Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Livia
Now . . .
Creed is there.
Not in memory.
Not in the private, humiliating archive where my mind has kept him for ten years, like a woman hoarding evidence for a trial no one has agreed to hold.
There.
In front of me.
On a screen.
He is older.
Of course he is. Ten years have passed since I last saw him in the Chelsea apartment, at our last goodbye.
The goodbye that was not supposed to be a goodbye.
The one dressed up as temporary because all three of us were still young enough to believe temporary meant life would give us the thing back once we were ready for it.
That was the problem with us, wasn’t it?
We kept calling things temporary because forever scared us less when we pretended it was a schedule.
A month at Halston’s place.
A road trip.
A semester.
A holiday apart.
A goodbye at the door.
We had a plan. A future. A version of our lives where the three of us made it out together, where love was not a thing we had to hide, negotiate, or survive around.
We were young, and maybe that is the cruelest thing about youth.
You can stand inside a life already cracking and still believe the sound is just weather.
That is when I learned how fast everything can change.
Not in the pretty way people say it when they mean opportunity or fate or some door opening at the perfect moment.
It changes like glass breaking in another room.
One second, the world still knows how to behave. The lights stay on. The city keeps moving. The person you love is tying his shoes, checking his phone, kissing you like he has every intention of coming back.
Then the next second arrives and takes him.
I didn’t know that yet.
That was the cruelest part.
Ten years ago, we talked about marriage.
About forever. About children who might have Creed’s laugh, Halston’s eyes, my inability to leave a room without making a list. We talked about houses and names and what it would mean to belong to each other in public.
We talked about souls, too, because at twenty-two I was still brave enough to believe in the dramatic parts out loud.
I told them once that we would find each other anywhere.
Even in the dark.
Even in another life.
Even if the world took our names, our rooms, our plans, our bodies, our history.
I believed it then because love had made me arrogant.
The last time, I stood in Hal’s apartment believing in ordinary things.
A game. A night apart. A return. Creed could go play, I could wait, Hal could come home, and the three of us would keep becoming whatever impossible thing we had already become.
The air had been warm from the radiator.
Someone had left a glass on the coffee table.
Hal had laughed at something Creed said, low and tired, and I remember thinking we were going to be okay.
I remember that more clearly than the goodbye.
Maybe because hope embarrasses me now.
Back then, I still trusted the shape of a day. Morning led to afternoon. Afternoon led to night. People left, then came back with cold hands and stories and apologies for being late. I had no reason to believe the universe had been standing there with its hand on the switch.
I was loved by two men who made no sense together and somehow made more sense than anything else in my life.
Creed looks at me now, and ten years stand between us with their hands full.
Not time.
Theft.
There are lines around his eyes I have never seen before.
His hair is longer now, loose and uneven around his face, beautiful in a way that looks more like survival than vanity.
His expression is still composed in that infuriating Creed Lafontaine way, as if every emotion has been taped up, iced down, and cleared to play before anyone gets to see it.
But his mouth—I internally groan.
His mouth is the same.
The mouth I remember with a devotion that feels almost indecent.
The mouth that used to kiss me like hunger and need had finally found language.
The mouth that once traveled across my skin and made me feel cherished in a way that terrified me because I had never known what to do with being wanted gently and completely at the same time.
He sees me.
Mr. Everhart says nothing.
The man in the second tile says nothing.
Creed says, very quietly, “Liv, baby.”
I forget how to arrange my face.
Two words should not be allowed to do this much damage.
They are casual. Habitual. Almost careless.
A man could say them without thinking while reaching over a kitchen counter to take a wineglass out of my hand, or while pulling me back against him on a couch we used to share with Hal.
A man who was not legally our husband in the ways the world recognized, but was ours in every way that mattered.
Liv, baby.
It’s a small endearment, with catastrophic effects.
He has used it without preamble, without permission, without earning it.
Except he has earned it.
That is the worst part.
I open my mouth.
“Creed.”
His name comes out wrong. Too short. Too professional. The voice of a woman who has spent a decade saying his name only inside her own head and now discovers her mouth has forgotten how to carry it into the air.
