Chapter 28 #2
Liam told me that he needed another hour, so I decided to drive over to the local coffee shop and work for a little while.
If I was going to be helping Liam with his gym anonymously, I would have to start prepping things now.
Pulling out my laptop, I got to work creating an Excel sheet for the gym that would include my to-do lists.
I wanted to talk to Rae about marketing ideas as well, see if she had any experience with sports marketing.
I knew we would need to get Liam’s gym on social media.
It would be even better if he’d be a part of it, but I already knew that wouldn’t be likely.
Maybe there would be a way to pull old footage of his fights and trim them to fit within the videos we’d need for social media.
I was so focused on my laptop I didn’t even notice when someone pulled out a chair from across from me and took a seat.
It was when they cleared their throat that I looked up.
And then immediately slammed my laptop shut.
“Lacey.”
She sat there in a thin leather jacket with a V-neck tank top that hugged her body like a glove. Her leg, clad in pleather, was crossed, her back relaxed into the chair and a devious smile tugged her pink lips up just the smallest bit.
“I can see why he likes you.”
My fingers wrapped around the edge of my thin laptop, the metal cold against my skin. I didn’t reply, but I didn’t stop her from talking either. Was there some sick part of me that wanted this conversation to happen?
“What can I help you with, Lacey?” I asked, dipping to grab my laptop bag. I secured my mouse, charger and phone.
She bounced her leg a few times then clicked her tongue.
“You’re going to be in my daughter’s lives…from the way he pulled you away from that crowd and how Maddy hugged you, you’re already in deep. I want you to promise you’ll help me get a way back in.”
I laughed, feeling it bubble in my chest like she’d genuinely said something funny.
“Why would I do that?”
Quick as lightning she leaned forward and jammed her pointer nail into the table.
“Because they’re my goddamn kids, and you’re a teenager who thinks she can take my family.”
“I’m twenty-one.”
She rolled her eyes and then sneered. “Doesn’t make a fucking difference. You’re too young for Liam.”
I didn’t want to get petty, but this woman had the other day, so I felt like maybe it was deserved.
Smiling sweetly at her I sat back and said, “He doesn’t seem to think I’m too young when he’s fucking me.”
Her brown eyebrows dipped as her eyes flashed and then her venom came, and I wished I hadn’t even bothered.
“You think he loves you? You think he’ll change for you? He won’t. Liam doesn’t change for people, and he doesn’t have patience either. You mess up once and that’s all it will take. He’ll never forgive you, and he’ll never let you back in.”
I hovered over the table, getting in her face like she was trying to with me.
“I would never do anything to hurt those girls, that’s where you and I differ.”
Letting out a howl of laughter, she threw her head back.
“You think that’s when he decided he was finished with me? No honey, it wasn’t the drugs or the hurting the kids that ended it for us.”
This wasn’t real, it wasn’t true. She was a liar. Why was I even here listening to her?
“He was finally done with me the first time I fucked with his business. Stole from him to score drugs. That big lie was what reframed our relationship…one that had nothing to do with our kids. It shouldn’t have made such a big difference in our relationship, but it did.
He’s so self-righteous he thinks the entire downfall of our marriage was on me.
Maybe if he’d extended a little grace that first time, we’d still be together. ”
Why was my heart hammering against my ribs so hard?
It was clearly the last straw for Liam—not that he hadn’t had grace.
And I knew Liam. There was no way he kept letting her back into the girls’ lives if she was dangerous; she must have been showing some sort of improvement…
but still. Her words were like string, tying my hands to the boards of a marionette.
Why had I stopped trying to play defense and now felt entirely overwhelmed, like she was standing over me with a big white sign that read VICTORY across it?
I watched as she stood and stared down at me with a tiny smirk.
“Mark my words, little girl, Liam Croft has a one-strike policy. You mess up once and you’re out of his life forever.”
Lacey turned with her ominous words hanging in the air and exited the café.
Meanwhile I sat there with my thoughts churning over what I had done…and what it would do to us when Liam found out.
An hour had come and gone, but Liam never texted me, so I decided to drive back and ruin the surprise.
I couldn’t handle the guilt any longer, either.
I had to come clean, tell Liam about the offer, and how it was my idea.
He could get mad, but at least it would be on my terms with how he found out.
Pulling into the garage, I quickly exited and rushed into the house.
The smell of baked goods permeated the air, making my mouth water.
“Did you make cupcakes?” I asked with a smile, rounding the corner into the kitchen. There were a dozen cupcakes, all iced with pink frosting. There were words on them, but I couldn’t make much of it out; it looked like maybe the frosting had melted off.
I lifted my gaze to ask what they had said, but Liam was sitting at the kitchen table with his head down. He hadn’t registered that I had come in. My stomach tightened as I waited for him to look up.
“Where are the girls?” I asked, looking around. Originally, he had said this was a surprise from all of them, so I figured they’d be here.
Liam finally gave me his attention, and his silver eyes were dull, his lips thin, and his face blanched red. With a curt tone, he said, “Colson came and got them.”
