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This is the sort of woman that Liamwouldmarry, if he’d never grown to have feelings for me.
The question is, does he want to?
I don’t think that’s a question she could properly answer. And I’m not sure if Liam will tell me the truth any longer.
The thought nearly sends me into a fresh round of tears, but Saoirse snaps her fingers, her frustration showing clearly again. “Explain,” she says curtly. “You were kidnapped?”
“Yes, I—I met Liam at the safe house in Russia, when he and Luca came there with Luca’s wife and some of the others that were in danger because of what Alexei was doing. Because I’d had dealings with the Bratva before—tried to get information from them—Viktor had decided I was in danger too, so he wanted me brought there. That’s when Liam and I met—”
“So you’ve said,” Saorise snaps. “So the two of you—what? Became friends? And he ‘rescued’ you because of that?”
“I—yes.” I lick my dry lips, feeling my heart racing in my chest. I have to tread carefully, now, if I don’t want Saoirse to know what Liam and I are to each other—if I want to keep that to myself, until I have answers from him. “Alexei came to the safe house—”
“Yes, I know. And you were with them? When he tried to sell the women at that party?”
How much does she really know? “Yes. And someone bought me before Viktor, Liam, and the others could get there. I wasn't there when they rescued Caterina and the other women and Viktor’s children. A Frenchman named—”
“And Liam went to rescue you from this—Frenchman?” Saoirse interrupts me, and I can see that her patience is getting thinner by the moment. “He what—rode in on a white horse, stole you, and brought you back here?”
“More or less,” I whisper. Her version, in fact, is alotless, but I’m not inclined to tell her any more. I don’t want to share the mingled traumas and joys of my time with Alexandre or the inescapable pain of what he’d forced Liam to do. I don’t want to be the one to tell this woman, who is engaged to Liam, that he was held at gunpoint and forced to fuck me to climax in front of Alexandre and his friends.
Liam should tell her that if she’s going to know. Just as he should have told me about Saoirse in the first place.
“And you’re telling me that you’re just a friend.” Saoirse looks at me carefully as if trying to surmise how trustworthy I am. “That Liam went all the way to bloody fucking France, burst in and took you away from this man who bought you—putting his own self and a great deal more in danger—and brought you here to his penthouse and a room he’d had specially decorated for you, and told menot a single bloody thing about this—because you’re hisfriend? A woman he’s known for—how long?”
“Not long,” I whisper. I can’t quantify it exactly. I couldn’t even tell her how long I was at Alexandre’s with absolute certainty. The days had tended to bleed into each other there, especially without a television or a phone or access to a computer. I’d been in a strange sort of bubble; it had almost felt as if time hadn’t started back up again until Liam had whisked me out and I’d woken up in that London hotel.
Saoirse shakes her head, disgust starting to show on her features again, and she turns away from me towards the dresser. I don’t realize what she’s doing in time to stop her, and I’m not sure I could have even if I’d tried.
It only takes the first drawer for her to find something suspicious. She turns back towards me, the silk and lace teddy, the pretty sleepwear that Liam had bought me, and the pink and lace lingerie set clutched in her fists.
“What in the bloody hell is this?” She drops it in a pile on the floor, flinging it towards me. “Herescuedyou and brought you straight here, right? So he must have bought these things for you, right?” She dangles the pink and white collar from her finger, and I can feel my face flushing to the roots of my hair, just looking at it. Thinking about how many times I’ve imagined wearing it, and the rest of the lingerie set that came with it, for Liam. The way he’d bought it for me, even though I’d said I didn’t need it, as if I might have a reason to in the future.
The memory of that day makes all the hurt come rushing back, flooding me with a pain that I hadn’t thought he could make me feel. I remember the night he’d gone out, when he’d come home to me having a nightmare and what had come after, and I realize with a blinding certainty that he must have been withher. The way he’d been before he left, almost guilty, refusing to sit next to me on the couch or touch me—he’d been going to see his fiancée. At the same time, I waited for him to come back, unknowing. And that night—
I want to know if he’s slept with her, and don’t, all at once. It’ll be a question I’ll have to ask him if I can manage it. There’s no way to ask her without giving away that I, too, have slept with Liam, for different reasons, on different occasions.
Once because I was forced to. Once out of desire, and I’d managed to ruin that too when I’d screamed Alexandre’s name at the end. I still have nightmares sometimes about Liam scrambling away from me mid-orgasm, horror on his face, still hard, still twitching with the pleasure of his climax even as he’d looked at me with such pain that it had ripped me apart to see it, in the same way that I’d ripped him apart too, by doing it.
Now, we might never get a chance again after this.
“No,” I whisper, abandoning any ideas about not lying to her. I can’t face this woman and tell her flat out that Liam bought me any of these things or tell her about what we’ve done together. I just can’t, not until I know the truth from him, because some small part of me is still holding out hope thatshe’slying.
Even though I know, deep down, that she’s not.
“You’re not fucking him?” Saoirse narrows her eyes, tossing the collar onto the floor to join the rest of the lingerie. “You’re telling me you just—have all of this? That the two of you are nothing but friends? You’re some charity case he took in and just—fucking forgot to tell me about?”
“Your engagement was arranged, right? Maybe you’re just not that close?” The words come out before I can stop myself, even I know they’re absolutely the wrong choice. I can see it even more clearly in the way Saoirse’s eyes go round, as if she can’t believe I’ve spoken to her that way.
“Tell. Me. You’re. Not. Fucking. Him.” Her words come out individually, enunciated, and I swallow hard before looking her in the eye.
“No,” I whisper. “We’re just friends.”
“You’re bloody fucking lying.” Saoirse shakes her head with disgust. “But I suppose there’s no point in trying to drag it out of you.”
She pushes past me, back out towards the living room, and I follow her numbly at a distance, trying to hold back the tears. She gets as far as the front door before she turns sharply around, her eyes narrowed as she points one manicured fingernail at me.
“This isn’t over,” she says flatly. It’s not a threat, not even said in that angry tone of voice. It’s a simple fact, spoken like a woman who has a right to the man who lives here. “I’ll deal with Liam when I get back. As for you—” she grits her teeth, and I can see her jaw working. “I’d be thinking of somewhere else to live if I were you. You won’t be here on Liam’s charity much longer.”
