21. Cara
CARA
Two days passed, and Cara saw almost nothing of Liam.
He hadn’t asked her to move out of the house. That was the one thing she could cling to. Maybe he understood what damage that would cause to his reputation, to everything they had worked to build.
Maybe he simply didn’t want her to go.
I don’t want to go.
If she left the house, she sensed that everything between them would be over. There would be no salvaging the situation. It would be impossible to come back to each other. As long as she was here, she had hope.
If only they could have talked! She was sure he was out drinking.
In fact, there had been a picture, posted by a cute young bartender, which had quickly taken the internet by storm.
The media was already speculating—was this girl Liam Sims’ next conquest?
To her credit, the bartender had already responded, had laughed off the questions and insisted that they’d had a nice conversation and she had gotten to meet her favorite football player, nothing more.
“And I wish he was still playing for the Stingers,” she’d added.
“I don’t even like watching them anymore these days.
I was mostly just tuning in to watch Liam Sims.”
If the Stingers’ management had seen that, if it had affected them at all, they hadn’t said anything to Cara or to Alastair.
It had certainly affected Cara. She found herself returning to the girl’s social media page again and again, looking at the cheerful, easy smiles on their faces.
How could Liam look so happy? He had been in a rage when he’d left the house, and he hadn’t calmed down enough to offer Cara so much as a conversation.
But he was always good at putting on a show for the cameras.
It was ironic, she thought, because he had made it abundantly clear how much he’d resented having to do it. He had complained about it at every turn. But it hadn’t really been a problem for him at all. He had had the skill.
He just doesn’t like being inauthentic. Look at how ready he was to open up to me—to trust me—the moment he got an inkling it might be safe for him to do that.
She sighed. In spite of how difficult everything was right now, in spite of the fact that she was angry with him for running away form the problem they faced, she knew she couldn’t give up on him. She had to keep trying to fix things, because she still wanted him to be happy.
Clicking out of the tab with the bartender’s social media, she returned to her email inbox.
It was depressingly bare. No one had reached out for comment about what was going on with Liam. Alastair had promised her that if anybody did, he would forward the emails to her. “It’s not like I want to deal with them,” he’d grumbled. “This is your mess to clean up.”
But so far…nothing.
She was just going to have to be proactive. If no emails were coming her way, she’d be the one to send them.
She pulled up an old message from the assistant coach of the Colorado Lions, Ben Harvey. If there was anyone who could make the Lions see sense, it might be Cara.
Mr. Harvey, she typed, and then hesitated.
How to explain everything that had happened? And how much of the truth could she possibly tell here?
My name is Cara Bailey, she wrote eventually.
I’m sure you’ve seen my name in the press recently attached to Liam Sims. Our marriage was the reason he had to leave the Miami Stingers.
As you may have guessed, that’s only part of the story…
but it is the truth. We did get married, and the feelings between us are real.
She felt as if she was choking, just typing those words.
Her feelings were real indeed. She knew that now.
What was more, she believed Liam had felt something real for her, because he hated so much to be fake.
He’d never put on a show when he didn’t absolutely have to.
What she’d felt between them hadn’t furthered any possible agenda, which could only mean one thing.
It had been real.
Now it was gone.
She swallowed hard. Even if she couldn’t bring him back, even if there was nothing to be done about the state of things between the two of them, she still wanted to do all she could for him.
She wanted to get him a placement on a team, because that was the only thing he truly wanted. He should be able to find happiness.
She turned her attention back to the email.
I’m sure you’re aware of a recent statement by a woman who claimed that my husband tried to bribe her into a marriage for PR purposes.
It’s caused a fair amount of stress for the both of us, as I’m sure you can imagine, and I know it’s caused some difficulty for your organization as well as you’ve tried to decide whether to move forward with Liam.
That’s why I’m reaching out. I wanted you to have all the information.
The truth is that there was an arrangement with this woman, once upon a time.
It was a poor choice, and I’m the one to blame—I work on Liam’s PR team.
That’s how we met. Liam never wanted anything to do with that marriage, and the woman knew it, so it was a blessing to both of them that the plan fell apart before they ever made it to the altar.
