Chapter 8 Owen
Owen
“Liv, I’m so sorry,” I whisper as soon as the valet disappears to get my car.
She doesn’t say a word, but she doesn’t let go of my hand either—still clutching it like she has since we walked out of the ballroom.
I remind myself it’s just part of the act, a performance until we’re out of sight of her parents and their curious friends.
I can’t believe I spoke to her mother like that.
But that same instinct I felt in the bar last night—that primal need to protect her—came rushing back the moment Marlowe Arden started picking her apart.
From the way she wore her hair—those gorgeous, soft curls she called “messy.” To what she ate—I thought she might actually slap Liv’s hand.
To her career, which, from what I learned earlier, thanks to a deep dive on Google, is nothing short of exceptional.
My rental car appears over the rise of the driveway, and I wait while the valet holds the door open for Liv as she tucks her dress inside.
After tipping the guy, I hurry around to the driver’s side.
I glance at Liv, but she’s just staring straight ahead.
I’m ready to beg for forgiveness, call her an Uber, or even go back inside and apologize to her parents—whatever it takes to get her to talk to me again.
“I’m starving,” she says, turning to flash me a wry smile, like I hadn’t just insulted her mother within minutes of meeting her. “Want to go get pizza in North Beach?”
“Um…” I stammer, “Yeah, I do.” And I ease the car out of the yacht club parking lot and head across town.
“How did you know all that about me?” she asks as we walk away from the late-night pizza stand. She’s balancing a slice of pepperoni on a plate and wearing my suit jacket. I like the way it looks on her.
I take a bite of my slice before shrugging, “Google?” The fact was, I spent so much time looking her up online this afternoon that I felt like a creepy stalker.
“Why?” She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and I worry that she also thinks I’m a creepy stalker. But the look in her eyes—something like hope and maybe gratitude—allows me to answer.
“I guess I wanted to make sure I was prepared for tonight. Before meeting a potential client, I do as much research as I can to make sure I come across as interested and well-informed. I was meeting your parents and people who would obviously know the specifics of your life.”
Liv nods, but the light in her eyes fades just a little.
Her smile doesn’t quite reach the corners of her mouth.
I clear my throat, suddenly unsure. “But I also meant what I said to your mother.” I glance at her, trying to read her face.
“You’re…you’re the most fascinating person I think I’ve ever met. ”
“Your newest client, Senator Langford, was raised in a cult, practically kidnapped her three younger siblings to raise them herself, and now she’s the Democrats’ best shot at the White House,” she counters.
“Like I said, you’re the most fascinating person I’ve ever met,” I say, taking a bite of my pizza to keep from saying too much. Liv seems content with that, and we fall into step again.
“Is the Eli you were visiting in my apartment Elijah Thorne?” she asks when we reach what looks like an abandoned lot turned parklet—string lights stretch between two buildings, casting a soft glow over benches and picnic tables.
“Yeah, he uses a pen name.” I nod towards a small table in the space. It’s buzzing with people eating pizza or ice cream, couples leaning close on benches, families enjoying the rare warm evening.
“Huh,” she muses, taking a seat. “A Pulitzer winner in my building. I thought he was some weirdo holed up in there doing Nigerian prince scams or in the witness protection program.”
I let out a genuine laugh. “Eli is complicated.” I take a sip of my soda.
I rarely share details about my clients’ lives, but then again, I never offer to fake date a stranger either.
However, something about Liv—the way she carries herself and the little sly glint behind her eyes—makes me want to tell her everything.
Hell, she could probably get me to believe she was a Nigerian prince.
“Eli had a rough childhood, and then success came fast. I think he hasn’t figured out how to reconcile the two. ”
“Who you thought you were and who you end up being?” Liv says. And I nod. “I get that.”
“He just needs someone who believes in him. I want to be that for him,” I say.
“Well, I’ll be nicer to him at the mailbox now that I know he’s not some creepy dude watching internet porn from his penthouse.”
I almost choke on my soda with a surprised laugh, and it pulls a smile from Liv. Suddenly, all I can think about is how to make her do it again.
We watch the delightful chaos in front of us for a few moments—kids darting across a makeshift stage at the back of the lot, dogs sniffing each other, people laughing loudly.
