Chapter 24 Andrea
Andrea
I looked at the man next to me. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, the muscles of his upper arm distractingly visible as he eased past a Honda.
Liam had apologized.
Not what I’d expected, especially after the nightmare with Kai at his place. It would have been easier if he’d stayed the man I was angry with.
Now he wasn’t, and that felt … complicated.
His voice had been soft when he’d told me what he’d been thinking, like he felt embarrassed and didn’t quite know what to say. It hit me hard in the stomach just remembering it.
When I’d told Eliza he’d said sorry, she looked at me with an expression that said, “I told you so.” But she didn’t say anything, just raised her brows and got back to her books.
An apology from Liam was a big deal. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who was used to getting things wrong.
“What do you want to listen to?” he said. “Eighties froth, or something more modern?”
“Definitely eighties froth.” It still seemed surprising, this side of him that he didn’t show at his corporate meetings and ministerial negotiations. I suppose he couldn’t.
“Hey, Siri,” he said. “Play All Out Eighties on Spotify.” Diana Ross’s “Upside Down” started playing from the speakers, and Liam looked over at me with a grin, one tanned hand on the wheel, his head bobbing. How could someone’s hands be so absurdly attractive?
“So what’s this speech about?” I asked, looking out the window. It was Wednesday afternoon, a week since we’d been sitting together on the floor of his panic room and he’d brought up what had happened in my flat.
God, the memory of his hands on my skin, opening me up, his breath on my neck. He’d been so close to me, and all I’d wanted to do was lean into it, into him. Had he felt the same?
He’d been about to ask me something else, I knew he had.
But what?
The gray sky was wider now, and the fields opened out on either side of the motorway. London seemed miles away. In two days, we’d be in France.
“Hugo invited me without a lot of notice,” he said. “It’s a good sign. Bonnie thinks he’s testing the waters to gauge how an association with me might land. The Oxford Union’s a good place for that. He’ll get feedback from people who matter.”
“I don’t understand why a minister would speak at a student union, or why anyone who ‘matters’ would be there,” I said.
Liam laughed. “The Oxford Union isn’t the student union. It’s a debating society—kind of a training ground for politicians. It’s where half the cabinet learned to argue.”
“Oh. Right.” We didn’t have anything like that at London Met.
“Sorry, Oxford can be a bit … pretentious,” he said.
Thank God I’d brought a nice dress.
“Weren’t you intimidated?” I asked.
“Not really. The school I went to was basically like a smaller version of it. A feeder school for the university, actually.”
Bloody hell.
“This thing at the Union tonight’s a closed summer policy forum,” he continued, like I’d know what that meant.
“Hugo’s giving the keynote, and I’m doing a short industry address.
Mostly NHS people, academics, a few donors.
Hardly any press. We’ll go for drinks afterward at Christ Church, Hugo’s old college, mine too.
Just a small thing in the senior common room. ”
“But I thought you went to Oxford University, not a college?”
“Ah, yes, sorry. The university’s made of dozens of colleges. Each of them thinks it’s its own little kingdom. Bonnie went there as well, just not Christ Church.”
Of course Bonnie had gone there. She’d fit right in. She had that polished private school air, a sort of confidence I’d never be able to fake. I felt stupid again. His world was too much for me, complicated and strange, with rules I didn’t understand.
He glanced over, taking his eyes off the road for a second. “I know. It’s a bit different, but I think you’ll like it.”
I looked out the window, noting how everything was damp from the drizzle.
“Do you go back there much?” I asked. “To Oxford.”
“Not often. Most of my friends from those days moved away.”
Hard to imagine Liam at uni, hanging out with a bunch of friends. Had he been different then? Maybe he’d had a girlfriend or someone special.
“My mum lives nearby,” he added, like an afterthought. “I used to visit her quite a bit, but I haven’t seen her much since I joined the RAF.”
“Oh.” I looked at him. His voice had dropped, and a small furrow had formed between his brows. “You mentioned that was hard because of all your travel. Do you think you might see her now that you’re back?”
He didn’t reply. I felt like I’d pressed on something tender.
After a while, he said, “I know I should. She was upset when I joined the service. She was worried about me. She thought it was dangerous, and it made me feel like I was … hurting her.”
Ouch.
