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“How charming!” Her eyes were elated. “Wait until you see the inside,” he laughed out loud. She didn’t understand what was so funny until Liam opened the door to his flat. It was empty. Almost completely empty. The flat had no entrance hall and led straight into the living room and open kitchen area. There was literally nothing but a table with two chairs inside it. Even the kitchen was totally empty. From the movies Dan had shown her, Isabella knew by now that this was sort of unusual.
“What happened?” she asked carefully, trying not to be nosy. Liam closed the kitchen window and walked over to a door that most likely led to the bedroom.
“A man,” he replied with a big, sarcastic grin on his face.
“I know what that is like. Although my misery includes a woman as well,” Isabella countered empathetically, suddenly realizing that this could be interpreted incorrectly.
“Not in that way,” she said, backtracking her words. "The woman I mean. Not in that way.” Liam laughed as he opened the bedroom door. "Hey, I’m not judging. Love is love.”
“Yeah, but in my case there was no love." Isabella turned away as her gaze fell on the bedroom door. "And that woman was my mother.” Liam stopped laughing, twisting pursed lips. “Sorry to hear that.”
“She's out of the picture now," she said with a sad smile that wavered. "What about your mother, are you two close?” The bedroom door opened a bit more and a tubby, white cat came rushing out of the bedroom, rubbing against Liam’s legs. He leaned over to pet the cat. She had never seen an animal be so close to a man. It wasn’t considered manly in her time, especially not to cats. Men at that time bred horses for sport and luxury, not having pet cats. What a rare find of a man…
“I don’t remember her. My father and mother immigrated here from Portugal with my sister before I was born. Sadly, my mother passed away of cancer six months after I was born." Liam slowly stood up as the cat continued to fawn over him. "My father missed her so dearly that he died of a broken heart two years after.” And she’d just said this stupid thing about her mother. Isabella's throat ran dry, staring at him with eyes wide open. How foolish of her.
“I, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to—"
“It’s all good. My sister and I came to live with it. Plus, we were lucky to get adopted by a very nice farmer family.” Rambo now tip-toed his way toward Isabella, sniffing the fabric of her jeans. Seemingly satisfied, the tiny critter began rubbing himself against her leg. She bent over to pick him up and scratched the little fur-ball under his chin. Rambo purred away like cat-concert. It took a while for Isabella to notice Liam's face, staring at her with his lips slightly parted.
“What’s wrong?” Isabella asked. Liam shook his head in disbelief. “Impressive. Usually he's a jerk to everyone but me. Even my sister still gets hit by the world-famous and feared Rambo paw. She calls him the cat from hell.” Isabella threw her head back in laughter. Liam followed suit, and soon enough they both shared in an endless contagious laughter. She hadn’t laughed this hard in forever.
“You must feel pity for me. I mean look at me,” she said to Rambo, nodding toward the direction of her plastic bag sitting in the corner of the empty room. Liam stepped right in front of her to pet Rambo as well. His lips slowly turned into a smile. “That’s probably why he likes me too. I mean, look at this place, it's pathetic,” Liam opened his arms wide as if he was just presenting evidence to court. Both of them laughed out loud again, forgetting all their worries for a short moment, for the first time in months.
