by Unknown
Liv raised her head to meet his snarling gaze and sweetly kissed him before setting a hand on his shoulder and relaxing against his chest. “I wouldn’t mind having your baby, Neal. I already told you I wouldn’t hold you responsible if it happens.”
“You don’t understand,” he hissed. “There are things about me; about my own childhood –.”
Liv set a finger to his lips and kissed the tip of his nose. It only worked to soothe his anger, but he wasn’t able to erase the scowl as he gazed at her with a mix of longing and fear.
“I had a nice, long talk with your mother,” she said. “You were cute to want to protect her at such a young age, Neal.”
“Cute,” he scoffed, ready to argue when she gazed at him again and he fell silent.
“I’ve been trying hard to understand you since that talk, and I don’t want you to misunderstand me when I say I like your father very much. Still, we’re slightly similar in this regard, aren’t we? We both grew up not knowing who our real parents were, and we were both forced into situations that were unpleasant and unfulfilling. I guess you could say we deserve one another as a result, don’t you think?”
Neal held his breath as he gazed into Liv’s narrowed, smoldering eyes. He was reminded of the things his mother had said, and why she had wanted him to clear the air with James. Hearing Liv admit they deserved one another worked to bring the whole thing into perspective.
“Still,” he said and felt shy to know she could see him blushing. “I’m not father material, Liv. I’d likely end up being as inept and useless as . . . as him.”
“I doubt that very much,” she said and smiled at the unexpected pout that made his lower lip jut out. She kissed him before curling up at his chest and sighing. “Why do you keep bringing up the topic anyway? Is it my fault you keep forgetting to wrap it up?”
“No,” he snorted laughter that made her smile. “I’m to blame, but . . . when we’re in the throes of ecstasy; you keep asking me to give you a baby.”
Neal leaned back as fast as Liv had sat up with a startled gasp. Their mutual, wide-eyed gazes locked on while uncomfortable silence stood between them. And then Liv pressed a palm against his face, shoving him back far enough to make him feel the edge of the mattress.
Laughing, he set aside her hand and held that wrist as he gazed at her blushing face. “What is it?”
“You just embarrassed the hell out of me,” she breathlessly exclaimed before turning away in what appeared to Neal to be shame. The grip on her wrist tightened when he figured she intended to leave the bed. He was far from done with her, and if things continued to go as relatively smooth as they were, they would be making love well into the night.
“How?” he asked.
“Because!” she cried, wrapping her arms at her exposed breasts and keeping her back to him. “It’s just something I . . . say when . . . when we’re . . . like that.”
Neal’s eyes glanced at the small, bejeweled hand she waved in the air, and then he gazed at her in profile, smiling to see the pink tint on her slightly round cheek.
“C’mere,” he growled, gently tugging her back to a prone position at his side. She rested against the pillow and gazed up at him with wide-eyed timidity that made him smile.
“That’s sexy as hell,” he cooed near her lips, coaxing her into a more intimate kiss as he spoke. “I’m sorry I made you so uncomfortable. It wasn’t my intention. And, I’m sorry you’re stuck with such an idiot for a husband, too.”
“Neal,” Liv said and tried to push him back far enough to meet his eyes. Neal refused to accommodate her, though. His lips continued to peck at hers while she struggled to keep distance enough to be able to speak. “You called me wife, and now you’re suddenly the husband. I have no intention of getting married. I never had and probably never will. Marriage ruins everything, and since I’m giving up such a huge part of me to be with you, I’ll remind you about the simple fact that we’ve never even gone on a first date yet. Marriage,” she grumbled, clicking her tongue at him while he rested the side of his head against a fist and stared at her in a way that made her anxious.
He sat up and stared ahead, terrifying her and making her think she may have said too much or been a bit too bossy. Then he turned to face her and she held her breath, anticipating the worst.
