Thief (Love Me With Lies #3)(56)

I wait for him to speak. I really don’t have anything to say to him.

“I told you to stay away from her,” he says.

I lick my lips as I watch the poor son of a bitch. He’s scared. You can see it all over him. I am too.

“That was before you left your wife alone to deal with a stalker.”

He cracks his neck before he looks up. “I’m here now.”

I want to laugh. He’s here now. Like it’s okay to just be part of a marriage part time and show up when you please.

“But, she’s not. That’s what you don’t know about Olivia. She doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. She’s tough. But, if you don’t force yourself in and do it anyway, she moves on. She’s moved on. You f*cked up.”

Noah’s eyes flash. “Don’t talk to me about my wife.”

“Why not? Because I know her better? Because when you were gone on one of your damn trips and she needed help, she called me?”

We both stand up at the same time. The bartender sees the commotion and slams his fist on the counter. The bottles around him rattle with the impact.

“Hey! Sit down or get out of here,” he says. He’s a big f*cking guy, so we both sit down.

We take a moment to calm down — or to think — or whatever men do when they are compelled to beat the shit out of each other. I’m about to leave when Noah finally speaks up.

“I was once in love with a girl, the same way you’re in love with Olivia,” he says.

“Hold on right there,” I cut him off. “If you were in love with a girl the same way I’m in love with Olivia, you wouldn’t be with Olivia. You’d be with this girl.”

Noah smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “She’s dead.”

I feel like an *.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Think about what you’re doing, Caleb. She’s not yours anymore. We made a commitment to each other, and it’s like you said — I f*cked up. We need to be able to work on what we have without you showing up every five minutes getting her high on nostalgia.”

Nostalgia? If only he knew. You couldn’t sum Olivia and me up to nostalgia. The day I met her under that tree, it was as if I breathed a spore of her into my lungs. We kept coming back to each other. The distance between our bodies grew wider over the years as we tried to live separately. But that spore took root and grew. And no matter the distance or circumstance, Olivia is something that grows inside of me.

His nostalgia comment pisses me off so much; I decide to go with a low blow.

“So, you’re going to have a baby then…”

The shock that passes through his eyes is enough to tell me I’ve struck a nerve.

I rotate my phone between my fingers as I watch his face and wait for the answer.

“That’s none of your business.”

“She’s my business. Whether you like it or not. And I want to have a baby with her.”

I don’t know why he doesn’t hit me. I would have hit me. Noah is a classy guy. He rubs his hand across his stubble, which hosts mostly gray, and finishes his scotch. His face is wiped of emotion, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“My sister had Cystic Fibrosis,” he says. “I used to go with her to her support groups. That’s where I met Melisa. She had it too. I fell in love with her and then had to watch her die before she had the chance to turn twenty-four. My sister died two years after her. I’ve seen two women that I love — die. I don’t want to bring a child into this world with the chance of passing them the gene. It’s not fair.”



I order a scotch.



I try to rub my headache away. This is becoming more complicated by the minute, and the last thing I want to do is feel sorry for this guy.

“What does Olivia want?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that instead of her, but all I can think about is the way her voice sounded on the phone. What is she going to tell me?

“She wants to save what we have,” he says. “We met last night to talk about things.”



I’ve felt so many forms of pain in my years with Olivia. The worst was when I walked into the hotel room and saw the condom wrapper. It was a jealous, ripping pain. I’d failed her. I’d wanted to protect her, she wanted to self-destruct, and I couldn’t stop her no matter what I did or how hard I loved her. The only thing that came close to that pain was when I showed up at her apartment and found out that she’d left me again.

What I feel now may be worse than that. She’s leaving me, and she has every right to. There is nothing I can do to morally justify her walking away from her marriage for me. Noah is right, but that doesn’t mean I am able to accept it.

The last few months we’ve gotten to know each other as adults, made love as adults, seen into each other as adults. And Olivia can deny it until her snobby face turns blue, but we work together as adults. How can she walk away from me again? We were in love. We are in love.

“I have to talk to her.”

I stand up and he doesn’t try to stop me. Had they planned this together? Noah would come tell me what her choice was? I’d have to deal? She’s obviously forgotten what I’m willing to do to have her. I drop a twenty on the bar and walk out.