The rage in his chest built, swirling back on itself like a hailstorm picking up speed. God dammit, he could do some damage right now. He could leave a wake of destruction in his path and watch the world burn.
"You're a fine one to be talking about daring. When were you going to tell me? Or were you going to wait until we'd adopted that baby? Until we had children of our own?"
"William is not my child." She paused, as if she was collecting herself. Or was she just trying to get her story straight? "He couldn't be. You were my first."
"You were a virgin?" he roared.
She flinched as if he'd slapped her. Heads around them turned. If people hadn't noticed them before, they sure as hell did now. "Marcus-the car-"
But the storm of rage kept on swirling and he couldn't fight it. "And you didn't feel like you should have mentioned that at some point?"
"I tried," she snapped. "I tried to tell you about all of it. You're the one who said the past was the past, and my past didn't matter any more than yours did. You're the one who cut me off. So, yes, I did feel like I should have mentioned it at many points. And I didn't because you didn't want me to."
"Because I thought you'd gotten your heart broken or you had to, I don't know, work your way through college-something common like that! I never imagined you were passing as white and hiding this! Because that seems important to me. I was going to marry you, for God's sake! I wanted to have a family with you! I trusted you with everything, Liberty. Everything. Things I've never told anyone else because I love you. And you didn't. You obviously didn't trust me at all."
"Marcus," she pleaded as tears started to drip down her cheeks. "I wanted to tell you but-"
"No. If you'd wanted to, you would have." Her tears were not going to move him. Not even a bit. "And you know what? It doesn't even matter. I don't care."
"You...don't?" Her chest hitched up as her eyes swam.
"An honest conversation, Liberty. That's all I wanted. That's what I thought I was having. I mean-is it all a lie? Did you even run?"
She flinched. "No. I never ran before I met you."
Everything he thought he knew about her was based on a lie. The past three years, their morning run together-that time had saved him. Because he had Lake Michigan and Liberty and the freedom to run, he'd been able to get past Lillibeth's betrayal. He'd been able to deal with the pressure his parents put on him.
He didn't think he'd be able to run his way out of this storm. "Nothing but lies. And why? Was it just so you could trick me into marrying you? So you could have a piece of the Warren name?"
That got a reaction out of her. "Don't be ridiculous, Marcus. I hate your name and I hate what your family has done to you because of it." The force of her anger pushed him back a step.
"Then why? And I want a real answer, Liberty. No more lies."
"Why? Have you ever tried being a black woman in this world? We aren't all born with a collection of silver spoons to choose from, Marcus."
He wasn't going to be relieved that she was fighting back, that he'd always loved how she argued with him when most everyone else would tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. The Liberty he'd loved had been a lie.
"Yes, my mother was black and yes, my father was probably white. I don't know. All I know is that passing meant I only had to work twice as hard to get out of the gutter instead of four times as hard. So yes, I passed. Yes, I let everyone think I was a middle-class white girl. I'm not about to apologize for what I had to do to survive."
"I don't want you to apologize for surviving, dammit."
"Then what do you want from me?"
"I wanted the real you, Liberty."
Her eyes flicked behind him. "The car is here. I'll be happy to tell you what it was like growing up with a hooker junkie for a mother and being bounced around from foster home to foster home-in the damned car, Marcus."
"No, I'm done. I'm done, Liberty. Do you realize that I risked everything for you? I stood up to my mother for you, I bailed on commitments for you-I would have done anything for you." His voice caught in his throat but he ignored that. "I would have fought for you, Liberty."
She looked at him with so much pity in her eyes that it made him physically nauseous. All his rage seemed to blow itself out and suddenly he was tired.
He'd wanted things to change and change they had. Why hadn't he considered the option that they might change for the worse?
Because it got worse when she stepped in closer to him and laid her palm against his cheek and, fool that he was, he let her. He should push her away and put her in her place and make sure she knew that no one screwed over a Warren. No one. "I didn't want you to fight for me," she said, her voice soft and gentle. "I wanted you to fight for yourself."
Her words hit him like a gut punch. What the hell was she talking about? Of course he fought for himself! He was Marcus Warren, dammit all!
But before he could tell her that, she turned and, head held high, walked off. He thought she was heading for the front gate, but he wasn't sure. "What are you doing?" he called after her.
"Take the car. I'll make my own way home."
"That's it?" For some reason, he didn't want to watch her walk away. It wasn't that he wanted her to stay-he didn't. He just...he wanted the last word. He wanted to do the walking, dammit.
She stopped and looked back at him and he was horrified to see she was crying again. "That's all there can be. We both know it. Maybe we always did."
"Sir?" Marcus started. The driver was standing next to him, looking deeply concerned. "Sir, would you like me to get the young lady?"
That's all there can be.
"Can you get me another car here within ten minutes?"
"Yes, sir."
Marcus nodded toward Liberty's retreating form. "Take her wherever she wants to go."
That's all there was.
And she was right, damn her. They both knew it.
Seventeen
If Liberty knew where her mother was buried, she'd go to the graveside. She had so many questions and for maybe the only time in her life, she felt as if her mother might have had some answers.
Or at least, one answer. Was this what Jackie Reese had felt like when her prince in polyester failed to rescue her?
Not that Liberty had wanted Marcus to rescue her. But for a few days-less than two weeks-he'd been her knight in shining armor, ready to take on all comers to defend her from the cruelties of the world.
Liberty didn't know where her mother was interred. For that matter, she didn't know where Grandma Devlin had been buried, either. Liberty had no connection to her childhood. She didn't see people from the projects. She didn't have any old friends who kept her up-to-date on the neighborhood gossip. Hell, there wasn't even a neighborhood anymore. Most of the Cabrini-Green projects had been leveled to make way for trendy new housing, the likes of which all her old neighbors would've never been able to afford. Maybe that was the point.
Her old life was so far removed from the person she'd willed herself to be that it didn't seem as if she could be both versions of Liberty Reese. And being Jackie Reese's daughter was not the better option.
So she'd stopped being Jackie's daughter. That hadn't been a chapter-it'd been a completely different book, one that was finished and done and had no other bearing on her life now. As Marcus had almost come to believe, the past was past.
Except it wasn't. Liberty would never be free of Jackie.
She hadn't lied to Marcus. Okay, well-she had maybe bent the truth. But that wasn't the real problem.
No, Liberty had lied to herself. She'd convinced herself that Jackie Reese's daughter didn't exist and, as such, wasn't important. That's what little Liberty had always felt like back then. Unimportant.
But the woman she'd become? That Liberty was important. She was valuable because she made herself valuable. She worked harder and longer than anyone else. She had saved herself. To hell with princes.
She had no prince. In fact, she had no one.
Well, almost no one. Two days after she'd walked away from Marcus Warren, she knocked on Hazel's door and waited. She should have called before she came, but she'd been afraid that Hazel might not have let her come over. The older woman still might not let her in, but Liberty was desperate. She knew that this William was not the same as the little brother who had died all those years ago, unwanted and unloved. But this baby, here and now, felt like her only living connection to a past she'd tried to bury.