Epilogue
Where it takes us, immediately, is our first night in my bed.
The chaos up and down my street continues long after I make a statement to the press, but even with the flash of cameras and a swarm of incessant questions being shouted my way, it’s easy enough to leave the stress of it all outside knowing that Anna is waiting on the other side of the door for me.
I could probably do anything with Anna waiting for me.
Our time on the island together was sexually adventurous, but there’s a new wildness, a raw openness to our lovemaking this first night home. As I push into her again and again, her limbs loose from exertion, skin damp with sweat and flushed from yet another orgasm, I let myself forget about the decisions that still have to be made, the complicated conversations that lie ahead, and give myself over to the realization that there’s nothing left for me to hide. Anna knows every secret I’ve tried to keep buried, every insecurity and shameful moment from my past; she knows the mess that is my family, and she accepts it anyway—accepts me. It’s a mental freedom I’ve never experienced before. I give myself over to her completely.
For a week, my phone buzzes constantly; reporters linger on the street. And for a week, we shut out the world. We order groceries and cook together; we watch movies and play board games. She buys us face masks and we wear them while trading foot massages. She makes me teach her how to dance the jitterbug; I let her paint on me with a set of body paints she orders from Instacart. Most of all, we make love, any and every way we possibly can.
But eventually, real life pushes back in. We both have a lot to figure out. In our quiet moments, lying face-to-face in my bed, we try to plot out what the next page looks like for each of us: Do I retain my faculty position or step into an executive role at the company? Does Anna return to Los Angeles to pursue the promise of these gallery showings or do I convince her to move here and pursue her art closer to me?
My biggest regret is that because of my actions, Anna questions whether she deserves any of the success her art is finding. But she can’t hold on to this insecurity for very long in the face of the true sincerity of my awe. She is a massively talented painter. In the end, we agree to take some time to tie up the loose ends of our lives outside of this burgeoning relationship. She will return to LA; I will meet with my academic higher-ups to forge a plan. And, at least for now, we’ll do the long-distance thing.
LONG DISTANCE TURNS OUTto be good for us. It’s devastating to be separated for days at a time from Liam and his glorious Goddamn, but the miles between Palo Alto and Los Angeles also mean we get to know each other in different ways. Long-phone-call ways, and letter-writing ways. Constant-texting ways and “send me a picture of what you’re doing right now” ways. We have dirty phone sex nearly every weeknight, and dirty real sex as many weekends as we can manage.
Like this, we thread ourselves into each other’s lives so completely that there’s no question how or whether we could fit together for more than a luxury vacation. I’ve only felt really seen by two other people—Dad and Vivi—and as the months fly by, there is a new, indelible Liam-shaped imprint in nearly every part of my life. In my confidence when I paint, and in my vision of a future where my art blooms into a full-fledged career; in my new financial security, and my dissipating worries about Dad’s health and his hospital bills. Liam’s impact is present in my mood, my sleep, my sexual satisfaction, my outlook on everything. He becomes my everything.
I finally tell him as much, on a sweltering day in August at my local tiny bakery.
“You see that right there?” I say, and nod to the pink-wallpapered wall where a framed print of one of my favorite paintings in the world hangs. “I’m going to see the real thing one day.”
He follows my gaze and then looks at me over his coffee cup. “What’s it called?”
“Dance in the Country by Renoir. It’s one of the Dance series he’d been commissioned to paint, and of the three I love it the most. It’s at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Have you ever been?”
“In high school.” My expression must give away exactly what I’m thinking—how outrageously fancy he continues to be—and he playfully nudges my foot with his under the table before trapping it between both of his. “I remember seeing Starry Night,” he says. “Whistler’s Mother. A lot of Monet. A lot of Van Gogh.” He studies the piece again. “What is it you love about this one?”
I turn my attention back to it. “It’s the feeling I get when I look at it. The details. Some might just see two people dancing, but… look at his hat on the floor—it’s like he was so swept up in the moment it fell to the ground, and he couldn’t be bothered to pick it up. The forgotten table, the spoon still in the cup, her fingers barely grasping her fan, and he’s holding her so close, completely unconcerned with the people behind them. See the way he’s gripping her waist?” I say, pointing. “And is he nuzzling her cheek? Smelling her hair? Whispering something naughty into her ear? Is that why she’s smiling with that look of absolute bliss on her face? She’s so in love.”
