Chapter Thirty-Four
They are everywhere. Bumper-to-bumper all around the park and a few side streets, but they are especially packed down Byron, where I can only assume Liam lives. Follow the chaos seems to be the rule, and I weave between bodies, ignoring the urge to photobomb the people standing with microphones in front of cameras and yell that this is all made up, that there is no way on earth William Albert Weston would do any of this. But I resist because the last thing I want is for someone to ask whether I know Liam personally, and have a horde of reporters shoving microphones in my face.
A large cluster of journalists crowd around a dove-gray house with neat white trim. And there it is: Liam’s beat-up old Honda parked in the driveway. My heart does a painful kung fu move inside my chest.
He’s home.
I move with renewed determination through the crowd.
“Where does she think she’s going?” someone behind me asks with a snotty laugh.
“You can’t approach the door!” someone yells to me. “It’s considered private property!”
Another voice shouts, “We all have to wait for him to come out!”
But as I continue to walk, the tenor changes. I feel the wave of awareness move across the mass of bodies, hear a few people murmur my name, and I register my enormous mistake: I haven’t put my hood up. I didn’t hide my hair.
I haven’t been on Instagram in days, but everyone else at the island was posting constantly, and given that I am legally married to the hottest Weston sibling and given that the Westons were the celebrities of the entire vacation, it’s one hundred percent assured that my mostly inactive account with fifty-two followers has been tagged in many, many photos. Any journalist worth their salt knows everything there is to know about Liam, and that now includes me, and the shitstorm that happened at the wedding.
“Anna!” a man yells. “That’s Anna Green! That’s the wife!”
And from there, everything devolves into chaos. My name is shouted in a cacophony of voices so earsplitting it triggers a strange instinct to cry in panic. Mics are shoved in my face; hands come up to my shoulders, my back.
Do you have any comment about the scandal?
Can you tell us what you think about Alex Weston’s statements?
Have you and Liam consummated the marriage?
Have you spoken to Ray Weston?
Anna, is it true you and Liam are expecting a baby?
Jesus Christ.
Arms try to guide me this way and that, journalists step in my path, blocking me in so I have to Tetris my way through the narrow path of bodies. There are so many people around me that I don’t know which way I’m walking until I suddenly find myself in the middle of the street and have to redirect back over toward Liam’s house. There are a few nice humans who are trying to help me, but most are hoping to get a photo, a word, anything out of me.
Do you know if Liam Weston has any comments about what his brother said?
Anna, over here, one photo, please!
Is your marriage to Liam Weston legitimate?
“Please,” I say. “Please just let me through.”
A murmur rises up farther away in the crowd, and all hell breaks loose. Just beside my ear, one of the helpers yells, “Over here! Over here!” The crowd screams, “Liam!” in unison only seconds before an arm comes firmly around my shoulders and I’m pulled into a solid chest and ushered through the crowd.
Liam.
I gust out a sob, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“I got you,” he says. “I got you.”
My face is pressed to his shoulder and his voice vibrates through me as he calmly says, “Let us through…. Excuse us…. No…. Excuse us….” And when a strange hand comes around my forearm, Liam’s voice turns deep and sharp: “Do not touch her.”
Finally, we break through and reach his front steps, where he pushes me up to the porch, swings his door open, and slams it quickly behind us.
The chaos seems to melt away outside, and Liam and I stand facing each other for a few breathless seconds before I burst forward, throwing myself into his arms.
“I didn’t know!” I sob.
“I know.” His arms come around me, his hand cupping my head, smoothing my hair.
“You didn’t tell me!”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“I know you didn’t do any of this, Liam, I know what happened.” I step back and he looks down at me with confusion. “I talked to Blaire, and she explained everything. We have to fight this! You have to go out there and say that you absolutely did not do any of the things they’re saying.”
He frowns down at me. “I don’t need to—”
“You do,” I insist, sucking in a very ugly, very wet breath. “I need everyone to know that you would never, not in any universe, do these things.”
His eyes soften. “Anna.”
“Were you afraid of telling me?” I ask. “Were you afraid that I wouldn’t believe you?”
“Anna,” he says again, bemused.
I push on, twisting my fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “I know we only just reconnected, and I know we’re still new—wait, I think we broke up but can we get back together?”
