“He didn’t,” Min said, her throat suddenly dry and tight. “His father did. $25 million. Shall we?” she asked, indicating the door.
Rob looked stunned.Probably trying to calculate how many zeros there are in twenty-five million, Min thought. But Heather mercifully accepted the change of subject and ushered her family after Min and through the open front door of the theater.
The lobby was bustling with members of the cast making their way backstage. The rest of the family and friends wouldn’t arrive to fill out the audience for at least an hour. But Rob had insisted – as he always did – on walking her right up to the stage entrance before saying goodbye. He clapped her into a hug, squeezing a little too tightly to be comfortable.
“Break a leg, little sister,” he said.
“Daddy!” Ivy squawked. “That’s mean!”
Min laughed, crouching low to be eye level with her indignant niece. “It’s just a silly thing people say to each other to wish them luck, monkey.”
“Oh.” The little girl considered this before throwing her arms around Min’s neck and planting a wet kiss on her check. “Then break all your legs!”
Min smiled, kissing Ivy’s chubby cheek, before standing up again. “I’ll see you after,” she said with a wave, before disappearing into the theater.
She was happy to have her brother and his family there to see her perform. Between work and the demands of a three-year-old, they didn’t often get up to New York to visit. But there was something else there, too, lurking beneath her happiness. A dull, ugly undercurrent she couldn’t quite identify. Seeing her brother and sister-in-law with their perfect little curly-headed child, witnessing the way Rob’s arms were always protectively wound around his wife’s waist or holding his daughter’s hand, how he beamed with pride when Heather spoke about her latest marketing plans and the new line of themed cupcakes she was unveiling at her bakery, the feeling throbbed and grew. Festering.
Envy. Bittersweet recognition of something out of her reach.
Min slipped into her dressing room and began going through her pre-show ritual. Washing her face. Stripping out of her street clothes and folding them neatly out of the way where they weren’t likely to get heavy stage makeup on them. She paused as she lay her folded sweatshirt on top of the stack, standing in just her bra and leggings.
I want what Heather has.
The thought took shape, molded by the depth of her longing, and took root in her chest. She wanted a career where she could be creative. A family. A partner proud to stand at her side. Love and joy, safety and new challenges.
And she wanted it with Liam.
She was pulled back to the present by a sharp rap on her dressing room, the quick opening and closing of the door as Liam slipped inside. Her heart swelled in her chest, so full and open for him. He hesitated by the door, careful and restrained in a way he hadn’t been in months.
“He’s here,” Liam said, his jaw clenched and his fists shoved in his pockets.
“Who?”
As soon as she asked the question, she knew. Who else? Aidan, come to see his name in 18-inch-high steel letters. A slow blink, a hard swallow, strengthening her resolve.
“I see. It’s fine.”
Liam took a step towards her and then froze, hesitating. As if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch her. As if she hadn’t spent the night curled against his chest. The hesitation snapped through the room, so sharp it was almost audible, and she winced at the sting of it.
He grunted, a frustrated noise caught in the back of his throat. “I’ll get him to leave.”
“It’s fine,” she repeated. No point arguing that he wouldn’t be able to get Aidan to leave, not when this was the first performance in the theater since the Dietrich name had appeared on it, almost overnight.
“It’s not fine,” he hissed, with another of those hesitant steps.
Min searched Liam’s eyes, taking in the hard set of his brows, the tension in the creases around his mouth. His anger swirled around her like smoke. It would be so easy to breathe it in, to join him in his tirade. But she was tired of being angry. She was tired of letting Aidan Dietrich have any control over her emotions whatsoever.
“No, it’s not. But this is how it is,” she said.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and huffed out a frustrated breath. “I hate this,” he said.
She wasn’t sure if he meant Aidan or the tension between them. It didn’t matter. Her answer was the same. “Me too.”
She hated that Aidan was in the audience, that she would feel his eyes on her while she performed. She hated that Liam was seething with repressed rage and the thwarted impulse to destroy the boy who had caused her so much pain. She hated that beneath that rage she could sense his frustration that her own desire for self-preservation was also leaving him powerless to vanquish this demon. She hated that there was this distance between them, hairline fractures widening by the second, ever since she’d refused to become his songbird in the gilded cage. She hated that with each moment of silence and each hesitant movement the future she dreamed of seemed more and more out of reach.
“I should go,” he said, turning and reaching for the doorknob.
“Liam.” She said his name like a prayer, like a supplication, and he stilled.
