Liam sat down at a table situated on the balcony of The Veranda, the trendy meeting place just off the lobby of the luxurious Kahala Hotel. He glanced over the beach, pool and dolphin lagoon and wished Teresa was here, knowing she’d get a kick out of this luxury hotel located just a few minutes from the famous Waikiki Beach.
Liam ordered a Manhattan from a waiter and wiped his hand on his thigh. He couldn’t remember when last he’d been this nervous. This was nerves on a whole new level. Damn, he really wanted Teresa here. Somehow, she had a way of calming him, of silently reminding him that it was okay, that he was okay. That he mattered...
Liam thanked the waiter for his drink and picked up the brown envelope he’d placed on the table earlier. He’d spent hours looking at the photographs Dutton sent him, had read his report a dozen times, maybe more. His father was John Hamilton. He’d been born and raised on the island, and had three college-aged daughters. Liam paused, thinking that he had three sisters. He’d always wanted a sibling—someone to help share the burden of his mother’s cloying love, protectiveness and general craziness. Now he had three. Well, intellectually he had three; he didn’t know if he’d ever get to meet them.
He had to meet his father first, and John Hamilton had agreed to meet him here, at The Veranda, in, Liam glanced at his watch, three minutes.
Liam lifted his hand and grimaced at his trembling fingers. This was big, this was huge, this might all blow up in his face.
What did he want from John? What did he need? Would they keep in touch or would this one meeting be it? Would he meet his wife or would he want to keep Liam separate from his real family? Would he want money? Was he only meeting with Liam because he was loaded? God, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea...maybe he should go.
“You’re Liam.”
Showtime. Liam hauled in a deep breath and stood up, giving his hands one last swipe. He turned slowly and saw himself, plus thirty years. Gray-flecked dark hair, lined eyes and the same long nose. Liam stared at his father for a minute and eventually lifted his hand for a handshake. John gripped his hand and Liam thought, just for a fraction of a second, that he wanted to pull him in and hug him. But grown men seldom did that, and Christophers never.
Liam gestured for John to sit and they stared at each other. John was the first to break the awkward silence. He rubbed his chin as he propped his foot on his opposite knee. “I never expected to hear from you.”
Liam reached for his Manhattan and then realized that John probably needed something to drink, as well. He called over a waiter.
“I think this conversation calls for some liquid courage,” Liam said as the waiter approached him. “What would you like?”
“Whatever you are having.”
When the waiter left, Liam spoke. “Did you know about me?”
“Yeah. Initially, your mother refused to admit it but I knew that you were mine. The dates worked.” John dropped his knee and leaned forward. “First off, you need to know that I am not proud of myself. She was married and she should’ve been firmly off-limits but damn, she was entrancing.”
“How did you meet?” Liam asked.
“Linus was building a hotel here and I was working for the landscaper who was building the gardens. Your mother loved horticulture and your father gave her free reign to do whatever she wanted in the grounds. God, she changed her mind a million times and it made us crazy. Eventually, the boss couldn’t deal with her and handed the project over to me. One thing led to another...”
“How long were you together?”
“Nearly a year. Linus wasn’t always around. He was establishing the tech arm of your company at that point and he was consumed by that. Catherine was about five months pregnant when he sold the hotel and she left the island.”
“Did you want her to stay?”
John winced. “Honestly? Probably not. But I sure as hell wanted you. But Linus was her husband. He could give her, and you, everything I couldn’t. Then.”
“Then?”
John’s smile held a hint of pride along with sadness. “If she’d just been prepared to hang tough for a few years, I could’ve given her most of what Linus could. I opened my own landscaping business and then a garden supply store. Within five years I had ten. Now I have a lot more.”
Liam’s agile mind connected the dots. “You’re the Hamilton of Hamilton’s Home and Garden Stores?”
John nodded. “I handed the day-to-day running of the company over to a group of young, sharp business people and I spend my days surfing or in my garden. Or bugging my wife.” John smiled. “I’m keeping the business for a couple of years to see if any of my kids want to run it but none of my girls have shown any interest. Do you want it?”
