Finding Forever(23)

Doubtful, but she was determined to try anyway.





Chapter Twelve


It’s been two days, and while I applaud your creative ways of avoiding me, don’t you think it’s time we speak about this?”

Whitney jumped at the sound of Liam whispering in her ear. She’d seen him come into the house an hour earlier, and she’d managed to escape his notice — or so she’d thought.

Apparently she wasn’t as stealthy as she’d hoped.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she told him. “I’m just trying to go about my day.”

“We both know that’s a lie. We nearly made love the other night. You’re obviously overobsessing about it, though I don’t understand why.” He literally backed her into a corner.

“I’m not overobsessing, as you so delicately put it,” she snapped. “I’m just uninterested in this topic. I have things to do.”

“What plans do you have?”

She hadn’t expected him to call her on her statement. There wasn’t a heck of a lot to do in a place she was just a guest in.

“I don’t need to describe my day to you, Liam.”

“Maybe I’m interested in it, Whitney. Interested in you.”

“Have you ever thought that I simply don’t enjoy your company?”

He didn’t even blink at her rude remark. This man seemed impossible to put off. That was a first. Most men in her experience went running for the hills when they knew you had no desire to go to bed with them.

Of course it was only her words that told him that. Her body spoke an entirely different language. But if you added on the fact that neither of them trusted the other’s motives, the two of them made for a truly volatile combination.

“I think you’re not used to having a man be so assertive, so … cocky,” he said with a grin. “But you should get used to it. You’re attractive and so much more.”

“Oh, please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Is that line supposed to impress me? Should I tremble inside because you find me suitable? And why don’t you please expand on ‘so much more’? Could you be more precise?”

He looked confused for a moment as if no woman had ever challenged him when he was paying a compliment, but quickly his arrogant smile popped back into place.

“Take a walk with me and I’ll tell you everything about you that I deem irresistible.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be too long a list, since you don’t know me,” she told him.

Unbelievably, though, she found her arm in his as the two of them began walking down the hallway and toward a back door. They only paused long enough to collect heavy jackets, and then they were moving along the snow-covered path around the mansion.

“I did my research on you before I showed up in Oregon on your doorstep,” he said.

“I’m not surprised by that. I’m sure you wanted to find out if your brother’s orphaned children were being taken care of properly. Plus, you would have had to do some kind of research to figure out where I lived.” What worried her was that they might have found her lacking in parental abilities. She needed to address this issue with Liam and Frederick, but she was afraid to do it, afraid of what they might have to say. “And of course,” she added, “you were driven by the shock of learning of Vincent’s death.”

“Yes, it was quite a shock. I don’t know why I let so much time pass after my brother left. We had been so close when we were younger, but our lives got busy with school and then work. We weren’t the healthiest emotionally when he walked away from here, and I felt that he’d betrayed not only our family but me personally. Now, though, it all seems so petty — so ridiculous.”

“I am sorry about your loss, and I know it must be hard. My sister and I talked nearly every day, at least on the phone, and if we didn’t see each other at least twice a week, it was only because some sort of disaster had occurred to keep us apart. She was more than a sibling — she was almost a second mother, and later my best friend. There are days I can’t even breathe, I miss her so much. Raising the children in her home is rough because of all the memories the place holds, but I didn’t want them to go through too many changes. But each day I’m there, I feel as if she should walk through the front door with a huge smile on her face and some bag in her hand filled with groceries or something for the kids. She and her husband were both incredible parents.”

Whitney’s eyes filled with tears as she thought about her lost sister. Even after a year, the ache hadn’t gone away, and she hadn’t expected it to. Sometimes it was less of a burden, but it was always there.