Page 133 of Our Radiant Embers

“I spent the last three days at the beach house.” My voice resonated oddly in the space around us.

Liam glanced over and raised a slightly disdainful brow. “Well, I guess at least one of us was having a good time.”

Ah—so I wasn’t forgiven just yet. That was fair.

“Not me, no.” As much as I wanted to reach out, I kept my hands on the wheel. “I was bloody miserable there. Yeah, it’s beautiful, but it just felt…empty and sad, and I couldn’t sleep because the waves were too fucking loud, and I almost made two cups of coffee instead of one, and I bought another one of those leather bracelets because I thought, you know, maybe we can be friends one day, and maybe you’ll wear it even though you’ll be in love with someone else.”

For a beat, Liam was silent. “I’m not in love with someone else,” he said then.

Which didn’t mean he was still in love with me. ‘I fell so fucking hard for you’—he’d said that, hadn’t he? Past tense, though. God, I hoped a week hadn’t been enough to lose him.

“You would be.” I didn’t dare to look at him. “Eventually. Because I walked away and you deserve better than that.”

Again, he didn’t immediately reply. When he did, it was low, a hint rough. “I know why you did it. Doesn’t mean it didn’t fucking hurt, though.”

“I never meant to hurt you.” It sounded trite, and accordingly, Liam snorted without much humour.

“Yeah, good job with that.”

A red light made me pull to a stop, tail lights of the cars in front of us buzzing under my skin. I turned to face him. “I’m sorry.” Still trite. “There’s not a second that I didn’t miss you.”

Briefly, the line of his jaw eased, then it firmed again. “You know what hurt the most?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I knew it would end this way. But I didn’t think you’d just run. I didn’t think you’d go no contact from one day to the next.” His voice dropped. “I thought you’d have the decency to say goodbye.”

It was almost exactly what he’d written to me on that horrible morning, after I’d snuck out with the first light of dawn. I’d driven aimlessly for an hour, no destination in mind as the city slowly woke up around me and went about its business as though it were any other day, as though a part of me hadn’t just crumpled and died, left behind on the pillow next to Liam’s.

“If I had, it wouldn’t have been goodbye. Because you might have asked me to stay, and I’m...” Fuck. I swallowed and met his eyes. “I’m so in love with you, Liam. If you’d asked me to stay, I would have. I couldn’t risk that.”

He slid lower in the seat, the fading light casting shadows over his face. “What about next time?”

“Next time?”

“Next time someone looks at Gale the wrong way, next time your father pushes you to marry Cassandra, next time you have to choose between your family and me.”

“I’ll choose both.”

His mouth twisted in disbelief. “How?”

“I don’t know yet.” I reached for a smile. “All I know is that I tried giving you up, and myself in the process. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.”

“So you’ll, what—come out to your dad?” He sounded incredulous, and for a moment, I stumbled over the idea. Could I?

Yes. Not today, perhaps, and not tomorrow either. But I was…God—I was tired. So tired of pretending to be someone I was not.

“Eventually,” I told Liam. “It was never fair, asking you to be my secret. So, yes. Just give me some time, please? See if there’s a way to first make peace with the Ashtons, and to somehow make sure that Alaric Hartley won’t drop us like a hot potato, or even torpedo the Initiative.”

The light turned green. We began moving again, traffic flowing around us in an ever-changing constant that carried the comfort of familiarity. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road, waiting for Liam to say something, anything.

“I’m in love with you, too. In case you didn’t know.”

Oh. A shot of pure sunlight into my veins, lungs expanding to take what felt like my first real breath in weeks. I chanced a glance at him. “I was hoping you might be.”

“Well, I am.” Still a trace of defiant unease in his tone, like a part of him wished he wasn’t. I could hardly blame him—words were cheap. It was my actions that would have to make the difference.

He’d need time to believe that I would choose him, again and again—that I was willing to make sacrifices for him and us, that I was ready to be true not only to him, but to myself as well.

I was.

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