Liam jerked back, shocked. “You can’t give it to me!”
John cocked his head. “Why not? You’re my kid, too.”
Wait, this was madness. “You don’t know me, John.”
John picked up the rucksack he’d walked in with and pulled three bulging files from the bag. He put them on the table and slapped the top cover. “Part of the deal with your mom to keep my mouth shut about you was that she send me all your school records, achievements and a monthly report. There’s thirty-plus years of info on you in there, most of which you’ve probably forgotten. I might not have raised you but I know you.”
Liam rubbed the back of his neck as he flipped open the cover of the top file. His Apgar scores jumped out at him, as well as a picture of him a few minutes old, looking like a pissed-off monkey. Liam flipped through the file, reports, his first karate belt, a spelling bee he entered. More photos. John wasn’t lying; this was his life, in three files.
“Why didn’t you contact me when I was older?” Liam quietly asked.
“Catherine promised to tell you who your real father was when you turned eighteen. We agreed that it would be your choice as to whether you reached out. You didn’t so I assumed that you weren’t interested in meeting me,” John said and Liam heard the hurt in his voice.
“Yeah, my mother isn’t great at keeping her word,” Liam replied. “I only recently figured out that someone with my blood group couldn’t be a product of their combined DNA.” Liam blew air over his lips. “My mother is a piece of work.”
John nodded. “Am I allowed to say, as respectfully as possible, that I know that I dodged a bullet? Heidi, my wife, who knows about you by the way, and I have been married for twenty-six years and we’re ridiculously happy.”
Liam’s mouth curved up. “That’s wonderful. And encouraging.”
John tapped his finger against his tumbler. He smiled knowingly. “Who is she?”
Liam thought about lying but decided he didn’t have the energy. “Teresa St. Claire. We’ve had this crazy, crazy relationship, thanks in part to my mother’s interference and machinations. It’s been...complicated.”
John frowned and clicked his fingers, something Liam realized that he also did when he was thinking. “Teresa St. Claire. Didn’t she inherit a large portion of your father’s shares of Christopher Corporation?”
“Twenty-five percent and how do you know that?” Liam asked, surprised.
John nodded to the folders. “When you turned eighteen your mother cut off my supply of Liam-related information. I hired a PI to keep me informed.” Liam wanted to think that was creepy but he just felt...treasured. Cherished. Like he had a father who really, really cared about him.
“St. Claire, damn, that name sounds familiar.”
Liam frowned. “Teresa’s dad briefly worked for my dad but that was before I was born.”
“That’s it! I remember Catherine talking about him ad infinitum.”
Liam leaned forward, immediately interested. “Do you remember those conversations?”
John gave it some thought. “I remember her being in a snit, for days, because Linus wanted to pay him a whack of cash for something—a formula?—and Catherine objected because Linus had what he needed from St. Claire already. I remember arguing about who owned the rights to intellectual property, the individual or the company.”
Holy, holy smokes. Around the time he was born, his dad had launched the tech division of Christopher Corporation, the division that eventually became the heart of the company. And Nigel St. Claire must have developed the code for their biggest selling product, a software program that revolutionized web security. The software that made the Christophers rich beyond belief.
“What else do you remember about him?”
“St. Claire? Mmm, let me think. He left the country for some reason and I think that one or both of your parents made it difficult for the guy to come back to the States. Something about knowing someone in Immigration and St. Claire’s expired visa, I think. Catherine mentioned something about him not being able to sue them if he was out of the country.”
Liam gripped the edges of his nose, trying to control his anger. His parents kept Nigel from his kids. Man, his image of his parents was tarnishing minute by minute. But his father—Linus—obviously felt guilty about it because he’d tried to make restitution to Nigel’s family by leaving Teresa the shares.
Crap, what a tangled, complicated mess.
