"What's the third option?" she asked warily.
"I understand why you're nervous about the wedding, so I can call my personal shopper and we can get some things for you. That way you won't have to worry about finding something to wear. Eventually," he added, kissing her bare shoulder.
Her hand covered his as he still stroked her breast. "Marcus... Why do you want me to go so badly?"
"Because." She didn't respond to this unhelpful comment. She just waited.
Now it was his turn to roll onto his back and stare at his ceiling. "Do you know what I wanted to be when I grew up?"
"No." She nestled into him, her hand on his chest, right over his heart. "I take it billionaire investor wasn't it?"
"No. I was actually scouted. I had scholarship offers for soccer, track and baseball from a bunch of different schools with really good programs. Not that I needed the scholarships."
"But coaches wanted you."
"They did. I had an offer from a few teams in Europe to come play soccer. Germany, I remember. There were two teams in Germany that wanted me. There was a bidding war, even."
"Really?" She leaned up on her elbow and looked down at him. "How come I don't know this? I mean, before I took the job, I googled you pretty hard."
"Nothing ever came of it. My parents didn't approve. It simply wasn't done," he said, in a reasonably good impression of his mother's simper.
Liberty winced. "Beneath a Warren?"
That made him smile. She got him in such a fundamental way. He threaded his fingers into her hair. It was coarser than he'd thought, but that just made him like it more-an extra layer of sensation. "Exactly. A few words from my father and the scholarship offers were rescinded. I have no idea how he made the Europeans go away, but he did."
"Wait-what do you mean, he made them go away?"
"I was going to go. I was eighteen and all the college offers disappeared and I had had it. I was going to go to Germany, as far away from my parents as possible, and play soccer for a few years. College could wait, right?"
She was staring at him now, the concern on her face obvious. "So, what-you decided to play professional soccer and because your father didn't approve, he made the team rescind the offer?"
"Basically. I never did know for sure, but I suspect he actually bought the team I chose-for a short while anyway."
"How could they do that to you?" She was genuinely shocked.
He smiled bitterly. "For my own good, they said. To protect me."
"What on earth would they need to protect you from so badly they had to buy a soccer team in Germany?"
"Well..." He opened his mouth to tell her about the men and the guns and losing his nanny, Miss Judy. But the words didn't come. So he didn't answer the question. Instead, he said, "It wasn't to protect me. It was to protect the family name. I went to Columbia instead and Northwestern for business school. It was literally the only option they left open for me. Everything else has been their idea."
She thought about this for a while. "Is that why you hired me? Because it wasn't your parents' idea?"
"Well, that and you said in your interview that you jogged two miles every day."
The corner of her mouth quirked up a bit. "I did, didn't I? I'm a lot faster now."
He grinned at her as he ran his hands up and down her back. "I like running with you. It's the best time of my day. You and me and the jogging path along the lake."
Her smile was wistful, almost. "It's my favorite part of the day, too."
He leaned up to kiss her because that honest touch of his lips to hers said what he couldn't seem to find the words to say.
"I want you to come with me, babe," he told her when the kiss ended. He brushed her hair back from her face and cupped her cheek. "When I'm with you, it's like I can still see that man I thought I'd be once, and I don't want to fall into line and do what I'm told, only do what's good for the family image. I want to fight for you."
She leaned into his touch. "I won't fit in your world," she warned him. "I'm not good for you." But again, it didn't sound as if she was arguing with him. It sounded as though she was accepting this fact just as she accepted that the sky was blue.
"You keep saying that." He leaned up on his elbows to stare at her. "So you're not a trust-fund baby. You keep your private life private and you've got my respect."
She didn't reply, except to look at him with her big, dark eyes.
A whisper of doubt crept into the edge of his mind. She did keep her private life private-so private, in fact, that after three years, he'd seen where she lived only last night.
In his mind, Liberty was this beacon of honesty and respectability, always on time and under budget, outperforming herself every quarter. But what if...
What if there were something she kept hidden, something that could hurt him?
He looked at her. She was lying on his stomach, her chin resting on her hands as she looked right back at him. "Do you really want to know?"
"Only if you want to tell me. The past is in the past, babe. As long as you didn't kidnap or murder anyone..." He paused.
She laughed out loud. "Good Lord, no. I have led a remarkably crime-free life. Never even been arrested."
He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. She was safe and he trusted her. She was just going to have to get used to it. "You may not be good for Marcus Warren, billionaire," he conceded. "But," he went on, "you are very good for me. Come with me. Let me fight for you."
She broke eye contact first, tilting her head to the side and resting it on his chest. "No one has ever fought for me," she said in a voice so quiet he had to lean up to catch all the words.
"No one? What about your parents?"
She shrugged. It was a seemingly casual gesture, but he could see the tension in her shoulders. He stroked her bare skin.
"As you said, it's in the past. I don't like to talk about it. But if you want me to tell you, I will."
"You don't have to. It won't change how I feel about you. I want you to be happy."
She traced a small circle on his chest with the tip of her finger. "Is that the reason you're looking out for William? Because of me?"
"Yes. But it's not the only reason. It's..." He sighed. "It's because you care about him, but it's also because when I see you with him-I didn't anticipate how it would make me feel."
She propped herself up and stared at him. "Yeah?"
What if... That's what he'd thought looking at her with that tiny baby, the love on her face obvious. "Watching you hold him, feed him-it's like I was looking at this other life, the path I didn't get to take. Maybe in another life..."
In another life, he might have already married for love, not for power or reputation. He might have a baby, or a bunch of kids, and they'd do normal things such as spend every Saturday running around soccer fields and cooking dinners together, and then he'd help put the kids to bed and pull Liberty into bed and...
"But he's African American," Liberty said, her tone careful. "Does that bother you?"
Marcus shook away the image of him and Liberty and one big, happy family. "It might bother my parents. I couldn't care less."
She continued looking at him, her eyes full of what he hoped like hell was love. Normally, when women made eyes at him, it was because of his money, his looks-or some combination of the two.
But the way Liberty looked at him was different. God, how he wanted it to be different.
"We'll go see him before we leave, okay?" he said. It was so odd. She didn't want anything from him for herself-she was adamant about that. But she wanted someone to fight for the baby. "Thursday. But I'll have my assistant check my schedule."
That got a huge grin out of her. "I think it can be arranged."
"And you'll come with me to the wedding? As my date?" He held his breath because if she said no, he would have to let it drop.
She sighed, a world-weary noise that almost made him rescind the offer. He'd backed her into a corner and it was maybe too selfish of him to ask this of her. "It's important to you?"
"You're important to me."
The corners of her eyes crinkled and he thought she might be smiling at him. Unexpectedly, she rolled off him and sat up on the edge of the bed. He wanted to pull her back down into his arms, but instead, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades, high on her back. "Then I guess we have to go shopping. I don't have a thing to wear."