Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Athena
Agreeing to have dinner with Liam was a bad idea.
I knew that as soon as I left his apartment, but I promised myself that I’d give it a day or two before I sent him a text telling him that I changed my mind.
That day or two morphed into an entire week.
Now, I’m sitting across from him in a crowded restaurant while he tries to get rid of a woman who approached us as soon as we sat down.
I’m no expert on spotting former lovers, but the way she licked her lips when she saw him and tousled her brown hair, made it crystal clear that they’re more than casual acquaintances.
“I thought you were dating someone named Robin.” The woman eyes me up.
“Wren,” Liam corrects her with a glance at me. “That’s over now.”
I reach over to the basket in the middle of the table filled with warmish breadsticks. The waiter plopped it down before he took our drink orders.
It was water for both of us again.
We’re sitting in a massive seafood restaurant in the heart of Times Square. It gets high marks from tourists and New Yorkers alike because it’s part of a nationwide chain. You know exactly what you’ll get when you walk through the doors.
I admit I love shrimp and lobster as much as the next person. I’ve just never been to a place where someone dressed in a pirate costume delivers it to the table.
I hear someone shouting, “Ahoy Matey” in the distance.
“So Athena.” The woman enamored with Liam enunciates each syllable of my name with a tick of her finger in the air. “How long have you two been friendly?”
Taking a bite of the breadstick, I defer that question to Liam with a lift of my brows.
“If you’ll excuse us, Darcy.” Liam shifts in his chair so he’s facing me directly. “Athena and I were in the middle of a conversation.”
We weren’t, but I appreciate his effort to get her to scram.
Darcy shoots me the same look that she gave me when Liam first introduced us. He fumbled over what to call me, so I interjected and called myself his friend as I offered her my hand.
Manners matter, after all.
“If you need anything, I’m here for you.” Darcy juts her chest out. Her tits are already straining against the tight white T-shirt she’s wearing.
It would be my luck that Liam’s former lover opted to wear black leather pants the same night that I did.
Her T-shirt is winning the battle over my black sweater mostly because I’m wearing a bra, and Darcy clearly isn’t.
The air conditioning in this place is working to her advantage.
Liam doesn’t take the bait. He keeps his gaze leveled on my face.
“Well, bye for now, Liam?” Her hands drop to her hips.
Is that a question?
He waves a hand over his shoulder without looking at her.
As she saunters away, shaking her ass, I break out a smile. “She seems nice.”
Laughing, he glances around. “Would you be upset if we got out of here? I know you like the food at this place, but…”
“I like the food at this place?” I shake my head. “I don’t. I’ve never been here before.”
“You order take-out from here though.”
He has me confused with someone else, with another woman.
Humiliation creeps over me, flushing my cheeks with a pink hue.
“When I threw the broken glass from the vase in the trash at Wild Lilac, I saw a cardboard container in there with the name of this place stamped on it.” He glances at a group of pirates singing Happy Birthday to a woman wearing a tiara.
“And their take-out menu was sitting on the counter when I paid for my mom’s flowers. ”
Leanna.
She’s always ordering something for lunch. I’ve never taken her up on her offer to share because I know that Al loves the leftovers.
“Someone I work with has been ordering food from here.” I watch as the woman in the tiara stands to give a speech.
“Dammit.” Liam rests both elbows on the table. “I’ll never cut it as a detective.”
I’m touched that he took the clues he found at my shop and ran with them.
“What are you in the mood for?” he asks just as his phone starts up on a ring.
His gaze cuts to where it’s sitting on the table. His hand reaches out once he sees the name that’s popped up on the screen.
“I have to take this.” Shooting me an apologetic look, he brings the phone to his ear.
I’d excuse myself to give him privacy, but he’s on his feet headed straight for the exit before I can say a word.
When Liam pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his forearms, my gaze drifts over the shaded ink that covers his skin.
“Tell me about your tattoo, Athena.”
I didn’t think he would remember. I thought when I mentioned it last week that it had gotten lost in the moment.
Twirling around, I lift my hair to show him the back of my neck. “It’s there.”
I feel his breath graze over the exposed skin. It sends a shiver through me straight to my core.
“It’s a flower,” he whispers. “What is that? A lilac?”
I stay in place too long, my hair bunched in my hand, my heart twisting in my chest, and the spot between my legs aching.
“One lilac,” I say quietly into the night air.
“It’s beautiful.”
I close my eyes, willing him to reach out to run a fingertip over it, but I sense the second he pulls back.
My hair falls from my hand as I spin back around to face him.
“I’m sorry again for what happened at the restaurant.”
It’s the second apology he’s offered since we left Times Square. A client had called him. It was someone who had lost a spouse. They needed a few minutes of Liam’s time to get them through the hours until they could see him in his office tomorrow.
I’ve suffered loss in my life but not that final.
The person I lost is sitting in a jail cell upstate. She’s rotting away because she chose a man and money over everything else. The price my mother paid for her pursuit of happiness cost her a future with my brothers and me.
“Where should we eat?” He looks around at the shops that are shuttered and the restaurants that are boasting lines of diners waiting patiently for a table. A couple brushes past us with a pizza box in their hands.
I make a suggestion I hope I won’t regret. “We could pick up a pizza to go.”
“To go?” His left brow arches in surprise. “Back to your place or mine?”
I’m not ready to take him home with me yet, so I opt for the closer choice. “Your place isn’t far from here. Let’s go there.”
Staring at me, a smile ghosts his mouth. “Pizza at my place? I’m in.”