Why me? Why would he wait for something like that fromme?
He hovers over me, and I think this will be the moment. The moment that I’ll finally feel his lips on mine, the way I craved it in the garden that afternoon that we talked, the way I’d imagined a hundred times since then.
He’s so close. I can see that he wants it in his eyes, in the way they’re burning down at me, fixed on mine.
“I don’t want you to go,” he murmurs again. And then, just as I think his hand will touch my face and bring my mouth to his, he pulls back, his shoulders squaring as he takes a step back from me, and then another.
The space between us is only a few inches, but it feels like an ocean.
“I’ll order in for dinner,” he says crisply. And then he strides past me, through the living room towards his bedroom, and I hear the click of a door behind him as I sit there on the barstool, trembling from the almost-kiss.
I don’t want you to go.
Suddenly, I don’t want to go, either.
I’m just not sure how I can stay.
9
ANA
When I wake up the next morning, it still all feels like a dream. The rescue, London, Liam’s apartment, meeting Niall, dinner last night.
I’d retreated back to my room after Liam had gone to his, feeling awkward just being out in the apartment by myself. It felt strange to just—sit down and watch tv or something after the conversation we’d had, so I’d gone back to my room. There was a stack of books on the side table next to the bed, probably recent releases the interior designer had picked out. I’d flipped through one of them as I sank back into the downy stack of pillows, not really retaining anything I was reading but flicking past the pages anyway until I finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
I’d been woken up by Liam knocking on my bedroom door. “Dinner is here,” he’d called out, and then I’d heard his footsteps receding down the hall, giving me time to come out.
“I hope you like Thai food,” he’d said, gesturing at the array of plastic take-out containers scattered across the counter. “I wasn’t sure exactly what you’d like, so I got a little bit of everything, pretty much.”
“I love Thai,” I’d told him sincerely. “I didn’t get to eat it much while I was dancing. Diets and all of that. But I definitely like it.”
He’d gotten us both plates, black stoneware dishes that seemed way too fancy to eat takeout off of—if it had been me alone or Sofia and I back in our old apartment, we’d have eaten it straight out of the cartons. Despite how good the food smelled, I didn’t have much of an appetite. My anxiety was still far too high to want to eat much. But I couldn’t say that to Liam after he’d gone to such lengths, so I’d just spooned some noodles and a couple of spring rolls onto my plate, nibbling at the food as I took a seat on one of the bar stools.
We’d eaten in awkward silence after that, neither of us sure what to say to the other. I didn’t want to bring up Alexandre every time we had a conversation, and Liam seemed afraid of pressing me too hard to talk about anything else. I could feel his uncertainty, and I wanted to do something to reassure him, but I wasn’t sure what. If it had been a date, we’d have made small talk, tried to get to know one another better. But every topic I could think of seemed like a minefield, and I was pretty sure that he felt the same.
“It’s been a long day,” he’d said once we’d finished eating, and he’d put away the leftovers. “I’m going to turn in early. Feel free to do whatever you’d like—it’s your home too, for as long as you’re here, Ana.”
I could hear the sincerity in his voice. “Okay,” I’d said, but I’d known that I’d wind up just going back to my room. He might have wanted it to be my house too, but it was very far from feeling like that. I felt like an interloper, a burden, even if Liam was doing everything he could to make me feel like anything but.
“Well.” Liam had stopped in front of the sink, looking at me from across the bar, his green eyes full of uncertainty. It made me want to go to him, to soothe him somehow, but instead, I stayed frozen on the barstool, watching him with the same nervous expression.
“Goodnight,” he’d said finally, giving me a small smile. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight,” I’d said in a small voice, and I’d felt him hesitate for just a moment, as if he’d wanted to say something else.
But he hadn’t. He’d just walked to his bedroom, and I’d stayed on the barstool for a long moment after the door had closed behind him, wondering what I should do next.
I could have gone after him. But I didn’t. I’d felt earlier that he wanted something more than just to fuck me, and I couldn’t imagine why.
I’m not the kind of girl a man like him falls in love with. But everything about how he’s treated me says that he hadn’t saved me just to use me and throw me away.
So instead, I’d just gone to my own room and to bed.
Now, I push myself up in the soft bed, blinking away sleep. I’d slept better than I had in a long time, under a pile of blankets surrounded by downy pillows, woken up by the sunlight streaming through the large window on the other side of the desk. I take a deep breath—and smell breakfast cooking, the scents of eggs and bacon, and I hear the sound of voices coming from the kitchen.
I can hear Liam’s deep voice and something else—a light, feminine laugh that sends a sudden bolt of anxious jealousy through me. For a brief moment, I’m not in Liam’s Boston penthouse anymore but back in Paris, hearing Yvette’s laugh as she and Alexandre talked, her dismissive voice as she spoke to me.
I’m not there anymore.I squeeze the blanket tightly between my fingers, forcing the memory back. Yvette isn’t here. Alexandre isn’t here. I’m in Boston, and neither of them are coming to find me. I’m not even sure if Yvette is still alive—the last I remember of her is dimly seeing Liam strike her in the head with the butt of his gun. It’s likely that it hadn’t killed her, but she’s not coming after me, either.