When he told Teresa why her dad didn’t come home, why he couldn’t come home for so long, she was going to flip. Catherine had already tried to mess with her life, to ruin her reputation and torch her business, but Teresa had handled that. But Catherine, or Linus, or both, had conspired to keep her father from returning to the States. That she wouldn’t forgive. Everybody had issues with their partner’s families but this was beyond what was acceptable.
He’d have to tell her but he knew that it would be the mortal blow that would fracture their already fragile relationship. How would she be able to live with and love the man whose family destroyed hers?
“Liam, look at me.”
Liam forced his eyes up, surprised at the forceful note in John’s voice, the determination in his eyes.
“What your parents did does not reflect on you. You are only responsible for the things you do and the things you say. You are your own man.”
“But I’m dealing with the consequences of their actions,” Liam pointed out.
John grimaced. “For that I am sorry. I’m also sorry I didn’t fight harder for you. I genuinely believed that they could give you what I couldn’t.”
Liam felt a surge of anger, for the reserved, scared, frequently overwhelmed kid he’d been. “Yeah, John, I had the latest toys and the brand-name clothing and the holidays in exotic places. But you know what I didn’t have? I didn’t have a father who came to my sports matches or who spent any time throwing a ball. Praise was given when I achieved an A and withdrawn when I messed up. I handed my mother tissues when she cried over something my father would or wouldn’t do and I handed him the whiskey bottle when he bitched about her.”
Liam stood up, unable to deal with any more, feeling emotionally shattered. “But you know, I had the toys and the clothes and the holidays.”
John scrambled to his feet and placed his hand on Liam’s arm. “Don’t rush off, Liam. Let’s talk.”
Liam stared at a point behind his shoulder, not seeing the gold and pink sunset, the soft sea. He stepped back and shook his head. “I can’t. Not anymore.”
Liam picked up his brown envelope, sent another look at the files and shook his head. He needed to go; he couldn’t take any more and he definitely needed to leave. And God, he needed another drink. Or ten.
“Am I going to see you again?” John asked, his green eyes worried.
“I don’t know, John,” Liam replied, walking away. All he knew for sure is that he needed some quiet, some peace and to stop thinking.
But more than anything he needed Teresa.
* * *
Teresa ran her hand over her hip and looked down at the satin material below her hand. The designer dress, the one she last wore at Hunter and Jenna’s wedding, was the purest shade of daffodil yellow and the color, along with its deep neckline, body-skimming shape and shortish skirt was a weapon set to stun. She knew that the yellow brought out the blue of her eyes and she’d deliberately applied more eyeshadow than normal, creating a deep and sexy smoky eye effect. She’d contoured her cheekbones and swiped a thin layer of pink gloss over her lips. Under her dress she only wore ludicrously expensive French perfume.
She intended to seduce the hell out of Liam Christopher.
She wanted him cross-eyed and naked. And, preferably, so discombobulated that he’d drop his guard and tell her how much he loved her and how he couldn’t live without her. She wanted him to tell her about meeting his father, and how he felt about the past.
Though, in all honesty, if she just got him to forget to ask how she knew he was in Hawaii, she’d take that as a minor win.
Taking a breath, Teresa knocked on the door to the presidential suite and when he didn’t answer, knocked again. If he wasn’t in his suite, she had no idea how to find him. And she didn’t have a place to go since she hadn’t reserved a hotel room. She supposed she could go and hang out in the bar and try again later. But what if Liam had left and was on his way back to Seattle?
No, she refused to accept that she’d wasted the flight and this dress. Teresa banged on the door again and nearly wept when she heard male footsteps on the other side of the door.
“I didn’t order room service—” Liam said as he opened the door. Teresa had planned on saying something sexy like “Let’s misbehave” but her words dried on her tongue. A wet Liam, wearing just a white towel around his hips, glowered down at her, acres and acres of tanned skin just waiting to be touched. His eyes were wide with shock and he placed a hand on the door frame as if to steady himself.
“Teresa? You’re here?”
“I’m here,” Teresa said, ducking under his arm. Inside the suite, she sucked in a breath at the luxury furnishings—damn, she always forgot how rich Liam was—before turning around to see Liam stalking toward her.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?” Teresa asked, then did a mental facepalm. She didn’t want him asking questions, not yet anyway.
