“Liam, I tried everything short of throwing that little hell raiser over my shoulder. She won’t budge.” The man threw up his hands. Liam had never seen him so frustrated before. Wade had broken up numerous fights between enormous, inebriated men in his casinos. Why should he be flummoxed by a lone, female picketer?
“Call the police and get her off my property. It’s that simple.”
“I threatened to do that, but she’s not actually on your property. She’s on the sidewalk.”
In an attempt to preserve the boutique hotel experience, the architect had suggested a design in which the entrance remained close to the sidewalk. “It’s all about clean lines, Liam,” the architect had said. “It has a fresh, New York feel.” He’d compared the design to the one he created for Liam’s pal Alex Markov, a club owner whose bars were the talk of the Big Apple.
He hadn’t considered whether the design would make things nice and cozy for a sidewalk protest. Damn. Is this what he had to look forward to? His clean lines made it easy for the whack jobs to access the entrance.
Wade continued. “She has a copy of the city by-laws with her and keeps quoting government shit at me. When I told her I was calling the cops, she laughed and said, ‘Go ahead, big boy. This is a peaceful protest. I know my rights.’ And she’s right. She’s not obstructing pathways. She’s not forcing leaflets on the customers. She’s just…there.”
Wade frowned like a cartoon bear who’d had his honey snatched away. “She’s been lecturing me, telling me I should be ashamed of working for you. Told me I should get a job that doesn’t steal food out of babies’ mouths. Go work for Cirque du Soleil. She…she hurt my feelings, man.”
Liam stared at the man who’d been his best employee for years, brought low by a single woman. As Wade’s face turned seven shades of red, Liam decided he needed to take another look at this hellion on the sidewalk. He approached the window again, planted his hands on the ledge, narrowed his eyes at her and glared.
At first he’d only observed the picket sign and its inflammatory message. Now as he looked at the woman carrying it, surprise made him want to draw closer. He’d expected to see some aging hippie in Birkenstocks. What he saw instead made him want to dust off his old, trusty pick-up lines.
He couldn’t make out every detail, but he saw the important things: a severe, red ponytail and the kind of curves that would make Rubens reach for his paintbrush. He stared at her face as she chanted to anyone passing by. Her eyebrows were drawn together in a face made deep pink with ire. Hell, even from four floors up, he could see the tops of her ears flush. She looked like a sexy elf, the kind they drew in Japanese cartoon porn.
And the elf woman was pissed. At him.
He looked away from the harridan and turned to Wade. “Who the hell is she?”
“She won’t tell me her name. She says she’ll only speak to you.”
Liam let out a scornful laugh and paced back to his desk, throwing himself into his chair. He bit his fingernail, an old habit that tended to manifest when he was nervous. Although why this elf woman should make him nervous was beyond him.
“Tell her I don’t negotiate with terrorists, then get rid of her. On any other day, I wouldn’t care. But on my grand opening? This doesn’t look good.”
“But…”
“No buts, Wade. For Christ’s sake, she’s just an itty bitty girl. You’ve handled the rowdy sons of mob bosses.”
“I know, but there’s something about her. I can’t put my finger on it, but she…sorta makes me wanna hug her.” Staring at the floor, still red in the face, Wade summoned the elevator, got in and left.
Hug her? What the fuck? Liam spent the next few moments staring at the elevator and rubbing his chest, mystified. It was like he’d hired a professional hitman only to find out he had a soft spot for puppies.
Liam went back to the window and stared at the elf again. A strange pitching sensation assaulted him, one that had nothing to do with his grand opening. He couldn’t put his finger on it either.
But, unlike Wade, it didn’t put him in a hugging mood.
Kate spied the security goon as he came back outside again. He’d spoken to Doyle. About her.
Good. He knew she was here. He might even be watching her right now. Well, she’d put on a good show for him.
Clenching her fingers around her placard, she called to the security guard. “Back for more, big boy?”
He grunted. “You need to leave, lady. Now.”
“Why? Because your boss says so?” She raised her voice so tourists by the black marble entryway could hear her. “Is the great and powerful Liam Doyle afraid to come tell me off himself? I’m not going anywhere until I talk to that crook.”
“My boss isn’t a crook. Ask anyone who works for him.”
“Yeah, and my tail is purple.” She turned away from the man and called out to a woman approaching the front door. “Excuse me, ma’am. Did you know that compulsive gambling causes emotional distress to countless people and tears families apart? Children are sitting at home, right now, crying for their addict parents to come home.”
The woman turned to her husband, her voice a nervous quaver. “Derek, maybe we should go to the Bellagio instead. They have a fountain in front, not a crazy lady. She might do something when we come out.” They turned on their heels and headed back to the Strip.
Kate sucked in a breath, too excited to be offended. Okay, she hadn’t turned them off gambling, she wasn’t expecting to, but she’d turned them away from Doyle’s establishment. Score one for the crazy lady. Maybe she had a new career unfolding on the pavement outside Vice: professional rabble-rouser.
The security guard turned pale. “Oh, lady. You need to stop.”
She lowered her placard for a moment and came up to the monster of a man, though careful to remain on the sidewalk. She eyed his name tag and smiled. “Wade. You seem like a nice person. Do you gamble?”
“Nah. I like my money in my pocket.”
“Then you understand. My friend’s husband has lost thousands of dollars in Doyle’s casinos. Money that should have gone to supporting their children. She had to leave him because it was getting so bad.” She patted down the lapel of his suit. “So please believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere. Not until I talk to Liam Doyle.” She batted her eyelashes at him, not above using whatever feminine charms she might possess. “Now, are you going to arrange a little meet-and-greet, or am I going to keep embarrassing him on opening day?”
“Uh…”
“As I expected.” She marched back to her spot on the walkway, raised her sign and called out to passers-by. “Gambling destroys families! Vegas doesn’t need another casino! Shame on you, Liam Doyle!”
Liam loosened his tie as he once again returned to the window and appraised his red-haired enemy. She hadn’t gone away all day, had remained for hours with her tatty sign, repeating the same childish chants, hassling his new customers as they tried to enter Vice.
She’d put up enough of a stink that his marketing team had been forced to improvise. Rather than hold the ribbon-cutting outside, they’d ushered VIP’s and customers toward the expansive main lobby. There, speaking from the mezzanine, rather than the attractive dais outside, Liam had welcomed his first visitors to great applause. He’d even cracked a joke about his lone protestor and had been rewarded with sympathetic laughter.
Despite the general excitement and press about the grand opening, it hadn’t gone as well as he’d envisioned. That pissed him off. He hated when people screwed with his plans, hated losing control.
And she was still there. Even though he’d personally spoken to the police, they wouldn’t do anything to remove the pesky woman. They confirmed she broke no laws, and with worse crimes happening all up and down the Strip, the police department had been unwilling to spare a couple of officers to cart her round ass away. Christ. The experience made him miss the days when the police were in the pocket of men like him. After bribing the right people, he might have actually gotten some service.