My breath comes quick and shallow, and I grasp his shirt, relishing the steadiness against the tossing memories. They fly at me one after another, but I can’t slow them down enough to catch one. My skin is cold, but my body is too hot. I’m sweating and freezing. Remembering and forgetting.
“The last time I saw you, you were fourteen, and I was fifteen,” he whispers. For a moment my mind clears, focusing on his voice. “It was almost time for me to leave my grandfather’s house for the summer and return to boarding school.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, allowing myself to remember. To remember the before. The family I had in Liam’s grandfather, Henry. The crush I had on Liam when we were just kids. All year, I looked forward to the few months I’d get to spend with him during the summer, laughing and playing like I hadn’t for the whole year. Those were the only times in my life I ever felt carefree.
“You were wearing this white shirt with embroidered daisies.” His voice takes on a far-off quality as he returns to the memory and his fingers tickle my back. “I was determined to kiss you before I left, so I took you beneath that willow tree.”
“I refused.”
He brushes his thumb under my chin. “Not much has changed.”
If only. “I only refused because you dared me to kiss you first.”
“I was fifteen, give a boy some credit. I was far from smooth yet.”
I burrow my face into his warm chest, a small smile finding me at the memory. He’s always been smooth. I wanted to kiss him, too, but I was terrified. He could see it in my eyes after he dared me. So he gathered the courage himself… and kissed me. The sweetest, softest kiss I never got over.
“Your grandmother was horrible,” he says suddenly, his chest and arms tightening around me.
My stomach bottoms out as I remember what happened. She caught Liam and I under the willow tree that day and yanked me inside. Said she wasn’t raising another tramp like my mother who got pregnant at sixteen then ditched her baby with my grandmother, never to return. The next day, I was shipped off to boarding school. That was the last time I saw Liam. Grandmother died while I was away, and I had nowhere to return to.
“You disappeared,” he says wistfully, as if he’s trying to go back to the past and figure out what went wrong.
“She sent me to a boarding school in Paris. Then she passed. I was adopted by a family who changed my last name,” I whisper, not wanting to tell him the next part.
“I tried to call you, email you. I couldn’t find you, but I looked. Everywhere.”
“I didn’t want to be found.” I pull back, catching the pained reaction in his eyes. “I blamed you for ruining my life.” That day with Liam had sent my world into a downward spiral. The family who adopted me was awful. I got out as soon as I could, but then I ended up with someone worse. I shake my head. I had been entirely alone during the scariest times of my life. There were times I thought of calling Liam, but he turned into the very kind of man I learned notto trust, and my resentment for him only grew. I truly hated him. But that’s the funny thing about hate—it’s wrapped up in so many passionate emotions it’s hard to untangle one from another.
The bed is suddenly too warm, despite my still cold skin.
I expect Liam to push me away for telling him why I blocked him from my life, but his arms only tighten around me. “I was entirely to blame. I knew your grandmother held you to high standards, but I was afraid of leaving that summer and never telling you what I needed to.”
I peer up at him. “You didn’t say anything besides daring me to kiss you.”
He nods and then smiles softly. “That was my mistake. I planned to tell you after the kiss, how completely in love with you I was. But I never got the chance.”
That word trips and tumbles around inside my chest.Love.Have I ever been loved? Apparently, I was.
But I can’t begin to formulate a response. How do I? I loved him then too. But when my grandmother found me with him, that was when my life ended. I shut down that part of my heart long ago, determined to never be vulnerable again. Had he said he loved me, maybe things would have been different. I assumed he was being the obnoxious flirt I knew him to be. Only reaching for a conquest. And that’s why when I saw him again, I hated him. He was all I hated in this world: a rich, powerful, seductive man using people for his gain.
Just like Sebastain Sanchez.
But I was so wrong. Liam is nothing like Sebastian.
“Who was Sebastian?” Liam asks, as if reading my mind.
“A very bad man. He was…” My lips tremble as the cold seems to overtake me again. And then, the very thing I’ve been fighting for seven years happens.
I break.
Chapter 26
Liam
The ruthless, strong womanin my arms crumples like a rag doll.
Seraphina. My first love.
