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Smiling sweetly at her I sat back and said, “He doesn’t seem to think I’m too young when he’s fucking me.”
Her brown eyebrows dipped as her eyes flashed and then her venom came, and I wished I hadn’t even bothered.
“You think he loves you? You think he’ll change for you? He won’t. Liam doesn’t change for people, and he doesn’t have patience either. You mess up once and that’s all it will take. He’ll never forgive you, and he’ll never let you back in.”
I hovered over the table, getting in her face like she was trying to with me.
“I would never do anything to hurt those girls, that’s where you and I differ.”
Letting out a howl of laughter, she threw her head back.
“You think that’s when he decided he was finished with me? No honey, it wasn’t the drugs or the hurting the kids that ended it for us.”
This wasn’t real, it wasn’t true. She was a liar. Why was I even here listening to her?
“He was finally done with me the first time I fucked with his business. Stole from him to score drugs. That big lie was what reframed our relationship…one that had nothing to do with our kids. It shouldn’t have made such a big difference in our relationship, but it did. He’s so self-righteous he thinks the entire downfall of our marriage was on me. Maybe if he’d extended a little grace that first time, we’d still be together.”
Why was my heart hammering against my ribs so hard? It was clearly the last straw for Liam—not that he hadn’t had grace. And I knew Liam. There was no way he kept letting her back into the girls’ lives if she was dangerous; she must have been showing some sort of improvement…but still. Her words were like string, tying my hands to the boards of a marionette.
Why had I stopped trying to play defense and now felt entirely overwhelmed, like she was standing over me with a big white sign that read VICTORY across it?
I watched as she stood and stared down at me with a tiny smirk.
“Mark my words, little girl, Liam Croft has a one-strike policy. You mess up once and you’re out of his life forever.”
Lacey turned with her ominous words hanging in the air and exited the café.
Meanwhile I sat there with my thoughts churning over what I had done…and what it would do to us when Liam found out.
* * *
An hour had comeand gone, but Liam never texted me, so I decided to drive back and ruin the surprise. I couldn’t handle the guilt any longer, either. I had to come clean, tell Liam about the offer, and how it was my idea. He could get mad, but at least it would be on my terms with how he found out.
Pulling into the garage, I quickly exited and rushed into the house.
The smell of baked goods permeated the air, making my mouth water.
“Did you make cupcakes?” I asked with a smile, rounding the corner into the kitchen. There were a dozen cupcakes, all iced with pink frosting. There were words on them, but I couldn’t make much of it out; it looked like maybe the frosting had melted off.
I lifted my gaze to ask what they had said, but Liam was sitting at the kitchen table with his head down. He hadn’t registered that I had come in. My stomach tightened as I waited for him to look up.
“Where are the girls?” I asked, looking around. Originally, he had said this was a surprise from all of them, so I figured they’d be here.
Liam finally gave me his attention, and his silver eyes were dull, his lips thin, and his face blanched red. With a curt tone, he said, “Colson came and got them.”
That didn’t make any sense…unless he wanted me to himself for some reason.
I took a seat across from him and peeked at what was on the table in between his elbows.
“What is that?”
Liam’s strong fingers gripped the letter, and he roughly tossed it in front of me.
I couldn’t make sense of his emotions. He was like a blank piece of paper that had eraser marks all over it. There was something there, I just couldn’t make it out.
That is until I realized what he had been looking at.
It was a piece of mail with my name on it, and the initials of the company that had just made him a business proposal a few days prior.
