“How cold are you?” he asks without turning around.
“I’ve been warmer.” My teeth chatter as I talk.
He strikes a match. The wood catches, and flames lick at the logs, casting flickering orange light across the room. Shadows dance on the ceiling.
I sit cross-legged on the thick rug close to the fire, my skirt fanning out in a circle of sheer fabric and floral appliqués. The warmth reaches me in waves, thawing my fingers and toes.
I stare at the gorgeous man crouched before the flames. The firelight contours his face into golden and darker shades, highlighting the hollows of his cheekbones, and the dark sweep of hair falling across his forehead.
“Did you steal the cake?” I ask.
Liam gives the fire one last poke. A log shifts, sending a shower of sparks spiraling up the chimney. He watches them climb, satisfied the flames will hold, then turns to me.
“Should I have?”
I shrug, pulling the blanket tighter around me. “It’s just… I feel like I’m in the final scene ofSixteen Candles. Sitting on the floor with the dress, the flower crown, and the hot guy taking care of me. I’m only missing cake.”
Liam chuckles. That simple sound reaches places the fire can’t warm. He lowers himself on the rug across from me, sitting cross-legged so that our knees almost touch. And gosh, Jake Ryan has nothing on him.
“So,” Liam says. “We should talk.”
The flames crackle between us.
I want to say,You should shut up and kiss me.
But I nod instead.
“Are you sure you’re not mad?” I ask. “That I ran?”
“No.”
“What did you tell your parents?”
He reaches over to adjust the blanket on my shoulders, his knuckles grazing my collarbones. The heat of the open fire becomes a dull roar in the background; the real burn bleeds inward, sinking through the skin and settling heavy in my chest.
“I told them there’s a reason we didn’t go for a public wedding. And that they shouldn’t have ambushed us like that.”
I search his face for a crack, for the simmering resentment I expect to find hiding beneath the composure. “And you’re just… okay with that? They must’ve been mad. Embarrassed. Your mother planned this for a month.”
“I don’t care about my parents right now.” His voice is quiet but absolute. He didn’t hesitate even for a second. “The only person I care about is you.”
His words are a wildfire, and I’m the dry brush that doesn’t stand a chance.
“Why did you run?” he asks.
I stare down at my hands in my lap. “I couldn’t do it,” I whisper. “I have feelings for you…” I look up at him. “And standing in front of your family, reciting fake vows…” I shake my head. “I didn’t want to do it. I’d be saying words I’m starting to mean, pretending they’re fake, and I didn’t know how to do that without breaking apart. I would’ve gone back to being the woman I was before meeting you, and you wouldn’t have liked her.”
“There isn’t a version of you I wouldn’t like.”
“Well, I didn’t like her. And I didn’t want to get married today.”
The fire pops. A log collapses, reshuffling the flames.
“Me neither,” Liam says.
I lift my head. “You didn’t?”
“No.” He holds my gaze, and the amber light catches in his irises, turning the gray to molten steel.
