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TWENTY-TWO
LIAM
I’ve never felt so completely, utterly defeated as I do at that moment. Even as Ana and I get into the car together to go back to the penthouse, I can feel her slipping through my fingers, as if I’m already losing her. I’m very afraid of what telling her the truth about Franco will mean for us, what will happen when I do. And yet, I feel angered too, hurt by hearing their whispered words to each other, the evidence that they’d loved each other spoken right in front of me.
There’s so much hurt in my history with Ana, so much pain and so many secrets, and so much of it is because of Alexandre. Even this, the secret of who Franco was to me, I might never have had to tell her if not because of him.
I wait to say anything about it until we’re in the penthouse. The silent car ride only builds the tension between us until we finally walk into the living room, the city lights outside of the glass doors illuminate the room, and Ana and I face each other.
“What was that in the hotel?” I ask, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice. “That–poetry.”
Ana looks as exhausted and utterly defeated as I feel. She reaches up, pushing her blonde hair out of her face and over her shoulders, and she looks out towards the view of the city as she wraps her arms around herself, her voice quiet and tired. “There was a night in Paris,” she says softly. “When we started to fall for each other, I think. It was after his punishments, when he started to trust me again, to forgive me–”
“Forgive you?” My voice is hoarse, angry. “Ana, I don’t want to hear about his ridiculous ideas of punishment and forgiveness again or how he treated you so terribly–”
“Liam, if you want to know, if you’re going to ask questions, then let me tell you.” She looks up at me with those sad blue eyes. “If we’re going to get all of this out tonight, whatever secrets are left, if you’re going to tell me yours, then let me tell mine too in the way I choose to.”
My jaw clenches, but I nod. “Alright,” I say quietly, and she lets out a long breath.
“He cooked me dinner, and we ate at the table together. It felt special, like a new beginning for us. I thought that I would never leave. I didn’t think you were coming for me–I didn’t thinkanyonewas coming for me, Liam. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to feel safe. It wasallI wanted, and if there was a chance Alexandre could give me that, if I could find something in him to love–”
She bites her lower lip, looking outside again. “After dinner, we went upstairs to the library. We drank port by the fire, and he read me French poetry. It was–it was romantic. It was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. It was the night before he took me on a date, before we made–we slept together for the first time, and he told me about his past, about the terrible things that had happened to him, too. We fell in love in those two days, and those were the poems he recited to me tonight. But Liam–”
Ana takes a breath, looking at me. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I changed the last line.I cannot stay with you any longer.But now–” She shakes her head, swallowing hard. “I don’t know if I can stay with you, either.”
“Ana–”
“I found a way to be happy again in Paris,” she says sharply. “After some of the worst things that can happen to a person happened to me, things that broke my body and my spirit and my mind, I found a way to be happy with Alexandre, a kind of kinship and love between the two of us–anunderstanding, even if it was rooted in pain. I won’t be judged for finding that or what I did for it. And then I had it taken from me.”
“Isavedyou, Ana–”
“I know.” She cuts me off. “I know you did. I know there was no real future for Alexandre and me. I thought that maybe–maybe I’d found that chance for love and happiness again, with you. Better, even–a real love, an equal love, a partnership. But maybe you were right when you said that Alexandre ruined us before we ever had a chance.”
I can’t stop myself. Her words feel like knives in my heart. I stride forward, closing the space between us in two steps as I grab her upper arms, pulling her against me as I look down into her pale face, her glistening blue eyes.
“I don’t believe that,” I tell her sharply. “How can you believe it after everything we’ve shared?”
Ana wrenches herself away from me. “Maybe it was just lust.” She won’t meet my eyes, and I shake my head.
“It wasn’t.” I can hear the desperation leaking into my voice. “Youknowit wasn’t, Ana! Be honest with yourself and me, at least. You know I love you, I know that you–”
“Is it love if you’re keeping secrets from me?” Ana rounds on me, her voice rising. “Can it be love? What else are you keeping from me, Liam? First Saoirse and now this–how did Alexandre know about Franco? What does that have to do with you?”
I can feel the room closing in around me, my throat choking with emotion. I don’t want to tell her or watch as the truth splinters apart everything we are to each other. And yet now I have to.
“Alexandre stalked me,” I say harshly. “He went to the same people I went to in order to find him, the Yakuza, to get information on me. He dug into my life, my family, my business–and not just mine. Luca’s, Viktor’s–anyone that has anything to do with me. He’s deranged, Ana, obsessed with you, and he–”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Ana says flatly. “You mentioned Franco once before, on the plane here. You knew him somehow. What does Franco have to do with you?” She shakes her head, biting her lower lip as she walks close to the doors, looking out over the city. “It doesn’t make sense,” she says softly. “How something about Franco and you could be this huge secret. He was Italian mafia, Luca’s underboss.”
She turns back to face me, confusion written plainly across her face. “What was it, Liam? Were you close with Franco? Were you friends?”
I shake my head, and I can feel tears burning in my eyes. I look at Ana, wanting to memorize her at this moment, to remember her in these last seconds before I say the words that could sever her from me forever. Words that I know will change everything between us forever.
Even exhausted and sad, she looks more beautiful to me than any other woman I’ve ever seen, illuminated by the Boston lights, ethereal in the dimly lit room.
“I love you,” I whisper helplessly. “I love you, Ana, like no one else in this world–”
“Liam.” Her expression is implacable, and I know the moment has come. I can’t escape it any longer.
