CHAPTER 3 – CITY GIRL VS COUNTRY MAN

“I’ll give you a three-month trial. You don’t even have to pay me.”

The entire warehouse fell silent.

Even the floating sawdust seemed suspended in the air. Liam and Chatrine stared at each other sharply, like enemies forced into the same battlefield.

“Tell me honestly,” Liam said, narrowing his eyes. “What is it that you really want? I don’t like jokes or drama. I still have work that’s far more important than this.”

Chatrine straightened her posture and lifted her chin with practiced elegance, though internally she felt seconds away from collapsing from the combination of pounding nerves and wood dust.

“I truly want to work at your gallery,” she answered lightly, a faint smile appearing on her lips. “Give me three months, and you’ll thank me when your business starts growing.”

Chatrine Madison still clung fiercely to her professional pride.

If only she had been brave enough to admit her real reason for coming, perhaps Liam would have kissed her again right then and there, hotter and more dangerously than before.

It would not even have mattered if they ended up tangled together on top of a wooden worktable. Chatrine was not only beautiful and seductive. A fearless woman became even more irresistible once a man discovered her weakness.

Liam stared at her for a long moment.

Then he sighed, turned away, grabbed a bottle of water from the table, and drank deeply without acknowledging her existence again.

“I don’t have a place for you here. Go home.”

“I can live anywhere,” Chatrine cut in immediately, her chin still raised with stubborn arrogance.

Liam set the cutting machine aside and looked her over from head to toe. A faint mocking smile curved at the corner of his mouth.

“And you’re still wearing high heels inside a woodworking shop. If you fall, don’t expect me to bother saving you.”

Chatrine forced herself not to react to the insult.

“I’ve traveled around the world in high heels,” she shot back before glancing pointedly at Liam’s damp and wrinkled gray shirt. “No matter where you are, you should still look presentable.”

Liam let out a short laugh.

Then he walked closer while casually flicking a long wooden plank, sending sawdust flying everywhere. The particles landed instantly in Chatrine’s hair and all over her expensive clothes.

“Hey!” she cried, immediately brushing frantically at herself. “Oh my God, this is Prada! Do you even know how much this costs?”

“Don’t know,” Liam replied shortly. “Don’t care either.”

But irritation flashed clearly in his eyes.

Chatrine blinked before exhaling sharply through her nose. Somehow, yet again, this man had managed to make her feel ridiculous.

And still, her heart refused to calm down.

Deep down, Chatrine knew she had done something reckless. Something absurd. Coming all the way to Canterbury for a man like Liam was the kind of risk she would once have mocked in other women.

“I’ll wait until you finish working,” she declared stubbornly, refusing to retreat. “Then I’m going home with you.”

Liam paused briefly and looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

“I’m serious. There’s no luxury apartment here. No five-star hotel.”

“Stop underestimating me just because your greatest skill is cutting wood.”

That statement finally began testing Liam’s patience.

“And stop acting like you’re the only extraordinary person in the world just because you’ve spent your whole life in a small town,” Chatrine snapped.

Yet despite the sarcasm pouring from her mouth, her eyes could not stop following him.

Every movement.

The way his hand reached for a plank of wood.

The way he switched on the machine.

The way his grip tightened.

The way the muscles in his arm flexed beneath sweat-damp skin.

Then suddenly the machine stopped.

Silence.

Damn.

Chatrine immediately knew this was going badly.

Liam was angry.

The silence became unbearable. Chatrine could hear her own heartbeat louder than the machine that had just gone quiet. Liam stood several meters away, saying nothing, yet his gaze remained sharp enough to make her wonder whether he thought she was completely insane or simply terrible at making jokes.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

Eight seconds.

The silence somehow felt more terrifying than her very first interview on Wall Street.

Then suddenly, Liam moved.

He placed the wooden board aside, dusted his hands off casually, and began walking toward her. Each step echoed steadily against the concrete floor, making Chatrine’s heart jump wildly like popcorn exploding inside a microwave.

He was getting closer.

Actually closer.

Chatrine absolutely could not faint right now.

She was not seventeen years old. She was a grown woman. A powerful woman. She was not supposed to lose composure because of a man.

“Don’t try to intimidate me,” she warned, clutching her designer bag tightly against her chest like a fragile shield against a man built from rough strength, sweat, and a gaze far too serious to be playful.

Liam stopped only half a meter away.

Close enough for the scent of wood and masculine sweat to overpower her expensive perfume completely.

“I honestly don’t know which part is crazier,” Liam said quietly, his voice low enough to brush against her skin like heat. “The fact that you came all the way here for files that never existed… or the fact that you genuinely want a job in this warehouse.”

Chatrine lifted her chin despite the stiffness spreading through her neck.

“I’m serious,” she replied. “Don’t underestimate me.”

Liam stepped even closer.

Only inches remained between them.

His gaze pierced straight through her, sending chills along her spine while her stomach twisted with nervous butterflies and something dangerously close to excitement.

“You do realize,” Liam murmured softly, his voice calm in the way storms became calm before lightning struck, “there are no air-conditioned meeting rooms here. No imported leather chairs. No glass elevators overlooking the city. There’s only dust. Only wood. Only me.”

The last two words stole the air from Chatrine’s lungs.

Only me.

Why did those words sound so dangerous?

And why were they so thrilling?

“I know,” Chatrine answered quietly, though her eyes burned with determination. “I considered all of that before deciding to come to you.”

Without even realizing it, Chatrine already felt completely exposed in front of him. If Liam still rejected her after this, then she truly had no dignity left to protect.

Silence again.

Liam looked at her for so long that Chatrine nearly screamed internally.

Either kiss me or yell at me, but stop looking at me like that.

Her thoughts were becoming increasingly unhinged.

But instead of doing either, Liam stepped back half a pace, exhaled roughly, and grabbed his water bottle again. He drank in silence as if trying to extinguish something dangerous rising inside him.

Meanwhile, Chatrine stood frozen with her chest rising and falling rapidly, desperately attempting to force oxygen back into her brain.

Damn it.

Absolutely damn it.

Even when he rejected her, ignored her, mocked her, this man still managed to pull her deeper and deeper toward him.

The muscles in Liam’s arm tightened around the bottle as he drank more water, clearly trying to cool the irritation building in his head.

Finally, he capped the bottle and pretended to focus on marking a long wooden plank with a carpenter’s pencil.

“If you came here only to disturb my work, the door is still open, blonde lady,” he said flatly.

“I won’t disturb you. I’ll sit right here and wait until you’re done.”

Chatrine Madison was not the kind of woman who accepted defeat.

And she truly sat down on a cut wooden beam without caring that her expensive clothes were becoming filthy.

“You have to hire me.”

The truth was, if Liam’s gallery had someone like Chatrine handling marketing, he could easily become a famous gallery owner within a few years. Chatrine had connections everywhere. She understood negotiation better than most executives.

The real problem was something else entirely.

What man could survive working in a sweltering warehouse beside a woman like Chatrine?

Beautiful, brilliant, and impossibly controlling.