Liv pulls my jacket tighter around her shoulders and leans into me, slightly, almost without realizing it.
For a second, I almost wish her mother were here to give me an excuse to slip my arm around her.
“So your mom.” I begin cautiously. “Is she always…”
“A total bitch? Yeah, pretty much.” Liv answers, popping the last of her pizza crust into her mouth.
“I was going to say, ‘that intense.’”
Liv lets out a long sigh, and I’m instantly sorry I brought up her mom.
“You know what you said in my lobby earlier about our families getting in our business because they love us? I think that’s what my mom believes she’s doing.
” She stops talking, and I think that’s all I’m going to get of the Marlowe Adren story, but then Liv turns on the bench to face me directly, her eyes momentarily searching my face, maybe for permission. I fight the urge again to touch her.
“I think I’ve never truly lived up to my parents’ expectations of me,” she continues. “Like I’m never quite enough. No matter how many things I do right, my mom finds some way that I let her down.”
“Everything you’ve done in your career? It’s not enough for her?” I ask, not sure if I’m out of line.
“Oh, my career is a huge thing. Like, as a kid, I was obsessed with video games—totally in love with them. But my parents flat-out refused to let me have any kind of gaming console.” She glances up at me.
“That’s actually how I got into computers.
I had one, but I wasn’t allowed to download anything fun, so I…
taught myself how to code my own games.”
“See, I was right, totally badass,” I tell her, and that earns me another smile.
“So after high school, I thought if I went to a top school, got perfect grades, became some kind of tech powerhouse, they’d have to respect it, you know?
But they still dismissed it. Said I majored in video games and weed.
” She shook her head. “I’ve never even smoked pot, Owen.
It’s like it was never enough or the right enough for them. ”
“But your brother’s a surf instructor?” My head tips to the side, studying her. “I mean, that sounds pretty badass too. Does he get the same third degree?”
Liv shrugs. “Maybe at first. But he’s never cared about pleasing them, so they stopped trying somewhere around high school.
He’s only two years older than me, but they figured out pretty quickly I was the more…
pliable one. Easier to mold. So they just let him go and focused on me instead. Honestly? I’m jealous.”
“If they only love the version of you they can control…then they’re missing the best parts.”
She glances at me, surprised, like she wasn’t expecting anyone to say it out loud. Her fingers fidget with the cuff of my jacket around her shoulders before she gives the faintest shake of her head and looks away. But there’s something softer in her expression now, and I hope she heard me, anyway.
“Ice cream?” I say, changing the subject, and point at the little cart in the courtyard.
Liv smiles and stands.
“Sit,” I encourage. “I’ll bring it to you. What flavor?”
“Cookies and cream.”
“My favorite, too,” I say, barely above a whisper.
I return with two bowls, and we both take a few bites before she speaks again.
“Tonight,” she goes on, softer now, but like she wants to, “she specifically told me not to wear yellow. So, of course, I wore this dress,” she says, gesturing to herself. “Because apparently, I should only wear jewel tones.”
“Wait, your mom told you not to wear yellow?” My blood pressure rises.
“Yeah. She says it washes me out.” She rolls her eyes. “Then she didn’t even mention the dress—just said I should’ve worn my hair up.”
“For the record, that dress is incredible on you,” I say. “And you wore that yellow top last night, right? I didn’t notice any washing out.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You remember what I was wearing last night?”
I want to tell her I not only remember the shirt she was wearing—a pale yellow blouse with billowy sleeves, still speckled from the rain she’d been caught in, thin enough that I could see the ridge of her collarbone and the faint outline of her bra through the fabric.
That I’d noticed how she smelled when I got close—marshmallows and honeysuckle, with a hint of the bourbon she’d been sipping.
I want her to know I’d clocked the way she nervously tapped her middle finger on the bar when that guy wouldn’t leave her alone.
But mostly, I remember how her breath hitched—just slightly—when I leaned in to kiss her.
“My sisters are eleven months apart and eight years older than me,” I say instead. “They are best friends, and I was their living doll from the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. I’ve worn more dresses in my life than you probably have.”
Liv lets out a laugh that I want to bottle.
“Your family sounds great. Like they’re busybodies, but they actually care.” And there is a little sadness behind Liv’s eyes.