Later, when she’d loved him so thoroughly and fried his brain, she’d tell him that their being apart was ridiculous and that they were supposed to be together. She’d ask him about his dad...
“I don’t give a rat’s ass why you’re here. I was in the shower, wishing you were with me,” Liam growled. He reached her and cupped her face, his fingers pushing into her hair, which she’d left to flow down her shoulders. Liam picked up a strand and ran it through his fingers. “I always forget how long it is. How silky.”
Teresa placed her hands on his waist and drew circles on his bare skin with her thumbs. She turned her mouth to kiss his palm and kept her eyes connected with him. “And just what were you doing in the shower while you were thinking of me?”
“You know what I was doing,” Liam muttered, taking her hand and placing it on his hard cock. He felt hard and full and desperate beneath her hand and Teresa released a low hum of approval. Liam placed his forehead against hers and sighed. “You’re really here.”
Teresa briefly wondered why he kept saying that, why he was acting like having her here was like a dream he expected to be jerked from. Teresa’s eyes connected with his and saw misery and confusion and a whole bunch of regret. Dammit. Needing to chase his ghosts away, Teresa linked her arms around his neck and stood on her tiptoes—her nude high heels, as sexy as they were, still didn’t give her the height she needed—and rested her mouth against his. Speaking softly, she whispered the words against his lips. “If you need me, Liam, take me.”
“You might regret saying that,” Liam muttered as his hand drifted over her ass.
“I’ll never regret anything to do with you,” Teresa told him.
Liam released a short, harsh laugh but before she could comment on his cynicism, he covered her mouth with his and twisted his tongue around hers. His strong arms pulled her into him and her breasts pushed into hard chest, instantly dampening her dress from a combination of heat and lust and shower droplets.
Liam held her head so that he could possess her mouth, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth. As if he couldn’t get enough, he yanked his mouth away to nibble her jaw, to that sexy place where her jawbone met her ear and then down the cord of her neck. Teresa felt her eyes cross and she grabbed his chin, wanting more of his mouth, his lips, his tongue. Liam fed her what she wanted, what she craved: long, hot, drugging, push-reality-away kisses.
Conscious of her swimming head, Teresa whimpered when he pulled away from her to run a finger down the deep vee of her neckline.
“Love this dress but it would be so much better on the floor.”
The thought—that the dress was too expensive and too precious to end up on any floor—whispered past her and evaporated when Liam turned her around and placed his fingers on the zipper. She felt his breath on her back following the zip down her body and shuddered when his mouth kissed her lower spine. She was already wet and pulsing. It wouldn’t take much for her to come...
Liam straightened, brushed the dress from her shoulders and Teresa heard his appreciative gasp when he realized that she was come-take-me-baby naked beneath the dress.
“I’m liking that dress better and better,” Liam said, his hand coming across her torso to cup her breast. He lightly pinched her nipple and Teresa bucked, more from pleasure than pain.
“You are so beautiful. You’re everything I want.”
Liam murmured in her ear as he lifted her hair to kiss the back of her neck. She felt his mouth moving down her spine again, his hands sliding over her stomach, over her thin patch of hair and down the front of her thighs. Needing him, needing more, Teresa spun around.
Liam, now on his knees, looked up at her. “Perfect. You’re exactly where I wanted you.”
Teresa stared down at his dark head as he spread her folds and gently kissed her mound. Teresa felt her legs wobble and locked her knees, sighing when Liam’s clever fingers slipped into her heat. Teresa pushed her fingers into his hair, tugging him closer, silently demanding more. When Teresa didn’t think she could take his teasing any longer, Liam licked her, his hot tongue creating a blazing trail. A finger, then another, slid inside her and Teresa whipped her head from side to side. It was too much; she’d wanted to love him like this; she’d wanted to drive him crazy, take him outside himself, but she was on the receiving end.
She wasn’t strong enough to ask him to stop.
