“What time?”
“It doesn’t say. I’m sorry.”
Liam growled and dropped the phone onto the hook. Viola had checked out last night?
He paced the room, trying to put all the pieces together. They’d had a wonderful day yesterday. Magical, even. He’d thought they were on the same page with how they were feeling about each other.
What had changed?
His phone buzzed, then buzzed again, and he knew that he was starting to get replies to all the emails he’d sent out the night before. It lit up with a text from Fiona, and then another one from one of the regional managers. Now that he’d logged back into his accounts, it was going off nonstop.
He closed his eyes. “I am such an idiot.”
The night before was what changed. When he’d gotten so lost in his work, he’d forgotten his promise. When he’d stood her up for Times Square. Just like he’d done in Hawaii. Just like he’d done in the theater the day she tossed his phone down the chute. He needed her to toss his phone off the balcony this time.
But he couldn’t rely on Viola to set his work boundaries, that had to come from him. He’d blown it again.
His phone wouldn’t stop ringing, and he had to get out of here.
Leaving his phone on the table, he left his hotel room and took the elevator to the ground floor. He walked until he found the bench he and Viola had sat at—was it just yesterday—and eaten so much chocolate.
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
Unbidden, thoughts of Marcus Tripp and his quote from the paper came to him. “I should have closed it ages ago and moved to Montgomery to be with my daughter while I could.” He’d lost the people he loved, regretting that he hadn’t spent more time with them.
But Pets and More, all that work, it was what was expected of him. It was his dad’s legacy.
He didn’t know any other way to live.
Someone sat beside him, and from the corner of his eye, Liam saw his brother Xander rest his forearms on his legs, and clasp his hands together, mirroring his own stance.
They sat in silence like that for several minutes, watching the cars drive by, listening to snippets of people’s conversations as they moved past them. Liam’s breath came out in cloudy puffs of air in front of him, but he’d hardly registered the cold air in his frustration.
Xander broke the silence first. “When we were young, really young, we went for a bike ride at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We were maybe a mile from home when I fell off my bike and busted-up my knee. Do you remember that?”
Liam shook his head. They’d gone on so many bike rides in the country when they visited their grandparents.
“It wasn’t broken or even sprained, but there I was, bleeding and crying, when you hoisted my bike over one of your shoulders, balanced your bike over the other, and then held my hand the whole way home. When we got there, Grandpa helped get the bikes off your shoulders, and they’d cut into your skin. You’d bled through your shirt and hadn’t said a word.”
Liam stared down at his hands. That part, he did remember. His shoulders had killed for weeks.
“You need to put the bikes down, Liam.”
Liam turned to his brother with a lifted brow.
“You’re still trying to carry everything for everyone, hurting yourself in the process.”
“I have to run this business.”
“Why? Why do you have to run it?”
Liam felt a spark of anger, but it was smothered quickly under his exhaustion. “Are you going to run it?”
“No.”
“Someone has to, and that person is me.”
“Liam,” Xander said, sounding frustrated. “Sure, last quarter’s sales weren’t as good as we’d projected them to be, but as much as Fiona makes it sound like it’s because you left, that’s not it. We expected this with the new chain opening up.”
Liam dropped his head into his hands, feeling like it was going to split clean in two. “Yeah, but they shouldn’t be this low.”
Xander shifted on the bench, angling toward Liam. “Do you ever think about how many choices we made to prove something to Dad?”
Liam remained quiet, because they both knew the answer. Liam had been driven from a young age to please his dad, to prove that he was worthy of not only his love, but his respect and admiration. And by the end of his dad’s life, he’d earned that.
But at what cost?
“I’ve been trying to find a good time to tell you this for about six months,” Xander began, and Liam finally sat up straight and looked at his brother. “I don’t want to do this anymore. Pets and More.”
Liam’s heart pounded. “What are you saying?”
Xander met his gaze with a resolute stare. “I want out.”
“Out? What would you do?”
“I’d love to travel. Help Callie in her store. She’s got more business than she ever expected, and I’m not a half-bad baker. Maybe have some kids and actually spend time with them.”
It sounded impossible to Liam.
“And I think you should come with me,” Xander said. “We’ll step down together. Be honorary board members, or maybe not even that. Just close this chapter on our lives completely.”
“I don’t even know what I’d do if I didn’t do this.”
“Then maybe, brother, it’s time you figure that out.” Xander placed a firm hand on Liam’s shoulder and used it to help him stand.
“Hey, Viola sent Callie a text,” he said before he left.
Liam looked up, hope leaping in his chest.
“She made it home safe.”
“Okay, good.” Liam hadn’t known what he wanted Xander to say about the text, but he’d hoped for more. A message for him, a reason for leaving that didn’t have to do with him ignoring her for work again.
“She’s worth it.” Xander patted Liam’s shoulder a couple of times and then walked back toward the hotel.
Liam sat on the bench for a long time after Xander left, thinking.
It was getting closer to Christmas. People walked by with bags full of toys and clothes, holiday decorations and treats.
