17. Liam
LIAM
“Ithought we should celebrate,” Cara said the following evening.
Everything had happened just as she had said it would.
The article had run earlier that morning, and Liam had spent the first few hours of the day reading and rereading it.
It felt so good to be praised, for once.
It felt good to have someone suggest that he was more than just a great player, that he was also a worthwhile person.
And even though the story of his marriage to Cara wasn’t the truth, he found that enough elements of the article did represent reality that he was able to take it to heart.
Everything he had said about how much he liked spending time with Cara was true.
Everything he’d said about how much playing football meant to him was true.
And when he looked at this article, when he saw in it a depiction of a decent and likeable guy, he was able to believe that he just might be that person.
Now Cara was holding up a bottle of champagne.
“Where did you get that?” he asked her.
“It was in your refrigerator. Is it okay if we open it?”
“Definitely.”
“You weren’t saving it for something?”
“Honestly, Cara, I didn’t even know it was there.”
She laughed. “Okay, fair enough,” she said.
“Want me to open it?”
“I can do it.” She was already twisting the cork. He probably should have known. She’d be caught dead before she let anyone do anything for her that she was capable of doing for herself.
Cara eased the cork out of the bottle, set the bottle down, and fetched two champagne flutes from the cabinet. “What are we celebrating?” Liam asked her. “The article?”
“Mostly the article,” she said. “But also…just how well things are going. I didn’t want to tell you this before, Liam, but there was no way I could have turned your image around if you hadn’t put in the work.
Just the fact that you’ve gotten on board with making public appearances and talking more openly to fans has made a world of difference.
I think this is going to be successful. We’re going to find you a place on a team that will be excited to have you, and you’re going to move on from this little hiccup. ”
He smirked. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Being kicked off my team, losing everything that mattered to me?”
She raised her glass. “I’m not trying to minimize it,” she told him. “But what I’m saying is, that’s absolutely what it’s going to feel like in a few weeks. Like this was just a minor thing you had to suffer through. You got through it, and now it’s behind you. Easy.”
Easy. The amazing thing was that he actually believed her. It did feel easy. It felt like a real possibility that he might get his life back on track. It felt like he could finally put all this behind him.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, picking up his own glass of champagne. “I definitely had the right publicist.”
“Yeah? You don’t think you would have been better off if you’d stuck with Alastair?”
“Alastair wasn’t willing to represent me,” he reminded her, a teasing lilt in his voice.
She scowled.
“Hey, I’m kidding,” he said. “I had my doubts, but no, you were exactly right for what I needed. I can’t imagine that I would have learned to trust Alastair the way I have you.
You…well, you put me at ease, Cara. Somewhere along the way, you made me believe that you actually do care what happens to me in all this. ”
“I do,” she murmured.
He cocked his head toward the living room, and she nodded agreement. The two of them made their way in that direction and sat down on the couch.
Cara tucked her legs up beneath her and leaned against the back of the couch, her drink dangling loosely from one hand.
It occurred to Liam that this was the most relaxed he had ever seen her.
Even last night, when she had come into the library in her nightclothes, she had been tense and a little reserved.
But now she smiled easily, her head resting lightly against her shoulder. “It’s been quite a ride, hasn't it?”
“I never would have expected it,” he agreed.
Her arm was braced on the back of the couch, angled toward him, and he had the strangest desire to reach out and take her hand.
“You know,” she said, “I wouldn’t have pushed you to open up to me, Liam. Not in the way you have.”
“You were the one who said we needed to learn more about each other to pull this thing off,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but I meant things like agreeing on the story we were going to tell about our romance and learning each other’s birthdays,” she said.
“I never expected you to open up to me the way you have.” She hesitated.
“To me, that’s the biggest indicator that something about you has changed.
I don’t think you would have done that when we first met. ”
“I wouldn’t have,” he agreed. He bit his lip, wondering how much to say. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but…everything changed when I saw you walking down the aisle.”
“What do you mean?”
“That was when I understood that you were on my side.” He sipped his drink to give himself something to do.
“I know I acted like I still couldn’t trust you, like I still wasn’t sure.
