Is that truly how he saw all that had happened between them? Just a vacation indiscretion, something to minimize and dismiss? After their passionate night together — what he had called their “ending” — she’d thought perhaps their relationship had meant something more to him. But maybe she was wrong.
Her vision blurred with fresh tears as she resumed chopping with more force than necessary, the rhythmic thunk of the knife against the board a poor outlet for her hurt and confusion.
“We’re handling it,” Liam’s voice continued. “I’m meeting with the team PR tomorrow. They’re concerned about the optics.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“No, I don’t need to fire her. She’s good with the girls.”
Sunny’s hand trembled.
So they had suggested firing her. Of course they had. A flash of their night together — his hands gripping her hips, his mouth hot against her skin, whispered promises in the dark — made the betrayal sting even more sharply. “Just a fling” indeed.
She was so absorbed in eavesdropping that she didn’t notice Hailey pad into the kitchen until the little girl spoke.
“Why are you crying?”
Startled, Sunny quickly wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Just the onions, sweetie. They make my eyes sting.”
Hailey’s gaze dropped to the cutting board. “But those are peppers.”
Before Sunny could formulate a better excuse, Liam appeared in the doorway, his phone call evidently concluded. His eyes narrowed with concern as he took in her reddened eyes and Hailey’s confused expression.
“Hey pumpkin, why don’t you go join your sister with that puzzle?” he suggested gently. “I need to talk to Sunny about grown-up stuff.”
Once Hailey had reluctantly left, Liam approached with cautious steps, as if Sunny were a wounded animal that might bolt. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Just a fling?” The words escaped before she could stop them, laced with hurt. “Is that really all this was to you?”
Liam ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she’d come to recognize as a sign of his distress. “No. God, no. I was just… trying to downplay things to my mother. She’s worried about the girls, about how this will affect them.”
He took a step closer, his expression softer than it had been all day. In the Caribbean sun, she’d memorized every plane of his face — the stubble that grew unevenly along his jaw, the faint scar beneath his left eye from a hockey stick, the laugh lines that deepened when he smiled genuinely. Now, in the familiar light of their kitchen, he looked both the same and fundamentally altered, as if their relationship existed in two separate realities that could never quite align.
“And your team? They want you to fire me?” Sunny asked directly, needing the truth.
Liam’s jaw tightened. “Some of the management suggested it might be the ‘cleanest’ solution. I told them that’s not happening.”
His hand reached for hers across the counter, his calloused fingers warm against her skin. The casual intimacy of the gesture, so at odds with their careful distance all day, made her heart ache. “You belong here, Sunny. With us.”
The simple statement, delivered with such conviction, threatened to unleash fresh tears. Instead, Sunny turned back to the cutting board, focusing on the methodical slicing of peppers to keep her emotions in check.
“Maybe they’re right,” she said quietly. “Maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just…”
“Don’t.” Liam’s hand covered hers, stilling the knife. “Don’t even finish that thought.”
She looked up to find his blue eyes fierce with determination. “The team is concerned about ‘distractions’ and my upcoming contract negotiations,” he explained. “Their job is to worry about advertising dollars and public image. My job is to worry about my family.”
My family.
The words warmed something inside her, even as uncertainty clouded her mind.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“I meet withPR tomorrow. We weather this storm. We stick to our agreement about keeping things professional, at least until this dies down.” His thumb rubbed gentle circles on the back of her hand. “It will die down, Sunny. These things always do.”
Beth had said the same thing, but Sunny wasn’t convinced. Still, she nodded, drawing strength from Liam’s steady presence.
“The girls need us,” he said. “Both of us. They’ve been through enough.”