“You’re right,” he said and made a funny face while scratching the back of his head. “Jeez, how dumb must I continue to be with someone so important?” He fell onto his back beside her and groaned against both hands. “Liv, can you ever forgive me? I’m a selfish brute, but then you probably already know that.”
He turned to face her and smiled. “Which goes to show how right I am about you and your generous heart. You asked what I love about you, and that’s another to add to the list. You’re sexy, adorable, worthwhile, intelligent, talented, caring, realistic, thoughtful, and tolerant.”
“You make me feel bad, Neal.”
He looked at her below thick lashes and asked why. Liv sat up and bent her legs, rubbing her shins. “Because the only thing I can think of about wanting to be with you is sex.”
Startled, Neal rose up on an elbow and then smiled as Liv left the bed with a loud shriek, giggling on her way to the bathroom.
Chapter 27
The next morning, Neal awakened to find Liv gone. Gone not just from the bed but from the house and London. After having spent close to ten hours in her arms making love to her and getting to know her even better, Neal couldn’t believe she was capable of something this devious and unkind.
For the rest of that day, he smoldered with resentment and entertained a host of wicked ideas for revenge. He hadn’t forgotten the way it made him feel to hear her say she loved him, but it was easy to imagine it having been a lie now. His parents tried to coax him into conversation during meals, but Neal ignored them and the food to concentrate on his misery.
That night, and against the doctor’s orders, Neal sat with a bottle of whisky and stared narrowly into a waning fireplace blaze inside his room. Instead of devising ways in which to punish Liv for her betrayal, Neal found himself reminiscing about her and the feelings he still had for her.
It hadn’t seemed like there was ever enough time to really study her head to toe in bed, but now it was easy to recall every inch of her incredible body. He could still feel her soft, smooth skin against his palms.
It made him cringe to recall his having accused her of being impatient in bed, realizing too late that they were both needy when it came to having sex. On further reflection, Neal had to admit to being at fault for his inability to maintain control. It wasn’t Liv’s fault she was such a desirable creature, but the mere sight of her gave him an instant and powerful erection that required immediate attention. If he had to wait for relief, it meant too much precious time passed for him to be able to hold out any longer than he could. Prolonged agony with foreplay was just as detrimental to him as it was for Liv.
“It isn’t your fault,” he mused, half-drunk and shrinking in the over-stuffed armchair facing the fireplace. “Is that why you ran away? Because I said a lot of selfish things you didn’t want to hear?”
He closed his blurry eyes and groaned. “Or, was it because I consider you to be my wife and you’re not interested in marriage?” His head fell back against the chair, eyes closed and with the glass of whisky ready to slip from his fingers. “I thought we did a lot of talking, Liv. Enough talking to make me think I knew you, but I was wrong. I’m always wrong. I want marriage and you don’t. You want a child and I don’t.”
His eyes opened and he gazed up at a massive, plaster cornice that surrounded a thin, glass light fixture above his head. “I never even took you out on a date. God, how wrong I’ve been.”
Closing his eyes again and smiling against an unwanted urge to shed tears of pain and regret, Neal drunkenly convinced himself that he deserved to be miserable and didn’t deserve to receive Liv’s love. After passing out, his mother helped him into a pair of silk pajam
a pants and into his bed. While he slept, she slid a few fingers through the thick mass of his hair and smiled.
“Remember that there is a logical reason for everything. As much as I hate to see you suffer this way, I know in my heart everything will work out for you. No one deserves to be happy more than you and that adorable woman you’re so in love with, Neal. Let yourself be loved, and trust that fate will supply all of the answers with time.”
“He’s got it bad.”
Marie turned to see James silhouetted in the doorway of her son’s room. She smiled and rose from Neal’s bed. “His heart is breaking, and so is mine.”
“Regardless,” James said and slid an arm about her waist when she reached him. “He was an ass to drink liquor while on pain meds. I don’t envy him the tomorrow he’ll have to face, that’s for sure.”
“Oh James.” She scowled and gently swatted his chest. “After everything you just told me about suffering, heartache, and sadness, how can you be so cruel to your own son?”