His chin rests on his hand and butterscotch eyes gaze at me instead of the print, so full of lust and devotion and wonder it feels like the room shrinks down to a satin-lined shoebox, and we’re the only two people inside. “I know how she feels.”
My heart pounds against my rib cage when I meet his eyes. I know Liam loves me; it’s always there, barely contained beneath the surface. It’s visible in everything he does; it’s obvious just by the way he looks at me. But he’s never said the words.
Never wanted to push me, I know.
“So do I,” I say now.
His gaze drops to my lips. “Are you saying you love me, Anna Green?”
“I’m saying I love you madly, West Weston.”
Liam stands from his chair, unconcerned with the tables of people around us as he pulls me into his arms, just like the man in the painting. “I love you, too,” he says against my cheek. “I have been aching to say it for so long.”
ONLY A MONTH LATER,September tiptoes in and we’re too busy banging each other on a Labor Day weekend getaway in Cambria to realize what it means: Liam has gained full access to his trust. Surprising no one, the We Can Safely Divorce date comes and goes and there is zero talk of divorce. Divorce would feel like breaking up, and I have a hard enough time saying goodbye at airports; no way would I let this man say goodbye on paper.
But I guess that means there’s also no talk of marriage, either, even though we both know that, hello, we are very much still legally married. I took off my ring and gave it back to him on the flight back from Singapore all those months ago; Liam never wore one. So when he climbs out of my bed one Saturday night in October, digs in his suitcase, and then sets the iconic turquoise box on my rumpled bed between us, I feel unprepared for the complicated emotions that smack me right in the face.
“What is this?” I ask carefully.
“It isn’t what you think,” he says, taking my hand. “I mean it is—it’s your ring—but I’m not asking you to put it back on.”
“Is this you admitting that the nipple-sized diamond is real?”
Liam laughs. “Yeah. It’s real.”
“Fuck me,” I say on an awed exhale.
Smiling, he looks down at our joined hands. “This ring is yours, Anna. It’s yours whenever you want it. Or we can sell it and get a different ring, a more Anna-appropriate ring, a ring a Muppet would wear, with gemstones of every color or a chain of diamond daisies. Whatever engagement ring you want is yours. As is my grandmother’s wedding band. I can’t tell you how happy it would make me to put that on your finger.”
He takes a breath, puffing out his cheeks as he exhales, as if he’s not getting this quite right. He’s so fucking cute I want to lick his face.
“I know it’s soon,” he says more earnestly, meeting my eyes. “I know we’ve been married for five years but only together for five months. I know our lives are complicated and we don’t live near each other, and we’re still figuring out what we each want. But I love you. So much. I can’t fathom wanting someone else, anything else, the way I want you. There’s a ring in that box for me, too, when you’re ready for me to wear it. Whether it’s a month from now, a year. Shit, I’ll put it on tonight if you tell me to.” He frowns. “?‘Never’ wouldn’t be my preferred answer, but I’d take that, too.” He winces at his sweet rambling. “When you’re ready—if you’re ever ready to be my wife for real, I’ll be here, ready to be your husband for real.”
I was joking on the plane months ago when I talked about the proposal of my dreams because to be honest, I never thought much about how that might look. The world tells girls we should want romantic, flashy grand gestures, and those can be great. But if I had given it deeper thought, I know I’d have dreamed up something just like this—an offer given with honesty and communication and mutual respect—over anything showy. So I kiss him. I keep kissing him until we’re both lost in it and push him back and sink down on him and tell him over and over as I move that I love him. I know someday I’ll be ready to wear a ring again, but right now, what we are is perfect.
The ring box goes in my dresser drawer for the time being, but the man and his love stay right at my side.
BY JANUARY, DR. WILLIAM Weston is no longer the only professor in this relationship!
Well, technically, I’m an instructor, and it is at a local city college, but it is a dream job. Teaching art to college kids on the path to figuring out what they want to do is amazing, as is being able to speak to that fear in them that they’ve chosen something impossible and elusive and will end up homeless eating apple cores out of the public garbage cans. I love, too, the older adults returning to school—the mom of newly graduated triplets finally finding time for herself, and the thirty-five-year-old dude raised by a shithead dad, who’s only now realizing that loving art won’t make him weak. My favorites are the two women in their seventies who met in a research lab years ago at Caltech and have a bet over which is the worse painter, so they took a class to find out.
