After overhearing Jessica tell someone on the phone that Liam was out of the office, she figured this was her opportunity to escape.
She made it back to her town house without incident. Relieved, she dropped her purse on the coffee table, kicked off her shoes and went into the kitchen for a drink.
When Francesca rounded the corner and found Liam sitting at her kitchen table, she nearly leaped out of her skin. “Oh, dio mio!” She jumped, pressing her back against the counter and clutching her rapidly beating heart. “What the hell are you doing here, Liam? You scared me to death.”
He looked a little sheepish as he stood up and came over to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you’d notice my car out front. You gave me a key, so I figured I would wait around until you got home. When I called Jessica she told me you’d left.”
“I gave you that key when we were going to be a happily married couple. Using it after everything that happened is a little creepy. Why are you here, anyway? We don’t have anything to talk about.”
Liam shook his head and came closer. She was able to catch of whiff of his cologne and her body immediately began responding to him. Apparently, it hadn’t gotten the message about the breakup of their nonrelationship.
“We have a lot to talk about. Starting with how much I love you and how miserable I’ve been since you left.”
Francesca started to argue with him and then stopped. Did he just… She couldn’t have heard him right. “What did you say?”
Liam smiled, sending her heart fluttering at the sight. He was wearing a navy collared shirt that brought out the dark blue of his eyes as he closed in on her. She noticed a few weary lines around them. He looked a little tired and tense, but she had attributed that to the stress of running the network and the fiasco of their wedding.
Could it be that he was losing sleep over her?
He stopped just short of touching her, forcing her to look up at him. His hands closed over her upper arms, their warmth sinking deep into her bones. “I love you, Francesca. I’m in love with you.”
As much as she wanted to melt into him, she couldn’t let herself fall prey to him. She ignored the excited flutter of butterflies in her stomach and pulled back out of his grasp, watching him with wary eyes. “You didn’t love me Friday night. You could’ve told me then and you didn’t. You let me leave. And now you show up singing a different tune. What happened? Did your aunt find out? Trying a different tactic to keep the network?”
Liam swallowed hard, a flash of resignation in his eyes. “I thought you would say something like that. Which is why it took me so long to come see you today. I had some important business to take care of.”
Francesca crossed her arms defensively over her chest, but she didn’t think it would do much good. Her armor where Liam was concerned had been permanently breached. “It’s always business first with you.”
“You’re right. First, I had to go confess to your father.”
Francesca’s eyes grew wide with unexpected panic. “You told my father? Why? He’s going to kill me. How could you do that without asking me?”
“Because I needed his help. And his blessing to marry you.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“It’s never too late where an overprotective father is concerned. Not only did he give his permission, but he and his associate have pledged their stock to support me at ANS, giving me a majority share without my aunt.”
Francesca tried to process what he was saying, but she kept getting hung up on what kind of conversation he’d had with her father when she wasn’t there. “You don’t need your aunt’s stock anymore?”
“No.”
That meant they didn’t have to be married. “But you don’t want an annulment?”
“Absolutely not.” Liam crowded back into her space, closing the gap she’d put between them. “I have no intention of letting you out of my sight, or my bed, for the next forty years.”
The butterflies in her gut went berserk. She brought her hand to her belly to calm them. “Wait. You love me. You want to stay married to me. And it has nothing to do with the network?”
Liam nodded. “Not a thing. I told my aunt this morning that I wasn’t going to play along anymore. I didn’t want you to think for a moment that I wasn’t one hundred percent sincere in my love for you. This isn’t about my aunt or the network or appearances. It’s about you and me and the rest of our lives.”
His arms snaked around her waist and this time, she didn’t pull away. She molded herself against him and let out a small sigh of contentment at the feel of being in his arms again.