Page 72 of Boss Abroad
“I’m so sorry, April.” I take her hand, but she pulls away, checking our surroundings.
My brain is mush, there’s a tear in my heart and I have a feeling my gut is next.
The worst is yet to come.
“She stopped working. Dad got other jobs to pay the medical bills. Mom got back into painting. Poured her pain into the canvas. Said the smell of paint eased the sickness.”
April speaks in short, fragmented sentences, as if breaking her thoughts into small phrases so she won’t have to feel the whole thing. “When she died, there were so many paintings. Paintings I saw her create, because I sat by her feet. Nursing her, feeding her, loving her. Making the most of every minute I had of her on this Earth. I was eleven when she passed.”
We nod and wave to people who pass at a distance, arriving at the stadium. We fake normalcy, as if we’re not closer to heartbreak than a ‘good-morning-to-you-too-smile’.
“He had the paintings appraised, signed them as if they were his own, and became famous overnight. Said we’d go bankrupt if he didn’t do that. Threatened to put me in a psychiatric hospital if I told anyone.” Tilting her head to the side, she adds, “Not that people would believe a grieving child, anyway.”
“What a demented fucker.”
She kicks a rock and shrugs her shoulders, hands deep inside her pockets.
“Yeah, it took me too long to realize that. But I did. Got out of his house, cut him and his last name from my life, emancipated myself, and the rest is history.”
When she looks up, the fire in her eyes is almost out and my newly found heart cracks further.
“This,” she gestures a finger between us, and one corner of my mouth inches higher. “This distance.” Aaaand it drops back down. Okay, not where I thought she was going. “Is how I honor my mother.” What? Back to scrambled brain again.
“You lost me.”
“I don’t date. I won’t ever depend on a man. And I’ll never let a man rob me of my possibilities.”
I really must be fucked up in the head because all I hear is a list of challenges. Yes, I’ve been called stubborn my entire life, but the need to prove her wrong in each of her statements is something primal.
It’s not out of the usual, familiar desire to simply be right.
It’s much more than that this time.
Especially because I want to be the exception.
I want her to date me.
I want her to depend on me. Not out of need, but because she knows she can count on me.
And more than anything, I don’t wish to rob her of any possibility. Heaven forbid.
I want to see this woman take on the world. I’ll multiply her opportunities and serve them to her on a silver platter. Be by her side as she conquers all she sets up to do. Hold her hand as she climbs the steps herself.
April should honor her mother in ways where she gets to indulge in everything she can get out of life. Not retreat and be a doctor alone.
Yes, my prediction was right. The idea of April living a long and lonely life makes me sick to my stomach.
“Good thing we have our contract, then,” I say instead, and she nods like she’s in the military. I’ll leave it at that now. Because she’s still shaking. Because words won’t be enough today. And because I need a better plan than ‘me Liam, you April’, and dragging her by the hair into my cave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
april
I’m not sure what’s going on with Liam, but it’s been over a week since I’ve last seen him.
What I see instead are tons of bodyguards everywhere I go. Terry confessed after much scrutiny that there has been a car following us. I also noted the security on the stadium has at least doubled and around my building, too.
If this was because of the paparazzi thing, I’d be throwing a fit. But if it keeps Sterling from popping up out of nowhere and playing the estranged father, I’ll agree to whatever provisions Liam takes.