Page 42 of Captivated By You
Right. My purpose for bugging him.
“Can you tell me what’s going to happen? Or where we’re going? Or why?”
“You haven’t searched online yet?”
“Yeah.” My fingers played with the hem of my shirt at the admission. It hadn’t been wrong. Obviously something was going on, but the extent it was my business was uncertain. “I saw the TMZ article.”
“Fucking vultures,” he groaned and stepped back, waving me in and gesturing toward the balcony. “Go have a seat outside and gimme a minute to put clothes on. I’ll meet you out there.”
And miss the view of him dropping his towel and letting me see everything? He must have been distracted if he wasn’t even goading me into watching him. A tiny twitch of his lips told me my hesitation and thoughts were being broadcasted like a neon billboard in Times Square.
I scurried out to the balcony like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar and waited for him in a chair, lounging back, and letting the salty air ripple over my skin for perhaps the last time. The sun was still setting and neon oranges and pinks lit up the sky. Bright palms rustled in the wind and the taste of salt landed on my lips.
I wasn’t ready to leave. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown into the limelight next to Liam with whatever disaster was occurring stateside.
I’d been hiding for more than one reason but as soon as photos of me surfaced, I’d have a lot more to answer to than just my father or relationship with Liam.
Harrison would find me and insist on having me explain why I not only took off from him without an explanation, but why I’d run…two weeks before our wedding.
Shit.
“I brought you some water.”
Liam’s sudden presence made me jump. “Oh. Hey.”
“Scare you?” He gave me a strange look, handed me bottled water, and slid into another lounge chair.
“No. I was just thinking.”
Feet propped up on the end, knees bent; he’d only taken enough time to throw on a pair of shorts instead of the towel. My view of his body was the same and I couldn’t stop comparing it to the one man I should have been staring at, the man I should have married.
But how do you get married after you find your life was a lie? How do you give yourself to someone when your reputation was disgraced, and you learned you had to spend forever with a man who was no better than the rest of them?
Where Harrison was long and lean, hours spent playing tennis and golfing his own form of workouts, he was always polished. Like a plastic Ken Doll. His aspirations had been to follow in my father’s footsteps and while he promised me that my father and family’s ruination wouldn’t change anything between us, that he didn’t care, I couldn’t trust him. In the wake of the news of Alton Fitzgerald’s dealings, and my own father’s scandals, Harrison hadn’t only remained polished and perfect as he posed for cameras, taking the opportunity to be our family spokesman and then mine, he’d never once seem surprised by any of it.
Instead, he’d remained unruffled, perfectly composed…like he’d been waiting for the day instead of shocked to his core by it.
Then there became the sudden digs at me, “When you’re my wife, you’ll…” like I was about to commit my life to being nothing more than a child and errand girl, someone to be bossed around and sweetly do what I was told and it all ate at me.
It wasn’t what I’d ever wanted for myself, it’s what I’d been groomed to become and all of it, in one horrific night after another nightmare, collapsed on my shoulders so harshly I couldn’t breathe. It was in the midst of the panic I barely remembered calling Karen, already on my way to the airport with a few bags hurriedly packed, but there was no way I was returning to Savannah once I stepped on that plane.
That didn’t mean I didn’t at some point owe Harrison an explanation…or at least a return phone call.
Especially considering he was a lawyer, and his firm, and he and his dad were the trustees of the only trust fund I had. My financial future, literally, rested in his hands. At least it did before Liam and Infidelity came along.
“So….” I started, untwisting the top of the water. “How’s it going?”
He laughed lightly, that soft and raspy voice of his filling the air. “Been better. You scared of me after reading about my arrest?”
“It said you were just a teenager.”
He chugged the water and swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. I’d kick those assholes’ asses any day of the week regardless of how old I was.”
I stared at him, twisting on my lounger to get a better view of him while he waited for me. That wasn’t exactly…comforting.
He turned to me, lifted his feet off the lounger and placed them on the deck. Knees spread wide, his hands dangled between them, one holding the water. “My sister doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s fought for years to get out from all of this, but I swear, right now, she doesn’t want anyone to know even though the truth is closer to coming out now more than ever.”
“Okay.” Ominous didn’t describe the cloud of heaviness that fell over us.
