His words were a slap on an already bruised face. “I hate you.”
“You already said that.”
“Well, it bears repeating. You are a controlling, arrogant asshole. How dare you judge me and my career? Yes, Sam is not a ringing endorsement for my abilities as a social worker. But I have had many successes, people that have got clean and gone on to lead productive lives. I help people. But you can think whatever you want about my job because I don’t give a shit what you think any more, Liam.” He didn’t get it. He had no idea that people could be helped. He just wrote them off, as he wrote her off when she disappointed him.
“Fine.”
Her cheeks grew hotter as her anger mounted. “Don’t say fine to me, like you don’t give a shit either. I am the one not caring here.”
“What do you want me to say, Sarah?”
The sadness in his eyes made her pause. Was it real? Or was she just projecting again?
“I want you to admit you’re wrong about what you did, all of it. Don’t just say you are sorry about how it turned out. That is a bloody cop out.”
“You’re safe, Sarah, That’s all I wanted. I like you too much to lie to you and tell you I regret my choices.” His tone was solemn, the anger gone, replaced with something else, something she could not identify; sadness, disappointment? She shook her head. She didn’t care about his feelings, because he certainly never cared about hers.
“You jackass! You spent years lying to me about what happened with Sam. You won’t admit you’re wrong because that would mean admitting a weakness. And nothing is worse than being weak. You always have to be in control of everything.”
“That’s rich coming from you, Sarah. You are just as controlling as I am. You have to be in charge of everyone and everything. No one can ever be counted on in Sarah’s world. How does it feel to be the only reliable person in the whole fucking world?” He clenched his jaw, the muscles growing taut under his tanned skin.
Now he was angry? He didn’t have the right to be angry.
“I relied on you, Liam, and you fucked me over. So, yeah, you’re right, I am controlling because no one is going to do that to me again. But you know what? Your controlling is a different kettle of fish. You know the names of the men I have slept with. You didn’t want me, so you don’t get to know who I have fucked.” Sarah’s hands balled into tight fists, pounding the table as she spoke.
People at surrounding tables were starting to stare openly, but Sarah was too angry to care.
Liam took a deep breath; her words cut to the bone. All he had ever wanted was to keep her safe. If she could not see that, she never really knew him. “I never stopped wanting you, Sarah.” He had not intended to whisper but his voice failed him.
“Shut up. You left me. You never even looked back.”
“Is that what you think? I have spent over a fucking decade looking back. Yes, I know who you have slept with. But do you think I fucking relish that information? I wish to Christ that Richard and Jonny didn’t exist. I wish that it had only ever been us. I hate that I fucked things up. I hate Sam for putting us in that position. And sometimes I even hate you for choosing him. But know this: I never stopped caring about you, Sarah. I will never go back to Scotland but it hurts like hell knowing I left the only part I loved behind. You picked Sam. You picked Scotland. You picked your granny. You picked fear. You picked everything but me. And I remember that every day. I shouldn’t still care. But I do.”
“Why? Why do you hate Sam? He never did anything to you.”
Liam took a deep breath. Ever since he had seen Sam at the jail he had been asking himself that. And the answer he found was unsettling. Sam wasn’t the problem; maybe he never had been. For years Liam had focused all of his anger on Sam because it was easier than dealing with the truth. “Sarah, if I let myself really be angry at the person who fucked things up, I would end up hating you. And I would rather die than let that happen. So let me be angry at Sam so I don’t have to think about how much you hurt me. You destroyed us.” Once the words were out he could not take them back, and he didn’t want to. She needed to know.
He had never stopped caring for Sarah, but a decade had given his anger enough time to take root and propagate, wrapping its tendrils around everything he associated with her, with the betrayal. Sam had taken the brunt of it. All the anger he could not let himself feel for Sarah he focused on Sam, and it made it easier somehow to give their story a villain rather than admit Sarah had given up on them.
Sarah’s lip trembled. He thought she might cry but she didn’t. She wrapped her hands around her middle, protecting herself. With a pained sadness he realised she was covering herself from him, physically and emotionally. He could feel her shutting down and slipping away. “I just want to go home. I want to check Sam into a residential treatment facility, and I want to scream and shout at doctors until they give my granny her operation.”
“I thought she had it this morning?”
“So did I. But apparently she is not a priority. They plan on keeping her on a morphine pump until an orthopaedic surgeon can make room for her on his schedule.” Her shoulders slumped.
She looked defeated and broken. There were dark shadows under her green eyes. He had done that to her and he would do anything to fix it. He wished he had the words to make it better. But his words would only hurt her now. There was nothing to say to heal the rift between them. They were broken, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He focused on the one thing he could fix.
“That’s not good enough.” He picked up his phone and dialled his secretary.
“Gemma, I need you to arrange an insurance policy for a person in Scotland. She has a pre-existing condition, so I am also going to need to arrange for you to pay for her to have an operation done privately.” He finished giving Gemma all the pertinent details.
“Thank you, Liam.” He could tell she was itching to tell him to go fuck himself but necessity prevented it. “You don’t need to have Gemma call and follow up with the hospital, though. I am happy enough to harass the hospital staff.”
