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Margaret’s huff of laughter was tinged with bitterness. “I’m a distraction? I teach botany at the university, Liam. I manage coursework and detailed lectures. I grade papers for hundreds of students. I’ve never thought of you as a distraction.”
“You’re brilliant, though, so maybe it’s just easier for you to juggle everything.” Liam tried to joke. “And you’ve said yourself I’m not that smart.”
She wasn’t amused. “Does this have something to do with that woman you just moved in with? It does, doesn’t it? If nothing else, you could at least be honest with me.”
“I am being honest,” Liam lied. “This has nothing to do with her.” Lies upon lies. Every move he made had to do with Cora. “I’m truly sorry, Margaret. We just can’t carry on like we have been. It isn’t right to your husband, anyway.”
He heard her suck in her breath. “My marital status never seemed to bother you before. I was honest with you from the beginning. I told you John was much older than me. I told you we make our marriage work, but I needed more. You said you understood that. Just last month you suggested we take a secret trip to the beach together. You weren’t too worried about my husband then.”
Liam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Dammit, it felt like the angels were setting him up for failure once again. Why would they plant those ideas into her head? “You’re right. Everything you’re saying is right. I wasn’t thinking when I said and did those things. But now I am, and I just can’t do it anymore, Margaret. I won’t.”
Seconds ticked by. A car drove past the window and Liam watched the headlights slide across the living room wall.
“Yeah.” Margaret’s voice was carefully neutral. “Yeah, okay. I mean, if it’s soured for you, it’s better to part as friends.”
“It hasn’t soured.” He didn’t want to hurt her. “I just...” Need to focus on saving my soul from everlasting damnation. “I’ve got some things to take care of and I have to be able to focus.”
“Focus?” A brittle laugh. “No problem, Liam. Goodbye.” The phone clicked and she was gone.
Liam tossed his phone to the sofa cushions and leaned back with a heavy sigh. He did the right thing. He knew it, but he still felt guilty for hurting her. Even though their relationship in this era wasn’t actually real, he still knew Margaret from before. At her core, she was the same passionate woman who cared more than she liked to admit. She couldn’t help it now if she believed they had a relationship. It seemed wrong for the angels to meddle in innocent people’s lives the way they did. Liam never spent much time thinking about the afterlife because living in the moment had been so crucial. Hunger had been all-consuming, and all his focus had been on survival. But when he had thought of angels, he’d always assumed they were noble, celestial beings full of light and love and forgiveness. How, then, did they justify forcing false memories on people and bestowing strong feelings in them that were not based on reality? He didn’t understand it. But then, there was not much about this mission that made sense. Whatever the reasons were for Cora needing to embrace her true soul mate, Finn—Liam grimaced just thinking of the man—they had to be monumental.
It was just past ten o’clock when the front door opened. He’d been dozing on the couch with the pretense of watching TV, but really he was waiting for Cora to get home.
She stalked into the living room, her lips pressed into a hard line, and tossed her coat onto the sofa arm. “That’s the last time I let Suzette set me up on a blind date.”
Liam sat up fast. “What did he do?” He jumped off the couch and started toward the door. “If he tried anything, I’ll—”
“No, it’s fine,” Cora said with a frustrated groan. “He’s gone, anyway. I couldn’t get out of his car fast enough.”
Liam yanked open the front door, just to make sure. Then he shut it hard, bolted it and moved back into the living room. She wasn’t there. He went down the hall and stopped at her closed bedroom door. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s nothing,” Cora said in a muffled voice.
“Cora, if he did something to you, I need to know.” He forced the next words out. “I won’t do anything you don’t approve of. I just want to help.”
“It’s not anything you can help with, Liam. The guy was just a schmucktacular dillhole.”
He mouthed those words, saving them for later.
“That level of asinine has no cure.” She opened her door and was wearing a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a blue tank with the words “I love you more than coffee, but please don’t make me prove it” across the front. Brushing past him, she walked into the living room, flopped onto the sofa, and propped her feet on the coffee table. “First of all, he talked nonstop about himself. Ugh!”
Liam felt nothing but smug satisfaction as he joined her in front of the TV. “A tragedy, indeed.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Cora raised her hands for emphasis. “Like, from the moment we left this house, all through the ride to the restaurant, and all through dinner, he barely let me get a word in edgewise. I had to listen to a recount of all his many accomplishments. His tennis championships. His Plastic Surgeon of the Year award. His deer hunting trophies.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and let’s not forget his amazing prowess in the bedroom.”
Liam scowled. “What the bloody hell?”
“I know, right? What kind of man tells a woman on their first date that he’s got a reputation for being amazing in bed? He actually said I could check his references. And I don’t think he was kidding.”
Liam rolled his shoulders in agitation. “He needs a swift kick to the bollocks.”
“Believe me, I was tempted,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, the table was small, and I was sitting right across from him. It would’ve been so easy.”
Liam grinned, enjoying the picture that painted in his mind. He suddenly appreciated Cora’s lethal stilettos much more than before.
Cora sighed and hugged a throw pillow. “The worst part was during dessert, when he sat back and started analyzing my face and body. Then he—” she made air quotes with her hands “—‘did me a favor, free of charge’ by giving me his professional opinion on what I needed to fix. Apparently, I don’t need a boob job. But, while my face is symmetrical enough, I might want to consider collagen injections to inflate my lips like the Hollywood crowd.”
“Bloody asinine half-wit,” Liam muttered.
