“I feel as if you’d rather shoot me than chat with me these days. That’s not helpful to our working relationship.”
Oliver stared at Liam and shifted slightly on his feet, fingers digging into his upper arms as he tried to calm his whirling thoughts. He normally had no problem thinking quick on his feet, but Liam was a physical reminder of a past mistake he wished he could forget.
“Not everyone exists simply to please you,” Oliver snapped.
He regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth. The way Liam’s hazel eyes darkened ever so slightly told Oliver he had probably remembered the reason Oliver absolutely loathed being in his presence.
“I would never require that of my subordinates,” Liam said slowly. “I feel there’s a reason you dislike me so much these days, and I can only think of one.”
The problem was Oliver didn’t want to think about their past, he wanted to forget it. “Why would my dislike matter to you? You hardly know me anymore.”
Liam’s half smile was a crooked, bitter thing. “Yes. And whose fault is that?”
Oliver clenched his jaw and wrenched his gaze away from Liam in favor of the view of London that stretched out behind the other man through the plas-glass window. There was a time in the far past where Oliver had thought he’d had a chance with the boy Liam had once been.
Oliver had been so bloody stupid back then.
“Don’t put this on me, Colonel Wessex.”
“I have a name. You’ve always been welcome to use it.”
Oliver snorted. “Many people would disagree.”
“Many peoplearen’t here, are they?”
They had been, once.
Social status in England was ground down in the bones of her people. It built subtle walls almost everyone found too difficult to climb over. Oliver had lucked out being born into a family who owned a title, landless though it might have been. But even within the peerage, there were barriers one could never cross.
Oliver had tried and been burned for it.
The party at a mutual acquaintance’s country estate when he was seventeen was an embarrassing mistake Oliver had to live with. Back then, everyone had fancied Liam, and Oliver had been no exception.
Only Oliver, against his better judgment, had allowed himself to believe Liam’s laughing promises—promises, Oliver knew from acquaintances, that always got broken in the cold light of morning. He’d thought he was Liam’s friend. Oliver had let himself believe he was different. That the way Liam had kissed him at the time meant something more.
Liam would only ever be a prince, but back then, he’d been the king of heartbreak to every man and woman he’d brought into his bed. Liam had never been discreet when he was younger because he hadn’t needed to be. The bet he’d made with Rupert Marsh had been proof of it.
By the time Oliver had woken up alone after the party, before he’d even walked in on the others discussing the bet, everyone within their circle of friends had known he’d slept with Liam. Liam had never stopped the taunts that followed in the wake of their night together, preferring instead to let the lower-ranked peerage and wealthy sons of businessmen surrounding him sort themselves out.
When they had, Oliver ended up on the outside looking in, and that’s where he remained to this day—mocked by his peers and kept at a polite distance from any real social relationships. His title only got him so far, and there were those who lived to remind him of his shortcomings and the humiliation he’d endured for being a notch on Liam’s bedpost.
For only being good enough to fuck for fun, and not to keep as a friend or something more. Social status in the peerage meant everything to everyone, and in the end, Oliver’s would never be enough.
Oliver brushed aside the memories and refocused on Liam, meeting the other man’s gaze without blinking. “We have a job to do. Can you do it?”
Liam arched an eyebrow. “Can you?”
“You don’t have the right to take out your anger at your situation on me. I know what is expected of me and my agency for this mission. I might not be a metahuman, but I know how to do my job. Maybe you should trust me to do it. Your chief does.”
Liam leaned back in his chair, staring at Oliver with a blankness to his gaze that was impossible to read. “I’ve never had an issue with your actions in the field.”
“And yet, here we are.”
“You were working within the parameters of your agency the last few times you liaised with us.”
“I still am. And as I recall, you practically begged to join us in December.”
Liam’s mouth ticked downward at the corner before smoothing out. “Your personal social clout wasn’t enough to open those doors on Fortuna-sur-mer.”
