Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(37)

“Really?”

“Sweet.”

I look past him, not wanting to engage with the past. He walks through the door, bowls over my daughter with his attention, and then immediately mentions something from the night we kissed.

He has an agenda.

CHAPTER 17



CERYS



“The poor guy comes all the way here to see you and you leave him with your daughter, why?” asks Phoebe.

“He came to see Ella,” I reply, pulling the cork from the longed-for wine bottle. Until everyone leaves, I don’t want to talk to Liam. I hope he realises how much the gossip mongers will love this and wonder why the hell he doesn’t care about press attention. He recently walked out on his wedding day. People will follow him. I knock back a glass of wine. The three mums remain rooted in the lounge; all the other kids have been collected but theirs, so they have no excuse to be here. No excuse apart from the man under their scrutiny.

“Isn’t it nice of Uncle Liam to visit you on your birthday?” I announce loudly, taking the party bags to the mums.

“Oh, is he your uncle?” asks Julie, a deceptively friendly woman with short blonde hair who I know is the centre of gossip in the mothers of the group.

Ella doesn’t respond; engrossed with Liam who sits on the floor next to Ella, politely focusing on the new books she shows him. Again, his natural ease around my daughter strikes me as odd for someone who barely interacts with kids.

“Anyway! It’s getting late and I need to get tidied up!” I announce, handing out the bags to nearby children with brick-like subtlety.

Once I hurry them out of the door, I turn my attention back to the kitchen where Phoebe hovers with her glass of wine. She watches me as I shovel rubbish from the kitchen counter into a bag.

“Ella’s not his, is she?” she asks.

“No! Jesus, Phoebe! I’ve never had sex with the man! We’re friends.”

Phoebe sips her wine, but the expression meeting me over the top of her wine glass is one of doubt. “Then why are you behaving oddly?”

“I’m worried people will think the same as you. Did you see the expression on Julie’s face?”

“The three witches? They’ll have it all over Facebook tonight. I hope they didn’t take pictures.”

“Crap, I never thought about that.”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you, Cerys,” she says quietly. “When everyone was busy and you were with Ella, I saw how he looked at you.”

“What do you mean?” I pause in my tidying.

“I mean, this man came to see you, not your daughter.”

“I doubt it,” I mumble.

“I know, none of my business.” She drains her glass. “I guess from your cagey behaviour you have something to talk to him about. I’ll leave you in peace.”

Phoebe walks out of the kitchen and claps her hands, calling her son, Jordan. The brown haired boy sits on the sofa devouring the contents of his party bag. Grasping the plastic bag in his hand, he waves at the distracted Ella and leaves with his mum. Not before Phoebe blows me a kiss and indicates Liam with her head.

This leaves me, Liam, Ella, and a lot of unanswered questions.

I retreat to the kitchen as the front door closes and pour another glass of wine, ignoring the remaining mess of party aftermath. Sentences run through my head of what I’ll say when he inevitably comes into the room. I’m dazed by the fact he came but also hold the frustration that he never contacted me. I need to close him out; he can’t do this.

The noise of the TV travels through to the kitchen. A few moments later, Liam walks into the confined space of the room.

The man who re-entered my life at Christmas holds a presence I’m sure affects other girls as well as me. Especially, if he looks at them with the misplaced affection I see in Liam’s eyes. I’m unused to seeing men with so many tattoos, especially across biceps like his. I don’t hold his gaze but stare at his long fingers, the ones that touched and caressed me so gently. If I look at his arms, I can avoid looking at his face and the mouth I remember on mine.

Liam steps closer.

Crap.

I turn to gather half-empty paper plates and throw them in a white bin bag.

“How are you, Cerys?” His Welsh accent holds an edge of American, the amusing drawl he used around Ella at Christmas to make her laugh is there.

“Fine, thank you. You?” I place the last plate in the bag and look around.

“Better than I was a few weeks ago.” Liam rests against the Formica counter and stretches his long legs halfway across the room.

“I heard about that.” I want to elaborate on ‘that’ and mention his failed wedding day but the wary look on his face edges the questions away. “Been back in Wales long?”

“Just today. I’m staying back in London,” he replies.

“Oh, okay, are you going for a home visit?”

He picks up a paper cup and puts it into the bag I’m holding. “I wanted to see the girl who needs to know I haven’t forgotten her.”

“Ella is definitely happy you came.”

Liam doesn’t respond, but the connotation behind his words is in his intense look. “Sorry I took so long to reply to Ella’s letter. It got lost in the Blue Phoenix fan mail.”