Liam’s tongue flicked her clit, his fingers twisted inside her and Teresa felt herself spinning away, a hot, whirling dervish of pure sensation. Teresa peaked, sank, peaked again and as she was falling back, Liam grabbed her ass, boosted her up his body and entered her with one long, hard stroke. She was so wet, so turned on, that her eyes rolled back in her head and her inner muscles clenched, wanting more. Wanting it all.
Again.
Liam moved her dead weight as if she were a piece of lint and sank down onto the closest chair. Teresa used her knees to lift herself up so that she just had his tip inside her before sliding back down again. Opening her eyes, she looked into his foggy gaze and thought that this was love. This perfect jumble of sensations—lust, excitement, passion, trust—this was love.
Love was also waking up with him every morning, giving him a child, making him feel like he was the most important part of her day, that he was her world.
Because he was. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks and Liam brushed them away with his fingers. “Teresa? What’s wrong?”
Teresa just shook her head.
“Do you want to stop?”
Teresa shook her head and pushed down on him, making him groan. Her man...only Liam would offer to stop at the sight of her tears, even though he was so deep inside her she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began, that he was trembling as he tried to keep control.
She loved him. Up until that moment, she never understood how much, but now she could feel it in every cell, every heartbeat, every look and stroke and kiss.
“Let go, Liam,” she murmured, gently touching his face, running her thumb along his jawline. “Let go and take me with you.”
Liam launched himself upward and using his core muscles picked her up and whipped her off the chair. The floor was the closest horizontal surface and he laid her on the Persian carpet, picked up her one leg and slammed into her.
“Not going to be able to wait.”
Teresa felt that delicious curling sensation deep within her and knew that she was a heartbeat behind him. She felt Liam tense, heard his guttural moan and then his hand was between them and his thumb flicked her bead and her soul shattered.
This, this was love and it was wonderful.
So, in fact, were her multiple, earth-shattering orgasms.
* * *
Liam ran his hand down Teresa’s spine, feeling every bump and dip. Her skin was utterly flawless except for three freckles perfectly placed under her right shoulder blade. Maybe there were more on her body; he’d have to check. But not, unfortunately, now. They needed to talk.
He didn’t want to but he was an adult and adults did what they needed to do. Adults like his parents did what they wanted to do and damn the consequences. He would not be following in their footsteps. But Linus and Catherine weren’t his only parents; he also had John, whose shoes, from the little he knew of him, might be worth stepping into.
Or maybe he could just wear his own. Create his own path, strike out on his own, be exactly the person he was. The thought was liberating. And thrilling. But would he be walking that path alone? Teresa had said she’d loved him but, after hearing about the role his family played in her father’s life, would she still?
There was only one way to find out.
As if she’d heard his silent plea for her attention, Teresa rolled over and sent him a soft smile. “We made love for most of the night so I suppose I must pay the piper.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need to talk, Teresa.”
They, very unfortunately, did. Teresa sat up and pulled the sheet up, covering her beautiful breasts, a crime beyond comprehension. Then again, there was no way he could concentrate on any conversation while she was naked.
Hell, even knowing she was naked under the bedclothes was messing with his head.
“Let’s order some coffee and take it onto the balcony,” Liam suggested, rolling out of bed. He yanked on a pair of boxer shorts he’d left on the chair and fished in the chest of drawers for a T-shirt, which he tossed her way. Leaving the bedroom, he walked into the lounge, knowing that if he stayed, they’d be making love again. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be for him to watch her walk away.
And she’d walk away. That was a given.
Liam ordered coffee from his personal concierge and opened the floor-to-ceiling doors that led onto the private balcony. He gripped the railing and sighed when Teresa wound her arms around his waist and buried her face in the hollow of his spine. She felt so tiny against him, so feminine.
“Please don’t fire Duncan for telling me where you are.”
Liam frowned and turned around. He almost laughed at Teresa’s face, her expression a perfect combination of guilt and mischief. “I threatened the hell out of him if he didn’t tell me.”
