—Liam or me.

Once we'd settled into a rhythm, temporarily suspending all barbs, things started falling into place. Liam was sharp and focused, quick to point out any flaws in my logic. Since he granted me the same courtesy, I didn't mind as much as I otherwise would.

For each untested concept, we defined concrete steps—from assessing viability at scale to prototype testing to minimum performance and reliability expectations. While Liam grumbled about how most of the onus was on him, he also acknowledged that they had much more to prove. Although the way he put it was, "Surprise, man—a revolution isn't ‘more of the same, please!'"

As we were wrapping up our rough agreement, his grandmother wandered into the kitchen. She must be in her early eighties, dressed in jeans and a jumper that hung loose on her birdlike frame, short hair styled into tight curls.

"Oh, hello!" She sized me up with a sharp look, keen intelligence in her eyes. "I didn't realise we had a guest."

Liam sighed. "This is Adam Harrington, Nan Jean. I told you he'd be here."

"Did you?" She fluttered her fingers. "At my age, these things are hard to remember."

"Your memory works just fine," Liam said, long-suffering yet with an underlying note of affection.

Her lips quirked in a smile before she turned her attention to me. "So, you're Adam Harrington?"

"Yes, Ma'am." I got up, which I should have done as soon as she'd entered the kitchen, and inclined my head. "Pleased to meet you."

‘Ma'am?' Liam mouthed when I glanced at him, his eyes comically wide. Yes, well—behold the wonders of a conservative upbringing.

"Indeed." Her light tone carried an undercurrent of scrutiny. "And are you being nice to my grandson?"

Well, that went both ways, didn't it?

"As long as he's nice to me," I said, sitting back down.

Liam blew an amused breath through his nose. "Please—I'm an angel."

"Your halo must be in the invisible range," I told him.

"That's funny." His tone implied the opposite.

Nan Jean wiggled her fingers in a dainty gesture. "Well, you don't seem near as terrible as your family reputation would imply. Every bit as powerful though, aren't you?"

It felt like some kind of test, designed to appear like the harmlessly unfiltered words of an elderly woman. Was I meant to defend my family, or was she trying to assess how easily I took offence?

Also, what had prompted her assessment of my powers?

"Reputations can develop lives of their own, can't they?" I sent her a mild look. "As part of the family behind the Aqua Reclaimer, you've probably seen it yourself."

"Well said, my boy." She studied me for a moment longer before she turned to fill a glass with tap water.

"I could have brought it up for you," Liam told her, and she sent him a bright, fond look.

"And leave me sitting in front of the TV, twiddling my thumbs all day? I don't think so. But I guess I should leave you boys to it."

"Please do," Liam said, smiling, affection softening his eyes. It was a sight I couldn't immediately reconcile with the sharp-edged man who'd barely even blinked at seeing me melt sand into glass.

Nan Jean made her way to leave as I offered a goodbye that she echoed, not unkindly. I listened to her steps receding up the stairs, a counterpoint to the silence that hung between Liam and me. He seemed content to wait me out, so I tapped my fingers on the wooden table. Marks of time and use scarred its wooden surface.

"Think it's been a while since anyone has called me ‘boy'."

"I hope your ego hasn't suffered too much?" His tone dripped with fake concern.

"I'll live." I flattened my hand against the tabletop. "Also, you need an office."

"Sure, if you can magically conjure one." He shoved a hand through his already messy hair. I'd come to identify it as a habit that betrayed a certain level of frustration.

"Put it on top of your workshop. Gale might be able to do a first, rough concept for you."

Liam studied me for a beat, his expression difficult to read. "He's low magic," he said then.

Fuck, how did he know? Keeping Gale's status a secret protected him, preventing others from marking him as an easy target. I straightened and let my voice go crisp. "Who claims that?"

"No one." Liam scoffed. "Jesus, settle down, will you? It's just a guess based on the way he carries himself."

"He's shy."

Liam stared at me in unimpressed silence. Typically, I was immune to psychological trickery, but ever since that night at the pub, something about him put me on edge.

"Anyway," I said sharply. "It's not like our magic potential defines us."

"But it does. There's a reason you live in a manor and I don't." Liam shook his head, gaze sliding away. "Anyway, I'm fine with this. I usually meet clients at their homes, so it's not an issue." One corner of his mouth tugged into a sarcastic smirk. "I used to meet them in restaurants too. That's until I realised it's too public—apparently, some people consider it an invitation to sabotage our family."

Please.

"Guinness signed with us instead of you. That's business, Morgan." I lifted a dismissive shoulder. "Just like the Kellys were about to sign with us, and you snatched them up instead."