“Anna,” he says more firmly, and I panic because what if he doesn’t want to give this a go anymore?
“No, Liam, let me say this, because with context all of it makes sense now. I get why you almost took the job. But then you didn’t?” I ask. “Did you decide it wasn’t worth it? Because I fucking agree! Even though you needed the money for your foundation. God, you are amazing. Do you know that?” I frown, a little. “Well… I still don’t love that you bought the paintings but—” Liam takes one step to the side and color catches my eyes. “Oh. Oh.” I clap a hand over my mouth. There she is: Freesia 2 just behind him on the wall. He already hung my paintings?
I burst into tears again. “Oh my God, okay, I forgive you. Oh my God, you were right, the movie version is actually really romantic, and you put it up there, which means maybe you still want to make a go of this?” I search his eyes, which have gone warm with amusement. “I want to be your girlfriend. Your wife.” I wince at this, recalibrating. “Maybe let’s date until the wife thing feels right? Whatever my label is, I would very much like to go out on that porch and tell every asshole out there exactly where they can shove their news cycle.”
Liam steps forward, cupping my face and kissing me firmly on the mouth. He pulls away an inch to say, “Anna. Please shut up.”
I gasp in offense and then melt into confusion. “That… was a very perplexing sequence of actions.”
“First, I need you to know how talented you are.” He looks briefly over his shoulder and then back at me. There is absolute wonder in his eyes. “Other than you, standing here in my living room, these paintings are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re really good at this flattery thing,” I say through tears.
He lifts his chin to something behind me, and I turn to see—well, let me start by saying his place is fucking amazing. No wonder he didn’t want his old couch. Second: he’s got CNN on the screen.
“No! Why are you watching this?” I ask, bending to look for the remote. “This isn’t good for you!”
But he urges me upright, leaning over my shoulder and pointing. “Anna. Look.”
I focus on the screen and when my mind calms long enough, I’m able to register what I’m seeing.
Or, rather, who.
On the television is a replay of Alex, from some unknown number of minutes ago, speaking into a microphone somewhere familiar, but which I can’t immediately place. Below him, the chyron reads:
Alex Weston: “My father stalked and harassed employees. Liam never engaged in any predatory or illegal activities.”
“Whoa,” I mumble. “That happened way faster than I expected.”
Liam turns me back to face him. “What do you mean?”
“I saw the PISA stuff on the news and flipped out. The only number I had other than yours and Jake’s was Reagan’s, and I assumed Jake was on a plane. Blaire answered and told me everything, including about your foundation. That’s when I realized I had to test my theory that your siblings would follow the money.”
Liam laughs. “Well, you’re right.” He lifts his chin to the screen. “He’s still in Singapore.” That’s why it looks familiar. He’s outside the Crowne Plaza Changi. “He realized Dad really was going to bring me on as CEO and I think he finally snapped. He didn’t get on the plane. And then, apparently, Blaire called him, screaming about the loophole. She said she’d stay married to him, but not if they were broke.”
“Holy shit. And Alex gave a press conference?”
“Well, conference is a generous term,” he says, laughing. “There were only a couple journalists nearby when he had the comms team alert the media, but it’s picked up everywhere now. He said, basically, that while I did develop the software, none of the surveillance of personal data or harassment came from my computers. Dad had his shady lawyer drop the news before Dad got on the plane. But Alex responded by having the tech team release the IP logs.”
“That was a big gamble for Alex,” I say. “Your dad won’t react well to this when he lands.”
“I don’t think it matters. The board knows. And soon the Fed will know that Dad dumped a huge amount of stock just before he did this. Dad is out as CEO, and in a shitload of trouble.”
I stare up at Liam and he gazes down at me, his amber eyes gleaming. “How do you feel?” I ask.
His face moves through a few expressions—a smile, a wince, and then he closes his eyes and my heart twists painfully when his face just… breaks. He cups a hand over his brow, shielding his eyes, and his voice comes out thick. “I feel really fucking relieved.” He pulls in a jagged breath. “This has been my biggest fear for years. That Dad would drop the worst of it, that it would leak, that it all would get pinned on me again and it would destroy everything I’ve worked for.”
I don’t know what to do with all of these emotions, but some bodily instinct does, because I step close, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my face to that perfect space between his neck and shoulder. “Oh, sweetie.”
