6. Eva
6
EVA
W hile I was a coward to run away from Liam after we had sex in the closet, I refused to admit that I was still a coward to avoid him.
I shouldn’t have been stuck with this issue. He came to the engagement party. He saw. And he left. Right? Romeo and Tessa had countless guests over that night, and none of them lingered and stayed as a guest overnight in my uncle’s mansion.
But he had. Each time I stopped by the big house where Romeo and Tessa were staying while they dealt with more intense renovations at their house, I spotted Liam walking by. Or bumping into him in the kitchen. Or as he headed upstairs to the guest rooms.
He lingered. He hadn’t left yet, clearly. And each time we encountered each other, it was the same act of acting ignorant and dodging each other.
We’d freeze upon seeing each other, then a race would commence, one of seeing who could mask their surprise and annoyance the soonest.
Liam and I weren’t acknowledging each other. We didn’t speak a word of hello. Nothing. Not a single greeting.
I didn’t know what to say. He seemed ready to pretend he’d never even met me.
Which was fine. I didn’t need to talk to him, and I saw no point in reaching out to him and asking why he was still here. Maybe he and Tessa still wanted to catch up. They were old friends and all. Many guests visited for more than a few days. My uncle even opened up guest rooms for soldiers and members of the family who needed an alternative place to stay. It was that big of a mansion.
Just not big enough for me to forget Liam was there. Somewhere.
“But why is he still here?” I asked Nina one afternoon, a week after the engagement party. We were supposed to be browsing online for more decorations for her baby shower, but she was more interested in searching through baby name lists.
“Liam?” Nina glanced up and shrugged. “Seeing as he just got out of the military, he’s catching up.”
I furrowed my brow. The military? I wasn’t surprised. He had that sort of demeanor and aura. A man of combat. A man of a well-honed body tailored for endurance. That attitude and stiff cockiness. They all suited him, but I was slightly curious about this new fact I could obsess over.
“He was discharged?”
“Recently,” Nina answered, not looking up from the baby name lists yet. “I think he was wounded in combat and there is something that would prohibit him from active duty. Or full active duty?” She waved her hand, dismissing it. “I don’t remember all that jargon. My dad used to mention duty levels and such, and it always seemed so complex and confusing.”
Liam didn’t seem wounded or injured. I hadn’t seen all of him that night. Actually, I saw next to nothing since we hadn’t taken the time to remove our clothes—except my panties.
I slid my tongue along the seam of my closed lips, schooling myself to resist the blush that threatened to bloom.
My panties. Which I left on the damn floor in the closet… Unless he took them.
“Are you all right?” Nina frowned at me, and I flinched.
“Hmm? Yeah. I’m fine.”
Not fine. So, so far from fine. Because every time I thought about what that rugged man said and did to me, what I begged for him to do with me…
“You look warm.” Nina narrowed her eyes.
“Nah. It’s just the humidity in here.” While the pool was closed outside, the smaller indoor one in the solarium was just as nice. Neither of us wanted to get back in, preferring to lounge under the windows while our bathing suits dried.
“Oh.” Nina didn’t push it. If she saw me actually blushing, I’d never hear the end of it. I was too well-known to hide all my emotions.
“Anyway, he’s just left the military.” Nina sighed, closing her eyes and settling into the reclined chair.
“But how long is he going to stay here ?” I asked.
The sooner he left, the easier it would be to forget about him. That had to hold true. Because the longer he was around, he was nothing but a forbidden fruit I couldn’t want. Close enough to reach, but so far from what I should desire.
“I don’t know,” Nina said, frustrated. “It’s not like he’s in the way. He keeps to himself, and?—”
“Who’s not in the way?” Tessa asked as she entered the solarium, joining us. She looked between me and Nina as she took off her cover up, clearly planning to get into the pool.
“Liam.” Nina rolled her eyes. “Miss Uncongeniality over here is asking why he’s still visiting.”
Tessa huffed. “Leave him be.”
Uh, way too late for that piece of advice. He’d told me himself to leave him alone, and that was just a way of throwing fuel onto the fire of wanting him.
“I don’t understand why he’s got to visit for so long.”
“Maybe it’s more than a visit,” Tessa argued, defensive and curt. She stepped into the heated pool but kept her focus on me.
“He’s moving here?” God, no. No, no, no. I needed him to go and stop messing with me. He might have said that he’d ruin me as a smug, self-centered man who thought he was God’s gift to womankind. But he had ruined me, at least in this case of temporary insanity.
I'd caught myself mentally replaying the terse arguments we had, brief though they were. I thought about him before I fell asleep, damning him for challenging me. I slept and experienced illicit dreams of him kissing me and fucking me harder, everywhere. And I would be so damn grateful for a break from wanting him. He’d burrowed in so deep that I couldn’t shake my mind from all thoughts of him, and it was grating on my nerves.