Would he spend it alone again, in a hotel somewhere in the world, treating it like just another work day?
A girl, maybe eight or nine years old, walked by hugging a doll tight to her chest. It was a doll with long, brown hair and rosy cheeks, and it looked like the doll at the theater in Eureka Springs.
Homesickness like he’d never felt before rose up in him. And longing—for Viola, for a life that seemed impossible to have.
What was he doing with his life, really?
He knew what he wanted. To be with Viola. To have color, laughter, and even waxy chocolate. To have a home, to not roam for once, to not have twelve-hundred-plus emails waiting for him back in his room.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he wanted to set the bicycles down, heal, and rest.
What if he did what Xander suggested? Walked away? He let his mind wander down that dangerous path, knowing he might never be able to bring himself back, and an idea began to form. An idea so far-fetched that it probably wasn’t even possible.
But what if it was? What if he stopped putting himself in the box of other people’s expectations and did what he wanted to do?
Excitement at the thought of endless possibilities raced through him, yet there was one possibility he wanted more than any of the rest.
He was going home to Eureka Springs.
But first, there was someone in New York City he needed to talk to immediately.
Chapter 19
Viola took the long route to work to avoid the theater, even though she still needed to finish the job. Once, one of her favorite buildings, and now it was hard to even look at.
It had been two weeks since she’d come home from New York. Two weeks of trying to build a wall to keep Liam out. Two weeks of daily texts from him making it harder and harder to do.
The first text had been
simple. She’d seen it after she woke up on the morning she’d gotten home. She’d arrived so exhausted, both mentally and physically, that all she could do was fall into bed, promising her grandma she’d explain everything later.
Two little words had glowed from her phone screen. I’m sorry.
“Not enough,” she’d muttered, placing her phone face down on her bed and falling back asleep.
Day two, another text came. She was more rested but still restless with energy she couldn’t shake, and his latest text certainly hadn’t helped things. I miss you.
Day three, she was almost afraid to look at her phone when it lit up. She’d been sitting in her office, researching her big job starting in January, and the words felt like a punch in the stomach. It read, New York isn’t the same without you.
He was still there. They were supposed to fly home yesterday. She knew for a fact that Callie and Xander had, because she’d met Callie for lunch—once she’d made Callie promise to not even mention Liam’s name. He wasn’t coming back. She rested her cheek on her desk, her heart not in the work anymore.
But every day, another text came. And despite herself, Viola felt a surge of excitement at every new buzz of her phone. Was this how Liam felt with his work calls? If so, it was no wonder he lunged to check his phone every time it went off.
Then, a week ago, exactly one week after getting home from New York, little gifts started showing up on her doorstep. A gorgeous arrangement of bright yellow, pink, and orange dahlias, a note folded and taped to the side of the planter. She and her grandma had planted them out front next to the huge spider—now wearing a red and green paper chain Christmas scarf and a huge felt Santa hat.
“This is never coming down again, is it?” Viola asked as she stepped back to take in their planting job. The dahlias looked even more vibrant up against the house. The spider smiled down at her.
“Maybe eventually,” Grandma said. “If the neighbors complain.”
Viola held the note tightly in her hand, knowing she’d read it again and again. Viola, You bring beauty into my life.
The next day, the doorbell rang and Viola opened it to find a massive bouquet of corner store candy bars in a huge, square glass vase, surrounded by silver tissue paper. Another folded note was taped to the vase.
Viola, You bring new adventures into my life.
“Are you going to forgive him?” her grandma asked as she bit into a Snickers bar.
“I don’t know,” Viola said, but she felt herself softening. Every day, a new text or gift, every day a war within herself about how she didn’t want to get hurt again. How many times could she be stood up, forgotten, or left before she made sure it didn’t happen again?
“Well, if you do take him back, can you remind him that although you like this chocolate, I still prefer the expensive stuff?” Grandma said.
Viola laughed for the first time in over a week.
The next three days, the gifts were delivered in the late afternoon, right after Viola got home from work and were different than the other two had been. Chocolates and flowers were pretty standard apology presents.
But ornaments were definitely unique.
The first one was made of clay and intricately hand-painted. She turned it over in her palm, studying it, her heart pounding.
“That looks like a model of the art set you had when you were young,” Grandma said. “You were devastated when I accidentally sold it in the yard sale.”
She had been devastated. At the time, she swore she’d never forgive her grandma. But then Grandma had bought her a nice canvas and paint with some of the yard sale earnings, and Viola learned what it was like to paint with good quality materials.
You bring color into my life.
“Does he know about the art set?” Grandma asked, studying it before hanging it on the tree. “This is uncanny.”
She had told him about it, but had never imagined he’d remember.
The next day, it was a wooden turtle ornament, similar to what she’d seen when they were in Hawaii. She’d loved the turtles there, and after Liam had left, she’d gone alone to one of the black sand beaches filled with turtles. Had Callie told him?
You bring spontaneity into my life.
