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Though that doesn’t change a thing. My marriage to Alisa has an expiration date; the others don’t realize that yet. Once they figure it out, everything will go back to normal. I’ll return to being the man without emotions, and they’ll go back to their babies and their vacations, blissfully unaware of the man lurking beneath all of that.
Chapter 12
Alisa
Liam is relentless on the flight back to Portland.
He drills me, over and over, from every conceivable angle, until my head’s aching and I’m exhausted.
“Tell me again the suppliers your father prefers,” he says, flipping through a notebook filled with his tight, neat handwriting. “Start from the top.”
“I can’t do it anymore,” I complain, spreading my legs out and leaning back. “We’ve been talking for three hours straight. Please, I need a break.”
“You’ll have a break when Rustik’s dead and I own the marijuana business on the West Coast.”
“Maybe I’d be better off dead then. I think I married the wrong guy.”
“We’re very high up in the sky, you know.” His face is utterly deadpan as he speaks. “If you’d rather get off the plane, we can arrange that.”
I wave him away. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Tell me the suppliers.”
“Doctor Seuss. Donald Duck. Magic Johnson.”
“Wife.” He says the word like a growl in his throat.
I laugh sharply at him. “Oh, now you’re going to play the marriage card? I thought you were the emotionless robot that doesn’t care about family, babies, or any of that crap?”
“I care about what’s important. Right now, this is important.” He jabs his pen at the book. “Suppliers. Now.”
“I’ve never met someone so disconnected from reality in my life. Seriously, you were like a totally different person out at dinner with your family.”
“I don’t want to talk about them anymore,” he says through his teeth. “I want to talk about the suppliers your father uses.”
“I tell you that your brothers are interested in your happiness, and that it’s going to break their hearts when you and I split up, and your response is basically, so fucking what. Who the hell thinks like that?”
“Alisa,” he says, tone warning now. “Enough.”
“I know you’re not exactly running around emoting all the time, and that’s totally fine. But the guy I know has at least some—” I hesitate, not sure how to describe it. “You have feelings. They’re there.”
I saw them. Hell, I felt them, just the night before. The man I slept with was passionate, starving for me. Maybe that’s not the normal, day-to-day Liam, that’s only the night-time Liam, the ravenous animal Liam feeding on his pretty wife-slash-prey, but even still.
He was so strange at that dinner. Like he turned off all his outward expressions and let the meal happen around him. When I tried to push back afterward, tried to get him to see that his family cares about him and maybe he should care about them too, he all but blew me off.
At least I pissed him off. Anger’s annoying, but it’s an emotion at least.
“My relationship with my family is complicated,” he says after a long pause. “I would very much appreciate getting back to the job.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “No thanks. We’ve got about an hour left. Wake me up when we land.”
I expect him to fight me. He’s done nothing but impose his will on everything I’ve wanted since we got married. This time, he says nothing, and when I peek at him, I find he’s reading over his notes and ignoring me the best he can.
Which I consider a small victory.
“From now on, this will be home.” Liam unlocks the door to an incredible turn-of-the-century house right in the middle of the Alphabet District. Tall, wrought-iron fence draped with greenery and vines separate the gorgeous brown-and-tan facade from the city. I stare at the original hardwood floors, at the details that have to be at least a century old. Fireplaces with ancient tiles, an updated kitchen alongside a narrow living area, and more rooms and hallways than any modern house.
“Since when did you have a place like this?” I laugh stupidly as I help myself to a little tour. “Last I saw, you were living out of a suitcase in a rundown motel.”
“I had my people in the city purchase this for me.” He says it as if buying a multi-million-dollar home in a day is no big deal.
Which it probably isn’t for a guy like him.
“You realize this place is obscene? You could’ve gotten, like, a condo or something. It’s not like we’ll be raising a family here. We don’t need all this space.”
“Did you want a condo?” He walks up the stairs. “It’s not too late. I can buy one of those as well.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I say quickly, not too proud to backtrack. “This place is amazing. Seriously, it’s almost a little too amazing.”