I’m also painting like I’ve never painted before. Unless Liam and his Goddamn are around to distract me, or I am teaching, painting consumes my every waking moment. Which is good, I suppose, because after the two successful art shows last spring in Laguna and LA, more galleries want my work. Galleries in Berkeley and Santa Barbara. Galleries in San Diego and even Seattle. Galleries in San Francisco and Dallas. In February, I get a request for a solo showing at a small gallery in Boston, and Liam and I celebrate with a fancy dinner out in San Francisco when I’m up for the weekend… my treat.
I’m not the next art scene It kid, but it’s a start.
Liam decides to stay on as faculty at Stanford for the time being but takes a seat on the Weston Foods board to help guide the corporate culture overhaul. The current COO will be CEO in the interim—a woman who is apparently a badass with silver hair and balls of steel (a Capricorn, of course)—with the idea that when she retires in five to ten years, Liam will take over. Everyone seems happy with this plan, and although I know nothing about business culture of any kind, I can appreciate that Liam, at only thirty-one, didn’t feel entirely ready to step into the role. Look at that: a circumspect, mature Weston man. There may be hope for them after all.
And speaking of the Weston men, Alex and Jake remain where they are—as CFO and CMO, respectively—but have added twice-weekly therapy and intensive management training into their schedules. As of last summer, Ray was officially booted out of any role at the company. He’s been charged with insider trading for the shares he unloaded before leaking the PISA documents. His trial starts soon, and it won’t be the end of the mess for him: he’s under investigation for racketeering and other quasi-sports-sounding charges I only vaguely understand. When he lost his position, his power, and access to most of his money, he also lost his current mistress, who took her story straight to Janet. Yes, it’s wild that this is what it took for Janet to finally leave Ray, but we celebrate all the wins, even the bittersweet ones.
IF IT HAD BEENup to me, Anna would have spent that first night in Palo Alto and stayed for every single night after. If it had been up to me, Anna would never have taken off the ring. But it wasn’t up to me, and thank God, because where we landed is so much better than anything I could have imagined.
To my absolute delight, once Anna has her first few shows in the Bay Area, she admits that the Northern California art scene suits her much better than the one in LA. The more time she spends up near me, the more friends she collects: at a local studio, at the coffee shop, at a park when she’s walking my neighbor’s dog. Gradually, all of these people become my friends, too, until we have a full, lively, and interesting community all around us.
By the time the following May rolls around, and we celebrate one real year together, Anna tells me she’s ready to move in with me. It takes every bit of willpower to not call my Realtor the second the words are out of her mouth. To quote a movie my girlfriend has made me watch at least five times, “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
When the inheritance came into my name last September, I dedicated eighty percent to the foundation and put the rest in various savings and investment accounts. Which means, of course, that with my salary from Stanford and my Weston board duties, I can buy us any house we want. But at Anna’s insistence, and with her art career growing quickly, she contributes a chunk toward the down payment on the four-bedroom home we close on in July. It’s somehow both polished and funky, with an asymmetrical, trilevel architecture that pleases Anna’s need for nonconformity and contemporary accents that please my need for clean lines and modern decor. There’s an office on the first floor for me, a small art studio in the backyard for her, a room upstairs with two sets of bunk beds for my niece and nephews, a master suite with space for a giant bed, and a room right down the hall for whatever comes next.
Anna does make one financial concession, however. Sticking to her rule that she can be selfish for the people she loves, she lets me buy her father a house nearby, a small two-bedroom bungalow with a giant garage, so that David Green can retire, tinker with cars, and enjoy the life he fought so hard to live, and his daughter never has to be more than five minutes away from him again.
BUT WITH DAVID MOVINGclose to us, my expectations about what a family can be shifts, too. He is everything Anna said and more; David is warm and affectionate, proud and loyal, devoted and protective. The first time we met over a year ago, I went to shake his hand and he pulled me in for a long hug, thanking me for making his daughter so happy. I was overcome; his easy acceptance and affection hit me in a surprisingly tender place, and I spent the entire next day feeling out of sorts and like I’d messed up somehow, realizing only later when I talked it out with Anna that I’d never been hugged like that by a father figure before. I hadn’t known how to respond.
