When he comes back out, I stand up, feeling shaky, but I do my best not to let him see. I go up on my tiptoes when he kisses me, harder this time, and I close my eyes, breathing it in. Breathinghimin, wanting to remember the feeling of his lips against mine, his hand sliding around my waist, the way just a kiss makes me arch against him and feel breathless.
“I’ll be back for more of those, lass,” Liam says with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.” He kisses me once more, briefly, and then bends down to grab his suitcase.
Almost as quickly as he came home, he’s gone.
I sink down onto the couch, feeling lost. I’m not even sure what I’ll do without him here, although it’s not as if I’m without resources. Liam won’t care if I go out and shop, what food I buy, or if I order takeout. All he cares about is that I take care of myself and go to my appointments. Other than that, I can do what I want, spend what I want, go where I please mostly. There are no rules, no parts of the penthouse I’m not allowed in.
This is myhome, for now, anyway. I don’t belong to Liam. He’s made that very clear.
And now that I’ve started to wake up, to stop feeling like it’s all a dream, I don’t think I could go back to Alexandre, however much I long for the easiness of it sometimes, the way I could lose myself in it.
Because at the very core of it, it was wrong—in all the ways that what I have now with Liam is right.
I just won’t tell Liam,I decide.If it comes through again, I’ll ignore the number, and I won’t call him back. Alexandre will give up. He won’t be able to get to me, and he’ll give up.
He paid a hundred million dollars for you,the small voice in my head reminds me.You think he’ll give up that easily?
He has to. He has to.
I sit there on the couch for several long minutes, trying to tamp down the fear, to figure out how to go about my day, what to do. And then a knock comes at the door, and I nearly yelp with fear.
Maybe it’s Liam. Maybe he forgot something.
Why would he knock?
Slowly, I stand up, my heart racing. I’m terrified that it’s Alexandre, that he’s found me already, that he’s been watching us and saw Liam leaving and took this moment to come up and steal me away.
It can’t be.I swallow hard, taking a step towards the door, and then another. “Who is it?” I call out, my phone clenched in my hand, ready to call for help if I need it. “Who’s there?”
“Excuse me?” A woman’s voice comes through the door, and I stop in my tracks. “I’m looking for Liam. Who are you?”
I take several quick steps forward, my heart hammering in my chest as I undo the locks, yanking the door open. Standing there on Liam’s doorstep is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, with dark strawberry hair falling around her shoulders and an elegant, lovely face, her green eyes narrowed with suspicion. She’s wearing light jeans and a white t-shirt, and she stares at me, her gaze raking over me before she pushes her way past me into the apartment, looking around.
“Liam?” She calls out his name. “Liam, where are you?”
“He’s gone.” I shut the door behind me, turning to face her as my heart starts to race, some deep-seated instinct warning me of danger, as harmless as this woman looks.
Yvette seemed harmless too, at first—and she was anything but.
She turns to face me. “Excuse me?”
“He went on a business trip.” I shift anxiously in place, my stomach twisting with anxiety. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
The red-haired woman draws herself up to her full height, her eyes suddenly glimmering with suspicious anger as she crosses her arms beneath her breasts.
“I’m Saoirse O’Sullivan,” she says sharply, just the hint of an Irish accent underlying her words. “I’m Liam’s fiancée. And just who the fuck are you?”