“Because,” James muttered and turned them both away to leave Neal’s room. “I’d rather die than see that lad go through the things I have. Being the thorn in his side is what he needs to keep that from happening.”
“Resentment, you mean.” Marie stopped walking to frown at James. “I sent him here to get over that feeling. I’d rather you didn’t continue to foster it in him.”
James smiled and patted her hip. “We cleared the air as you wished, love. He’s back under my roof, isn’t he?”
“But, you just said –.”
James kissed her silent, and then he gazed into her soft, brown eyes. “Leave it to me now, Marie. He’s a grown man with a good head on his shoulders, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll get over this silly gunshot wound ahead of schedule and find that girl before it’s too late. He’ll do everything I should have done twenty-nine years ago and make a better life for himself than I could.”
Marie rested her head on his shoulder and smiled despite the tears that trailed down her flushed cheeks. “I hope you’re right.”
****
At a funeral parlor in an upscale suburb of Chicago, Liv sat near a stained glass window and gazed ahead in a fog. All around her people gathered in small groups and spoke in hushed tones. Above them, quiet but tasteful chamber music barely interfered with the conversations or the somber setting.
Not wanting to dwell on the present, Liv let her dazed mind go back to before the nightmare that surfaced so unexpectedly. After spending such a gloriously stimulating evening in bed with Neal, something had urged her to awaken from a deep, dreamless sleep. Suddenly restless and worried, Liv had sought her purse and removed her phone to check for messages. There were seventeen waiting for her; an unlikely amount even in the worst of situations. That they were all from Noelle and Carmen sent a cold shiver up her spine, making her want to hesitate to look at even one.
All of them had simply read call me, or emergency, and with no hint of what to expect from them when she had tiptoed inside the bathroom so as not to disturb Neal.
She had decided to call Noelle first, believing her to be a steady rock in times of trouble. That hadn’t turned out to be the case, though.
Now, Liv closed her eyes and tried to will away the memory of her horrified friend’s agonized wailing that rang through her ear then and still did, making her tremble.
“She’s gone!” Noelle had wailed in tears. “She’s gone, Liv!”
Before Liv could ask who, Carmen had snatched the phone from Noelle’s hand.
“Where the hell have you been? She needed you, Liv. If you had been here –.”
“No!” Liv had heard Noelle scream before she took the phone from Carmen. “Liv, don’t listen to her. It isn’t true.” Noelle had paused to sniff before attempting to apologize for being so out of control. “Oh Liv, what are we going to do? How could something like this happen? She didn’t deserve to die. She was so sweet, and gentle, and . . .”
Liv closed her eyes. She hadn’t had to say a word or ask any questions. Sherry was dead, and she knew Barry had to be involved somehow.
There wasn’t time to think, much less take the time to write Neal a quick note and explain her reason for slipping away in the middle of the night. The earliest flight she could book was at five-thirty, but she felt like she had to get to the airport right away.
For a reason that had escaped her until she boarded the plane, Liv had wanted to avoid having to face Neal with this current disaster.
Now, as she sat avoiding the mother-of-pearl casket surrounded by dozens of flower-laden wreaths and bouquets, Liv knew she hadn’t wanted to burden Neal. He was still recovering from a gunshot wound and wouldn’t likely have been comfortable aboard a long flight back to the states. He would have insisted on accompanying her back to the states, and she wasn’t going to let that happen. After things settled down and she could talk about it without falling apart, Liv would contact him and hope he was as forgiving a soul as she believed him to be.
“It isn’t fair!”
Like a puppet on a string, Liv’s jerking movements brought her head around so that she faced the wide entrance to the viewing room. Carmen stood near the guest registry podium looking as beautiful as ever in a knee-length black dress that showed off her willowy frame. With her thin arms folded at her slight chest, she stood pouting at nothing while beside her Trooper Jake Stevens rubbed her shoulder sympathetically.
