Page 133 of Push

He scoffed a laugh. “You’re not half as stupid as everyone thinks you are, Dr. Sullivan. I’ve watched you. You trade in favors. You know how to talk to people. You understand more than you pretend not to.”

“Righto.” I felt plenty bloody stupid when he ran rings around me with his verbal gymnastics. “So, you’re telling me you have Gwen’s back, yeah?”

“I always have.”

“Always? Like when? When you walked out and left her with that abuser?”

Liam’s cold eyes slid to me. “Gwen’s talked to you about our mother?”

Not really. The secrets of her childhood were locked up tight, only spilling out in short bursts of weakness. “She’s said enough.”

He grunted into his glass. “Has she just?” A pale brow lifted. “Share stories with you about how she pushed her stool up to the bench to make food from whatever scraps she could scrounge from the cupboard, did she? What about how our mother spent her days comatose from too much booze and too many pills? Or did she leave those bits out?” He shook his head. “That’s no life for a little girl.”

A sharp ache pinched in my chest. Had it truly been like that? “And what about for the boy who lived there?” That life couldn’t have been easy for him, either.

Liam’s grin carried an unsettling edge. “Oh, we don’t talk about him.” He pressed his index finger to his lips and whispered, “Shh.”

A surge of dread popped my eyes wide open. I wrestled to keep the emotion out of my voice. He couldn’t derail me. “Should we talk about you interfering with Gwen’s old boss, then?”

Liam only smiled. No denial.

“So, that’s all you’ve done for her? Some debt repayment,” I scoffed. “Where were you when it mattered, huh? Gwen lived on the bones of her ass for years. She got that horrible job at the fish and chip shop, earning minimum wage just so she and her mother could eat! I didn’t see you around helping her when she was growing up… University… Even finishing high school!”

He sipped his drink. “And who do you think paid for the fancy high school where the rich little darlings go? Certainly not Gwen earning minimum wage at the fish and chip shop, hmm?”

I frowned. “No, that’s not…” I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. He was messing with me. “Gwen got a scholarship.”

“A scholarship? To a school festering with Sullivans?” Liam laughed. “The elitist sycophants running that nepotism factory only cared about money. Gwen’s clever. She would’ve wasted her intelligence in the hellhole public school we were stuck in, but she’s proud.Principled. She never would’ve accepted charity. The scholarship was an unfortunate ruse, but it was the only way to lift her out of that hell.” He muttered into his drink, “But perhaps into another.”

“You’re lying.”

“I can’t claim all the credit. It’s fortunate for me Elias has a skilled hand for forgery. Letters from fancy schools were barely a challenge for him. His penmanship trulyislovely.” The coldness in Liam’s eyes warmed only a little. “It’s a pity he limits his talents to morescrupulousforms of business these days.”

My jaw was on the floor. “You’re full of shit.”

Liam’s lips pressed into a line, his gaze cutting back to me. “Nobody asks questions as long as the money keeps flowing, Dr. Sullivan. The outrageous school fees were paid on time, every time. From my pocket. Every last dollar.”

“That’s not possible. You’re rich now, sure, but back then… You would’ve been barely eighteen. You came from the same life as Gwen. There’s no way.No way.Where the hell could you get that kind of money?”

A slow smile spread across Liam’s face, his white teeth baring in a sharp, sinister line. “The same place your daddy did.”

My blood froze in my veins. The walls closed in on me, and the suffocating press of the darkness made it impossible to breathe. “Who are you?” This wasn’t right.Hewasn’t right.

Liam swirled the liquid in his glass and muttered,“Le Diable.”He tipped his head back and swallowed the drink in one gulp. “Storytime is over now, sweetheart. Leave me be.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice.

I edged out of the room.

Even though my heart hammered so fast I thought my chest would explode, I was eerily calm. A thousand questions swirled. No answers appeared. The one thing I knew—the one thing that stopped the worry—was that I believed him.

Liam was on Gwen’s side. He could be trusted. I was sure of that, but I wasn’t sure what that meant…

Yet.

42

She Kissed His Hand

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