Chapter 46 Liam
Liam
Andrea hadn’t answered my calls or returned my texts, apart from one last message two days ago:
LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
That was pretty clear.
It had been three days now, and while I’d seen her in the office briefly, she avoided eye contact. I wanted to be angry for how she’d shut me out without even giving me a chance, but instead, I was just … sad.
It was like we didn’t know each other. How was that possible, after how close we’d been?
Every time I saw her, I wanted to pull her into a room, to make her listen, to explain the mistake—that I hadn’t known about it, that although Roth Holdings had made the purchase, the decision was completely out of my hands.
But I couldn’t do that. Forcing her to talk to me, especially at the office, would feel like I was abusing my position.
I just wanted her in my arms again.
She’d needed the sale of her artwork to be something real, I got that, and if she still believed I’d bought it intentionally, her anger made sense. That would have been a shit thing to do, especially since it would have sold anyway.
But I hadn’t bought it intentionally.
Why didn’t she just give me a chance to explain?
Fuck, I missed her so much it felt like there was a hole carved deep inside me, like it had taken out a part I didn’t even know was there.
Outside the office, it was easy to stay away from each other. The act we’d put on for Hugo had done its job, and there wasn’t a single reason I could make up to insist she saw me. Even if I tried, I knew she’d throw the NDA back in my face and tell me the whole thing, the charade, was over.
She didn’t need the money now anyway.
A crisp packet blew into my path, and I jogged around it. In the distance, I could see the London Eye, unmoving in the early light.
I still didn’t understand why she’d linked the redundancies with what had happened with the painting. Those things weren’t connected, were they?
“These are real people’s lives you’re tearing apart.”
She’d known what I was doing with Novexia before we’d even gone to France. The pack had been out two weeks before we’d left. And still, she’d slept with me, and I thought we’d been getting closer, every small connection point becoming something more, until—
Fuck. The idea of not having Andrea in my life felt like something in the universe had cracked—like we’d glitched into an alternate reality where the colors were off and gravity pointed the wrong way.
My phone vibrated against my hip. Only Bonnie phoned me this early. I slowed, then stopped, hands braced on my knees as I pulled air back into my lungs.
I took the phone out.
Wilhelm. Why is he calling?
My thumb hovered over the screen for a second before I answered.
I didn’t want to talk to my father now. I never did, but now, when I was trying to pull myself back together, seeing his name on the screen brought back something that chafed part of me I’d buried a long time ago.
The small part that wanted approval but had decided I didn’t need it, that it was more important to do what was necessary than worry about what people thought—least of all, him.
“Hi.”
“It’s me. Dad.”
I never called him Dad. The word was loaded with an affection he didn’t deserve.
“Yes?”
“Can we catch up?”
“Can this wait?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
I sat down on a park bench. My skin was covered with sweat, and I wiped it off my brow.
“I’m in London. Let’s grab lunch.”
“Coffee? I’m rather busy.”
Silence. I looked at the phone. No, he was still on the line, unfortunately.
“Yes. Fine.”
“Brompton Rooms at ten?”
“See you then.”
*
The man sitting across from me didn’t look like my father, although I hadn’t seen him in over ten years.
He looked like he’d been freeze-dried, which made sense, considering how he’d lived his life.
Everything that had ever been kind or soft or gentle had been carved out of that man decades ago, leaving nothing but a wizened shell.
“I heard about Novexia.” He still had a hint of a German accent, despite having lived in America since he was just a bit younger than me, climbing over people in his relentless pursuit of success.
I’d never define that word the way he did. We were nothing alike.
What had he been trying to prove?
“I still have a few contacts here,” he said.
“Right.”
He brought the cup to his lips, his hand wavering as he took a sip.
“You’ve made tough choices, Wilhelm,” he said. “You won’t get any thanks for it.”
“We have a clear path now.”
He set the cup down, aligning the handle to three o’clock, a habit of his.
“People confuse leadership with popularity,” he said. “You aren’t making that mistake.”
I didn’t answer. Wisdom from an emotionally illiterate husk wasn’t going to add anything to my life.
“I worried when you were younger,” he continued. “All those interests. The comic books. The tinkering.” He waved a hand, as if brushing crumbs from the table. “You were clever but unfocused. I thought you’d waste your talents, but you didn’t. You finally learned what it took to make things pay.”
Did he think this was what I wanted? That somehow, I still needed to prove I’d earned my worth, that the shameful person he thought I was—the failure—had grown, become someone he could finally bestow his blessing on? His crushing disappointment felt better than whatever this was—this thin approval.
He leaned back in his chair. “I’m proud of you, Wilhelm.”
Proud of me. For being ruthless in business.
For so many years, I’d wanted to hear that, but he’d never once uttered those words.
And now that he had, it felt like nothing.
Because I’d lost Andrea.
I stared at my coffee.
“You don’t actually know what I’ve done,” I said finally.
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
His temples were hollowed, his skin thin. When he turned a certain way, I could see glimpses of myself.
“You focused on the numbers, Wilhelm,” he said. “You understood that sometimes, people must be sacrificed so something larger can survive. Most people don’t have the stomach for it. That’s the difference between boys and men.” He smiled smugly, like I’d proven something to him he’d known all along.
For a moment, I saw myself the way he did—the distance between who I meant to be, and who I’d become.
I reached for my wallet and placed it on the table.
“Wilhelm—” he said.
“It’s Liam.”
My coffee was still untouched. I reached to move the handle to three o’clock, then stopped. My hand hovered, and I withdrew it.
“I’ve got a meeting,” I said.
Outside, the street was loud with traffic and voices. I walked until the café was out of sight.
How had he become like this? It wasn’t possible he’d been this way since he was a boy. Nobody was born without a heart.
What was his father like, my grandfather—the man who’d taught him which parts of himself to hate?
Wilhelm had put up walls so high they’d stopped being something that served him. They’d just become who he was, to the core.
I could see the resemblance between us now.
And I didn’t know if it was too late.