“Did you call him back?” I stare at her, feeling angry all over again. “Ana, you told me you were trying to get over him, to put it in the past—”
“He said I could go back with him if I wanted to. That he’d come to get me.” Ana stares at me defiantly, and I feel my stomach knot with fury and fear all at once at the thought of her telling him where she is. At the thought of him taking her from me.
I should have fucking killed him when I had the chance.
“He only wants me.” Tears are streaming down her cheeks again. “He swore it, over and over, that there’s no other woman for him. Can you say the same now, honestly? Or have you just been fucking lying to me this whole time? How could you ask me—” Ana breaks off, crying harder. “You said you wouldn’t let me tell you I love you, wouldn’t sleep with me again until it was only you. Howdareyou, how fucking dare you demand that when you had someone else. How is that fucking fair, Liam? How could you—”
“I don’t love Saoirse!” I nearly shout it, my hands in fists as I clench my teeth, trying to figure out how the hell to make her understand. “I’ve never touched her, Ana. I’ve never so much as fucking kissed her, except at the altar when we were engaged, and briefly at that. I’ve never made love to her. I’ve done everything I fucking can to keep my hands off of her because I wantyou, Ana. I don’t want any other woman but you. I swear it, by anything you want me to swear on. And that’s all I want in return—for you to forget Alexandre and want me, and me alone, because that’s how I feel about you. It’s only you, Ana; it only ever has been.” I’m breathing hard now, staring at her fiercely, trying to break through the walls I know she’s thrown back up. “Did you tell him where you were?”
“No, I—” Ana wipes at her face, but it’s useless, she’s still crying. Fresh tears immediately replace the ones that she wiped away. “I wouldn’t tell him where I was. But it’s not fair, Liam—”
“If you still fucking love him so much, why do you care about Saoirse?” I glare at her, struggling mightily to keep my temper in check, to think and speak rationally, but I’m quickly being overcome by my own emotions. “I know I should have told you sooner, but I had no plans to go through with it—”
“Why did you save me?” Ana looks up at me tearfully. “If you had this other engagement, this other promise, why did you come all the way to France to find me—”
“Because I fucking love you!” My voice rises, and I run both hands through my hair, feeling like I’m in danger of pulling it out. “Christ, Ana, how is it so hard for you to understand? My engagement to Saoirse was temporary, to keep things in order here while I went to find you, and when I came back—”
“You loved me? You didn’t even know me then. You still don’t know me, if you think—”
I let out a frustrated breath. “I want to know you, Ana. It’s all I want. I’ve tried, day after day, to get you to let me in, but you can’t. Not all the way, because you’re still clinging to him. You’re too—”
“Broken?” She cuts me off, her voice suddenly sharp, almost vicious in the way she spits the word out. “Is that what you were going to say? You haven’t let me in either, Liam, or you would have told me what was going on in your life. You would have told me about Saoirse. Don’t you think that’s something I fucking needed to know?” She shakes her head, tears flying. “At least Alexandre loved me because I was broken—”
“He didn’t fucking love you!” I stare at her, feeling as if it’s impossible to get through to her right now, not knowing what else I can say. “He fucking collected you, Ana, like a piece of art or a first edition book, or some bloody thing like that. You weren’t a person to him. Just like you said, you were his doll. A toy. Something toown. That’s not love—”
“What you’ve been doing isn’t love, either! Keeping your fiancée a secret from me while yousupposedlytry to figure out how to break things off isn’t love! Lying to me isn’t love—”
“I haven’t lied to you, Ana, not once. Not ever—”
“A lie of omission is still a lie.”
We both stare at each other, chests heaving, the angry words we’ve both spit out hanging in the air between us. Ana clutches the side of the bed, her eyes wild and furious and tearful, and I’m just as upset.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say quietly, looking at her. “I don’t know what you want—if you want him, or me, or if even you know. I had made my decision, Ana, even if you don’t believe me. I kept some things from you, yes. I thought it was the right choice. But I don’t know what it is that you want from me, from us—”
“What doyouwant?” Ana stares at me, her lips trembling, and I want, more than anything, to tell her that it will be okay. But I’m not sure if that’s true anymore.
“I want you,” I say simply, holding her gaze with my own. “Just you, but I don’t know how that’s possible anymore. I’ll lose everything for a woman that’s still dreaming about another man.”
And then, before she can say a word, before I can say anything else that I’ll regret later, I turn on my heel and leave the room, the sound of her crying following me all the way down the hall.
FOUR
ANA
Without thinking, I leap up off of the bed and follow him. My heart is racing in my chest, tears streaming down my face, but I can’t just drop it. Not like that, not when that’s the last thing he said before leaving.
He wasn’t going to marry her. Can that possibly be true?
Up until the moment Saoirse barged into the penthouse, I’d never felt that I had a reason to believe that Liam wasn’t telling me the truth about how he felt. Everything he said, everything he did, pointed to him being a man who was truly in love with me, who was willing to cross oceans and make sacrifices for us to be together. I’d felt so guilty because all he’d asked of me was to stop loving a man who I perhaps shouldn’t have loved in the first place, and I’d been struggling with it.
But Liam had been keeping secrets from me, too.
He’s striding towards his own bedroom, and I have to rush to keep up with him. I can see that he’s angry in the set of his shoulders, the way he leans forward as he walks, but I can’t just let him go. Something inside me is screaming that if he walks into that room and shuts the door, it’s done. That I won’t be able to get him back—and I’m not at all sure yet that I’m ready to let him go for good.
He goes to slam the door as he steps into his room, but I push against it, following him inside. He turns on me as I do, his green eyes blazing, and I hold my ground as we face off with each other, the frustration on Liam’s face as plain as the pain I can see shimmering in his eyes.
And there’s something else, too, that I can see as his eyes flick over me. He wants me, even now. I can feel it, and I want him too. The rocky cliff that our relationship is hanging from makes it feel worse that we’ve never fully gotten to be together. Every time we get that close, something happens to ruin it. Liam stops us—or I accidentally call out another man’s name.