Page 17 of Stronger Than Love

“What are you doing here, Liam?”

“Callum told me I was being a dick and to come and apologise.” He shrugged and stared off into the ocean. “Here.” He handed me a white paper bag. Inside were therhubarb rock sweets that had been my favourite as a child. It was the closest that Liam would ever come to apologising.

“What if I’d wanted the chocolate limes?” I pouted, raising an eyebrow in question.

His bark of laughter washed over me. “Tough, you can swap one if you want, but the rest belong to me.”

Waves of familiarity crashed into me and I was transported back in time to when we used to have this conversation.

I grabbed his bag off him, helping myself to one of the hard lime sweets with a chocolate centre. In retaliation, Liam took my bag and did the same. The only bag of sweets that was missing was Niall’s, who could never decide what his favourite was.

“What’s happening at the old lighthouse?” I queried, nodding in the direction of all the activity.

“A new art gallery. Callum’s business has the contract for the work.”

“The guy who threw me out said you own the business.” My head tilted to the side and I watched his reaction.

Liam always was hard to read; he’d learnt from an early age to school his expressions so no one knew what was happening behind those eyes. No one except me.

He rolled his eyes at me before a grin formed. “I’m the architect overseeing the designs. Callum is the brawn who brings my creations to life. All six of us own a part of the company because we all bring something to the business. Happy, Miss Nosy?”

“Delighted,” I responded dryly. There was no reason why I should be proud of him because everything he’dachieved was by his own hand, but I was. He’d done what he always said he would. Liam had dragged him and his brothers out of poverty and neglect and created something that every one of them was a part of.

“Your old house is gone,” I said, shuffling restlessly, sucking on my sour candy to find the sweet centre.

“Some things are better destroyed and left in the past,” he replied. “You can’t build a future when the foundations are shallow and weak.”

His words struck a chord inside me. Was he implying that I was shallow and weak? A sad smile crossed my lips. “Sometimes life never turns out how you planned it.” His gaze speared into me with an intensity that demanded more than I was prepared to give. “You think you have your life planned at the age of five and life comes along and changes it in a heartbeat.”

His heat burned into my back as he stood behind me to watch the ocean. My body swayed toward him, drawn by the same magnetism that always existed between us.

“Once upon a time I believed in faerytales and happy endings, but they don’t exist for people like me. Reality crashes into your life and destroys everything you once loved.”

Tingles spread across my back at his words. A huge part of me wanted to dispute what he said, but the girl terrified of being hurt whimpered and hid.

“Niall texted this morning. He said he needed help with putting up the decorations later. Apparently, your mum bought enough to cover the entire village.”

“Ugh!! What is it about Mum and birthday parties?”

“It’s probably because you avoided all the recent ones she arranged. She has ten years’ worth of decorations to hang from the trees.” There was no recrimination in his tone, just an honest observation.

Suddenly, standing here, I could find no justification to have stayed away. Liam hadn’t grown horns overnight to become the devil. We were only twenty at the time, and the intensity of our relationship would never have lasted. Maybe he did both of us a favour and walked away before we both got in too deep.

“I’ll see you later then,” I said, waving as I wandered off toward home.

“No worries, I’ll bring Callum and his work van with the ladders attached to start hanging all those decorations.”

I deliberately spun around so he could see me rolling my eyes at him. Liam’s responding grin made my stomach lurch and my heart stumble over its beat. Ten years was not enough time to get over that man and the dimples that appeared when he grinned.

Niall sat flicking through the local newspaper in the kitchen with Aoife typing on her phone beside him.

“Liam said he and Callum would be over later to help you with the decorations,” I told him, setting my bag of rhubarb rock on the table.

He pounced on the bag and snatched one of the sweets. “I haven’t seen rhubarb rock since we were kids!” he exclaimed, sucking the red and yellow sphere.

My brow wrinkled in confusion.

“What are they?” Aoife wrinkled her nose in disgust. “They don’t look very healthy.”

---