Over time, I figured it out. Hugging David when he walks into our house feels completely normal now. His hand warmly cupping my shoulder when I’m stressed about work is calming, reassuring. I no longer stare at Anna chatting obliviously at the ceiling, with her head in her father’s lap on the couch and think it looks a little weird. I think if I watch David Green and his daughter enough, I might not make a terrible father myself one day.
I want that same closeness with my family, but we’re all broken in similar but opposing ways, and I have to be realistic about what that means for forming bonds of trust and vulnerability. We have group therapy every other month or so. I have lunch with Jake and Alex the first Tuesday of every month; I talk to Charlie frequently. I see my mother every other Sunday. But the night that Anna invites everyone over for dinner at our new house is the first time outside of group therapy that the whole family will be in one room since our time on the island.
Not the whole family, I mentally amend. Because only a month ago, in July, just over a year after everything blew apart, my father was sentenced to eleven years in prison and fined five million dollars for dumping stock before going to the press. There are more charges coming—not to mention whatever the IRS finds when they finish combing through his finances. It wasn’t the maximum sentence, but it wasn’t far off, and the severity of it took the business world—and our family—by surprise. As part of our deal with Dad not to challenge the terms of Grandpa’s trust, I was present in the courtroom, along with Jake and Charlie. Alex was noticeably absent, and I was deeply proud of him for that.
I always knew our father was toxic, but even I didn’t realize how his behavior colored every one of us until he was excised like some kind of festering tumor. Mom is newly divorced, and less passive-aggressive. With access to most of their accounts frozen, she also has considerably less money now but seems happier for it. Jake and I are slowly finding our way back to each other, and it’s taken work on my part not to let that final thing he said to me before PISA hit the fan reshape our entire relationship. Without Dad bankrolling his life, Jake has learned to live on what he makes as CMO, which is fucking plenty. He also seems to have zero interest in getting access to his trust. A part of me wonders if it’s a form of personal penance for the mistakes he’s made, but he’ll have to work through that on his own.
But the idea of having everyone over… of letting them into our new home that feels warm and safe and light and ours is suddenly terrifying. Anna watches me arrange and then rearrange and then re-rearrange fresh veggies on a platter and moves to wrap her arms around my waist, resting her head on my back.
“It’s going to be okay, you know.”
“Is it?” I ask. “Alex and Mom aren’t in a great place. Jake still gets weird around me. Charlie doesn’t really articulate any feelings about anything.”
“Even if it’s awful, it’s going to be okay,” she says. “You know how I know that?”
I turn in her arms, leaning back against the counter and loosely wrapping my arms around her. “How?”
“Because even if it goes off the rails, even if everyone ends up shouting and crying and accusing, they’ll still leave at the end of the night, and we’ll still have our house and our life and this love that nobody can touch.”
I stare down at her. “You’re right.”
“We get to decide how much of our hearts we want to give them.” She stretches, kissing me, her lips passing slowly over mine, her tongue drifting teasingly over my bottom lip. “Now tell me you love me.”
Something inside me melts, and my “I love you” is thick with a desperation I can’t mask. I want to lock the doors and take her upstairs and spend the night showing her my devotion.
“I love you, too.” Anna smiles and stretches to peek over my shoulder out the kitchen window behind me. “Now prepare to answer the door. Alex and Blaire just pulled up.”
The arrivals are loud and chaotic; everyone immediately gets a drink in their hand and is blessedly loose by the second. By the time we sit down to eat, we are a noisy bunch. Our table growing up sat sixteen, and nobody but my dad ever spoke much at mealtimes. This table seats eight and there are twelve of us with extra chairs from the kitchen carried in, sitting crammed together, knees knocking, some of us straddling the corners, everyone bumping elbows. We’re occupying the same space; we are making room for each other. There is not a single break in the conversation all night.
My mother’s only passive-aggressive comment—“Anna, darling. You look so comfortable in that outfit!”—earns only a hearty “I am!” from my beloved. Blaire is just as loud as always but seems to drink less. Charlie is newly pregnant with twins and she and Reagan practically glow under Anna’s attention. Jake and Kellan have Mom screaming with laughter while they do the dishes. Alex is calmer out from under our dad’s shadow, more attentive with his kids. He ends the night being GW’s fire engine, walking on all fours around our living room while GW puts out “fires.” Alex and I don’t exchange a single sharp word all night. There’s no need for us to compete because there’s nobody to impress. It gives me hope that he’ll be okay. That we’ll be okay.
