One Mistake(15)

William Connor was too perceptive for his own good. “That’s true,” I said. “I may have changed some of the details about my past. After everything that happened with Paul, I didn’t have anywhere to go. I was in a pretty bad state physically, and I spent two weeks in the hospital recovering. On top of that, I had nowhere to live. Paul and I had been living together, and I was too scared to face him. I didn’t have any family I could rely on. The counselor at the hospital gave me information about the shelter. I lived there for two months until I was able to stand on my own two feet again.”

I could see the anger in William’s eyes, but he fought hard to keep it in check. “What happened to Paul? Did he go to jail?”

“I pressed charges.” I shifted my eyes away from William. “It was a first-time offense, and he was a sympathetic defendant. He promised the judge he would go to counseling and do community service. In the end, he got six months on probation and he was ordered to stay away from me.”

“Fuck.” William’s anger was surfacing quickly.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I suggested. “I can tell you about the time I got arrested for swimming in the Trevi Fountain in Rome.”

My distraction was ineffective. William was still fuming. “What did he do to you? How bad was it?”

“William, really. I don’t want to talk about it.” I turned away but William pulled me back. The intensity in his eyes scared me. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I care about you.” He took my hand. “Tell me. Please.”

I could feel the emotion building inside me and I did my best to push it back down. I hated losing control. “Concussion. Three broken ribs. Punctured lung. Numerous contusions. Thirteen stitches.”

I lifted my hair away from my face, showing him the scar at the hairline that was normally hidden. William’s soft fingers follow its path to where it ended just above my ear. I felt myself leaning into his touch.

“I will never let anyone hurt you again, Livy. I promise.” He leaned over and kissed the scar, his lips sealing his promise.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. “I promised myself I would never let anyone in again. I can’t get hurt like that again. Not physically, and not emotionally.”

“You can let me in. I would never hurt you.” His lips moved from the scar to my cheek where a single tear had escaped. He kissed it away. “You’re mine now. I’ll do anything to protect you.”

His words scared me. After Paul, I had never wanted to belong to anyone ever again. There was too much risk. Too big of a chance that I would get hurt. But with William, it was different. I wanted to belong to him, and I wanted him to belong to me. I needed him in my life and now he knew it. I had let William in, let him see my dark past and how damaged I was, and he hadn’t even flinched. William had stayed, and that was what scared me most.





CHAPTER FIVE

The bed next to me was empty when I woke up. I found a note on William’s pillow explaining that an emergency had come up at work and he had caught an earlier flight. Last night, I had been scared that William had stayed after hearing the details about my past. Now I was scared that he had left. What if he had changed his mind about being with me?

When my flight landed in Chicago, I had a message from him saying he was sorry about taking off so early and that he would see me in the office. By the time I got downtown, several emails had come through and I knew that whatever had brought William back early was about to effect all of us. He called an urgent meeting and I made it to the conference room just in time.

“Mark from Palmroil called me early this morning.” William sat at the head of the conference room table. The CFO sat to his right, and Dan sat to his left. I wondered why Tara hadn’t been invited to the meeting but William hadn’t exactly opened the floor for questions. “He expressed some concerns about our failure to alert him to possible EPA requirements to implement the SPCC plans.”

Now I understood why Tara wasn’t present. She had been responsible for researching the SPCC plan requirements. William’s dark eyes settled on my face. “Olivia, I was under the impression that you and Tara were taking care of the EPA regulations.”

“That’s true. I researched the reporting requirements, and Tara was looking into the countermeasure plans.” I returned his stare. “What is Mark’s concern?”

“Mark spoke with Tara last night after dinner,” William said. What he meant was, Mark spoke with Tara after we had left dinner early to screw in my hotel room. “She told him there was nothing to worry about. That the SPCC countermeasures wouldn’t apply in this case.”