29. Theo
Theo
“What’s wrong, Liv?” I stepped closer, looking down at her.
“Nothing.” Her voice sounded choked. “I’m fine.”
“Are you crying?” I said, horrified.
She shook her head, ducking it to avoid my gaze, and I put a careful hand on her shoulder. “What did your mother say to you?”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “I told you. It’s nothing.”
“This doesn’t look like nothing.” Lifting her chin, I wiped the tears from her face. “Tell me. What did she say?”
It all came spilling out then. Her parents’ accusations. The digs at her intelligence, her accomplishments. Her mother’s not-so-thinly-veiled threat. By the time she finished, my skin was tight with rage.
“This is total bullshit,” I seethed. “What the actual fuck? They treat you like a traitor.”
She shrugged, as if her parents’ behavior were par for the course. “I told you how they are. Like Richard and Emily Gilmore, except with the viciousness factor turned up to eleven.”
“It’s not okay.” Christ, how I wished I could stand up for her. Someone needed to, if only so she knew that there was another person in her corner. Because God, she seemed so alone.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at me from under wet, spiky lashes. “I don’t mean to drag you into my personal business.”
“You didn’t drag me. I asked.”
“I know, but I’m not normally this emotional.” She scrubbed at her face, wiping the tears away. “It’s just that this whole thing is so horrible. Whatever the truth is, someone lost their daughter, and my parents don’t even seem to care.”
At the sight of her reddened eyes, I had to fight the urge to snatch the phone out of her hand, call Kate Carter back, and tell her exactly where she could shove her accusations and demands. What more damage could it do?
“I think about Chloe, and how devastated I’d be if anything happened to her,” Liv went on.
“And then I think about what a shitty father Gray is, how she wanders around on the edge of that damn river and he doesn’t pay her the slightest bit of attention, all that crap about free range parenting, how children are meant to explore—” She bit the word off, wiping her cheeks furiously.
“And I shouldn’t bitch to you about Gray. I’m sorry…again.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I know all about shitty fathers.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
She slid her hand into mine, and I caught my breath at the electric feel of her touch. “He hurt you,” she said, quiet enough that I could pretend the words had been swallowed by the sound of passing cars.
“It doesn’t matter, Liv. It was a long time ago.”
“Of course it does.” Her voice was fierce.
I stared down at her, incredulous. Her tear-filled blue eyes were wide and bright with anger, her hair blowing in the breeze and her cheeks red from the cold. She looked like a tiger, cornered and ready to lash out at whoever had threatened her cub. And God, she was beautiful.
The hell with propriety, with whatever promises I’d made myself. “Liv,” I said, low-voiced. “Come here.”
My grip on her hand tightened, tugging her toward me.
And she came, her eyes fixed on my face, until she stood in the circle of my arms and I was kissing her, pressing her against me as if she might disappear if I let go.
She tasted like the salt from her tears and the hot chocolate she’d drunk in the café and she smelled like the ocean and I didn’t ever want to stop.
The feel of her hands in my hair, the frustratingly inaccessible shape of her through the padding of her coat, the heat of her mouth and the sensation of her tongue stroking mine—
I pulled back, gasping. She was looking up at me, her lips parted and her expression dazed. “Theo, what—”
“Olivia. Come home with me.”
Her copper brows drew down, and a line appeared between them again. “But we said…”
Once again, I wanted to smooth the line away, and this time, I gave in to the urge. “I know what we said. But—”
The two of us were here, together. We were adults. We could have a little fun, and never tell our families. It didn’t have to go any further than that.
“What I’m saying now is I want to be with you,” I said, brushing the thick fall of her hair back from her face. “Do you want me?”
She blushed, glancing around, but the passersby, true New Yorkers, studiously ignored us. Her voice dropped to a whisper and her cheeks heated when she answered, “Yes.”
“Then come.”
Keeping hold of her hand, I hailed a cab before she could change her mind.