“Why?” I blurted the simple question before I could stop myself.
Nina and Tessa both faced me, suspicion clear in their expressions.
“What do you mean, why ?” Tessa asked. “There’s more than enough room here. He’s not in your way, in anyone’s way.”
Oh, au contraire, Tess. He is. He is so totally in my way—mentally.
I was so frustrated with wanting him again that I was half-tempted to leave for an impulsive vacation far, far from here.
A change of scenery would surely cure this stupid fixation, one I had no business having for someone like him, an outsider who didn’t seem to care who I was in this organization.
“He’s my guest. My friend.”
I raked my teeth over my lower lip. “Yeah. I know. I get that. But?—”
“No but .” Tessa narrowed her eyes again, not happy with how I questioned her. She’d struggled with thinking that she fit in with us, that she could be a real part of the Constella Family. I bet a lot of that doubt took root when the Giovannis tried to kidnap Nina but dismissed Tessa, claiming she was just a piece of ass to Romeo. How wrong they were. Tessa was irrefutably part of our family, and she belonged with my cousin.
“Liam is as welcome here as anyone else acquainted with the Constella Family. Even though Liam’s my friend and someone I knew before I met you all, he’s just as worthy of staying here.”
I looked away, not wanting to make this an issue about her importance here. If she wanted to invite a guest to stay here at any of the Constella properties, then she could. I didn’t care. I just wanted him gone, to remove the temptation so I could go back to being my usual sort of miserable.
“He is welcome to stay for as long as he wants,” Nina said.
“And if that takes a while, until he figures out what he’s going to do next, then so be it,” Tessa concluded.
“Until he figures out what to do?” I asked, shaking my head. “Why? Because he just got out of the military?” A memory clicked. Before the engagement party, I walked through the kitchen and overheard these two women talking about someone getting a job. I pointed at Tessa. “Is that what you two were talking about before the party? That someone needs a job?”
Tessa nodded. “Yes. A job and a place to stay.” She glanced at Nina. “I don’t see why he can’t just work for the family, but he’s been… stubborn about that.”
Oh, fuck no. If Liam were recruited as a soldier, I’d be stuck with this forbidden attraction for good. “Stubborn how?”
“He’s too quick to label us all as Mafia gangsters. Automatically, the bad guys—oh, hey!” Nina brightened as someone else entered the solarium. “Time for some fun in the water.”
A tiny little voice of glee reached my ears. It sounded an awful lot like a baby, but there weren’t any kids around here.
Frowning, I slowly turned to see Liam stride into the room. In his arms was proof of my ignorance.
There was a kid in the house, and not the baby still in Nina’s belly.
He held one, a sweet, smiling, golden-haired toddler. She clapped and kicked as she saw Tessa in the water.
“Are you…”
A father? That child had to be his. The family resemblance was so obvious. But…
“Are you shitting me?” I asked, stunned and stupefied as I took in the package look of Liam and his daughter. Seeing him in a tight T-shirt and swim shorts was mouth-watering enough. But seeing him with a baby?’
Oh, fuck no.
“What…” I shook my head, having the slightest clarity of mind to stop gawking. “What is this?”
A joke?
Liam glanced at me coolly. If I hadn’t already been staring at him, I might have missed the subtle way he faltered, almost like a double-take at seeing me in my bikini. He reverted to that stony stoicism, though, returning his attention to the toddler in his arms. “Want to swim with Aunt Tess?”
Oh, fuck me. This was too much. He was gorgeous enough, so ripped and hardened in that perfectly masculine manner of melting my panties off. But knowing he was a dad?
I was mush, unable to tear my stare from them.
She was so small and secure in his big, strong arms. Something about the image of this rough-and-tumble man being so gentle and protective of that innocent little girl made me see him in another light. That he wasn’t just the dirty-talking, smug, expert lover who could rock my world in a quickie. He was also a parent. A caregiver. Someone who gave his all for someone else.
Dammit. I’d never cared much for the expression of ovaries exploding, but I understood it now. Maybe it was hormones. Maybe it was stupidity. But seeing Liam with a baby was a potent tease.
“Eva, meet Olivia,” Tessa said, smirking at me. She smiled widely, entertained with how surprised I was to see that Liam had a baby girl. “Isn’t she the cutest?”
I numbly nodded, overwhelmed with this new fact I’d need to dissect about the man I shouldn’t want.
“She’s darling,” I replied as I hurried to scramble off my chair. “Really… darling.”
I turned and escaped the room, unable to face that man, especially with how much hotter he looked as a father.