I was afraid, back then, to confess my true feelings for Liam.
I am thankful every day that he was brave enough to confess his feelings to me first.
She drew a deep breath, steadying herself for the final words of the email.
I want more than anything for people to see the Liam Sims I know, and to give him the second chance he deserves.
I almost ruined his chances at love and happiness by trying to push him into an arrangement that would have been all wrong for him.
The fault is mine. But he escaped that. If my mistake loses him his chance to play ball again, I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive myself.
I’m asking you to consider looking past this and working with him again. Liam will be happy to make a public statement confirming everything I’ve said.
At least, he would once she had spoken to him about it.
We look forward very much to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Cara Bailey.
She sat back and looked at the screen, thinking over what she had written. Wondering whether this was a good idea or not.
A low dread took root in the pit of her stomach as she became aware of what the repercussions would be.
There was no way to send this email without ruining herself.
She could rewrite it, of course, so that the entire thing didn’t appear to be a huge bungle on her part.
She could make it seem as though the arranged marriage had been Liam’s own idea.
He couldn’t stop her from doing that. It would be her word against his, and no one would think she was the one lying about that.
She’d have no reason to lie, when she could just as easily have never sent this email at all.
But if she was going to send it, she wanted it to have the best possible chance of succeeding. She wanted to make a difference here, to convince the Lions that Liam was someone they wanted.
The only way she could think of to do that was to say the whole thing had been her fault.
Once that news was out there, no one would ever want to hire her as a publicist again. Alastair would fire her, certainly. She could all but see the promotion she’d hoped for going up in smoke right before her eyes.
But Liam will have his team. This will work.
She quickly hit send on the email before she could think better of it.
There was an electronic whooshing noise as it rushed off, out into the world, carrying her hopes of being a publicist with it.
She’d never recover from this moment. It left her feeling empty and detached, vaguely horrified.
She had given up everything for Liam. Everything, to try to salvage the reputation of a man who wouldn’t even speak to her.
Because I care for him. Truly. Because I want to make this right for him somehow, even though I have no idea whether it’s going to work. I believe it will, but I might be wrong.
I still have to do all I can.
Her heart aching, she got up and went to the kitchen, hoping against hope that she would run into him there.
The last few days had all been the same. She had mustered up the courage to go out into the common areas of the house, filled with an anxious desire to see Liam, certain that if their paths crossed she would be able to set things right.
Today she felt more sure of it than ever.
All she needed was to see him, and to tell him that she had reached out to the Lions.
He would understand, then, that the reason she had rushed into publicity mode the moment she’d gotten the call from Alastair was that she cared for him and wanted him to be happy.
He’d realize she was doing all this for his sake.
Not that I could tell him I set myself up to get fired over it. He would feel too guilty, she thought. She didn’t want that. She wanted him to be able to enjoy his place on the team, assuming he got it.
She’d never let him know what she was sure it was going to cost.
It turned out to be a moot point—the kitchen was empty.
Feeling drained of hope, she made her way to his expensive coffee machine.
She’d learned to use it her first day here, and it was one of the few appliances she felt comfortable taking advantage of.
Even keeping food in the refrigerator for more than a day still felt like overstepping, encroaching on his territory.
But she had stopped feeling that way about the coffee.
She was entitled to that, given everything she was doing.
Now, more than ever, that seemed true.
She took the cup to the table once it was ready and sat there in the silence, hardly able to believe everything had happened so quickly.
They had fallen into their relationship with each other, and then, just as quickly, back out of it.
Sitting here now, it almost felt like something she had imagined. Like it had never been real.
It was a fantasy. It was a dream. This whole marriage was always temporary, always just for show.
I let myself forget that fact for a short window of time, but it won’t happen again.
From now on, I will be sure to keep things professional at all times, because when you forget to be professional you run the risk of getting hurt.
This marriage had hurt her more than she ever would have believed possible.
She would do all she could to help Liam, just as she had pledged to from the start—and then she was going to pull away. She would cut ties with him, and things would be over between the two of them.
That was the only sensible way to move forward now.