ON THE NIGHT OFAugust 12, officially our sixth wedding anniversary, Liam works late. It’s been a big day: With his foundation fully funded as of last year, he spent today awarding tuition and grant money to this year’s 250 Weston employee recipients. If, like me, you’re delighted by the idea of a proud Liam Weston handing out giant paper checks, prepare to be disappointed. Liam was proud, but each person who walked up to the lectern received a leather-bound certificate of appreciation, a heartfelt handshake, and a discreet but impressive automatic deposit into their bank account. Still, even without the magic that would have been confetti and giant checks, the ceremony was wonderful. I sat in the audience beside Janet and Alex, with tears in my eyes, watching Liam fulfill a dream he’s had for almost a decade. It might seem strange to those of us who grew up without money to imagine wealth ever being a burden, but Liam saw the people he loved do terrible things with those resources, and I can only imagine the weight that’s been lifted for him by seeing those same resources used for good.
I left Liam a few hours ago, and when he gets home, he calls up the stairs for me.
“Up here!” I tell him, listening to the clunk of his shoes coming off one by one near the back door, the sound of his keys dropping into the bowl on the counter, and his footsteps on the wood stairs.
“You’re never going to believe what happened after you left,” he says, his voice growing louder as he makes his way down the hall toward our room. “Alex stopped by my office and asked to be more involved with the selection process next year. I’m telling you; he’s grown into his position so much. It’s like he’s a di—” He stops just inside the doorway, hand caught in midair as if he were about to loosen his tie. “Well, hello.” He eyes the scene before him, a distinct glint of interest already darkening his amber eyes.
The scene before him is me, completely naked and waiting for him on the Hungarian goose down and Egyptian cotton dream that is our giant bed. Our bed, in our bedroom, in our house. Fuck, I still love saying that. On my finger is the ring. It isn’t the first time I’ve put it on since Liam gave it back to me—I’d occasionally take it out and try it on for a minute or two and then put it back—but today is the first time I’ve left it on. Today felt different. Today felt right.
“Hello, Dr. Weston,” I say. “How was your day?”
“Pretty good, but I’d say it’s improving by the minute.” He pulls off his tie with a grin. “What’s happening here?”
“Oh, you know, it was such a big day I thought we could keep celebrating.” With my legs stretched out in front of me and crossed at the ankles, I place my palm on my chest, wiggling my fingers. “Notice anything different?”
His gaze slides up my body, from my toes to my breasts, and I know when he’s spotted the diamond—I mean how could he not, it’s huge—because his tie falls to the carpet at his feet. He meets my eyes again and I wonder if he sees the ocean of words there, all of them for him. “Anna… what are you saying?”
I’m so fucking happy, I can’t keep the grin from my face. “I’m saying I’m ready to be your real wife.”
He clears the distance between us in a few steps, and I squeal when he wraps me in his arms and pulls me from the bed, my toes barely skimming the carpet. He huffs a heavy breath into my neck. “Fuck yes.”
“I love you, too.” I laugh.
“I meant what I said,” he says quickly, breathless. “You don’t have to keep this one. I’ll exchange it for any ring you want.”
“No way. I love it. There are a lot of memories attached to this thing. Besides, if we ever get stranded somewhere I can use it to signal planes overhead.”
Liam pulls my arm from around his neck and looks at my hand, at the delicate platinum band encircling my finger, at the ginormous diamond twinkling in the fading sunlight. “Maybe we could do it over, though?” he says. “A real ceremony with everyone there. It can be as fancy or not fancy as you want.”
I can feel the heat of his clothed body against my naked skin, and I wonder if anyone has ever felt luckier than I do right now. “Let’s do it,” I say. “But only a little fancy. Not too fancy. Not private-island fancy.”
He smiles against my mouth. “We’ll save that for the honeymoon.”
“Yes, but let’s discuss it later. We failed at divorce sex, but I’ve heard engagement sex is top tier, and you’re wearing way too many clothes.”
