* * *
The waiter arrived with their dishes and Liberty pulled her hand away and put it in her lap. Marcus had forgotten what he'd ordered, but he didn't care. Liberty stared at her food with open distrust-he couldn't blame her. Her wagyu steak looked like charcoal briquettes, complete with embers. The waiter went through the premeal instructions again but Marcus wasn't listening.
What if everything had already changed?
There was no what-if here. Everything had changed. Nothing had been the same between them since the moment he'd found that little baby boy and watched Liberty clutch him to her chest. In that moment, he'd seen her differently. She'd been more than his employee then-much more.
Liberty gamely poked at her steak dish. "This is food, right?"
"Eat slowly. The experience is almost as important as the food," he told her, looking at his own plate. Ah, yes-he remembered now. The lobster.
"Eating quickly could be deadly," she quipped as she blew out a smoking ember on her beef.
Why wouldn't she tell him one thing she wanted? Why wouldn't she demand a raise, more perks-anything of him?
I care too much about you. That's what she'd said in the car and that was another moment they couldn't back away from.
He watched her pick at her food. "This is good," she said, diligently forging ahead as if, in fact, nothing had changed.
"I'm glad," he said casually. What if these things were connected? The fact that she cared for him and the fact that she never asked anything of him? Except when it came to William.
Because she cared for that little baby, too.
"What are we going to do about William?" he asked, trying to keep his tone light.
Not that it worked. She paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. He had the urge to lean over and kiss her, but he was pretty sure he'd get a steak knife to the palm if he did that. "We?"
"Yes, we. We're in this together. When do you want to go see him again?"
She took her time answering and he worked on his lobster. Not that he tasted much of it. He was too busy watching her. "I was unaware there was a we where William was concerned."
"Of course there's a we. We found him. We rescued him. We're checking on him." You should consider applying for adoption, Hazel had said, right before she'd called them a nice couple. Was that how they looked to the rest of the world? Is that how the people in the busy restaurant saw them?
He hadn't been in a couple since Lillibeth, and even then he'd felt more like an accessory than a man in a relationship.
"You really are worried about him? About what will happen to him?"
He couldn't help himself. He reached out and took her hand in his again. "I would be a monster if I wasn't, Liberty."
More to the point, he'd be like his parents. They didn't worry about Marcus. They worried about whether they were maximizing the value they could get from him.
A flicker of doubt flashed over her face, but at least this time she didn't pull her hand away. It stayed there, under his-light and warm. "We should wait a week," she finally said and he didn't miss that we. "Otherwise Hazel might start to get ideas. How about next Thursday? That's before you leave for the wedding."
"I suppose I don't have to ask about my schedule."
"You're fine," she said, a half grin curving her lips. Then, her gaze flicked over his body so fast that if he hadn't been watching, he would have missed it. "But the wedding is coming up fast..."
He bristled. "We're not talking about the wedding, Liberty. Not unless something changes."
"Like you deciding not to go?"
"Like you deciding to go with me."
She looked down to where they were holding hands. "I don't think that would be a very good idea," she murmured softly as she pulled her hand away.
He wanted to take her hand back, to hold on to it. He didn't. Instead he said, "I'm not even asking you as my date, you know."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, of course not. It's a legitimate business expense, no doubt."
"Having you with me when I meet with the producers the next day would be," he defended. "At the very least, you should be there for that. I'll need you to take notes."
That got her. She screwed her mouth off to one side and glowered at him. There was no other word for it. "Fine. But the wedding... Your mother would have my head on a platter, and God only knows what she'd do to you."
He sighed because he knew that was the truth. His parents might very well disown him if he went against the plan in such a public way.
But would that be so bad? For one thing, his parents' ire would be strictly private. They wouldn't dare risk the scandal of publicly disowning him. And if he was disowned, then they might very well keep their noses out of his business-for a while, at least.
"It'd be worth it to me," he told her. "Not to see your head on a platter but just to piss them off."
"I don't want to be the rope in your tug-of-war, Marcus."
"If you came with me, I would do everything in my power to make sure you weren't."
She took in a deep breath. "Why do you want me to go so badly? Why does it have to be me?"
"Because I trust you."
She looked stunned. "Why would you do that?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"Because you've earned it. Look," he said in frustration. "Trust is the one thing in this world that I literally cannot buy. I can't put a price on it. No one can. You can buy loyalty, but the risk with that is that someone else can offer a higher price for the same loyalty."
"Is this just because I didn't take Jenner's job?"
"No." This was going nowhere fast. Why couldn't he make her understand? "It's because you work weekends without letting me know. It's because you run with me every day. It's because you are the only person to tell me to do what I want instead of what you think I should do. It's because you..."
Because you care about me.
Because I care about you.
But he didn't say it. He couldn't, not with the way she was looking at him. "I don't think you should go to the wedding," she said softly. "But then, I don't think you want to go. So it's the same thing."
"It's not." He needed to run-to move. To do something other than to sit here and make an ass of himself trying to explain it to her. "And you? What do you want? You can't want to work every weekend."
She shrugged and dropped her gaze. He could feel her retreating, as if what she wanted wasn't important. But it was.
"Let me ask you this-if this wasn't Lillibeth's wedding, would you go with me?"
She didn't hesitate. "No. I don't fit in your world, Marcus. It's foolish to assume I could."
"But would you want to?"
Her mouth opened and then closed, and he knew the answer was yes.
"That's beside the point," she finally said but it was too late.
"What is the point?"
"We work together. We come from two different worlds. This..." She looked around at the people eating taffy balloons and drinking expensive wine. "I don't belong here, Marcus. What I want is what I have-a good job working for a good boss who trusts me."
"You don't want anything else? Something more?" That couldn't be all. Hell, as rich as he was, he still wanted.
He wanted someone he could trust with his deepest secrets, his darkest moments. He wanted a woman in his bed he could trust unequivocally, without worrying about how the story might show up on the gossip sites the next day.
He wanted someone a hell of a lot like Liberty.
Color flamed at her cheeks, but she didn't even blink as she said, "No. There's nothing else I want."
Wouldn't you know, she was the one thing money couldn't buy. "Come on," he said, tossing his napkin onto the table. "I'll take you home."
Eight
Marcus barely glanced at the bill before he paid it, which was enough to remind Liberty of the huge gulf that separated them.
Hell, an ocean the size of the Pacific separated them.
So what if the idea of a three-day weekend with him was exactly what she wanted? So what if he looked at her as if she was the woman of his dreams? So the hell what if she was physically shaking from the effort it took not to lace her fingers with his when he touched her hand?
It didn't matter what she wanted. What mattered was that she was safe and happy and had managed to make something out of her life.
Something foolish like fantasizing about Marcus, how he'd shower her with affection and gifts and make her feel like a princess-that was the quickest way to lose everything she'd fought for. And she wasn't that foolish. She didn't need to be rescued by Prince Charming. She'd already rescued herself.