Page 4 of The Mood Board

At the thought of Liam, my stomach plummeted to somewhere around my feet once again. It had been up and down all day until I felt physically sick. I hadn’t even been able to eat much.

That damned letter—I wish I had never found it. I wish I had kept the mail in that stupid pile to deal with when I got home. Or Liam got home. He would have seen the stack, as always, and gone through it methodically until he had found the letter. Liam would have known what to do with it immediately, and we would have faced the issue together.

Except he hadn’t been there, and now my mind was going terrible places. I had known that morning that this was some kind of blackmail situation, that someone was trying to take Liam, or both of us, down. As far as I had come when Liam and I were together, I still had trauma in my past. My brain was still wired to jump to conclusions I wished it wouldn’t.

If the letter to me had been about my ex-fiancé Russ, there would have been no doubt in my mind of his involvement with ill-gotten money. I would have believed it immediately.

As I reminded myself, Liam was not Russ. But just like Russ, Liam had lied to me. In an enormous way, for months, keeping the story going until it was so big, it had burst and nearly drowned us both. I had almost walked away but had finally given him a second chance I had never regretted.

Until now, that is. As much as I had tried to put that damn letter out of my mind, it continued to come back. I had used every trick I knew to keep my thoughts from going to those dark places I knew they could, from distraction to talking to myself to dismissing my fears as unfounded and unneeded.

But the problem with trauma was that it has a way of twisting things, and by the time I had met up with Bianca, I was in a cold sweat.

What if Liam was a liar, the little voice in the back of my head whispered. What if he’s been fooling you this whole time, just like Russ fooled you for years? What if he’s an even bigger Liar than Russ? You chose Russ, after all. You believed him, believed in him, and he went and did the worst kinds of things behind your back. And worse, he made you think you were the problem.

Even now, after I had spent time and effort healing, after Liam had come into my life and shown me what a good guy was, that small voice in the back of my head still believed in some way that I was responsible for Russ’s actions.

If I had just been good enough at my job, if I had just been beautiful enough, tall enough, a better partner, worked less, been less ambitious, he might not have strayed or mistreated me.

In the light of day and a more rational mind, I knew all that was complete and total crap. I had nothing to do with how Russ treated me—that was all him. He was a terrible human being, despite being charismatic, and I’d had blinders on for a long time. Part of growing past the trauma was forgiving myself and realizing I had been young and in love and had done the best I could. At least, if nothing else, I had finally woken up and left.

But in the dark recesses of my mind, it was more challenging to see things from a rational point of view. And my mind had been at it all day, twisting rationale into something unrecognizable. Until what I had been so certain about seemed less clear.

A crash of thunder shook me from my thoughts as dark as the afternoon, with clouds and rain blocking the sun. It was part of the storm that had delayed Liam’s flight, which meant he would take even longer to get home.

“So are you going to tell me or just get lost in la-la-land all day?” Bianca motioned at my head. I tried a smile, but it didn’t work.

“I got something in the mail today that didn’t agree with me,” I finally answered, having cycled through less-acceptable replies.

“Is everything okay?” Bianca’s eyebrows dipped in concern. “Is it a test result? No, I guess they would have called about that. A bill you didn’t expect? A lawsuit?”

The line between her eyes was growing deeper the more things she counted off.

“No, nothing like that,” I answered but stopped myself from continuing. Liam was her boss and her boyfriend’s best friend. The last thing I wanted to do was get her involved before even Liam knew.

Bianca tilted her head. “Are you sure? You seem shaken up.”

“I’m sure,” I replied, taking a deep breath. Even if I didn’t feel confident in my answer, I had to pull it together enough that Bianca wouldn’t ask more questions I couldn’t answer. As much as I desperately wanted to talk to someone.

Liam had to be the first one. This was about him, after all.

But would I believe him when he told me he had nothing to do with this?

I hoped so.