Chapter 31 Andrea #2
“Right.” I felt myself flush. Fuck, that must have been awful. Never knowing if someone liked you for who you were or what you had. Had I made him feel like that? With the NDA, and the ten thousand pounds, and the designer dresses, and the rides in the private jet? If I had, I hadn’t meant to.
“I never thought of it like that before,” I said. “Like wealth was a handicap.”
“Why would you? It’s not exactly something you can talk about. It would sound rather—”
“Yeah.”
Spoiled, ungrateful. Entitled. Exactly what we’d thought of him at first.
Liam wasn’t any of those things.
“But … how can you ever know?” I asked. “If something’s real, when you have all this … money.” He must have felt like he was trapped inside a nightmare where every smile could be fake, every touch calculated, every woman mentally assessing his worth.
He laughed again. “You can’t, that’s the problem. You can never live life like that again, once you’ve got it. Unless you met someone who didn’t—”
“What?”
“Someone who didn’t … know.”
I felt a wave of warmth radiate from my stomach to my chest. Maybe what we’d had together that first afternoon had felt so special because … it was?
We walked along in silence for a few minutes, his hand warm around mine.
“Anyway, enough about me,” he said. “Who worries about you? I’ve met your sister, but I get the feeling you do more of the worrying there. What about your parents? Do they micromanage you like Bonnie does me?”
“Oh yeah. Well, not exactly.” Mum was warm and lovely, but she’d pretty much stopped looking after Eliza and me when Dad passed away.
“No?”
“My dad died in a car crash when I was fifteen.”
I heard him draw in a soft breath.
“Fuck, Andrea. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind talking about it.” I felt a slight lump in my throat, but I swallowed it.
He didn’t say anything, just squeezed my hand again. It was funny, but telling Liam about it—the worst thing that had ever happened to us—didn’t feel awkward like it had when I’d told boyfriends before. I felt like Liam would just … handle it.
We kept walking, the light through the trees making us squint.
“Anyway. It hit my mum pretty hard. She was so depressed she couldn’t really get out of bed for a few years, so I kind of took care of everything myself.”
“At fifteen?”
“Well, I had a couple of uncles. They helped a bit.”
The admission felt scratchy and painful in my chest. I looked over at him to check his reaction, but he didn’t seem shocked and uncomfortable like some people did.
“She’s better now,” I said. “Not exactly responsible, but at least—well. She’s not depressed anymore. She even has a boyfriend.” I laughed a little. “She’s doing okay.”
We passed under a row of beech trees, their leaves filtering the light to a soft green haze. The only sound was our feet crunching on the pathway and the low hum of crickets.
“So Bonnie’s never been your girlfriend, then?” I asked, keen to change the subject. An image of her draped over Liam like one of those women in the photos we’d found online popped into my mind. Had they slept together, maybe just once?
“Oh, no, definitely not.” Liam laughed, like the idea was mildly horrifying. “She’s kind of the anti-girlfriend, more like a big sister. Anything more would just be … God, no.”
“Oh, okay.”
We walked out from under the canopy of leaves. In ten minutes, we’d be back at the car.
“And what about you?” he asked. “You said you’d just broken up with that guy before we met. Randy, was it?”
I sniggered. “Rudy.”
“Right. That must have been upsetting.”
“Not really. I mean, at first, yes, but … he was kind of unreliable.” How had it taken me so long to see that Rudy was basically a loser? Having someone next to me like Liam—a man who checked to see if I was okay, noticed when I was upset, protected me—made it all seem so obvious.
“And then he cheated on me with a waitress,” I added.
“He cheated on you? Jesus, what a moron …”
“Yeah …”
“Unless—”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“WHAT?”
“Just wondering if he found out about your habit of jumping on men you barely know. I mean, that could really mess with a guy’s head.”
“Liam!”
He snorted.
“It is not a habit.”
“Oh, just me then?”
I turned to him, my mouth hanging open. “You know that was your fault.”
“Oh, I know.” He was really laughing now. “Sorry, Andrea, at the meeting that morning, when I first started … it was terrible.”
I started to laugh too. “It was, wasn’t it? It was really bad.”
“Gerald was so freaked out that he told Bonnie he thought he might be having a stroke.”
“A stroke? Oh my God.”
“Ah, he was fine, just highly strung. Although Bonnie seems to have calmed him down a bit now.” He shook his head and chuckled. “You know, you did do it to me twice, though. Technically, that’s a habit.”
“I did not.”
“The art gallery. C’mon. You kind of threw yourself at me.” He glanced at me with his side-eye.
“That was an accident, and you know it.”
“Bonnie was convinced you were stalking me.”
“Stalking you?” I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow. “You should be so lucky.”
“Well, you can tell me some time what you were really doing there. I didn’t think it was on the off chance I’d be hanging out there stalking a cabinet minister.”
“Ah, so you’re the stalker here. You know that’s called projection, right?”
“Sure, Andrea. I suppose you didn’t roll on top of me in the lift, either?” He raised a brow and sneaked another look at me.
“Roll on top … are you serious? That was definitely, one hundred percent, all you.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “That one was.”
We were still laughing when the chateau came back into view, sunlight flashing off its windows.
Just as the path started to climb, my sandal slid on the gravel, and Liam’s hand came around my arm and caught me like he’d been expecting it. His fingers tightened, then loosened just enough to hold me upright. It was fine. Nothing.
I laughed and tried to straighten, but his hand stayed where it was, warm against my elbow.
“Careful,” he said.
“Thanks.”
We stood there without moving, and his thumb moved once, barely.
I looked up at him. There was a small scar under his chin I’d never noticed.
He opened his mouth, then from the terrace came Dex’s voice, echoing across the lawn.
“Oi! Lovers’ stroll’s over, Roth. The horses beat you back.”
“Guess that’s our cue,” he said.
He dropped my arm, but his eyes stayed on my face.
“Guess it is.”
We turned and started the walk up the hill.
Technically, I was more prepared than I’d ever been for the evening’s events.
I’d memorized all the phrases, the Dos and Don’ts.
My outfits, my nails, my performance were all polished—ready to convince the world that we were real, that Liam was exactly the sort of man a cabinet minister could put his trust in, and I was the sort of woman who would love and support him while he did so.
I had it all locked down like I’d been revising for this moment for weeks.
So why did I feel like I wasn’t ready at all for whatever was coming next?