It was better this way.
It had to be.
The lie sat heavy in my chest as I pulled out of the parking lot, leaving behind the only person who’d ever made me believe I could be something other than my father’s son.
FORTY-SEVEN
I didn’t move for a long time after the door closed behind him.
I stood there, frozen in the middle of my living room, tears streaming down my face, waiting for him to come back. Waiting for him to burst through the door and tell me it was all some horrible joke, something—anything—other than what had just happened.
He didn’t come back.
The silence in the apartment was deafening. Sydney wasn’t home, which was probably for the best because I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.
I enjoyed the chase.
His words echoed in my head, sharp and cruel, and I pressed my hand to my heart like it might physically hold the jagged pieces together.
The forbidden aspect turned me on.
God.God.I was so stupid. So fucking stupid to think I was different. To think that I was the exception to every rule Liam Farrell had ever made about not doing relationships.
I’m already gettingrestless.
The sob that tore out of me was ugly, broken, and heart-wrenching, as I sank to the floor, curling over and letting out the pain that was ripping me apart. Nothing had ever hurt me the way his words did. Not even when I’d found out about Chris.
Chris, who’d cheated on me because I was boring in bed.
Liam had gotten bored of me entirely.
I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned. Cried until there was nothing left, until I was hollow and empty and numb. Then I sat there in the dark, my back resting against the couch as I stared at nothing, replaying every word he’d said.
This was always supposed to be temporary. An arrangement.
But it hadn’t been. Not for me. And I’d been so sure—sostupidlysure—that it wasn’t temporary for him either. Not after the hockey game. Not after he’d said he loved me.
The anger came slowly at first. A spark in my chest that flickered to life beneath all the grief.
Because wait just a fucking minute.
I’d watched his face when he said those words. I’d been standing right there, close enough to see every flicker of emotion, every muscle twitch. And despite how he made everything sound and the doubt he’d planted in that moment, IknewLiam. And his voice had been flat, yes. Cold, even. But his eyes?—
His eyes had beendevastated.
The same eyes that had looked at me like I hung the moon. The same eyes that had gone soft and vulnerable when he’d told me he loved me. Those eyes had been swimming with pain tonight, even as his mouth formed words designed to push me away.
I frowned, as clarity cut sharply through the haze of heartbreak.
Liam Farrell was many things, but he wasn’t a good liar. Not to me. He could bullshit his way through conversations with anyone else, but I’d always been able to read him. And tonight, nothing had matched. His words said one thing, but everything else—his clenched jaw, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, the way he wouldn’t let himself get close to me—said something else entirely.
He’d looked like a man destroyed.
And the only times I’d ever seen him doubt himself were always when his dad came around. Liam never talked to me about his dad, but I’d seen him when we were growing up and the wreckage his dad always left in his wake.
I’d asked him directly if this was about his dad, and he’d denied it. But the denial had been too quick. And I knew his dad had texted him, which made me believe this absolutely had everything to do with him.
What the fuck kind of lies had he poisoned Liam with?