Okay, this was going to be good. Duncan was not a pushover and he knew the rules. “Okay. What did you threaten him with?”
Teresa drew patterns on the tiles with her big toe. “Your mother. Well, not precisely your mother.” She blushed, which he found adorable. “I told him that if he didn’t tell me I would make his life a living hell, acting ten times worse than Catherine, after we were married.”
His heart bounced at the thought of marriage. “I should fire him,” Liam teased, happy to have a moment of levity before the storm crashed over them. “My privacy is sacrosanct.”
“But if you fire him then I have to hire him and give him a ten percent raise. I can’t afford him!” Teresa wailed.
Liam threw his head back and laughed. Nobody but Teresa could amuse him and make him as happy and horny as she did. What if he didn’t tell her about her dad? What if he took this moment, told her he loved her and took every other moment from here on out to be happy? It was so damn tempting but Liam knew that a relationship could not be built on a foundation of lies.
It wasn’t really a lie but an omission...
And he was splitting hairs. His self-respect and his immense respect for her, for everything she’d done for her family, demanded that she know the truth.
Liam heard the door to the suite open and he pushed Teresa behind him, hiding her with his bulk as the concierge pushed a trolley laden with a silver coffeepot, bone china cups and a pile of fresh-baked pastries and a bowl of refreshing fruit salad. Coffee, thank God.
Once the concierge left, Teresa immediately picked up a croissant and lifted it to her nose. “Heavenly.”
Liam poured coffee while Teresa pulled small chunks from the croissant and lifted them to her mouth. Liam handed her a cup of coffee and gestured for her to take a seat on the lounger.
Sitting opposite her, he cradled his cup in his hand and thought that her eyes were the exact color of the Pacific Ocean below them.
“I met my dad yesterday, my biological father.”
Teresa immediately put her croissant on a plate and placed her cup on the table between them. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, every strand of her DNA focused on him as he explained the recent events.
“And?” she asked. “What was your biological father like?”
Liam shrugged. “He was...nice. He looks like me or I look like him.”
“Was he happy to meet you? Did he know about you? Why didn’t he contact you?”
Liam explained the circumstances of Catherine’s infidelity, and John’s reasoning around letting him be raised as a Christopher. Her eyes welled up when he mentioned the scrapbooks. His Teresa, under her capable attitude, had a very tender heart.
“Are you going to meet him again?” Teresa asked.
Liam lifted both shoulders to his ears. “I don’t know. I left in a mood.”
Teresa’s eyes sharpened and the fingers clasping her knee tightened. “A mood?”
“I was pissed off.”
“Because he didn’t try to find you? Because your sisters had what sounded to be a great childhood and you didn’t? Because of your mother’s I-can-judge-but-don’t-judge-me view of life?”
All of those, he supposed. “I was most pissed off about what I heard about your dad.”
“My dad? How did the subject of my father come up?” Teresa asked, genuinely confused.
Liam sat his cup down and rested his forearms on his knees. “John, my biological dad, filled in a missing puzzle piece, something I couldn’t work out.”
“Which is?”
“The real reason Linus left those shares to you,” Liam said. Oh, her shoulders were already tensing, her mouth tightening. They were wandering into stormy weather here.
Liam lifted his hand. “Just hear me out, please?”
“I thought we’d moved past this,” Teresa muttered.
“Look, as much as Linus liked you, and I do believe he liked you and appreciated your fine mind, he was not the type of man who would leave his shares, worth millions, to someone outside the family, no matter how fond he was of that person. He lived for Christopher Corporation. And if you didn’t sleep with him—” Teresa growled and Liam ignored the sound, pushing on “—and I believe that you didn’t, then why would he bequeath you those shares?”
Teresa threw up her hands, obviously irritated. “I don’t know, Liam. If I knew, I’d tell you.”
“But I do know, Teresa.”
Teresa frowned, stared at him, and her frown deepened. “Okay, you know. So are you going to share?”
Liam felt like a free diver, standing on a ninety-foot cliff, unsure whether there were rocks below in the water or not. He had no option but to dive.