He hears the difference.
Of course he does.
His face does that small wrong thing it used to do when he noticed something and chose not to comment. A tiny restraint near his mouth. A pause in his eyes. A man locking an entire feeling behind perfect posture and a thousand dollars’ worth of self-control.
I have not seen that expression in ten years.
I have, apparently, kept the catalog.
Because I am normal and stable and absolutely not a walking museum of men who broke my life open.
Fitzhenry Everhart clears his throat. “Ms. Crane.”
“Mr. Everhart, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I say, then immediately hear myself and want to crawl under the table.
Not professional. Just deeply weird.
Like I am greeting an ambassador in a hostage video.
“You can call me Fitz,” he says with a small chuckle. “I would like to introduce Byron Langdon, who consults on security matters. He is also my husband, which I am required by the rules of the New York Bar to disclose at least once before he begins talking.”
“He just likes to brag,” Creed says, rolling his eyes.
“That too.” Fitz grins.
Langdon shakes his head, mildly annoyed in the manner of a man who has been loved in public against his will. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Crane.”
“Hi,” I manage.
Four adults settle into the strange shape of a video call that is anything but normal, but tries to be casual.
Very casual.
A normal Wednesday—wait, no, it’s Saturday.
I should have worn better lip balm.
Fitz folds his hands on his desk. “Ms. Crane, I want to walk you through where we are. Then I am going to ask you to make a decision, and I want you to take as long as you need. Is that all right?”
“Yes.”
“I am going to say things in this meeting that may be difficult to hear. If at any point you need a moment, please tell me. Lang and I are going to be careful.” His gaze shifts briefly. “Mr. Lafontaine is going to try to be.”
“I am going to be careful,” Creed says.
“Mr. Lafontaine is going to attempt to be careful,” Fitz corrects. “He has a track record when it comes to you.”
“I have improved, Fitz.”
“You have,” he concedes.
I watch them.
There is rhythm there. Trust. History. The ease of people who have a friendship or some relationship that’s been happening for years. A small, mean part of me wonders how many people Creed let close while I was somewhere else learning to be no one.
Then Fitz says, “Halston Saint Claire is well and alive.”
The room leaves me.
Not literally. My kitchen remains where it is. The screen remains open. The table stays beneath my elbows. I know these things because I am a competent woman, and competent women are very good at identifying furniture during emotional collapse.
But something in me drops so fast I can't catch it.
Fitz continues, carefully, “He has been under conservatorship for almost nine years, since he woke up from the accident.”
A sound breaks out of me before I can stop it.
Not a gasp exactly. Something smaller. Worse.
“He . . .” I press my fingers to the table because if I don't touch something real, I might come apart right here in front of three men and a laptop camera that is absolutely not qualified for this. “He would hate that.”
Creed’s eyes move over my face.
“He does,” he confirms, and the pain in his voice hurts so much I want to crawl through the screen and into his lap.
Which is inconvenient and humiliating and very off-brand for a woman who has spent ten years cultivating independence, discipline, and a strong working relationship with repression.
“But he doesn’t know the whole story. He has amnesia. ”
“Have you . . .” I swallow, then try again because Bella is still at my wrist and stillness from Bella is never comforting. “Have you seen him?”
Creed shakes his head. “Not yet.”
My mind goes to Hal immediately. Hal in a room that is too quiet. Hal, surrounded by people he hates but can't remember hating. Hal with his watchful eyes, his fists, his brutal tenderness. Hal, who trusts like it costs him blood. Hal, under their care.
“He must be scared,” I say. “If he’s with them—Creed, he must be terrified. You have to save him.”
“He is,” Creed says. “He also hates his current situation, even when he can’t remember how much he loathes his family.”
The words hurt because they sound exactly like Hal.
Even stripped of memory, even trapped inside whatever lies they built around him, some part of him still knows to fight the room.
Fitz takes over, voice careful but not soft in a way that would insult me. “According to a professional I spoke with yesterday, he may be recovering his memory in a non-linear pattern. He is currently in possession of a secure phone, just like you.”
I look down at my left wrist.
Bella has not moved since Creed appeared on the screen.