“Yeah, they do.” Sometimes a little too much.
My phone blasts out the chorus to “We Are Family,” and I quickly silence it. “Speak of the twin devils…that’s my sisters’ ringtone,” I say by way of explanation.
“You can take it if you need to,” Liv says, putting a spoonful of her cookies and cream into her mouth in a way that makes me jealous of the spoon.
“No,” I roll my eyes playfully, “they will never let me off the phone, and especially if they know I’m still with you.”
“You told your sisters about this?” Liv asks, a note of concern in her voice.
“I told them I was helping a friend who needed a plus one tonight,” I say, keeping it simple.
She leans in. “What did they say?”
“They said it was very on brand for me,” I reply with a small smile, taking another bite of my ice cream. I don’t mention their warning about coming on too strong and scaring her off.
Liv chuckles softly. “I get it. You strike me as the ‘save-the-day’ kind of guy.”
“You’re staying at the Whitmore?”
My eyes dart to hers and my dick responds embarrassingly to her asking which hotel I’m staying at.
“Um, yeah.” I try to shift subtly in my car seat at the image of her in my hotel room.
Those brown curls fanning out over my pillow, her creamy skin naked, tangled in the white sheets, her cheeks flushed from—oh my god, Owen, get it together.
I clear my throat. “It’s nice, understated, close to Eli. ”
“It’s next door to Bar None. That explains why you were there last night.”
“Yeah,” my voice comes out in a little squeak. She looks over, and the streetlight casts a beautiful glow across her skin. She is radiant.
“So you have a parking spot there? At the Whitmore?”
My breath hitches a little, and I just nod.
“Want to park and grab a drink?”
I nod again and try to swallow the lump growing in my throat.
“Then I’m only two blocks away. I can walk home.”
My hope and my dick deflate and that lump in my throat turns into a stone in my stomach.
But I snap out of it. I did her a favor; we’re fake dating for one night, and that’s over.
We had a nice time getting a slice of pizza, and now we’re going to grab one drink before we go our separate ways with a handshake and nothing more.
An hour later, after we’ve nursed our bourbons for as long as we realistically can, I still don’t want the night to end. “Can I walk you home?”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that. I walk home from Bar None all the time.”
I should agree. I should say goodnight, shake her hand, and head upstairs to my hotel room.
“But your sisters would be disappointed in you if you didn’t walk a lady home?” she continues, raising an eyebrow in a mocking smirk.
“Very disappointed,” I confirm as solemnly as I can while my heart hammers around my chest like a Looney Tunes character.
“Let’s go then,” she says with a smile, and I toss a few twenties on the bar—completely unconcerned with the change. I follow her out the door, the same one I’d stared at last night, wishing I’d had the nerve to chase after her then.
God—was it only last night that I met this beautiful stranger? It feels like I’ve known Liv my whole life.
It’s cooled off when we step out of the bar, the quintessential San Francisco fog having slid back into Liv’s neighborhood. She’s still wearing my jacket, and I want to climb back inside it with her still in it.
We make small talk until her building appears, the two blocks feeling like two steps. I watch her punch her code into the keypad. I’m not sure if I should leave her here or walk her all the way to her apartment door, but she holds the glass door for me, so I follow her inside.
“Owen,” she says, turning to face me when we reach her door, “I never thought I would be thanking someone for being my fake fiancé, but once again, Thank you for pretending to be in love with me to get me out of a yet another compromising situation.”
She bites her lip, and before I can stop myself, my hand cups her jaw. Her brown eyes widen, and I catch the subtle quickening of her breath, the way her pupils darken at my touch. I pause, waiting, when she leans in just slightly.
“I know we’ve been pretending tonight,” I say softly, “but I’d like to kiss you for real. Would that be okay?”
She nods, sliding her hands up my chest to balance on me before leaning in and pressing our mouths together.
My hand moves from her jaw to her nape as she parts her lips slightly, letting me deepen the kiss.
She tastes like ice cream, bourbon, and possibility.
But I pull away before I get myself into trouble I can’t come back from.
“Andy is out for the night, dog sitting in Pac Heights,” she says, fingering my tie, her breathing a little ragged.
Too late.