“Your father, Nigel, worked for my father when he was an intern. He developed code for super-secure web-based encryption and that discovery catapulted our company into the big leagues. From there we were able to hire some of the best minds in the world and we have diversified into artificial intelligence. But that code, that was how we got our start.”
Liam pulled on his earlobe. “Your father created that code, and the policy at the time was that any developments made at Christopher Corporation remained our intellectual property. When we listed on Wall Street your father must have deduced that our growth was being built on his work. He was right.”
Teresa placed her fingers over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.
Liam plowed on. “According to my investigator, your father started some sort of legal proceedings against the company, demanding a profit share. My investigator couldn’t find any trace of proceedings reaching court so the legal proceedings didn’t get very far, because your father ran into trouble with Immigration.”
Teresa nodded. “He got deported back to the UK. It happened so fast. I was only six, but I remember. One minute he was there, then gone.”
Liam swallowed, hoping he’d be able to get these next words over his tongue. “I think your dad got into trouble with Immigration because my parents put him on their radar. To Dutton and me, it sounds like something someone like him, a Fixer, would do. Your father was trying to sue and they dug into his life and probably found out that his visa was expired or that he was here illegally and they got him hustled out of the country. It’s difficult waging a court case in a foreign country when you’re not in the country or a citizen of that country. Your credibility is also diminished when you’ve been deported from said country. It was an easy solution to a very expensive, in their eyes, problem. Dutton also thinks a note in your dad’s personnel file at the company was planted. It said he’d taken a leave of absence for a family issue. No one ever questions those so no one asked when he was coming back.
“Did your mom ever talk about your dad?” Liam asked.
Teresa shook her head. “My mom didn’t like to deal with anything hard, or inconvenient. If dad was having problems, I doubt he would’ve shared them with my mom, especially since she was pregnant with Josh at the time.” Teresa grimaced. “My mom doesn’t handle stress well and he would’ve tried to protect her.”
Liam waited, and watched, as Teresa digested this latest revelation. He watched her beautiful and much-loved face as she stared past him to the sea beyond, her eyes full of sadness. His heart nearly shattered when her eyes glistened with tears.
“I thought he didn’t come back because he didn’t want to.”
“No, he didn’t come back because I think they were actively trying to keep him out and then he died in a freak accident.” Liam rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “I am so sorry, Teresa. I am ashamed and mortified and horrified at what they did.”
Teresa nodded and didn’t say anything and Liam felt cold fingers gripping his heart, about to start that agonizing rip.
“But I’m convinced that’s why Linus left you the shares, why he took an interest in you. I think he knew that it was wrong, that he should’ve treated your father better. He, in his ham-fisted way, tried to right a wrong. And it also explains my mother’s antipathy toward you.”
Teresa dropped her head to stare at her bare feet and Liam knew that, for as long as he lived, he’d remembered her like this, blond head bowed and her arms wrapped around her waist to comfort herself. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to hold her as she made sense of this new information, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate his touch.
“I don’t know what else to say, to tell you how sorry I am,” Liam said, hearing the desperation in his voice. “Again.”
Teresa sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and when she released it, he saw the impression they’d left there. Straightening, she lifted her head and Liam couldn’t identify all the emotions swimming in and out of her eyes. “I would never have known this if you didn’t tell me.”
Liam could only nod.
“You know how I feel about you and we could’ve carried on, had a relationship, and you could’ve swept this under the carpet, treated it as something that never happened. I wouldn’t have had a clue. You had to know that telling me this would put what we have at risk...”
He knew that. God, he was living it! Liam just held her steady gaze and waited for her to continue. It was her turn to speak and his to wait for her verdict.
“Why did you tell me?” Teresa demanded.
Liam knitted his fingers together and squeezed. “Because I didn’t want there to be any lies between us. Our pasts, my parents, caused so much trouble, for you—”
“And you.”