“I think all mums worry about their kids, Liam,” I said softly. “Don’t you want to see her?”
He paused. “I do. Just … something happened when I went off to Afghanistan. I was convinced it would be okay since the war was supposed to be over. We weren’t meant to be fighting. But then—”
He’d stopped tapping to the music.
“I had a bad phase,” he said eventually, without looking at me. He kept his eyes on the road like the words were somewhere out there in the rain instead of in the car with us.
The space went very quiet, and I had the sense he’d let me see something I wasn’t meant to. I thought of his scars. He knew I’d seen them, touched them even.
After a moment, he glanced across like he was checking whether I’d laugh or worse, pity him.
I just looked back and didn’t say anything.
His fingers shifted slightly on the leather steering wheel, and for a second, the gap between us felt smaller than the car itself.
“Anyway,” he said, then looked back at the road.
“Was your dad worried, too,” I asked, “about you joining the army?”
“Air Force.”
“Right, sorry.” I tried to imagine Liam’s dad, the rich old man we’d all thought was buying the company.
He’d seemed like a horrible joke back then—like he wasn’t even real—sitting on his big pile of gold, preparing to destroy Novexia.
The thought of him being someone Liam was related to made my throat feel tight.
He paused. “My father wasn’t happy about it, but only because he thought I could do better.”
Better than being an officer in the Air Force?
“Oh. That doesn’t sound very nice.”
“It’s okay. He just … had this thing about being a self-made man. Anything else was childish, a waste of time as far as he was concerned. He was quite ruthless, I suppose. Made his fortune in real estate and then he used that to—oh, you know that part.”
He gave a small laugh, but it didn’t sound real.
My chest twisted. This mattered more than he was letting on, I knew it. I wanted to lay a hand on his leg to let him know I got it and he didn’t have to explain, but instead, I sat there quietly.
“He must be proud of what you’ve achieved since then,” I said.
“Proud?” Liam scoffed softly. “Things are very black and white to Wilhelm. You do things his way, because that’s the way things have to be done.”
I’d always felt like I’d been cheated when my dad died, but having a father who thought you were a disappointment must have been worse, if that was possible. Liam had been successful at everything he’d ever done, from what I could tell. How could his father have been disappointed?
He glanced across quickly, like he wished he hadn’t said so much again, and I held his gaze a second longer than usual. Then he flicked the indicator and turned his attention back to the road. We were nearly there.
What would it be like tonight, seeing Liam speak at this event?
The last time I’d seen him make any kind of public address was at Novexia, when everything had gone wrong.
God, that had been mortifying. The moment I realized the man I’d slept with was Wilhelm von Roth Jr. Not his father—far from it—but definitely not a sweet, funny gym instructor.
Who would I see tonight? The cold, scary one, who dealt with politicians and captains of industry, or the funny Snuggie guy with his crooked smile and the sense that he wasn’t quite comfortable pretending?
By the sounds of the Oxford Union, we wouldn’t be in Snuggie territory.
“Thanks for doing this, Andrea,” he said. We pulled up to the traffic lights, and he glanced at me again, like he was searching for something in my eyes. “I know this is all”—he waved a hand—“contractual. But it matters, you being here with me.”
It mattered to me too, more than it should have.
But that had nothing to do with Novexia and Hugo, and everything to do with what happened to my heart every time he looked at me like that.
“You’re welcome, Liam,” I said.
And I meant it.
*
The hotel reception was stunning. Wide, wooden floorboards ran the length of the space, broken up by dark patterned rugs.
The ceiling rose high above pale-blue-and-white-striped walls, and tall Gothic arches framed the room.
A white staircase with a runner fixed along the center curved upward behind the front desk, the counter made of paneled wood with carved lettering across the front.
The Radcliffe Hotel was right in the city center, about three minutes’ walk from the Union, according to Liam. If Liam and I could have just hung out here, I wouldn’t have minded.
“My suite’s next door,” he said. “We don’t have to be there till five thirty, so if you want to order room service, we’ve got an hour. No time to go for a sit-down dinner before the address, I’m afraid. I’m still finishing off my speech.” He gave me a small smile and left.
For a second, I thought he might say something else, but he didn’t.
Crap. He was next door.
Close enough that the connecting door between our suites suddenly felt … noticeable.
He’d be sleeping on the other side of it.
All night.