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“Chemistry,” I say and his smile widens. “Aren’t you angry with me for lying?” I ask him.
“Would you prefer if I was?”
I don’t know the answer to this. I just wasn’t expecting him to be so cool about it. I’ve been angsting over this for months. I hate myself for misleading him. And now here he is, completely nonchalant.
I don’t understand it.
He pours a glass of wine and passes it to me. So he’s not throwing me out, I guess. Then the oven beeps and he slides some crusty bread into it.
“It kind of makes sense,” he says, his eyes on mine.
“What makes you say that?” I ask him.
“Because I’m extremely attracted to you.”
Oh. My heart does a flip in my chest. “So you’re not attracted to a woman once you sleep with her?”
He shakes his head. “Not like this, no.”
“Like what?” I ask him. “Can you explain it.”
He stirs the sauce and checks the bread, before pulling a salad he must have made earlier out of the refrigerator. And when he finally turns to me there’s an intense expression on his face.
“I want you like I’ve never wanted another woman in my life.”
“Oh!” I’m a mixture of embarrassed, gratified, and completely shocked. “Seriously?”
“Did my bidding on your lot not give it away? What about video calling you every night so I can watch you smile as we watchGrey’s Anatomy? Did that not make you think that I might be a little attracted to you?”
“You said you wanted to be friends,” I point out.
“I do. I do want to be friends.” And isn’t that the weird thing? “I just don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be your friend and be attracted to you. But I’m trying, Sophie. I really am.”
I nod. “I know you are. I like this side of you. But I don’t know which side of you is real,” I confess. “The Liam who treats me like a queen, or the Liam who knows how to press every button I have and enjoys it.”
“Can’t they both be real?” he asks.
His eyes catch mine. There’s an honesty in them that slays me.
“I think maybe they can,” I say softly. “But can I ask you a question?”
He nods. “Shoot.”
“Why won’t you sleep with a woman more than once?”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
LIAM
I swallow hard. This is where she finds out that I’m a piece of shit. And even though she’s being vulnerable in front of me I just can’t reciprocate. So I give her the sanitized version. “Because I don’t want to hurt anybody. Or be hurt. And no relationship lasts. Watching my dad go through life like a bulldozer taught me that.”
She pulls her lip between her teeth. “So you’d rather be alone? Isn’t that sad?”
The sauce is almost boiling. I switch it to low and grab another pan to heat up the water. It’s good to have something to do while we have this conversation because I’m so tempted to walk over to her. To pull her against me and shut out this feeling.
The painful emotions I’ve spent most of my adult life avoiding.
“I don’t mind being alone. I have a good life,” I say lightly, taking the fresh pasta I bought from the farmer’s market today from the pack.
