Sinful Rapture (The Rapture #2)(25)

Her usual uniform of black leather and tight bustier would be put on before the customers started to arrive.

“Preaching to the choir, sister,” she assured Holly.

Holly turned to pace to the other end of the office. “A woman would have to be an idiot to trust them.”

“True.”

“They claim to love you and then…” With a dramatic motion, Holly slammed her fist into the palm of her hand. “Bam.”

“Love?” Sasha didn’t bother to hide the shock in her voice. “Are you referring to Liam?”

Holly glanced at her friend in confusion. “Of course.”

“He actually said the L word?”

A renegade warmth flooded through Holly’s heart at the memory of Liam’s expression as he’d insisted he loved her. He’d looked so…fierce. So desperate for her to believe him.

Abruptly she slammed the door on the painful image.

“Focus, Sasha,” she snapped, speaking more to herself than her friend. “He set me up to be jilted.”

“Technically, Ted was the one who jilted you,” Sasha gently pointed out. “The selfish dick.”

Holly halted her pacing to glare at her supposed friend.

What was wrong with the woman?

She’d come here for a thorough, epic male-bashing session.

“You’re not defending him, are you?” she asked.

Sasha reached for a brownie, nibbling at the corner. “No, I’m just pointing out that it wasn’t Liam who asked you to be his wife while he was making babies with his mistress. Or decided to make a fool of you by not showing up for his own wedding.”

Okay. It was true that Liam hadn’t been the one to jilt her. But he was at least partially responsible for her being so publically humiliated.

“He should have told me,” she said.

“Absolutely,” Sasha readily agreed.

“Instead he—”

“Gave you a night of mad, crazy passion and told you he loved you?” her companion interrupted with an overly innocent smile.

Holly threw her hands up in exasperation. “Sasha.”

“Sorry.”

Holly frowned. Her friend didn’t sound very damned sorry.

In fact, Holly was beginning to suspect that Sasha was feeling unexpected sympathy toward Liam.

“You don’t think I have a right to be angry?” she demanded.

“Hell, a woman always has a right to be angry,” she assured Holly. “And I totally intend to kick Liam’s ass when I see him. He should have told me what Junior was up to. I wouldn’t have hesitated to share the jackass’s secret life.”

Holly grimaced. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Sasha would have relished the opportunity to expose Ted as a faithless, spineless, pathetic worm.

“That I believe.”

Sasha took another bite of brownie. “Did you tell him that you loved him?”

Holly stiffened at the unexpected question. “What?”

“You said that Liam confessed his love,” Sasha pressed. “Did you say it back?”

What the hell? Holly shifted from foot to foot, feeling ridiculously exposed.

“What makes you think I love him?”

Sasha lifted her brows. “Don’t you?”

Damn. This wasn’t going at all like it was supposed to.

Well, the brownies were predictable. And no doubt Sasha had a bottle of vodka chilling in the small fridge next to the bar.

But instead of jumping onto the we-hate-Liam bandwagon, her friend was bringing up all sorts of stuff she didn’t want to think about.

“He makes me crazy,” she at last confessed.

“Good crazy or bad crazy?”

Holly wrinkled her nose. “Both.”

“And that scares you?”

Scared her? It terrified her on a bone-deep level.

“Yes.”

Sasha swallowed the last of her brownie before licking the chocolate from her lips.

“Why?”

It was a question that Holly had never been able to answer.

Oh, she had a dozen excuses.

Beyond the fact he’d taken her father’s business, he was too arrogant. Too bossy. Too vibrantly male.

But over the past few hours she’d been forced to acknowledge the real reason she’d found him so frightening.

“Because he matters.”

Sasha frowned at the unmistakable edge in Holly’s voice.

“Why would that scare you?”

She hunched her shoulders, suddenly wishing she hadn’t eaten so many brownies.

She had a queasy sensation in the pit of her stomach.

“I always knew that my father never truly loved me, so when he walked away it hurt, but it didn’t destroy me,” she admitted, slowly returning to her pacing. “And the same was true with Ted. I was embarrassed at being jilted, but it didn’t touch my heart. But Liam—”

Her words were cut off as there was a sudden buzz through the intercom. They both turned to glance at the monitor on the wall that revealed the iron gates in front of the club.

Holly’s heart skipped a beat, her breath ragged as she caught sight of the impossibly beautiful man with russet hair and a lean face that was tight with obvious strain.

“Speak of the devil,” Sasha smirked. She pressed a button on her desk. “We’re closed.”