No, I wasn’t falling for this. Liam had been raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and now he was trying for a rebrand, as if it might make up for walking all over people. People like my friends.
“Well? This doesn’t really add up, does it?” I asked. “And you didn’t mention anything about your impoverished childhood on your dating CV, either. You went to Oxford, Liam.Oxford. I can hardly think of anything more privileged.”
He leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. It was quiet in the room, the light making everything look like it had been put through a filter. “It wasn’timpoverished, as such but—my parents split when Ben and I were young. My mum moved back to the UK, and my father stayed in the States.He sent her money, but basically, she had to do it on her own. And when I got to eleven—”
“What?”
“Well, my father said if she didn’t send me off to the boarding school he’d chosen—Winchester—he’d stop paying child support—cut it all off. Mum didn’t agree, but he wanted Ben and me to get a decent education. Said he wanted to ‘make a man of me.’” His fingers made small air quotes.
“Oh right. And when’s that meant to kick in?”
As soon as I’d said it, I wished I could claw the words back. They hung there in the air like a tiny verbal pinprick. Spite.
Liam glanced over at me, then looked down. I saw his chest rise and fall slightly, then he put his hands on his knees and braced his arms, before standing stiffly.
“I’ll leave you to it, Andrea. Let me know when you’re done. We leave at ten to seven.” He walked toward the door.
I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach.
Why had I saidthat?
It was hard to imagine anything could hurt Liam Roth, but those stupid, throwaway words had. I was no better than that shop assistant, Sylvia. Mean for the sake of being mean.
“Liam …”
He turned back toward me, waiting, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
His face was neutral again. “I’ll come up and change when you’re done. Text if you need anything.”
As soon as he was gone, I flung myself onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I should never have agreed to this, I’d had my out with the room mix-up, but I hadn’t taken it because I’d wanted something I knew I couldn’t have.
I pressed my face into the pillow and wished I could undothe last ten minutes. I’d have been better off taking the risk of redundancy like everyone else. What fun would it be working there without my friends, anyway? Taking a payout to pretend to be the girlfriend of a man I knew was ruthless, so he could trick a minister into giving him whatever special deal he was after—what did that make me?
But it was more than that, and I wished I could ignore it. His softness when he spoke of his mother, the way he’d changed the subject when Bonnie had cast her barb about the hotel, and how he’d smoothly hidden her etiquette guide from Dex. Picking up on my discomfort at the clothing store. Politely pretending he hadn’t been attacked by a box of incontinence pads and penis gel sachets. And the scars all over his body that we both knew I’d seen, but that neither of us had mentioned.
My stomach twisted.
Why did this feel so complicated? Liam was from another world, one I could never fit into, that much was obvious. A world where people flew in private jets and stayed in French castles and never had to google which knife to use. Where you were born belonging, not auditioning. I could fake it for a night, maybe two.
But he’d always know.
And so would I.
There was a knock on the door, sharp and hard.Was it Liam?Relief flooded through me. I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him, tell him I didn’t mean it and I was sorry, that I knew he was kind and sweet and that there must be some sort of misunderstanding, and could he just please, please not fire my friends?
But that was nonsense, I needed to get a grip. This wasn’tsome stupid fairy tale. Liam was all about the numbers. That wasn’t going to change.
I froze and listened. Another rap on the door, a brisk sort of irritation under the efficiency.
“Andrea? May I come in?”
Great. Bonnie.
I leaped off the bed and dashed to a mirror. Only a few streaks of mascara—I wiped them away with a finger. She’d never know I’d just been crying into a five-star pillow.
“Of course,” I called, my voice bright and fake.
The door opened, and she stepped in, tablet in hand. Her gaze dragged over the room in a slow sweep—the flowers, the balcony, the bed. There was a half-second pause before she smiled again.