What did that mean? She itched to text him, to call him, to drive to his house and see him. But she held herself back still. Sure, gifts were nice, but could she really, truly trust him not to break her heart?
Yesterday, it had been a glass ornament of a cell phone that had been cracked it half. “It’s broken,” her grandma said. “What a shame.”
Viola searched through the box, but the other half of the cell phone wasn’t there. Instead she found his note and laughed when she read it. You bring perspective into my life.
“How long are you going to hold a grudge against this boy?” Grandma asked. Viola stared at the ornaments all together on their Christmas tree, creating a picture of someone who knew her and cared for her, who made mistakes, yes, but kept coming back anyway.
All night long, she tossed and turned in bed, unable to think of anything but Liam. The next day, she raced to the door every time the bell rang, disappointed when it wasn’t another gift from him.
Finally, she found herself at the television, watching Dane Lowbridge’s newest movie, trying to keep her mind off of gifts and texts and the extremely handsome and tempting man sending them.
“There’s another one,” her grandma announced, coming inside from a quick trip to the store. She set down her grocery bag on the table and handed Viola the gift, looking just as excited as a kid on Christmas morning to see what it was.
“Open it,” Grandma urged.
She opened the present and gasped when she saw an intricate, porcelain doll, very similar to the one in the window of the theater. She ached to go back and start working on those murals inside.
She slowly opened the note. You make me believe anything is possible.
Her eyes stung with tears and she tried to blink them back. In an attempt to hide her emotions from her grandma, she hung the ornament on the tree, but it only made it harder not to give in to the tears—seeing all his gifts together. Remembering the nice notes that had come with each ornament.
Missing him so much left a gaping, aching hole in her heart she could never fill.
“Come sit with me,” her grandma said gently. Viola hadn’t realized that her grandma was standing beside her until she took her by the elbow and led her to the kitchen table. There, her grandma had set out two bowls of steaming minestrone and a huge loaf of sourdough bread. “Comfort food.”
Viola took a sip of her soup but didn’t taste anything.
“What’s really going on here?” her grandma said casually, as though asking about the weather.
“With Liam?”
Grandma gave her a look that warned her not to play stupid.
Viola sat back in her chair with a sigh. “I don’t know, Grandma.”
“You like him.”
Viola nodded.
“But you’re still mad he left you in Hawaii?”
“No. Maybe.”
Grandma ripped off a chunk of bread and dipped it into her soup. “The way I see it, he left you in Hawaii, you left him in New York.” She raised an eyebrow. “Seems like you’re even.”
Anger rose up in Viola. “I left him in New York because he stood me up again! He was going to leave me, so I left first.”
“He was going to leave you. You’re so sure about that?”
“You didn’t see him, Grandma. When he’s in work mode, he can’t think of anything else.”
“And yet …” Her grandma pointed to the Christmas tree. “It seems he’s been thinking of you a lot.”
Viola stared down at her lap, unable to keep the tears from falling. Her grandma reached across the table and took her by the hand. “Honey, you focus on your dad leaving and your mom leaving, but I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere, and I never will. People leave, yes. But some people stay. And I can
tell Liam is the kind of man who learns from his mistakes.”
She heard what her grandma didn’t say. Liam is the kind of man who stays.
“Thank you for staying,” Viola said, squeezing her grandma’s hand.
“Psh, like there was ever any question of that! You couldn’t get me to leave you if you tried.”
Viola smiled, grateful for her grandma’s sass to help defuse all the emotion in the air. They ate the rest of their soup, Viola’s mind whirling with what it would mean to let down her guard and allow someone into her heart for real.
Viola’s phone buzzed just as she put her bowl in the sink, and she pulled it from her pocket.
Liam. Are you free this evening?
Her heart skipped a beat and she glanced at her grandma. The fact was, Viola missed Liam. She fell for him while they were in New York.
Actually, she fell for him long before that, in Hawaii.
“He wants to see me,” she said, hearing the vulnerability in her voice.
“Take a chance, Viola,” her grandma gently urged. “Seems like you have a lot more to lose by not trying, than in giving this a chance.” Her eyes twinkled. “Besides, how else am I going to get more of that chocolate?”
Viola smiled and shook her head, but opened her screen back up, and before she could think too much about it, she typed. Okay.
Seconds later, he replied, I’ll send someone to pick you up at six.
She set down her phone, confused. He was going to send someone to get her? What was going on? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t deny she was excited to find out.
Chapter 20
Viola tugged at the sleeves of her cardigan as she got into the car Liam sent, her stomach aflutter. Liam had given her no indication of what she should wear, so she’d settled on a pair of dark skinny jeans, a white flowy blouse, and a berry red cardigan. Her hair was in loose waves over her shoulders. She’d slung her coat over her arm and nervously paced as she waited for someone to come pick her up. Was she making the right decision? Trusting him? Letting him back into her life? She clutched the note in her pocket. It was going to be a folded, wrinkled mess if she wasn’t careful.
Her Billionaire Heartthrob: Billionaire Bachelor Mountain Cove Page 11