“It’s not a problem.”
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, intensifying the pale green colour. He hated that he had had a part in her pain. He would do anything to make it better, but he couldn’t. With all his money and power, he still could not be what she needed. He battled the urge to stand up and pull her into his lap. He wanted to comfort her and reassure her, but she would find no comfort in his arms.
“This doesn’t change anything. I appreciate you doing this for my granny. But I don’t want anything to do with you. I can’t take the up and down, reading into every little thing, trying to find some little glimmer of humanity in you. I don’t want to have meals with you or speak to you. I don’t want to be your friend because we’re not friends and we never will be.”
“We are living together at the moment, so it might be difficult to completely avoid each other.”
“Just let me go home. There is nothing left to say. All we can do at this point is hurt each other. I still have some good memories left. Let’s just call it a day.”
“No.” This wasn’t how it was going to end. Not this time. They weren’t finished yet. She wasn’t going to disappear out of his life again. “You made a deal, Sarah. And you will honour your end, or I will not honour mine.”
Her back straightened. A look of defiance flashed in her eyes. She was silent for a long moment. “I will stay, for Sam. I will do this for him, because I love him. As God is my witness I will never have sex with you again, no matter how horny I get. I think it is clear that I don’t need to love someone to sleep with them, but I need to like them,” she said.
His jaw tightened when Sarah said she loved Sam. Her intent transparent, she was trying to wind him up, but his instincts responded just the same. When it came to Sarah, something primal in him always screamed “mine”. He would not show it though, just as he had not shown it years before. He would take h
is own advice. Life was too short for regrets. He would keep it light; he had already shown too much of his hand.
He shrugged off the heaviness that had settled in his chest. “In my defence, that wasn’t my A game in the elevator. I can do better.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “The sex is not a problem. You are great at sex—it is every other aspect of your character that is lacking.”
“I will take that,” he said.
“Only a man would take that as a compliment.”
“You said I was great in bed. That is complimentary, Sarah.”
“I also said you were a deficit to humanity,” she said, completely disgusted.
“All I heard was great in bed.”
Chapter Eight
The next two days for Sarah consisted of lying on a sun lounger and reading. As far as holidays went, it was fairly relaxing when she managed to put Sam and Liam out of her mind. The first day, she did not see Liam at all. He was away for work before she had woken up and did not return until after midnight. She could honestly say she did not care where he was or who he was with. She would be eternally grateful to him for arranging her grandmother’s operation. Everything had gone smoothly, and the nurses were expecting her to be discharged within a week. Sarah hoped they kept her in long enough to get past her nicotine withdrawal. Chances were, her gran would light up the moment she left the hospital no matter how long they kept her in. Maybe Liam was right: people didn’t change.
When Sarah got home she planned on moving her gran into her two-bedroom flat with her. That had been the plan since Sarah moved in, but her gran had steadfastly refused any assaults on her independence, as she saw them. But now it was obvious to Sarah: it was time to force the issue.
She glanced at the clock on her phone. It was nearly time to order dinner. If today was anything like yesterday, she would manage to avoid Liam completely as long as she was in her bed by eleven or so. That gave her enough time to toss and turn and still be asleep when he arrived home, so she would not have to wonder where he had been, or what he had been doing. She was training herself not to care.
She ordered a sandwich and a cup of tea and then went to wash off the day before dinner arrived. When she finished Liam was sitting in the living room reading the newspaper and listening to the radio. She still had not managed to figure out the radio so she had settled for a music channel on the telly. She thought about asking him to show her how to work the sound system. But that would mean speaking to him, and she wasn’t going to be ready to do that any time soon. She wasn’t angry any more, just hurt and sad. It would take a while for those feelings to fade, but she had time. It had taken ten years to stop loving Liam, but she had got there in the end.
“I didn’t think you would be back so early. I will call and cancel my room service and go down to the restaurant so you can have the flat.”
“It’s already here. I put it in the fridge.”
“Great. I will take it out on the balcony, unless you want to sit there. I am happy to eat in the kitchen.”
“We are going out tonight. There is a charity ball and I need a date.” His face was impassive and impossible to read.
She reminded herself to stop looking for emotions that weren’t there.
“Then order one. You can afford it,” she said. She was being childish, but she wanted to hurt him, wanted him to feel some of the pain she was.
He ignored her dig. “We need to leave in three quarters of an hour. You can eat now, but there will be dinner there.”
“Well, have a great time with that.” She walked past him and got her sandwich out of the fridge.
“You can wear that or wear this gown, but you are coming. I am not going to sit through this on my own.” He held up a grey dry-cleaner bag.
“Call your secretary.”
“She already has a date.”
That was not what she meant. She meant that Gemma could find him someone to go with. But good to know he thought Gemma was a potential date. “I have plans,” she said and took another bite of her sandwich. She did have plans, and they involved Brie and cranberry on sourdough, followed by channel surfing and a swim. And then, if she was feeling really ambitious, she was going to watch her new favourite Arabic-speaking soap opera.
