Only a Millionaire (The Sinclairs #6.5)(17)

Jade was probably right, but I didn’t want to make things difficult between Liam and me for the next two weeks. “We’ll see,” I said vaguely. “It depends on how things go when I see him. I haven’t talked to him since we slept together.”

“Oh, my God. This just happened, right?”

“Last night,” I confirmed, knowing it was useless to try to hide much from Jade. She’d just badger it out of me.

“Please don’t let this misunderstanding keep going,” she pleaded. “You should tell him the truth. If he’s a good man, he’ll get why you lied. He already knows you’re there for a reason. He has to have figured out that you were hiding who you were and why you were there.”

“I never told him why.”

“Just explain everything that happened. For God’s sake, you’ve been through hell. Now that you’re coming home, you have no reason to hide anything.”

Jade was right. I could tell Liam everything. “I’m afraid,” I admitted.

“You have no reason to be. It’s just your brain messing with you. You’ve been through a lot,” she said in a comforting tone. “Don’t you think you should at least try to let him know that you care about him? That you really didn’t want to lie to him?”

“What if he doesn’t understand, Jade?” I asked her.

“Then he’s a dick,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“What if all of this was just about getting laid? A crazy physical thing.”

“Then he’s still a dick.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what he wants. I’m confused.”

“And you think he’s not? He thinks you already have a guy, so that would make you a cheater. Anything is better than that. Even a liar.”

Our conversation led to other subjects, but what Jade had told me still lurked in my brain. Would Liam take it better that I had lied? The boyfriend thing had always kept him at a distance.

What would happen if nobody was standing in his way? Would he be different?

After I hung up with Jade, I was still thinking about what I should do.

Should I take the risk of telling him the truth, or guard my heart so it wasn’t in pieces when I had to say good-bye?





CHAPTER 9

BROOKE



Later that day, I was curled up with a good book on investing when somebody knocked on my door. I tossed the paperback aside. It wasn’t like I had any money to invest, but I liked to keep up on the latest information in the world of finance.

I stood, wondering who was knocking at my door at eight o’clock in the evening.

I opened the door and froze when I saw Liam on my doorstep.

I hadn’t heard a word from him all day, and my insecurities had taken over.

Was he done with me after we’d had sex?

If he thought I was a cheater, maybe I was just another one-night stand for him, a way to alleviate the sexual tension that was always there between us.

“I thought you were working,” I said, trying not to notice that he looked totally edible in a pair of dark-blue jeans and a black sweater.

I hadn’t known that Liam was the sweater type, but it suited him. He was the kind of guy who could make a sweater look sexy. Really, I didn’t know a whole lot about him outside of the restaurant. The only things I’d ever seen him wear were jeans and T-shirts.

He strode through the door and into the living room, which wasn’t more than a few steps. It was a small apartment.

“You need to dump your rich boyfriend,” he stated abruptly. “It’s a red line for me that I won’t cross.”

I swallowed hard as I closed the door and faced him. His expression was so intense that I couldn’t answer.

He moved on. “For the rest of your time here in Amesport, we date. We see each other someplace other than Sullivan’s. The normal stuff. We’ve never had normal, Brooke.”

I raised a brow, wondering what he was up to, but my heart was hammering as I gaped at him.

“I can take you anywhere you want to go. Hell, we can fly anywhere in the world. You know I’m not exactly hard up for funds. I might only be a millionaire, but I have a lot of millions. That might not look all that good compared to the overabundance of billionaires in this town, but I could never work another day in my life, spend extravagantly, and still have money to burn.”

He was right. Liam had reached nine figures in his money markets, investments, and bank accounts. I’d done his taxes. I knew he was loaded. But what did that have to do with us?

“I don’t want money,” I said in a shaky voice.

He stepped up until he was directly in front of me. “Then what do you want, Brooke? Name it, and I’ll make sure you get it. The only requirement is for you to get rid of the other guy. You don’t love him. I know you well enough to see that you never would have slept with me if you were in love with somebody else. God knows I wanted to write you off as unfaithful, but there’s more to the story. I know there is. I can’t care about a woman who cheats.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my lungs starving for oxygen. “Do you care?” I asked cautiously.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Yeah, I do. I’m done with the bullshit.”

At that moment, Liam looked so damn vulnerable that I wanted to throw myself into his arms and do something to make everything okay. But I was the subject of his torment, so I didn’t move.