Liam kisses me, taking small, stumbling steps until the bed presses against the backs of my knees. Together we undo his shirt, smiling into kisses and laughing as we pull the fabric free from his pants. The sight of his shirt falling to the floor is a starter pistol to my pulse, and I don’t stop until he’s naked and on the bed—broad chest, long athletic legs, and… other things, all gloriously in proportion.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve done this—my married-people sex math checks out, by the way—I still never know where to start. His neck? His chest? His legs? His cock? Liam’s body is a landscape of hard lines and sharp angles, and I climb over his legs, wanting to devour every bit of him. Greedy palms map the thick muscle of his thighs and up to the flat plane of his stomach. Once I decided to wear the ring, I also made a nail appointment, wanting to surprise him. Not only will my nails look great in the 387 braggy engagement pics I plan to take, but they have an added benefit. Liam sucks in a breath when he realizes it, too, and I drag my pink-tipped fingertips over his stomach, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to leave four tracks of flushed, pink skin behind.
“Fuck.” He hisses. “It’s going to be like that tonight, is it?”
I nod, making my way down his body to take him in my fist and then in my mouth, my hair falling around his hips. He gathers the strands in his fingers, forcing my chin up. “You going to hide that pretty face the whole time?”
I groan around the length of him and look up his body. I could get drunk on those eyes, on the hunger there, his focus torn between my mouth on his cock, and his ring on my finger. I suck and taste, savoring the weight of him against my tongue, not sure if I want to finish him this way or feel him inside.
He decides for me, his voice a gravelly “Come here” when he cups my elbows, dragging me up his body, and settling me over his hips. His mouth finds mine again, his kisses a distraction for us both as he sits up beneath me and pushes his hands into my hair. Each kiss is punctuated with soft sighs and grunts as I slowly rock above him, the length of his cock sliding forward and back. His hands move to my ass, and he moves me over him in long, slippery slides. Aching want settles low in my stomach, between my legs. He lifts me onto my knees, and it changes the angle just enough that the blunt head of him catches me where I’m wet and open and so, so ready. Liam stills me with a hand to my hip before reaching between us, holding himself at the base and guiding me while I sink down, inch by inch, until I’m not sure where he stops and I begin.
“That’s it,” he says, gripping my ass again in both of his palms. “Just like that.” He kneads the muscle there, pulling me open until he’s seated inside me, and I gasp at the sensation of being so full in some places and so empty in others. I ride him like this, losing track of time as he kisses and fucks me, his hands setting off small explosions along my skin. His mouth finds my neck, my nipples. His groans grow louder in my ear. My orgasm flickers just off in the distance, close enough to reach out and grab, and when he flips me over, hooking an arm under my knee and bringing me closer, fucking me harder, it’s finally there, spiraling through me in shimmering lines and sweeping brushstrokes. A work of art, a masterpiece, finally complete.
Wild now, he bends me nearly in half, each thrust sending me into the mattress and farther up the bed until he’s coming, his helpless grunts heavy in my ear.
When he finally stills, I am melted sugar poured across the bed, I am a spent storm cloud slowly drifting apart, I am the quiet decrescendo of a frenzied concerto. With his lips pressed to my neck, Liam pulls out and then collapses at my side, his chest heaving, skin wet with sweat.
“Holy shit,” I say, pulling in a shaky breath. “Honeymoon sex is going to be unreal.”
With an exhausted laugh, he rolls to face me, taking my hand in his and looking at my ring again. “We’re getting married.”
“We are married,” I correct. “We’re just… getting a do-over. Happy anniversary, by the way.”
He kisses me, humming against my mouth. “Happy anniversary.” Considering something, he pulls back to meet my eyes. “Do we start counting from one?”
“No way,” I tell him. “I want credit for all six.”
“Then I have a lot of anniversary presents to catch up on.”
“You do,” I say. “But that’s a lot of pressure. Let’s make a deal.”
He pushes himself up on his elbow, gazing down at me as he twists a curl of my hair around his finger. “What do you want, then? Name your price.”
“What number would make you sweat a little?” I ask, grinning. “What would be just on the border of you saying no, but you’d still say yes? How about loving me for another six years, times ten?”
He does his best to look serious, but the smile never leaves his eyes. “Yes, sixty years is a very long time.”
“Then how about forever?”
“You’re a tough negotiator, Green-Weston.”
“I learned from the best.”
Liam grins, and there in his eyes is adoration and lust and promise and everything else I ever wanted. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”