“Sarah, I don’t have time for this. Be spoilt and petulant tomorrow. Tonight I need a date.”
“I’m not spoilt. I’m just not going to spend time with you. We agreed to avoid each other.” Her back stiffened; she was many things, but she was not spoilt.
“No, you said you didn’t want to see me and I decided to give you some time to cool off.”
She rolled her eyes. “That was very kind of you, giving me time to cool off. It almost makes you sound emotionally competent. But I don’t need to cool off. I am not angry, I’m just done. There is a difference.”
“You’re not done until I put your pretty ass on a flight back to Scotland. Now get dressed.”
“Or what?”
“You know what. I don’t need to say it.” He took a bite of the other half of her sandwich.
“I prefer if you do.” She looked him directly in the eyes, challenging him. She needed him to show some sort of emotion: anger, frustration, remorse, anything. She was slowly being driven mad by his self-containment.
“I won’t help Sam.”
“There we go. Thank you for my daily reminder of why I don’t like you. Will you also be requiring that I have sex with you too, because you don’t want to do that alone?” A shamefully large part of her wanted him to say yes, just so she could tell him where to go. She still wanted to be the one who rejected him. If she analysed it too much she might come to the conclusion she still cared, but it was just a residual effect of loving him for such a long time, like when people lost limbs and they were certain they could still feel them.
“No, that would be rape.”
“Nice to see even you have limits.”
“Very few though,” he said dryly. He finished his half of the sandwich and then glanced at his watch. “Now you only have forty minutes.”
“Why do I need to go?”
“I told you. I am not going to sit through one of these things on my own. And think of all the people watching you can do.”
The idea of people watching did interest her but she was loath to admit it. The Arabic soap opera was starting to grate on her—in last night’s episode the crying woman looked as if she was softening towards the swarthy man. At least a charity function would have people she could speak with. “What do you expect me to wear?” she asked dubiously.
He handed her the garment bag.
She eyed it suspiciously. “You picked out a dress for me.”
“No, Gemma did.”
“Of course she did,” she said sarcastically. “What exactly is her job description?”
“She is my secretary. She is happy to run errands—that is what she is paid for. Now stop wasting time and get dressed.”
“She is paid to shop for…” she looked for a tactful way to phrase it and then remembered she wasn’t tactful “…women you are shagging.”
“Are we still shagging? I thought that was off the table? If it’s back on, I’m on board.”
“No, we’re not still shagging. But that’s not the point. How did you ask Gemma to buy me a dress and sunglasses? Did you just say, ‘Hey, buy me a ball gown?’”
“Yes, exactly like that, except I said please. As they say, manners cost nothing. Now get dressed or I will take you naked.”
Sarah sighed as she weighed her options. Truth be told, she could use a night out. There was only so much lying in the sun a person could do. And it would be nice to have a conversation with a person who wasn’t Liam. “Fine, I will get dressed but first tell me what you told Gemma about us.”
“I didn’t. She is my secretary. She doesn’t require explanations. I give her tasks, she does them, and I pay her.”
She sighed again. He was really missing the point, or he was being inte
ntionally awkward.
Sarah laid the bag on the bed and unzipped it. She pulled out the dress. It was a beautiful periwinkle strapless gown; the bust was detailed with clear crystals, sewn seamlessly into an intricate design, presumably to flatter the breasts and give some structure to the otherwise simple and elegant design. Sarah ran her hand over the smooth satin fabric. It was beautiful. Office Barbie had great taste. She could only hope she had got the size right, because, even if it didn’t fit, she had a feeling that Liam would still insist she go.
Sarah slipped the dress over her head and shimmied it down until it fell below her hips. “Well done on the sizing, Gemma.” She exhaled the breath she had been holding; she was home free, except for the zip. She reached behind her and pulled it up as high as she could without dislocating something.
She reached into the bag and found shoes in the same shade. If the secretary gig did not work out for Gemma, she definitely had a shot at a career in personal shopping…or modelling…or a trophy wife… The possibilities were endless. Sarah slid her foot into the shoe, and winced as her toes crushed together as she forced them into the heels. With a push and a gasp she was able to wedge her heel in. “Spoke too soon, Barbie, don’t give up the day job.” Sarah walked/hobbled to the full-length mirror in the bathroom. She nodded in approval at her reflection. Gemma had managed to pick a dress that flattered her figure and colouring, not a small feat for any woman. She must have got a fairly good look at her as Sarah pushed past her and ran through the office. At some point Sarah was going to have to explain the situation to her, so Gemma did not think she was a complete nutter.
Sarah pulled up the hem of the dress to examine the shoes. She sighed; they were too pretty not to wear. Yes, her feet were sore, but hopefully the tight pinch would ebb into a dull ache as the night wore on, because that was how shoes worked, right? She felt like Cinderella’s big-footed, ugly stepsister. And now she understood why the hound-faced sibling had cut off a toe to fit into the glass slipper: pretty shoes were hard to resist, so a girl had to do what a girl had to do.
Twice in a Lifetime (Carina) Page 10