Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(53)

“What do you mean by uninteresting? Because I’m not a drop-dead gorgeous actress?” I pull my face away from his hand.

“No, because there’s no scandal, just me loving you.”

Liam’s words knock the breath from me as hard as his kisses last night. I pick my keys up from the table and grab my handbag.

“I’m going to collect Ella.”

I glance back at his confused expression as I leave the house. I’m unable to process whether he meant what he said or whether Liam Oliver falls in love too easily.

CHAPTER 22



CERYS



Liam taps his fingers against his coffee cup as I brush Ella’s hair ready for school. I’m half-irritated he’s around and doing nothing, and half-excited he stayed a second night. Ella wriggles, complaining the brush is hurting her hair, but I know the real reason is she doesn’t like her hair tied into a ponytail.

“Stop fussing, you’ve got a week left at school and then you don’t have to do this.” Images of a scarecrow-haired Ella running around in her princess costumes for six weeks come to mind.

“School holidays,” says Liam with a smile. “Bet you can’t wait!”

“Me or her?”

“Both.”

I wrap a hair band around Ella’s thick, brown hair. “I guess.”

“Jordan is going to Greece,” Ella informs Liam.

“Really? Where are you going?” he asks her.

“We might go camping for a few days,” I say, releasing Ella.

“Camping?”

“You know, in a field, in the rain probably. Overseas holidays are out of my price range.”

Liam places his empty cup on the table. “Come back to LA with me.”

I almost drop the brush. “What?”

“For the school holidays, come to LA. I’m working but not every day.” He glances at Ella. “We could go to Disneyland.”

At that moment, I’m prepared to smack him across the head. Hard. “Liam!”

Ella jumps up and starts hopping around the room shrieking about going to Disneyland. I stand. “You do not tell a child something like that out of the blue! Not if it may not happen.”

“Why not? She can go if her mum isn’t too boring to come to the States with me. Come on, Cerys, why not?”

I can’t think of an excuse and have to admit that a small part of me secretly feels like dancing round the room too. “I don’t know.”

“A hot rock star offers you a luxury holiday to LA and you have to think about it!”

I rub my head. “I’ll have to organise passports and I’d need to get some new things for Ella and...”

Liam grabs my hand and squeezes. “Cerys. Let go of your practicality for five minutes. When I’m away from you all I want is to be back with you again, so this makes perfect sense. When I’ve finished the session work in LA, I’ll come back to England and stay around. This is the answer until then. You don’t need to be on your own, and I want you with me.”

For a week, maybe two, I could avoid having the Liam sized hole in my life. How could I deny my daughter a trip to Disneyland? Or myself a trip into the fantasy world of celebrity.

****

A week and a half later I arrive in LA with Ella, dressed in her yellow Princess Belle costume. Luckily, she didn’t behave like a princess on our First Class flight, even though the cabin crew treated her like one. I’ve never travelled further than the European mainland, so this is going to be a test of my comfort levels.

When I told Phoebe about Liam’s offer, she couldn’t understand why I didn’t say ‘yes’ on the spot, and I tried to explain how nervous I am about putting myself in someone else’s hands again. She told me I needed my head examined, to stop being ridiculous, to go and enjoy myself. Then Phoebe whispered that if I didn’t want to go, she would and don’t tell her husband. At that point, I realised how stupid I was being.

Craig’s renewed interest in Ella continues and, after a frosty meeting, we came to an arrangement. The agreement for him to see Ella every other weekend is loose because he randomly appears on days he ‘feels like’ seeing her. Even though his lack of contact with Ella over the last few months has upset her and annoyed me, his lack of interference in our life allowed me to breathe.

Single motherhood is hard, but my new life has opened my eyes to everything wrong in the old one. I’m not a hundred percent free of Craig’s control because I need financial support for Ella, but I intend to get a job as soon as Ella goes to school full time. We don’t need Craig, and I definitely don’t need him toying with Ella’s feelings the way he once did with mine.

Craig knows I’ve taken Ella on holiday, but not where or who with.

Ella takes everything in her stride; we could be half an hour from home, not halfway across the world, as she excitedly chats about all the new sights around her as we navigate the airport. The brightness of the lights hurts my tired head, not helped by the one champagne too many on the flight over. Ella and I are directed away from the other passengers by a concierge, toward the place Liam waits for us.

I last saw Liam a week ago; but each day away from him, the ache to be with him again spreads. He’s standing at the end of a smaller hallway, resting against the wall with his legs crossed at the ankles. When he sees us, his bored expression disappears and he straightens. For once, he’s not wearing jeans, dressed in black board shorts and a blue sleeveless t-shirt revealing more of his tattoos and bright ink than usual. As Liam steps toward me, I run to him. Liam scoops me off the floor and kisses me hard, as if we’ve been apart months. I cling to him, burying my face in his neck, and inhaling the clean scent of his skin. I don’t want him to let me go. I never want Liam to let me go. And that’s a bigger step out of my comfort zone than this trip.