He leans over and gives me a kiss against my cheek and with a smack to my rear, he turns and continues to throw my bags in his truck.
With no other choice, I climb into the passenger seat and ignore him while he finishes up. He takes the quickest route back to my house and as I’m slamming the door he laughs before speaking again.
“Darlin’ go put on something old. Something you don’t care to get a little dirty.”
I look over at him and roll my eyes before stomping up the path to my front door. Before I open the door, I notice the perfectly pruned rose bush and my anger dissolves a few notches. Not completely, but hey he did spend four hours working on my yard yesterday, he can’t be all that bad.
Tossing my purse on the kitchen counter, I spin and have every intention in ignoring his request, but as he walks in the door, dropping the bags softly on the kitchen table, he turns and gives me a wink.
“Come on, Megan. Unless you want me to get you undressed myself. Something tells me we wouldn’t make it out the door if that happens and I would hate to lose our appointment time.”
I sigh, “I have things to do, Liam.”
“Like what?”
“Work.” That should work. You can’t argue with someone that needs to work.
“Babe that can wait.”
“No it can’t.” I argue.
He steps forward.
I back up.
His smile grows.
My frown deepens.
“What do you need to work on that can’t wait a few hours?”
“Stuff.”
He throws his head back and booms out a laugh. I notice my mistake the second his eyes look behind me into the formal dining room. I woke up this morning before Molly to get some paperbacks signed from online orders. I had them all lined up with their invoices neatly tucked into each book. There were, if I remember correctly, twenty-seven individual books lined up on the dining room table, eight more piles of series book orders and that doesn’t even count the piles that I had yet to personalize and tag with their shipping information.
All my books. The secret life that I’ve been able to keep from everyone since Jack had passed away. The part of me that I didn’t share with anyone anymore—exposed.
I close my eyes and wait for the questions. I wait and wait, my eyes clamping tighter with each passing second. When he doesn’t speak I lift my eyes and look where he was standing, only to come up blank. My heart speeds up and a cold like fear seeps through my veins.
Oh, God.
With a deep breath, I turn, and watch in horror as he lifts one of the unsigned books out of a box I had sitting on the floor in the corner. His eyes take in the cover, a simple dark shaded cover with a heart broken in two with ashes falling from the center. Bleeding Love imprinted in a beautiful font that doesn’t quite match the darkness of the cover.
And my pen name, Megan Sands, like a freaking neon sign right there on the front.
He still doesn’t speak, running his fingers over the cover before turning the book and reading the back. I know what he’s reading. I wrote that book when I was at my darkest point. It was the one and only book that I wrote the year that Jack died. In a way, it was the only thing, besides Molly, that kept my head above the water. It was through that book that I was able to find some sort of healing peace with the loss of my husband.
I let my love for Jack bleed out between the loss and redeeming love that the main character, Mia, found when she was faced with a tragic loss of her own husband. I let my mind drift over the plot of Bleeding Love and it isn’t until I think of the name of the hero that my gaze snaps up to Liam’s. How could I have forgotten? Someone up there must be having a field day with my life today.
Mia found her peace with her white knight . . . Liam.
God, shoot me dead now.
Liam, still holding the book, opens his mouth to speak but closes it before his words are formed. I wait, knowing they have to be coming.
I watch in shock as he gently places the book back in the box, letting his fingers linger over where my name is printed, before he walks over to me. His eyes are swirling with questions but he doesn’t voice a single one. He takes my face—his fingers lingering over where I had been held by that douchebag last night—between his hands and bends to place a light kiss against my lips. When he pulls back, his eyes haven’t lost a single ounce of intensity.
“Liam,” I whisper.
“Yeah, baby. We’re going to get there.”
I frown and he leans forward to kiss the crease between my brows.
“A love worth having, is worth fighting for.”
I gasp when I recognize the quote from the back of Bleeding Love and I feel my eyes grow wet.
“Go get changed, darlin’,” he whispers.