Rosa closed her hand around Liam’s wrist and squeezed gently. “You’re not blagging, Liam. You run the business as well as Cory ever did. Only difference is you don’t want to.”
Of course he didn’t fucking want to. They’d founded Sea Rave with Liam as the head designer, not chief executive, and if he’d trusted anyone else with the business Cory had ploughed his heart and soul into, he’d have been long gone.
“What have you been up to, anyway?” Rosa’s voice jolted him back to reality. “Sean said you crashed at his last weekend. I haven’t heard from you since. Did you have a good time?”
An image of himself stumbling out of Zac’s flat and a half mile down the road to Rosa’s brother-in-law’s bungalow hit Liam, but he wasn’t about to share it with her. “Can I take the boys to Cromer when I get back? One more chance to go crabbing before it gets wet and shitty.”
After a protracted glare, Rosa sighed, letting the subject of the nondate drop—for now. “Sure. They’d like that. They miss you when you’re not around.” Which is all the time.
She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. Liam was aware of his ability to ghost through the days like he was somewhere else entirely. That he could spend hours with people who’d once known and loved him—and Cory—and part ways knowing they barely recognised him. “Tell them I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to them soon.”
“They already know it. Don’t worry about a thing. How long are you going to be in London for?”
“I don’t know. Ask Mike.”
“Are you staying at the apartment?”
“I’d imagine so. Why?”
Rosa shrugged. “The decorating’s finished there now, isn’t it?”
“Weeks ago. New floors, kitchen, bathroom. The furniture went in at the weekend.”
“So, it’s like a brand-new start?”
“If you say so.” The London flat had been Cory’s base when he’d worked away. Liam hadn’t had much to do with it until circumstance had forced him to. Gutting the place had been cathartic, but in truth there’d been little of Cory to clean out. “Mike says it’s looking good.”
Rosa sighed again. “What Mike thinks isn’t really important, Liam. The flat belongs to you, and I don’t want you rotting in some faceless bachelor pad when you’re in London.”
“I’m fine, Rosa, honest. You worry too much.”
“Do I? Seems to me that you hole yourself up here every chance you get. If it wasn’t for the company dragging you to London, or my lot invading your personal space, you wouldn’t speak to anyone.”
Liam got up under the guise of chucking Rosa’s lasagne in the oven. “I speak to plenty of people. I come to your house for lunch on Sundays, my phone rings off the hook all damn day, and I spent most of last week hanging from being out on the lash with Sean. What more do you want from me?”
“I want you to be happy.”
“I was happy.”
“I know, I just . . .” Rosa took a breath. “I can’t bear you being so lonely, Liam. Why don’t you try dating when you’re in London? It’s a big enough place that you wouldn’t have to see someone again if they turned out to be a wanker. There’s websites—”
“Rosa.”
“Okay, okay, but promise me you’ll try?”
“Only if you promise to shut the hell up.”
It was as close to a compromise as he ever got with the woman he’d shared a womb with. Rosa was relentless when she had something to say and Liam had rarely possessed the tenacity to argue with her, even before someone else’s careless moment had robbed him of an idyllic life most people only dreamed of.
“Have you seen Dad today?”
It was Rosa’s turn to look away. “This morning. That new woman from Croft House was taking him to the farmers’ market.”
“That’s nice.”
“Is it?” Rosa brushed imaginary dust from the kitchen table. “He told me he’d rather stick pins in his eyes.”
Liam suppressed the vague humour he found in the image of his ailing father giving the battle-axe care worker a piece of his mind. “You don’t think it’s good that he’s still with it enough to be a stubborn arse?”