“I knew there was more, you know?” he says, and folds me into his arms. “My family didn’t talk about it specifically, but I always knew there was much worse stuff out there. He used me the first time and it was just horrible. My name was kept mostly out of the press, but everyone in our circle knew who it was. Professors in my business program looked at me differently.” He swallows. “I switched majors. Decided to turn to academia. I knew my dad could totally ruin me again, and worse, but I never really thought he would. I just thought, ‘If I can keep my distance, if I can find another career, if I can be married, settled elsewhere, he’ll move on. I can do good from the outside, with the foundation. He won’t expect me to come back.’ I realized at the wedding that I was wrong. He hadn’t moved on, and he still had that leverage.”
“Not anymore,” I say.
He exhales a huge breath and laughs through tears. “Not anymore. Because of you.”
“And the trust?”
“Dad might want to get the lawyers involved and make things messy, but something tells me he has much bigger problems. He’s going to want his kids on his side, and that won’t happen if he challenges Grandpa’s trust.”
I am so happy for him. So relieved, so grateful that Alex—someone I’m sure to feel conflicted about for the rest of my days—actually did something brave and useful. For money, sure, but credit where credit is due.
Liam leans our embrace to the side so he can reach for the front curtain and peek out. The reporters are all still there.
“Are you going to go out there and talk to them?” I ask.
He turns back to me. “Probably.”
“What are you going to say?”
“That it’s true I created the software and modified it at my father’s instruction, but I wasn’t behind the surveillance activity. That I hope the family company can move on from this and I know that we’ll be doing everything we can to handle it in a way that feels transparent. That we plan to immediately hire a consulting firm to conduct an internal culture assessment.”
“?‘We,’ huh?”
“My grandfather founded this company because he loved his family,” he says. “I’d like to think we can make something good of it.”
“I hope that includes finding a way to disconnect love from money,” I tell him. “Your grandfather tied the two together with good intentions, and your father with terrible intentions, but in the end it doesn’t matter what the intentions were: It has made everyone in your family devalue love. It has made loyalty and servitude the bargaining chips that keep the money flowing.”
Liam cups my face and bends to kiss me. I leave my eyes open for just a beat and catch the way his fall closed and the utter devotion on his face when our lips meet. “I want to deserve you,” he says when he pulls away.
“You already do.”
“I want all of you. I want to give you everything I have.” His lips linger on mine one more time. “There are no strings attached to what I’m offering,” he tells me. “I just want you. I just want to love you.”
“Unconditionally.” I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug. Liam holds me for several minutes while the reporters mill around outside, the TV drones in the background, and our hearts slow to a steady, tandem beat. I pull back and stroke his jaw with my thumbs. “I’m sorry for what I said in the hotel. Even if I was right, it was harsh.”
“You had to stand up for yourself and that’s what you did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the paintings. You were right. It was controlling.”
“Someone wise taught me that intent matters.”
“Someone?”
“David Green. Mechanic and therapist, apparently. Also, your father-in-law.” I stretch to kiss his smile, and when I pull back, his eyes do a careful circuit of my face. It’s the same way he took me in that morning, so many days ago now, in my apartment, like he’s slowly scanning, taking me in one feature at a time. I know I look like a mess again, but this time, his expression isn’t trying to mask panic. This time, he’s looking at me like he’s seeing everything he wants all wrapped up in a pink, harebrained package.
“Is it weird seeing me in scrubby clothes again?” I ask, gesturing to my plain blue tank top, Cookie Monster pajama pants, and sneakers.
“Not even a little. I prefer this version of you.”
“The real version.”
“The real Anna,” he says. “The real Liam.”
He gets another smooch for that. “Okay, go take your victory lap and I’ll be here for when you come back inside and want some celebratory horny boner banging.”
He laughs. “Holy fuck, I’m so happy you came.”
“Same.”
Liam gazes at me with what looks a lot like the L-word. “When do you have to fly home?” he asks.
“I bought a one-way ticket. So, technically never.”
He smiles. “So you can stay tonight?”
“I may have to call my dad,” I say with a wink. “But I can, I want to, and I shall.”
“And then every night after that?”
“Let’s start with the one,” I say, kissing his chin. “And see where it takes us.”