His blue eyes met Liv’s, and in the brief moment of knowing silence, Liv finally felt a rush of sadness. At last the shock was beginning to wear off and all too soon she would be awash in a flood of remorse.
As if sensing the onslaught, Stevens left Carmen and hurried to sit beside Liv. She fell against his side and wept in the handkerchief he had offered.
“She was the cutest woman I’d ever met,” Jake said in a quiet, reserved tone and gently patted Liv’s shoulder. “She didn’t deserve what happened, and I’m sorry that bastard didn’t have the guts to stick around and pay for his senseless crime.”
The murder-suicide of a wealthy socialite’s daughter had plastered the daily pages of news websites and Chicago-area broadcasts since the ugly incident broke a week earlier. According to her friends, Sherry had managed to avoid going back to see Barry since they had ganged up on her after she revealed her having seen him again after what he’d done to her in Toronto.
“He cried like a baby,” Carmen had snarled. “He pressured her into meeting him.”
Liv hadn’t wanted to hear anymore so she tuned out the rest and sat thinking about the unfathomable idea of never seeing Sherry again; never hearing her voice or smirking at her high-pitch laughter ever again.
The two had met in an unlikely place like a shopping mall. A few years had passed after Liv moved into the lake house and had gone out on yet another of her shopping sprees when she bumped into Sherry. They had both reached for the same pair of black velvet heels and then giggled about it. While waiting for the sales lady to bring them the right size, they had started talking and became fast friends.
Sherry hadn’t run away from home, but Liv knew without having to ask that it hadn’t been a happy life or a home in which she had wanted to stick around once she turned eighteen. Later, Liv had learned that a trust fund wouldn’t be available to Sherry until she married or turned thirty, whichever came first. It hadn’t seemed fair that any parent would put such an unrealistic demand on a daughter. A son, perhaps, but not a daughter and certainly not someone of Sherry’s limited talent and capabilities.
“I’m dumb,” she had said on numerous occasions. Liv had never wanted to believe it, and yet the longer they were together, the more she started to realize it was actually true. There were some people who just didn’t get it, and Sherry had been one of them. Her grades were never good enough even when she received tutoring and tried her best. Sherry’s best was never good enough, and everything she thought she wanted to attempt ended up in failure.
Sniffing, Liv c
ontinued to lean against Jake’s strong shoulder. Carmen was right and it wasn’t fair what happened then or now. How wrong and hopeless it seemed to be Sherry Barbour. If she had lived, maybe things would have begun to turn around for her, but who would know now? Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so unlucky in love anymore, or maybe something might have cropped up that she would have been good at and successful in pursuing.
“Her life had meaning,” Liv whispered, and more to herself than to Jake. “Just being my friend and making me laugh whenever I was down gives her reason for having existed. She just needed more time to grow and develop.”
“She tried,” Jake offered, resting the side of his head against the top of hers. While rubbing her back, he stared at the floor. “I know she was a good girl with a big heart, and I hope she’s at peace now. As tragic as it turned out, the fact that she felt sorry for him is a clear indication of her kindness.”
“You’re right,” Liv said and slowly sat up to offer Jake a weak smile. “I wish he was alive so I could kill him.”
Jake smiled back and patted her knee. “That’s the spirit. In my line of work, I see a lot of tragic things that make no sense or that could have been avoided with an ounce of caution. Still, everything happens for a reason, and sometimes we’re just not supposed to know all the answers.”
After getting Liv to promise him she would eat and sleep regularly, Jake left her to go back to Carmen. With a heavy sigh, Liv rose from her chair and spent about five minutes mustering up the courage to eye the casket and then another five finding the strength to walk up to it and look inside.
At the sight of her friend’s adorable face outlined by such dark, silky hair, Liv bowed against a bent arm and wept aloud; not caring what anyone thought about such a public display. It hurt more than ever to have to accept the fact that she would never see or be with Sherry again, and she already missed her friend terribly.