“Socializing? Well, she was more diplomatic with you than she was with me.” As her heart began its sink, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Lisa has the wrong end of the stick, and so do you.”
“Well, you left me in charge of the group, and I still have to think of them and how things appear. We have some very fragile egos here.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m the leader, remember? The one who brought you all together.” Okay, now this was just pissing her off.
“I’m sorry, Kate, but I’m doing what I think is best. Maybe once you sort things out, you can come back.”
“Sort things out?” She squawked in disbelief. “Rod, the only reason I’m staying at Vice is because I was attacked. Liam saved me. He offered to help.”
“You were attacked?”
“Yes.” She put up a hand. “You know what? Never mind. I’ve devoted myself to this group and the minute my life goes to pot, I get booted? Well, then I really don’t want to be here.”
“Kate, wait…”
“No. You go back to your precious group. I’m sure they’ll be lost without their new head honcho.” Fleeing before she burst into tears, she raced outside and toward Wade’s waiting car. He opened the back door to the Escalade and she dove inside.
The security guard eyed her warily as he climbed in the driver’s seat. “Where to?”
Where to? She had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to other than the man in whose arms she’d come alive, but with whom she’d also lost part of herself. And as much as she wanted to run away from Liam and from everyone else, she was always drawn back to him, like a boomerang.
“Vice. Where else?”
She sighed, noticing how Wade tried to be stealthy in sending a text, no doubt to Liam.
Liam. As much as she craved him, craved his taste and his touch, this no longer felt right. Maybe it never did. She’d gained a lover, perhaps even someone she could fall in love with, but his acute attentions rattled her. His violent loving made her doubt her sanity. With him, although she’d experienced physical euphoria, it had left her numb and hollow.
He’d lost so much in life, and had made strides, especially by letting go of Michelle. But then he’d transferred those intense needs onto Kate. As much as she was glad she’d helped him with his abandonment issues, she was under no delusion that his demons had been vanquished. Not by a long shot.
He was two men in one. She might have fallen for the owner of those seductive grins, but she was scared of the man behind those dark appetites.
Oh God, I have fallen for him.
No. Impossible. She could never fall for anyone so grasping, so needy. In some ways, he reminded her of her father, someone who always needed more. More money, more friends, more attention. That’s what he really got out of his habit, but only for a time. She’d lived with lies and deceit all her life. If this was her new rock bottom, losing her friends, and she had to start over, she owed it to herself to start over in a healthier frame of mind.
What she had with Liam was in no way healthy.
She had to let him go, so they could both let go of the past. It was the only way. They’d been too wrapped up in each other, and it had become too easy to forget the outside world and pretend everything was okay. She couldn’t carry on this way, existing just for Liam.
And yet every time she remembered the way he caressed her, she grew weak in the knees. It was all so wrong. Hell, they’d barely had a real date. The night at Franky’s seemed so long ago. They’d gone from throwing barbs at one another to him throwing her on the nearest surface and fucking her senseless. Not exactly the basis of a stable relationship. How could she love him?
Maybe because she glimpsed something in him that no one else had ever seen. Even though he’d initially held back from her, he’d revealed his heart. She couldn’t forget that moment, as much as he’d walled it back up.
As she expected, by the time they pulled up at Vice, he was standing on the walkway, waiting for them. He was dressed for work, but his pressed shirt was open at the collar with no tie. There were dark circles under his eyes and his handsome face looked strained and pale.
Like an addict.
She slid her compact out of her purse, eyed her reflection, and saw the same qualities in her own face. She’d become a desperate woman, looking for her next fix.
She replaced the mirror in her bag and looked back at him. This wasn’t the same playfully cocky Liam Doyle she’d first met. Had that man ever existed? She wasn’t sure anymore. All she knew was, even though this Liam scared her, he also drew her like a six-foot magnet. She just didn’t know how to relate to him. She had questions he didn’t want to answer, and he wanted to explore carnal depths that made her only question him more.
He opened up the car door for her and she slid out. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Wade tells me you had a rough time. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t.” He let out a sigh and fiddled with one of the buttons on his shirt. “Listen, do you want to go somewhere and talk?”
Talk. Now he wanted to talk. Her heart walloped her insides in a beat she didn’t recognize. It was too late for talk.
She needed to do this. It was now or never.
This would be her true rock bottom.
“Kate?”
“You know, Liam, I’d say yes if I thought we were actually going to talk to each other, but that’s not going to happen, is it? We’ll go back to your room, or some other random room, and just fuck like we always do.”
He held her gaze, as if wondering where she was going with this.
“I’m checking out of Vice. I can’t be here. Just associating with you, being here in this hotel, has lost me my friends. I was wrong to come in the first place. I got carried away, got tempted by this glitzy world you live in, tempted by you, and now I’m paying for it.” She moved past him toward the lobby door.
He reached for her hand. “You can’t do that. You can’t go.”
“I can and I will.”
“Kate, it’s not safe for you out there.”
She whipped around on him. “Jesus, Liam. It’s not safe for me here! Don’t you get it? I can’t be around you. You make me…want things I can’t have.”
He drew dangerously close. His voice was deep and soft on her ear. “You can have them. You can have anything you want. I’ll get it for you.”
“Don’t you understand? I never wanted you to get me things. I just wanted to know you, to see where things might go. But we’ve become addicted to each other. You’ve avoided your work. I’ve avoided my life. I don’t even have a fucking job! We’ve just lived in a bubble with each other. It’s not healthy.”
He grabbed her hand and dragged her into a quiet alcove, away from the main entrance. “I don’t care if it’s healthy or not.”
“Don’t you get it? I’m your new Michelle. I’m your crutch, and you’ve become mine.”
Liam’s mouth fell open.
“I never wanted to be that for you. I want to be something better.”
He pulled her to him and lay his forehead against hers. “You are the best thing I’ve ever known.” His fingers clawed against her back, his nails dug into her clothing. He held on as if he was gripping a life preserver. “I can’t let you go.”
“You’d keep me here against my will?”
He looked at her, eyes tragic yet wild. “What do you think I am? A fucking maniac? I just want to love you,” he cried out. “Kate, I love you.”
Oh. There they were. The words that would echo in her brain and sear her as she walked away. But she had to do this, for both of them.
“You don’t love me, Liam. We don’t know each other well enough. You haven’t let me get close enough to really know you.” There, she said it, even though it made her heart break.
He drew her in and smashed his mouth against hers, thrusting his tongue between her lips and nearly destroyed her resolve.