“They lied and they manipulated and they used and they lied some more,” Liam said, his voice rough. “I don’t want there to be any more lies between us. And withholding truth is just another form of lying. I’m done with it and I’m done with them and what I thought was normal. Normal is not a cold marriage between two people who were more concerned about money and power and status than the people who worked for them and, to an extent, me. Normal is not a cold, quiet house with no affection and no laughter. Normal is not keeping everything bottled up to the point you think your head might explode. I want normal, Teresa. I want normal so much it hurts.”
“And how do you define normal, Liam?” Teresa softly asked.
He had to say this before she walked away, before those fingers tugging on his heart ripped it apart. “Normal is you, with me. Normal would be you and I married, both working at our separate careers, supporting and loving and learning from each other. Normal would be calling you to ask you for input when I have a problem, and vice versa. It’s doing the best we can for ourselves, our kids and, I know this sounds corny, the world.” He lifted one shoulder, his throat tightening and his eyes burning. “There is nobody I trust more than you, and that now feels normal. Finally, normal is me loving you for as long as I live. But I know that’s a long shot.”
“Sometimes long shots pay off,” Teresa softly said. Liam frowned at her, not sure of her meaning.
“I don’t understand.”
A small smile tipped her sexy mouth up. “Okay then, what if I just said yes?”
It had been a tough morning, he got that, but he was losing track of this conversation. “Yes to what?”
Teresa touched her tongue to her top lip and Liam’s heart stopped at the brilliant blue of her eyes. “Yes to everything. You, me, the work thing, the kids thing. The marriage thing that has absolutely nothing to do with shares and everything to do with us.”
“Uh—”
Teresa leaned forward and placed her hands on his knees. “Are you with me, Liam?” she asked.
Barely. He was pretty sure that joy had just drowned out his ability to speak so he just nodded. But because there was still a kernel of doubt—this was too damn easy!—Liam forced himself to construct a sentence. “Say that again?”
Teresa rubbed his thighs with her thumbs. “I love you, darling. I want to spend every minute of my life with you.”
“Are you sure? Did you hear what I said about what my parents did to your dad?”
Teresa nodded. “Yeah, I did. I’m still going to need some time to process that and I will probably never have a relationship with your mother—”
“Completely understandable,” Liam jumped in.
“But what they did has nothing to do with us. What they did, what your dad did to try and make amends, brought us together. We triumphed, despite having everything but the kitchen sink thrown at us. I’d be a fool to walk away from a love that stubborn, that persistent.”
Liam’s fingers touched her cheek. “You really do love me.”
“I really do,” Teresa said, her lips curving under the pressure of his thumb.
“I love you so much, Teresa,” Liam said as she lifted her chin to receive his kiss. He wanted to dive into her, to lose himself in her and her warmth and beauty and love but there were one or two issues that still needed to be cleared up. “Going forward, can we agree on a couple of things?”
Teresa lifted her eyebrows. “What things?”
“First, can we remove the contact numbers for any and all Fixers from our phones? From now on, we live exceptionally boring lives that don’t require the dubious talents of men with connections to pave the way for us.”
Teresa nodded, her eyes sparkling. “That’s a great idea. What else?”
“Will you marry me, as soon as possible?” Liam asked. “Like within the month?”
Teresa looked at him as she considered his question. “Liam, you know how long it takes to organize a wedding. Yeah, I managed to do Brooks and Nic’s in record time but it nearly killed me.”
Dammit, he was going to have to wait. But it was a long shot anyway. “Okay, two months? Three?”
Teresa smiled. “How about three days, on a beach at sunset? That’ll give our friends enough time to get here. We won’t invite Catherine but we will invite your biological dad and his family. How does that sound?”
Liam knew that he was doing his best goldfish look. “But you are a wedding planner. I thought you’d want a fairy-tale wedding.”
Teresa’s mouth was soft against his. “Liam, you are my fairy tale. I don’t need anything else.” She kissed him again and pulled back to hold his face. “Shall I meet you on the beach in three days’ time?”
“Anywhere you are is where I want to be,” Liam said, hauling her into his arms.