"Yes, well. Apparently, they fancied an option that wasn't quite so…archaic."

Deep fucking breath.

Any regret I might havefelt about stealing Guinness away evaporated into thin air. Yes, it had been to get back at him after he'd snatched up the Kellys. I didn't enjoy losing. Especially not to someone I'd just hooked up with, and when I'd only just taken over as the face of the family and was under quite some pressure to prove myself. Not that I ever wasn't.

And yes, true, the Morgans needed the money more than we did—that Liam didn't even have an office was sufficient proof of that. They could be rich if they sold their weapons. Not doing so was a blessing, but it didn't mean I'd go easy on him.

"Lovely." I let my mouth twitch into a thin smile. "Now, look. If we're to meet here with some frequency, I'd rather not deal with your family wandering in at random. We'll also need wall space to spread out the plans. I know you have limited experience with big-scale projects?—"

"Oh, stop rubbing it in," he interrupted, sounding more tired than angry. In fact, he looked tired too, faint shadows under his eyes. Yeah, he'd be feeling the pressure even more than me.

"You need an office," I said simply.

"I know this may seem hard to believe." He exhaled in slow, measured increments. "But I don't have a hundred thousand quid or whatever just sitting around."

He still didn't get it, did he?

I tilted my head and aimed for a patient, slightly condescending tone even though I knew it would raise his hackles. "Newsflash—you just won a huge government contract."

Liam's eyes pinched at the corners. "They haven't approved our joint proposal yet."

A joint proposal that would first need to be endorsed by our families, and I knew that mine would need some convincing. They'd come around, though. They wanted the Green Horizon Initiative more than they hated having to share it—at least I hoped so.

"Gale could do the initial, rough design for free," I told Liam. It didn't come without a self-serving edge—planning an office for Liam would give Gale something to focus on, a way to feel useful until the project entered its next phase. "It'll give you a better idea of what it would take, also financially. We'll make you an offer. Feel free to get others, but ours will be the best."

Liam took a moment to respond. "Why do this?"

"Because we'll be stuck together for months." I let my gaze travel over the faded white of the kitchen cupboards and the colourful assembly of magnets on the fridge before I returned my attention to Liam. "Longer, possibly, if the three pilot areas kick off further developments. This is a scale far beyond anything you've touched before—hell, it's bigger than anything even my family has handled. Do you get that?"

I expected protest. What I got instead was a glimmer of uncertainty, gone once Liam blinked and glanced away. "I'm learning, all right?" The words were low, edged with a trace of self-deprecation. "I honestly didn't think we stood a chance."

Ha.

"That makes two of us."

For once, Liam didn't take offence. "Yeah, well. Just don't wait for me to back down now. That's not me."

I snorted. "Is this the part where I act shocked and dismayed?"

He huffed out an amused breath, and I realised that for once, we were smiling at each other without it being sarcastic. It was surreal.

"So," I said quietly, "the office? I can drop by with Gale tomorrow, get you a rough estimate." Liam and I would have more ground to cover with our proposal too, agree on how we were going to present it. Once my family signed off on the plan.

He weighed me for a beat, then dipped his head. "Thank you."

I widened my eyes. "Excuse me—what was that?"

Ah, there it was—the irritation I'd come to expect, like a familiar blanket I could drape around my shoulders. "You heard me," he said.

"Yes, but the words didn't compute."

"Does it take practice to be such an insufferable git, or does it come naturally to you?

I offered a self-effacing shrug. "It's all in the genes."

A second of silence stretched between us. Suddenly he grinned, a distinctively wolfish tinge to it. "That's what I thought."

With that, he got up. I did the same, gathering notes that my assistant would type up later. "Your assistant," Liam echoed flatly when I mentioned it, as though the mere concept was outlandish.

"Learn how to delegate," I told him. "With a project like this, you'll run yourself into the ground if you plan to do everything yourself."

He pursed his mouth. "Don't hold your breath."

"Look, man. Personal feelings aside, we're stuck in this together. If you crash and burn, we both do." I sent him a pointed look. "Do us both a favour and hire some fucking help, all right?"

He grumbled something that wasn't quite assent. Right—I'd have to keep an eye on him.

We made our way to the door, where I stopped to put my shoes back on while Liam hovered. Music still thrummed through the wall, and I considered asking whether I could take a quick peek into the workshop, curious despite myself because no one had successfully copied what the Morgans did. My reserve of charm was running dry, though.

Tomorrow.

* * *

Wasthis how a CEO felt on the verge of delivering a status report to a group of sceptical Board members? At least it was only my father and aunt this time, the drawing room with its high ceiling dwarfing us all.

