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Lifting my hand, I cup her cheek. “Why are you still here, Liv?” I whisper, my voice so quiet I’m amazed she actually hears me.
“Because you need me to be.”
Her words hit exactly where she intends them to.
“Fuck.” Leaning forward, I press my brow to hers, letting her warmth, her strength seep into me. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Liv. My parents… if they’ve been fucking about all this time, how do I even know that Richard Whitfield is even my real dad?”
“Don’t say that. They’re not bad people, Reese. They just… made mistakes like all of us.”
I blow out a long breath as she shivers.
“We should get out of here.”
Her eyes widen at my words, and I swear I see disappointment wash through her.
“Uh…”
“Were you serious about spending the weekend with me, sweet cheeks?”
“Yeah. I’m not in a rush to get back. You?”
“To hear Mum’s excuses and bullshit cover-up for all the lies, and to have Oak lay into me again? No, can’t say that I’m all that excited about the prospect of returning anytime soon.”
“Oak will come around,” Liv assures me as we both turn back toward the beach hut.
“No, he won’t. I broke one of the Heir cardinal rules by hooking up with you.”
“Hooking up? Is that what we’ve been doing?” she asks lightly. I appreciate her attempt to lift the tension, but it falls flat.
“No, not really. If it was just that, there wouldn’t have been so much pain.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“I’m not sure I’m capable of anything else now, sweet cheeks. They broke something inside me with all this. I’m no longer the boy you grew up with. The man I’m turning into isn’t someone I even want to know, let alone be.”
“You’re hurting, Reese. That’s okay. Lashing out is okay too. But you’ve got to stop bottling everything up. All you had to do was talk to us and none of this would have happened.”
“I know,” I confess quietly, regrets swirling around inside me.
“Come on, let’s find somewhere to go. I need a shower. I smell like the beach.”
Dropping my nose to her hair, I breathe her in. “You smell perfect to me. But I would totally be up for that shower.”
15
OLIVIA
“Oak again?” Reese asks as I glance at my phone.
“Yeah.” I turn the damn thing off and drop it on the table.
I texted Fiona earlier. She knows that we’re both safe and okay. She wasn’t too happy when I said we wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. But Reese needs this.
I need this.
We’re not in Lymington anymore. After Reese begrudgingly told me what happened with his Mum and Dad, the lie they’d lived for his entire life, we left the beach hut and drove in our own cars to a hotel just outside of Winchester. Reese didn’t want to be anywhere near his father, and it wasn’t like we could stay in the beach hut and wait to be arrested for trespassing.
So here we are, in some small country hotel. We grabbed a few things on the way here. Snacks and toiletries. But despite talking all morning, the atmosphere between us is tense.
