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I’m not sure anyone does.
“You’re not planning another escape, are you?” his deep voice, even deeper with the rough edges of sleep, pierces the silence. And my heart. Because beyond the tease in his voice, I hear the vulnerability.
My breathing stutters, and I sniffle. Before the first tear can escape, I’m rolled beneath him. “What’s this?” His thumb brushes the fallen drop away.
It’s late—or early—I’m not sure which. But his room is shrouded in darkness. The soft glow of the moonlight reveals his face is filled with nothing but concern for me.
I really, really don’t deserve this man.
“I’m sorry.” Words I haven’t used often in my life because I never believed in them spill from my lips in a quiet whisper. I still don’t believe in them. Apologies are shown through action, not spoken, but I can’t stop feeling like I can never say them enough. I reach for his face, brushing my fingers over his rough jaw. He tries to speak, but I cover his mouth. “I’m sorry for what I said. For not listening to you. But most of all for not seeing what mattered most. You were right, though. I had one foot out the door.”
“You know everything about me, baby. My fears. My insecurities. I’ve always been an open book, even if you had to read between the lines.” His forehead drops to mine. “I know I’m not that great of an actor. Some part of you knew the shit I said was just that. So want to clue me in about why you doubted everything? What had you so afraid of accepting it?”
My fingers trail down his torso. It doesn’t matter if he’s wearing a shirt. I have his body memorized. They linger over the tattoo—the reason he gave me for keeping it all these years. “My mom never got over her first love. She always told me it was the truest. The deepest. And when I was a little girl, I thought she meant my dad. Even after they divorced, I remembered what she said. Then I got older and found out why they separated. It broke my heart because she was my dad’s first love. Don’t get me wrong. He loves his wife, but my mom is the one he will never get over. Then, a few years later, I heard them arguing about me. My appendix burst, and I guess I needed blood or something. I honestly don’t know, but something prompted my dad to do a DNA test. Kid or not, I knew he wouldn’t have been so upset if the results weren’t…” My eyes close, and I sigh, remembering overhearing that conversation. I felt so betrayed, but more for my dad than for myself. “I remember wondering if that meant my dad wouldn’t want me anymore, but then he told my mom she was never to tell me. That I was his, and no one would change that.”
“If I found out tomorrow that Casey wasn’t my blood, it wouldn’t make her less my child,” he tells me as I run my fingers through his hair.
“I know.”
“Do you know who it is?”
I nod and swallow. “I’ve never told anyone, though.”
“You don’t have to tell me, baby. It doesn’t affect us.”
“I… I kind of want to. I’ve carried it alone for so long. I don’t want my dad to ever think I don’t want him, but I…”
“You had to know.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “And when I found a box of old photos of my mom, I kind of put it together. So, through not-so-ethical methods, I did a DNA test.” His brow lifts, waiting. “I took hair from Creed’s hairbrush once. We were there with my stepmom and his mom. He and I were hanging out, and I took my chance.”
“Lily, are you telling me…”
I nod, my mouth twisting to the side. “Nichols Lockwood is my dad. But I’ve never met him. I don’t even think he knows.”
“Well damn. I did not see that coming.”
I take a breath and wave my hand in the air. “I got off topic. When you told me you’d always love Krista, I thought of my mom. I think maybe part of me believed if I kept straddling the fence I wouldn’t get hurt when you chose Krista over me. She was your first… everything. You have a daughter together. I couldn’t compete with that. The other part couldn’t stand the idea of being second place in your heart, which I know is immature and bratty, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to be someone’s second choice.”
He reaches over me and turns on the bedside lamp, then sits up, straddling my hips. “Look at me,” he demands. “You’re not second choice. You didn’t exist when I met Krista all those years ago, but if you had, I wouldn’t have looked at Krista. I can’t call her a mistake without calling Casey one, but I won’t deny every day I wish it could’ve been you. I don’t know why the universe set us up like this. Sometimes, I think it’s because I wouldn’t have been what you needed if, in another life, we met under the same circumstances Krista and I did. But you are not now and have never been second.” He tugs his shirt over his head, revealing his bare torso, and at first, I don’t understand what he’s doing, but then I see.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. My fingers drift over where the small tattoo once decorated his skin. Now, it is a massive tiger surrounded by lilies. Except for Casey and his brother’s tattoos, all the old tattoos have been replaced with… Me. “When?” I ask, knowing it’s not recent.
“Okay, don’t laugh.” My brows instantly lift when he says that. “Maddox’s brother is…” His head tilts, and then he shakes it. It makes me curious, but I keep my questions to myself. “Well, he’s a lot of things, actually, but he’s also a kind of famous tattoo artist. Dane foams at the mouth over his work. Anyway, I uh… so I thought it would be like a grand gesture after all the bullshit with Krista started, but when I got back to the city, you were gone.”
“I see why he’s famous,” I say, running my fingers over the delicate artwork. “But I think I’m the one who needs the grand gesture.”
He lowers himself back down and hovers over me. “It wasn’t all you, baby. I played my part.”
“I shouldn’t have said…” I trail off, refusing to meet his eyes as shame fills me. “You’re enough, Liam. What I said wasn’t just wrong. It was cruel and meant to hurt you. I don’t like the petty, hateful side of me, but it’s there, and in that moment, I was embarrassed and hurt and wanted to make you suffer. You… If I were you, I would have left me in the hallway.” I chuckle, the sound wet and pitiful, and then finally meet his eyes and lace my fingers around his neck. “I need to take a few lessons from you in humility and forgiveness because no matter how many times I pushed you away, you were still there, even if from a distance. Or pretending to be in the same place as me.”
His lips fold over his teeth, and the muscle in his jaw twitches. Then the grin comes through. His cheeks lift, and the corners of his eyes crease. “You know most people—including the police—would call that stalking, right? When did you figure it out?”
“Ashleigh helped me connect the dots,” I return his grin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what? That I was being a pervy creeper, following you everywhere when we were in the same town? I wasn’t in a hurry to explain to… well, everyone, why you got a restraining order against me.”
“I wouldn’t have done that.”
