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“Spare me the details.”
“You told me to tell you, so I’m explaining it to you.”
“Yeah, you told me about all that. Wanting to be a singer, getting hooked up with the hotel owner. ”
Willow nods. “Yeah, well, he kept me under lock and key, literally. He beat me, Liam.” She shudders at the memories. “He used me. And threatened to throw me to his men when he was mad at me. Which was a lot.”
“Then you got pregnant.”
“Then I got pregnant.”
“Why did you tell him?”
“I didn’t. One of the maids found the pregnancy test buried in the trash and took it to him.
“Ah.” Liam nods and appears to be thinking over her revelations.
“I didn’t mean to bring you into this, Liam. I was just…so lonely.” She swallows past the lump in her throat. “If you’ll just…just let us wait here until dark then Frank and I will get on bus to somewhere and you’ll never see or hear from us again.”
“What’s his name?
“Sorry, what?”
“Daddy’s name? What is it?”
“Don’t say it like that.” Willow grimaces in distaste at hearing ‘daddy’ applied to Frank’s father.
“Who is it, Willow?”
“Carlo Nato.”
Liam nods and drops onto the bed beside her. Willow is shivering with nerves now and he reaches over and pulls her to him. Willow lets him stroke at her hair, wondering at the change that seems to suddenly settled over him. She’s still against him, his heat soothing against her.
“I understand if you want us out. Hell, I understand if you want to kill me, quite frankly,” she says. Liam stiffens against her side but doesn’t say anything.
“So,” he finally says, after they’ve sat for a bit, “seems we have a friend in common.”
“Who do you…”
“Carlo…I know him, too.”
Willow turns to look at Liam. “How do you know Carlo?”
“It was his club I worked at with Harriet.”
Willow’s stomach is leaden all of a sudden. She knows what kind of men used to work at Carlo’s clubs. His bouncers and doormen were nothing but hired thugs who would do anything he asked them. In the clubs was where most of Carlo’s personal guards has started out. Willow swallows thickly.
“Did you…were you his…”
“I was twenty one and like you I didn’t want to go back home. There was nothing but memories of my parents. Once they died in a car crash, there was no reason to go back there. I was just a lust-struck bar back.”
“Right.” She sighs in relief.
“Just, let me ask you…why Carlo, Willow? He’s at least twenty years older than you.”
Pushing Liam away from her, Willow flops backward onto the bed and her eyes tracing the patterns on the ceiling. She waits to answer, trying to find the best way to say what she was feeling.
“It was so glamorous, Liam. Vegas! I was star struck. And incredibly naïve. I thought Carlo was just some big business man. Casino and hotel owner extraordinaire. He was a big deal and I was beyond flattered when he noticed me. I was one pretty girl in a town full of pretty girls. It takes a lot to get noticed in Vegas.”
