“Are you the kind of man who keeps his promises?” I ask breathlessly, looking up at him, and I mean it almost as a joke. I mean it to tease him, to loosen the tension between us, but it does something else instead.
It shatters the moment entirely, as Liam lets go of the railing as if it burned him, stepping back abruptly and turning away from me.
“I try to be,” he says tightly, just as the elevator reaches the penthouse floor and chimes.
The doors open, and he holds out a hand, gesturing for me to go first.
“After you,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes. “Home sweet home.”
6
ANA
I’d thought the lobby was luxurious, but Liam’s apartment itself is something else altogether. It’s very modern, with gleaming dark hardwood floors and black leather furniture, brass and iron fixtures in the living room, and matching dark wood furnishings. There’s a huge television in the living room above the stone fireplace and a massive, thick cream-colored rug in the center of the room with a glass-topped brass coffee table in the center of it.
“Everything is on one floor,” Liam explains, as I look around. “My master suite is to the right of the living room—” he gestures towards a door in that direction, “—and the guest rooms are to the left. I instructed my housekeeper to get the larger of the two fixed up for you.”
“Thank you,” I murmur softly, still looking around wide-eyed. Aside from the bedrooms, the main part of the penthouse is a lofty open floor plan, with the kitchen divided from the living room with a long glossy black granite bar top with brass Edison bulb fixtures hanging above it and dark wooden bar stools with black leather seats and a brass nailhead detail around the edge of them. There’s a dining room to the right of the kitchen, just a slightly separate space away from the main part of the kitchen with its huge black granite island and countertop range, with a dark wood table that matches the rest of the furnishings, a bench on one side with the same black leather and nailing detail as the barstools, and then four chairs in a similar style. There’s an iron and Edison-bulb chandelier above it that matches the one in the living room.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I hired a decorator,” Liam says with a laugh as he sees me looking around. “I couldn’t have put this all together myself, but they did an amazing job.”
They had, although I wonder if I could ever feel at home here. The penthouse has a distinctly masculine feel, all the heavy metals, and black leather and stone—it’s an apartment for a bachelor, sleekly modern but still dark.
It fits Liam, though—sophisticated but still rustic, well-put-together but still a little rough around the edges.
What am I thinking?I bring myself up short, gnawing on my lower lip. How do I know what suits Liam? I barely know the man. And as far as feeling at home here—I’m staying here for a little while, nothing more. There’s definitely no reason to wonder if I could feel at home in the apartment.
It’s never going tobemy home.
“I’ll, ah—show you where your room is,” Liam says, his voice suddenly sounding slightly hesitant. I wonder if he’s having second thoughts—it would be hard to blame him if he was, really.
I follow him down the short hall and peek inside as he opens one of the doors. When I see the room where I’m staying, it’s hard to keep my jaw from dropping open.
“Big” is an understatement. The room is the size of half of my old apartment altogether, with the same gleaming hardwood floor, a tightly woven patterned rug taking up a good portion of it. There’s another stone fireplace on one wall, with two pale pink velvet wing chairs that have cream-colored, fringed throw blankets artfully tossed over the back of them. They look soft—even from where I’m standing, I can see that they have a cashmere-like texture, and the contrast between that and the velvet of the chairs makes them cravingly touchable. There’s a plush, thick cream-color rug in a sheepskin shape in front of them and another right next to the bed, which is a vision in and of itself.
The bed is a four-poster canopy, with gauzy material hanging in swags from the canopy, large cream-colored, quilted shams with smooth-looking cream-colored sheets and pillows, and a heavy, tufted pale pink velvet duvet with another of those cream cashmere throws at the foot of it. The bed itself and the rest of the furniture matches the dark wood. There’s a nightstand, a low desk by the window bookended with gauzy curtains and heavier pink velvet ones that match the bed, a dresser with a mirror, and another full-length mirror edged in the same brass as the fixtures outside.
Liam shifts almost nervously, glancing at me as we step into the room. “I hope it’s alright,” he says uncertainly. “Once you’d said you wanted to stay, I had my decorator do a rush job to redo this room. I’m aware of how—masculine my apartment is, and I thought you might not be as comfortable in something like the other guest room. It’s decorated more like the rest of the apartment and my own suite.” He looks around the room, frowning. “This is my first time seeing it too. When the decorator asked me what you preferred, I wasn’t sure. I said you used to be a ballerina, but I wasn’t expecting them to go quite so heavy on the—erm—pink.”
“I love it,” I tell him sincerely. The room does indeed look a bit like if someone decorated with the quintessential ballerina’s leotard and tulle in mind. However, it’s all tastefully and prettily done, a room suited for an adult who still likes pink, not a little girl’s room. “It’s very beautiful. But—” I look at him, the full weight of what he’s done settling in. My first instinct had been to reassure him that I was happy with it. It’s only a moment later that it sinks in that he’d had an entire room purged of its former décor and redecorated—overnight. I can only imagine what that must have cost him.
“What?” Liam looks concerned. “If there’s something you need—”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “I don’t need anything, it’s just—you didn’t have to do all of this. It must have been so expensive, and I don’t have any way to repay you—”
He takes a sudden step back, holding out his hand as if he half expects me to fall to my knees again and yank his cock out in a repeat of the hotel room. It’s almost funny, but it also stings a little that he’s so averse to touching me suddenly. I’m not entirely sure why—he saved me, he brought me to his home, so shouldn’t he want me?
“You don’t have to repay me, Ana, seriously,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve done all of this because Iwantedto. You deserve something good and kind in your life, a comfortable place to rest and heal after everything that's happened. The expense was nothing—moneyis nothing. I’m not my father, to worry about a little excess here and there.” There’s an edge to the last words, and they make me curious. They’re obviously spoken for himself rather than me—I have no idea what kind of man his father was. But it’s clear now that he was a man with opinions about spending and that it left an impression on Liam.
It’s also a reminder of how little I actually know this man.
“The bathroom is ensuite,” Liam says, changing the subject quickly. He steps forward, pushing the door open so that I can see inside. The floors are a cool grey tile, with white quartz countertops and a brass-fixtured sink. I catch a glimpse of a huge standing shower and a gleaming white porcelain soaking tub next to an opaque picture window that gives a “view” out to the city beyond.
“The clothes that I had bought for you are being brought up.” Liam turns to face me, his expression smooth and neutral again, as if all the uncertainty from before is entirely gone. “I hope you’ll be happy here, Ana.”
“I’ll try,” I whisper softly. For all the luxury surrounding me, I know that in and of itself won’t make me happy. Alexandre’s apartment was luxurious in a different way, antique and maximalist instead of the sleek modernity of Liam’s penthouse. Though it wasn’t his things that had ever so briefly made me happy.
It had been the feeling of being safe, cared for, treasured. Even if it was for all the wrong reasons, he’d made me feel like that, just for a little while, in small captured moments that I want to cling to. I’m not entirely certain that I’m wrong to do so.