He stared at his mother. "I thought I might try being happy. Isn't that enough?"
Marisa's face twisted into a mask of rage. "You are an embarrassment to the Warren name," she threatened as if he were still eighteen and a flight risk.
But he wasn't eighteen, not anymore. He was not afraid of her, of any of them. "You're doing a fine job of that yourself," he replied, pointedly looking at her glass.
Marisa's eyes blazed with righteous anger. "I am trying to protect you, dear."
And he was six again, holding his nanny's hand, and crying as he stood in front of his parents and told them about how the men in masks in the big black car had pulled up next to them on their way home from the park and pulled out guns and threatened to take them away the next time. How his nanny had yelled and scared the bad guys off. Marcus had asked if they were going to call the police because the police were the good guys who'd catch the bad guys.
That's when his parents had exchanged a look and said, "Dear, we can't risk the Warren name. We'll protect you."
And two days later, Miss Judy-the woman he'd spent most of his six years with-had been gone and Marcus had been very much alone.
All to protect the Warren name.
He was only dimly aware that he'd taken a step toward his mother, dimly aware that he'd dropped his arm from Liberty's waist. Marisa took a step back, her eyes widening in alarm.
"Protect me?" He barked out a harsh laugh. "Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? You don't care about me. You never have."
"That's not true!" Marisa gasped.
"Isn't it? You got rid of my nanny for protecting me. And Father-he made all those scholarship offers disappear. He made the offer from the German soccer teams disappear. How was that protecting me?"
"German soccer teams?" Lillibeth asked in genuine confusion.
Marisa shot Lillibeth a hard look. Lillibeth crossed her arms and took a step back, her head down. She may well cower before Marisa Warren, but Marcus wouldn't cower. Not anymore. "We are in public," Marisa said in a harsh whisper, her gaze darting around.
"That's all that matters, isn't it? What the public thinks. God, what an idiot I've been. To think, after all this time, I'd been telling myself that things would get better if I just did what you wanted. If I went to school where you wanted me to, if I started the company you wanted me to-if I slept with the women you wanted me to."
His mother gasped. "Marcus!"
"It never mattered, did it? No matter how hard I tried to be the perfect Warren, it was never enough. Well, I'm done pretending we're a happy family because we never have been and we never will be. You wanted me to marry her?" he went on, jerking his chin back in Lillibeth's direction. "Why? So we could spend the rest of our lives making each other as miserable as you and Father make each other? No."
"That's not why," Marisa said and this time, he heard a note of desperation in her voice. "Be reasonable, Marcus."
"Be reasonable?" He laughed again. Heads turned in their direction, but he didn't care. "You mean, do as you're told, Marcus-right?"
"That's not what I said. Please, Marcus," she begged, her eyes huge. "People will talk."
"Like Lillibeth talked to the press? She hurt me and yet you insisted I take her back, insisted I make amends-the only reason I'm here is because it was the lesser of the evils. Let them talk. They can't do any more damage than she's done, than you've done."
"Hey!" Lillibeth protested from somewhere behind where he now stood.
"Be quiet," Liberty snapped. "You sold your story. You sold him out."
"Funny coming from you," Lillibeth fired back. "Who the hell are you? Just a secretary trying to sleep your way to the top. You're nothing."
"That's executive assistant and I'm a hell of a lot more to him than you'll ever be."
Marcus felt a welling of pride for Liberty. She would not be cowed, either. But more than that, she was defending him. God, he loved that woman.
"Marcus, everything we've done was to protect you," his mother offered weakly. "You don't understand. We just wanted to keep you safe."
"No, you just wanted to control me. I'm nothing but a pawn to you. I'm not here for her," he said, jerking his thumb at Lillibeth. "I'm not here for you. I'm not here for Father and I'm sure as hell not here for the Warren family name. I'm here with Liberty. Stay out of my life." He turned to Liberty. "You were right. Let's go."
"Marcus, you will stay," his mother demanded. "You came all this way-it would be a scandal."
He stopped and made eye contact with Liberty. "What do you want to do?" she asked in a soft voice.
Honestly? He didn't want to admit that his mother had a point. It wasn't a great point-but storming out of here less than ten minutes after he'd arrived would make people talk.
"Fine."
He took Liberty's hand and turned back to Lillibeth. "Congratulations on your nuptials," he said as he pulled Liberty after him. Without looking back, they walked down to the water's edge.
* * *
Liberty barely had time to kick off her shoes and tug her cover-up over her head before Marcus was hauling her into the water. They walked straight out into the waves, hand in hand, and they didn't stop until the water was at her chest and she was beginning to panic.
"I can't swim," she reminded him when a wave jumped up and smacked her in the chin.
"Here," he replied, turning and scooping her into his arms as if she weighed nothing.
She let him and the water carry her as she looped her arms around his neck. She rested her head against his shoulder as he turned and began to walk parallel to the beach.
They were silent until Marcus stopped. They had moved far past the actual beach-maybe a hundred yards from the last cabana. They were, as promised, completely alone on the edge of the ocean. The other guests who were in the water were so far away she couldn't hear them splashing in the water.
Confident they wouldn't be seen or heard, Liberty leaned back to look up at Marcus. His face was drawn tight, but she couldn't tell if it was sorrow or anger. The two emotions blended together too completely to see where one left off and the other started.
What had he said about a nanny? Whatever it had been, it had hit a true nerve with his mother. Liberty wouldn't have thought she could ever feel anything for Marisa Warren, but in that moment, the older woman had looked her age, haggard and worried. She'd looked like a mother who truly did care for her son.
One thing was clear. Liberty wasn't the only one with secrets.
"The past is in the past," he said in a tight voice, his eyes focused on a point so far in the distance, she wasn't sure human eyes could actually see it. "That went well."
"Swimmingly," she agreed.
Marcus looked down at her, a small grin on his face. "You can't swim."
"And yet, here we are. I believe I was promised a paddle board or something," she added.
"Later." His grin faded. "You stood up for me."
"I just backed you up. Your flank was exposed." But then she thought of how Lillibeth had looked when she'd called Liberty a nothing-vicious and victorious. And that woman hadn't been wrong. Liberty was a nobody. No name, no family. And in this crowd-where a mother would throw her son under the bus for the sake of the family name-being a nobody who came from nobodies was a cardinal sin. Liberty would never be forgiven, no matter how industrious or smart or loyal she was.
It was bad enough that he was sticking his neck out for her with his mother, in front of all these people. She just couldn't bear the thought of him realizing how much of a nobody she really was.
God help her, she never should have let it get to this point, where Marcus Warren was cradling her in his arms in the Pacific Ocean.
But she hadn't been able to help herself. He cared for her and she was terribly afraid she might love him, and if that meant she might have to beat the hell out of a debutante bride, then so be it. And he didn't ask, so she didn't tell him.
"Thank you for standing with me. For being here with me. This is why I wanted you here, Liberty. Because I knew, deep down, that this was how it was going to go." He sighed heavily and looked out onto the ocean. "Because this is how it always goes and I need things to change-"
"Hello?" The voice boomed off from their left, interrupting Marcus.