I thought I wasn’t sure. But part of me got it the moment I saw you in that dress.
You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t believe in this plan.
And you wouldn’t have believed in this plan if you didn’t believe in me. ”
She smiled slightly. “You were right to say there was something in it for me too,” she pointed out. “It looks like my career is really on the upswing now. This went so well that I’m sure Alastair will put me in charge of more clients, and then my name will really be out there.”
“I’m glad it benefitted both of us,” he said. “But…all things considered, I think I got the better end of the deal.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“You had to be married to a grumpy jerk for us to make this work,” he said. “Whereas I got to be married to a cool, hot woman who everyone admires.”
She flushed. “That’s not… I mean…”
“You know it’s true.”
“I don’t think everyone admires me.”
“I do, though,” he said seriously, holding her gaze. “The way you just jumped right in when Stephanie pulled out of our arrangement. You didn’t even hesitate, Cara. It’s a huge thing to ask of a person, doing what you did, but you didn’t think twice.”
“I did,” she said softly. “I was having second thoughts even as I was walking down the aisle. But I couldn’t hang you out to dry like that.”
“Why?”
She looked away.
“Tell me why,” he urged. “Was it just the promotion?”
“That’s all it was.”
“Because I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think Alastair would have blamed you if the wedding hadn’t gone according to plan,” he said. “And I don’t think it would have hurt my reputation that much either. You could’ve spun that, right? You’d have come up with a story.”
“I would have said that you were in love, that you did want to get married,” Cara said. “I would have said you got your heart broken. That would turn public opinion in your favor.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I’m glad we didn’t have to do it that way,” he said. “But I knew you could come up with something. What happened? Did you think about that idea and decide it wasn’t good enough? That it wouldn’t work?”
“It didn’t come to me on the day of the wedding,” Cara told him. “I didn’t think of it until just now.”
“But you could have, if you’d tried,” he told her. “It wasn’t hard for you to get to that.”
She shrugged and looked away.
And now he did take her hand. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You didn’t spend any time trying to think of any way out,” he said. “The first thing you thought of was to meet me at the altar.”
“I suppose that’s true.” She looked at their joined hands. For a moment he thought she was going to pull away from him, but she didn’t. Instead, she set her glass of champagne down on the coffee table.
He did the same, aware that his heart was pounding.
“No one has ever done this much for me,” he said quietly.
“No one has ever been in my corner like this. I know you were trying to help your career, but you could have done that in so many different ways. You didn’t.
You decided to get down into this mess with me.
I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you did that. ”
“I guess I realized the best way to get out of it would be if I was in it with you,” Cara murmured. “That way I could see the path for myself.”
“That’s a whole lot of trust, Cara,” Liam said softly.
He raised a hand to cup her cheek.
Now she would stop him. Now she would pull away, tell him this was too much, that they were crossing lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.
She dropped her gaze.
She was looking at his lips.
There had been a few kisses, all of them in front of an audience.
The kiss on their wedding day, of course.
A couple of staged encounters while they had been on walks, when Cara had suspected a camera might be on them.
A few of those moments had ended up in the press.
They didn’t look real to Liam when he saw them—all he could think of was the way he had felt in those moments.
The strangeness of her lips against his, the way his thoughts had raced as he had tried to figure out where he was supposed to touch her.
Tonight, there were no cameras.
As she leaned in, his breath caught. Was he really doing this? Was she? Why?
But why resist, when I care for her so much? When she’s done so much for me? And here she was, warm and soft and smelling of lilacs…
He closed the last few inches between them and caught her mouth with his.
A flame roared to life inside him and surged through his blood, burning away the inhibitions he had carefully constructed.
All this time he had spent with this gorgeous, intense, exasperating, passionate woman…he hadn’t done this, hadn’t even let himself realize that he wanted to do this. But it had been beating inside him all this time, longing to get out. Longing to claim her.
And she still wasn’t pulling away.
She melted into him, deepening the kiss, and Liam forgot everything—forgot that they were trying to restore his reputation, forgot that they had a professional relationship to maintain. The only thing that mattered now was Cara, and the fact that she was finally in his arms.