“How—” I cut myself off, feeling like a broken record.
“How do we know?” Sofia grins. “Because they all do. Now come on, let’s find a Sephora.”
“You used to hate spending money,” I point out as we go back to the town car. “You never wanted to use any of the money that showed up in your bank account back when we lived together.”
“I didn’t know where it came from.” Sofia shrugs. “It felt weird, back then. But Luca has shown me how to loosen up a bit, how to not worry so much about whether Ishouldbe doing something or not, and I’ve had a lot more fun than I used to.” She looks at me then as we slide back into the car, and her face softens. “I remember when you were trying to get me to do the same thing, Ana.”
That hits me squarely in the gut. I remember it too—the nights when I’d wheedle and beg her to go out on the town with me, to hit just one more bar, go to just one more new club opening. But it feels like all of that happened to another girl—like it was an entirely different lifetime.
“Yeah,” I say softly, sinking back into the seats of the town car. “I remember it too. I just don’t know if I can get her back.”
11
LIAM
When I get home that evening, Ana is curled on the couch with a book, her blonde hair draped over one shoulder, and the cashmere throw from the back of the sofa tucked around her legs, the only light in the room coming from the lamp on the side table next to her. I watch her for a moment, taking in the coziness of the scene, and something tightens in my chest, a longing I hadn’t expected to feel.
I want to come home to this every night.It’s my first thought, seeing her there curled up like a housecat, the domesticity of it striking a chord deep within me. If I’d thought she’d say yes, I’d have gotten down on one knee right then and there and asked her to marry me, to promise me that she’d never leave.
But then I’d be engaged to two women, and even I’m not foolish enough to think that’s something I could extract myself from without it blowing up in my face.
The thought of Saoirse reminds me that I’m supposed to meet her out for dinner tonight, in just a couple of hours. I’d come home to shower and change and make sure that Ana was alright before I went out, but seeing her like this makes me want to call Saoirse and tell her that I can’t make it, just so that I can sink down on the couch next to Ana, pick up my own book or put something on TV in the background, and just soak in being next to her at last in my own home.
Ourhome. It could be if she’d let it. I’d wondered how much of a fight she’d put up this morning when I’d given her the phone and the card, and it had been less than I’d thought. I’d seen the resistance in her face, but either she’d been afraid to argue with me, or she hadn’t wanted to in front of her friends. I’d hoped it was the latter.
I see the credit card sitting on the bar, and I reach for it. The sound alerts Ana, and she puts the book she’s reading down instantly, sitting up.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” she says, a little breathless.
“You don’t need to be sorry.” I perch on the edge of one of the barstools like I’m looking at a pretty, wild bird that I don’t want to frighten off. “It’s nice to see you relaxed and enjoying yourself.”
“I haven’t done it in a long time,” Ana confesses, her fingers twisting the tassels on the edge of the blanket nervously. “I thought I might have forgotten how.”
“Alexandre didn’t let you read?”
She flinches at the sound of his name, and it hangs heavily in the air between us, a reminder of what stands to keep us apart.
“I’m sorry. I won’t bring him up if you don’t want me to. It’s just—” I let out a long breath, bracing my hands on my knees. “We’re going to have to talk about him eventually. About what your life was like there. I need to know if I’m going to understand—”
“Understand what?” There’s no accusation in Ana’s voice; it’s simply curious. She watches me with those anxious blue eyes, round and wide in her pale, delicate face. I want so badly to cross the room and sit on the couch next to her, to pull her into my arms and hold her close, to kiss it all away. I want to touch her in every possible way, every inch of her, to make love to her until we’re both sweaty and satisfied, on the couch, on the countertop, on the table, on the floor, in her bed and mine. I want her on every surface of this goddamn apartment.
But I’m about to meet another woman for dinner, a woman I’m supposed to marry in a few months if her father has his way. It feels wrong to even go and sit beside Ana, knowing that.
“If I’m going to understand how you felt—how youfeel—about him,” I say simply. “And what you’ve been through. Why you react the way you do to—certain things.”
She meets my eyes, and I know we’re both remembering the same thing—her falling to her knees in a London hotel and taking my cock in her mouth simply because I’d offered her a place to stay. The girl Sofia had shown me in those pictures and videos wouldn’t have expected to service me in exchange for a guest bedroom to sleep in for a while—or at least, if she had, she would have been more direct about it. Less—submissive.
What happened to Ana between then and now, over the course of the hands she’s passed through, changed her a great deal. And I want to get to the bottom of it.
Ana pauses, looking at me for a long moment before she sighs. “No,” she says finally. “Well—he didn’t tell me Icouldn’tread. And he had so many books. A whole library of them. But he—”
She hesitates again, and I feel guilty for pushing her. “You don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to.”
Ana shrugs, looking away from me as she bites her lower lip. “There’s never going to be a good time,” she says quietly. “It’ll come out, little by little, every time you ask me a question. And why shouldn’t you know? You’re giving me a place to stay. You got me away from him. You have every right to know.”
“It’s personal, I understand that. You loved him for reasons of your own. Love him, even.” The words burn my tongue like acid, but they have to be said. “I want to understand, but you’re under no obligation to tell me. I won’t kick you out just because you don’t want to talk about it.”
She looks up sharply at that. “The first time Alexandre got angry at me was because I wouldn’t tell him something,” she admits, her voice lowering to a whisper. “The first day I was there. He put me in the bath—he actually bathed me himself—and when he got to my feet, he wanted to know what happened. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it, and he—he blew up. He was furious. He stalked out.”