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Anna’s smile slowly slipped off, and the storm clouds renewed their gathering above her head. This time around, eschewing another silence between them, Liam tried to keep them at bay with an earnest question.
“Is there anything I could do to help out with what you’re going through? With your dad, specifically. If he learned about us, would that help any?”
“I’m worried it would only accomplish the opposite,” Anna admitted. “My father’s intentions for Trent and me are something of an open secret. Just that has been enough to keep many men from pursuing me—and the kind it doesn’t aren’t exactly the sort I would be interested in.”
“Male variants of Avril?” he said, imagining the type that wouldn’t care about vexing such a powerful man.
“Worse. N-not that Avril’sbad,” Anna quickly corrected. “She’s not. But I understand your point. And yes, a few men have… propositioned me in ways that left me deeply uncomfortable. Please do not tell Avril aboutthat, either.”
“I promise.”
Satisfied by his answer, Anna said, “My father is used to having things go the way he wants them to go, and he is not the sort who takes defeat lying down. I… shouldn’t embellish or claim things that might not be true, but anyone who runs a company as large and influential as the one my father does is not averse to throwing that influence around, even in unscrupulous ways. I don’t want you to get caught up in anything he might do if he were to learn about, um… us.”
“What exactly are you afraid of?” Liam furrowed his brow. “You think he’d try and do something to me?”
“I’mcertainhe would, Liam.” Anna turned herself to face him. “You are a roadblock between him and what he wants for me. I have no doubt that he would try and remove you one way or another. If he can’t buy you, then he would try and find a pressure point of yours that he could exploit. Your schooling, for example.”
“I don’t go to Bellmore.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Anna took a belabored breath. “I have a classmate who went through something similar when I was a freshman. He had a friend his father didn’t approve of—a bad influence on his grades and conduct. He didn’t go to Bellmore either. That didn’t stop him from having his dorm raided by the campus police without any real provocation. The alcohol they found there… Avril thinks it’s only a fifty-fifty chance that it wasn’t planted there to this day.
“I don’t know for certain if my father would go as far as that, but I don’t want to risk it. I think we’re at least friends now, and I want to protect you from what he might do. It’s just for the best that we avoid my father hearing about you, okay? Please?”
The worry in her eyes shimmered so poignantly that Liam, even if he had a retort to her fears, knew better than to use it. Still, if her father had allowed Avril to stay around her for so long, he might not be the same as her classmate’s father. Maybe.
“Okay. I won’t bring it up again. But if thereisanything I can do, I hope you won’t suffer just to save me some discomfort or anything. Because wearefriends, no ‘at least’ about it. We’ve built an entire igloo together, even.”
“I promise, and thank you,” Anna said, face brightening somewhat. “I greatly enjoyed the time we spent together yesterday.”
“There’s still more fun to come. Avril’s not picking you up until tomorrow morning.”
She nodded, mood further lightening. “If there’s anyone I’m happy to be snowed in with, it is you and Tess.”
“Likewise,” he said with a smile.
Something unexpected happened next. It started with a furtive glance that Anna sent toward the open doorway. From there, her gaze trailed to him. Wondering what the connective tissue was between those two looks, Anna caught him completely off guard with what she said next.
“Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting things, but you have a thing for Tess, don’t you?”
Well, it wasn’t quite as direct an approach as her roommate had taken. Anna had at least asked it in the form of a question.
“I, uh, I… yeah, I do.” Stumbling his way toward the realization that there wasn’t much point in denying it, he confirmed what she’d supposedly known since the gelid night they’d met. He wondered how long it’d taken her to scope out his feelings that night. When they’d been alone talking on the couch, during the dinner that had followed, or even before they’d reached the safety of Tess’s home, just minutes after they’d met?
A small smile was the reward for his honesty.
“A lot of men do. She is very wonderful.”
“Yeah, I can imagine so,” Liam said, uncertain of what else to say. Admitting his feelings for his next-door neighbor to his sort-of fake girlfriend was about as unusual an event as he could dream up. Doubly so, given that the former was the latter’s professor.
“But I’ve never seen her give any of them even a second glance. Not once.”
“O…kay?” Liam’s brow furrowed. Where was Anna going with this?
Traces of color seeped into Anna’s face, and she hesitated. “It’s only that—I just want you to know that….” She found comfort in a deep, steadying breath, and then she finally clarified what she meant. “As we’re only pretending to be interested in each other, I wouldn’t want you to feel like you can’t be looking ahead or, erm, talking to other people at the current time.”
Her meaning dripped into his mind like a slowly dripping faucet would fill a cup set under it. Staring at her in a confused stupor, only after a protracted silence, one that Anna spent with her blush fully formed, did Liam comprehend her meaning.
The realization of the century set in.