That didn’t make any sense…unless he wanted me to himself for some reason.
I took a seat across from him and peeked at what was on the table in between his elbows.
“What is that?”
Liam’s strong fingers gripped the letter, and he roughly tossed it in front of me.
I couldn’t make sense of his emotions. He was like a blank piece of paper that had eraser marks all over it. There was something there, I just couldn’t make it out.
That is until I realized what he had been looking at.
It was a piece of mail with my name on it, and the initials of the company that had just made him a business proposal a few days prior.
My head snapped up. “I can explain this…”
Liam’s eyes narrowed; his jaw clenched so that the muscle jumped along his face.
“Explain what, Haley?”
He stood and shoved his hands into his hair. “That you went behind my back and did the very thing I specifically asked you not to?”
“Liam—”
“No!” he yelled over me, and it startled me so much, my mouth snapped shut.
“I asked you not to interfere. I told you I had to be the one who did it. I told you!”
He trailed off and tugged at the ends of his hair.
But when his voice broke, a piece of my heart did too.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to think you finally did something right?
To think you finally made it, that all your hard work paid off because this amazing opportunity landed in front of you…
only to find out it wasn’t real at all. It was just your rich, pretentious girlfriend posing as someone else, tricking you into doing business with her. ”
Tears clouded my vision as ripples of pain hummed through me. I had fucked up so bad…
I stood, reaching out for him.
“Liam, please! I’m sorry, it wasn’t like that, I didn’t want—”
He snatched his arm away from me, his eyes wide with rage.
“You need to leave. I won’t have liars living in my home.”
What?
No.
I shook my head as tears freely fell. “Liam, let’s talk about this.”
“There is no fixing this, Haley! Don’t you get it? My gym is ruined. I’m fucked, and the only hope I actually allowed myself to hold on to wasn’t even real!”
He barged into the living room where all my stuff was already waiting.
No. No. No. This wasn’t happening. Why was my stuff already packed?
“Liam, stop. This—just think this through.”
He gripped my suitcase and bag and stormed into the garage to where my car was.
“They’ll eventually be better off. They already had one woman lie to them, they won’t survive another.”
Holy shit, that one hit hard. I didn’t lie to hurt them.
“I lied to protect them, because you’re too fucking prideful to accept help!” I yelled at his back, my face red with rage and hurt. All of it twisted in my chest and swirled into a massive mess.
“It’s my life, my kids to raise how I see fit. This was something I needed to do on my own, and if you can’t respect something as fundamental as that then you have no right being here.”
“Liam, stop. You’re being irrational. Just take the night, or the week, but we’re not over. I mean, you don’t just stop loving someone because they messed up.”
He paused, and turned on his heel, glaring down at me. After a few seconds of just staring, he laughed.
“I forgot that you haven’t had a single ounce of life experience.
You’re twenty fucking years old and have no clue what or how grownups handle things like this.
Protecting their kids, managing their work life, businesses started with nothing and kept alive with sweat, blood, and tears.
Everything in your life that you have was handed to you on a silver platter, Haley.
You’re going to pretend that you have a frame of reference for my life?
“I had a fucking wife, Haley. I was married. I know what it’s like to still love someone even though they messed up.
I know what it feels like to still want your wife even though she’s gone.
What I felt for her, you’d never understand, because you’re not my wife, and as of right now, you’re not anything to me. I want you to leave.”
He turned, about to toss my suitcase in the back seat of my car, but his arm dropped the second he saw Mila’s car seat.
I bought one specifically for my SUV. The girls’ tablets were in their little tote bag, along with headrests and blankets.
The girls were spoiled as hell, but I wasn’t about to apologize for that.
Not when he left me in charge of them for almost three months.
His face twisted as he stared, and maybe he was considering all he’d said. Maybe he was regretting the words that had left him in a fleeting moment of anger, but the damage had been done.
My heart raged as violently as if I’d tossed it into the middle of a storm in the Pacific.
He’d just torn through all that we’d built…all that he’d done to get me, to have this…he’d just thrown it all away. He’d had his fun, but now that the hard stuff came in, he was out.
And fuck him for generalizing my life, and my experiences…
and for getting my age wrong again. He had no right to speak to what I knew of life—and fuck his silver platter.
I created the platter and served myself.
I may not have kids, and maybe I hadn’t ever been married, but I knew my worth, and he clearly didn’t.
Lifting my chin, I turned on my heel and went back for the rest of what I could carry.
“Haley...” His voice broke, but I paid it no mind.
I gathered what I could, the most important things, and kept my gaze down. I saw his socks…they were ones I had bought for him. There was extra cushion in the toes.
His hand went to my waist, trying to stop me, and my determined gaze met his.
His silver eyes watered and had a red tinge around the skin, but they begged me to stop and listen. The problem was, I already had, and his words had branded my heart and assaulted my confidence.
His mouth parted, his grip firm on my hip.
“Just…wait. I…please—"
“I’ll have Colson get the rest of my things,” I interrupted. “Please leave it in the garage so I don’t have to go back in your house.”
Then, without a single look back, I moved past him, and he let me go.