Trusting Liam(61)

14



October 27

Liam

THERE WAS A soft knock on my office door three days later, but I didn’t respond to it. If it was Eli, he’d have come in without waiting for me to invite him. If it was anyone else, they could call me. A minute later, I heard another few knocks and then the door slowly opened.

“I have it shut for a reas—” I cut off quickly when I looked up and saw the girl standing in front of me.

Seeing her there felt like a weight settled on my chest, and conflicting thoughts rushed through my mind. I wanted to hold her, I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to demand she tell me now why she never told me she was married, and I wanted to press her against the wall and show her what exactly we’d had and what she had thrown away.

Instead, I cleared my throat and looked back at the screen of my computer. “I’m busy.”

Another minute passed without her leaving or saying anything, but the second I heard her voice, I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at her. “Do you remember that night in your apartment—the night I stopped fighting what you already knew I felt for you?” I didn’t respond, but she continued anyway. “You told me that you wanted to face whatever I was fighting from my past head-on.”

“But I didn’t know that I would be fighting your husband.”

“Ex,” she corrected. “Rhys is my ex-husband. And before you go repeating what you asked me the morning you found out about him, yes, I know he’s my ex. I am fully aware of it. But you don’t understand; I was eighteen when I married him and he divorced me three months later and disappeared until just the other day. I looked for him for two years after he disappeared before giving up, and only now do I know that he had to leave me because he had to go undercover—just like my dad and uncle.”

“Well, good, I’m happy for you. Now he’s back, and you can pick up your marriage where you left off,” I said, but it was obvious that the last thing I was feeling was happiness over the situation.

Kennedy shook her head as tears gathered in her eyes. “What I’m trying to tell you is that his reappearance had me too shocked to figure out what to say or do the other morning, and that’s why I wasn’t able to stop you from leaving. I never expected to see or hear from him again—especially not while Kira and I were here in California—but I didn’t want you to leave then, and I don’t want you to leave me now.”

I sat there for a while just staring at her as tears slipped down her face. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to say you’re still here with me! I want you to keep fighting for us instead of just leaving me!”

“I can’t, Kennedy! He was your husband, and now he’s come back for you. I can’t compete with that,” I said, my voice and body showing how defeated I felt.

A hushed cry burst from her chest, and she tightened her lips into a hard line as she tried to regain control over her emotions, but her voice still shook when she said, “That pain you used to talk about? That fear? That was me not wanting to have another Rhys in my life. That was me being terrified that my world would be shattered again by you, because I knew you had the capability of doing that. I knew it in the way you silently commanded control, I knew it in the way I easily and willingly gave in to you again and again, and I knew it in the way you made me feel just by being near me. No one had ever done that except for Rhys until you came into my life.”

All the air in my lungs left in a heavy rush. It felt like her words had just landed a blow to my stomach. Never once since Rhys had shown up at her door had I imagined that the entire time I’d known Kennedy, I’d been reminding her of him. “So is that why you fought me, or is that why you were with me—because I reminded you of him?”

Kennedy’s face tightened in pain at my words, but she nodded, acknowledging their truth. “I fought you because of all the ways you were like him. I’m with you because of all the ways you aren’t.”

My legs ached from the force I was using to keep myself in my chair instead of going to her, but just as she’d protected herself over the past five months, I needed to protect myself until I knew what exactly was going to happen with us. “Sit down,” I ordered softly, and waited until she did. “What happened after I left?”

“We talked. He told me about why he left and how he found me, and—”

“How did he?” I asked, interrupting her.

“My dad. As soon as his undercover assignment was over, he found my dad and asked about me. Dad gave him the address to the condo.”