After I'd outlined the joint proposal Liam and I had hammered out earlier, thick silence hung in the air. Eleanor broke it, her voice as pointed as the click of her heels on the polished floor. "Timelines and deliverables? You mean to say they are monitoring our progress?"

Of course she'd see it as an insult.

"Only on two things. The…"…energy penises, as Liam called them. I doubted his brand of humour would resonate in this room. "The power-generating towers, for one, and our earth-magic coated windows. We'll monitor them on eighteen innovations."

My father interlocked his fingers, his brow furrowing. "What level of detail are we expected to share, and vice versa?"

"Only enough to reassure the other side that things are on track." I shifted, glancing at the imposing marble fireplace behind him. Softly glowing embers within suggested that for now, his anger was contained. "Nothing that would allow them to copy our concepts. Or us to copy theirs, I suppose."

"This is not the Harrington way." Eleanor paused in front of the window, framed by velvet drapes of a rich maroon—a figure in a play of her own design. Like my father, she'd been formed by a time when magical justice meant survival of the fittest, and the strongest families could quite literally get away with murder. We'd been one of those families.

In the past two decades, things had changed. There was an understanding now that a Wild West mentality harmed our community as a whole. Not that there hadn't been rules before—but now they were implemented more stringently, with Archer Summers overseeing the enforcement as part of her shadow advisor role.

"It is rather unpleasant," my father agreed. I needed a moment to realise he was referring to Eleanor's words rather than the evolution of a justice-based magical society.

"The Morgans are weak." Eleanor's lips curled into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Separate them from their gadgets, and they're vulnerable."

Hold on.

"They're not a threat," I blurted. Easy. I strove for a much calmer tone. "For one, they'll be scrambling to uphold their end of the deal—they've thrown a lot of ideas into the mix that they haven't tested at scale before. They won't have time to breathe, much less make nuisances of themselves by interfering with our processes. Also, anything happens to them, we'll be the prime suspects."

"It might also delay the project." Father's voice was briskly pragmatic.

Eleanor folded her arms, frowning, then inclined her head in agreement. "Fine. We'll work around them."

I turned away to hide my relief. For fuck's sake, I didn't even like Liam. He was infuriating, challenging me in ways that few people dared. I also still remembered his taste on my tongue even though I wished I didn't. But anyway, our community had rules for a reason, and I, for one, felt that we were bound to them just like everyone else.

Stepping up to the bookshelf, I trailed a hand along the worn leather spines, a greasy shine to them. Our library of magical theory far surpassed anything commonly available. Gale had spent countless hours working his way through any book that might hold some answers for him—from philosophical explorations of the nature of magic to theories about its origins. They mostly built on how it appeared to be strongest where a large number of people congregated around shared stories and symbols of faith.

Me, I'd always been more interested in the practical application of magic. ‘Because you have the luxury of being powerful,' Gale had told me, and yeah, he might be right about that.

"Now," Father said, "what's this about helping them build an office?"

I'd expected that question, and I had a ready answer. "Just a rough initial design for now. It makes us look collaborative. Also, we'll be working with them for months—which is to say that I will be working with Liam for months—and I'd rather not deal with his family constantly walking through." I straightened my spine and offered a calculating smile. "For Gale, it's investing a few hours. And if the Morgans subsequently take our offer, which will be slightly below market rate but still profitable for us? They'll owe us."

Eleanor clasped her hands, a thoughtful twist to her mouth. "That could come in handy."

"Indeed." Father sent me a mildly approving look. "Well played, Adam."

I tried to hide my shock. My father believed that lack of criticism was a form of accolade and rationed praise as though each word cost him a pound.

"Thank you," I mumbled. Speak up, son. "Along those same lines…Andrew Morgan used to work for J. Brown, and it seems they've been cutting corners with labour regulations. I told Liam we'd address it." At the subtle narrowing of Eleanor's eyes, I added, "In the spirit of seeming collaborative. And because we don't want them holding up the construction process by checking every detail."

A silent glance passed between Eleanor and my father, unspoken agreement in the way they angled their heads.

"I will look into it," Eleanor said stiffly.

"Thank you," I told her. "I'll let Liam know. I suspect they'll still want a say in the choice of contractors, though."

"We cannot afford to work with amateurs." Father's voice was sharp.

"Yes, I'm aware." I flashed a smile, striving to infuse the words with a certainty I didn't feel. "I'll handle the Morgans."

I would. I didn't know how yet because Liam wasn't someone who took kindly to being handled—but I'd figure it out.

After all, what choice did I have?