Page 45 of Not Yet Yours

“You definitely have come a long way,” Liam says. “I’m proud of you Harriet for not giving up on the darkest days when it was really tough and for coming out of the other side a stronger version of yourself.”

“Thanks,” I say, blushing and giving Liam a shy smile.

He reaches out and takes my hand in his and squeezes it.

“Do you want to know what your surprise is?” Liam asks.

“Yes,” I say. “But me first.”

Liam raises an eyebrow. I grin, then pick the box back up off the floor, and hold it out to him. He takes it from me.

“Thank you,” he says. “What is it?”

“Open it and see,” I say with a laugh. “It’s not much, just… well you’ll see. I hope you like it.”

I’m getting nervous now that it’s time for Liam to actually see the sculpture I made for him. Is it lame? What if he hates it? What if he thinks it looks like a fourth-grader's art project? Oh God, what if he laughs?

He opens the box and peers inside. He does none of those things of course, because even if he hated the sculpture, he’s way too nice to say that. I can see on his face that he does like it though. He is smiling as he pulls it out of the box and he turns it this way and that, running his fingers over it. He spots the inscription and reads it out loud.

“Thank you,” he says. “This is amazing.”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “Just a little something to say thank you for putting up with me.”

“It’s so not nothing,” Liam insists. “You took the time to make me something so personal. That means so much more to me than you’ll ever know.”

He stands up and looks around the room for a moment and then he goes to his bookshelf. The shelves are mostly filled with books, but in some parts of the shelves, he has decorative pieces. He grabs a small blue and white vase and removes it from its shelf, and he puts my piece where it came from. It is in pride of place, right in the center of the shelving unit. He stands back and nods.

“Perfect,” he says.

He comes and sits back down beside me, putting the vase on the coffee table for now, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the sculpture sitting on the shelving unit. And he keeps smiling the whole time he looks at it. I am so relieved that he likes it.

“I was worried you would think it was lame,” I admit.

“What? No way,” he says, shaking his head. “Aside from the fact that you put thought and time and heart into this, I don’t think you really appreciate just how good of a sculptor you are.”

I shrug my shoulders. My pieces are passable, and my sales are proof of that, but I think Liam is just being nice saying that they are better than that.

“I guess modesty is better than you being all big-headed about it,” Liam says with a laugh at my shrug. “Right. My surprise to you. I feel like it’s going to be a disappointment after yours.”

“It won’t be,” I say.

Liam has never given me a surprise that was a disappointment yet and I can’t see him starting now. However, a different kind of disappointment washes over me when his cell phone starts to ring before he can say anything else or show me what the surprise is. He pulls the cell phone out of his jeans pocket and looks at the screen.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s the project manager from the new hotel. I have to take this.”

I nod. I know he has to take the call and I don’t want to be one of those women who whine about their man working. Especially not considering it is technically part of the working week. Liam said he would work from home today to see me after my last therapy session. It’s not like work is calling him through dinner or on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. But it’s not like all those things haven’t all happened over these last few months either.

“Liam Monroe,” Liam says as he takes his call. He moves toward the door to the living room and leaves the room. I hear him saying yes. Then yes again. Then fuck. And then his home office door, or at least a door that I assume to be his home office door, closes with a slam and I don’t hear anything else. He’s backin a few minutes and I know before he speaks that he has to go to the hotel.

“I’m so sorry Harriet. The new toilets have arrived for the rooms. All four hundred and sixty-five of them. And they are all the wrong model,” he says. I look at him, sure the shock is showing on my face. How are companies so bad that they can get such a big order wrong? You would think they’d have quality checks in place, especially for orders of that size. “Obviously the project manager has been talking to the supplier, but he’s insisting that’s what we ordered despite the project manager having the paperwork that proves differently. I’m going to have to go over to the supplier’s place and get this sorted out before it causes too much of a delay.”

“Yes, of course, go,” I say. “Give them hell.”

Liam smiles and shakes his head. “You’re so understanding,” he says.

“Yeah, you got really lucky, and don’t you forget it,” I say with a laugh.

“I won’t,” Liam says.

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