Page 200 of The Girlfriend Clause
“Well,” I said. “I’m relieved to see proof he was once small and harmless.”
Eleanor laughed. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”
“He’s definitely in his full Batman era now, though,” I added, nudging him gently. “You should see what I had to do to his bat cave to brighten it up.”
Liam looked at me with half a smile. “Yes, the pink scatter cushions really messed with the repressed billionaire psycho vibe I was going for, unfortunately,” he said, without missing a beat.
“He might be leaning more Deadpool now.” I placed a hand on his knee. “Just much better looking than Ryan Reynolds, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Eleanor said, laughing.
“I assume you mean character depth and not complexion?” he said.
“I was sort of thinking… protective and funny,” I said. “But you interpret it how you want.”
Liam rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling as if he was asking a higher power for patience, but I knew he liked it really.
“So,” Eleanor said, after a pause. “Can I make you both a cup of tea?”
“I’ll make it, Mum,” Liam said. “Where are the—”
“Teabags are above the sink,” she said. “Mugs in the drawer under the toaster. Thank you, darling.”
“He looks better,” she said, once Liam had gone. “Like he’s been eating properly. And more relaxed than last time I saw him, too.”
“I hope so.” We’d had so much fun in France, and now back in London. Being with him had softened a knot that had sat tight inside me, since I could remember. I hoped I’d been able to do the same for him.
“Do I have you to thank for that?” Her smile was small, her eyes soft.
I smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know, Eleanor. But I hope so.” I liked seeing more of the funny, quick-witted man I’d first met. Every day I seemed to see a little more of him.
“He’s never brought someone special home before,” she said. “He stayed away for so long, I wasn’t sure if he would—”
I nodded. From the kitchen, I heard the mugs rattle against the stone counter and the kettle start to boil.
“I hope you don’t think badly of him for staying away,” she said. “I think he thought he’d upset me, and it was hard for him—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t.”
“He could never bear to think he’d upset someone,” she said. “But I wasn’t upset with him. I just worried. I suppose that’s just how mothers are…”
I nodded, feeling a lump pressing into my throat.
“When he went off to school, he changed a bit,” she said. “He got quieter, more serious. It was very expensive, and all the other kids were—well, Liam wasn’t raised with money, you know. I think he struggled a bit—”
“Here you go.” He placed two mugs down and went back to the kitchen, then came back with a plate of warm oat cookies and his own tea.
We stayed another hour, and I couldn’t help noticing where he got his dry wit from. His mum was funny. This was his real life, not the polished version, and I liked him more for it. When his mum showed us the garden, I felt both sad and happy, watching him talking and laughing with her. I hadn’t seen Liam that soft with anyone before—apart from me.
This was the part of him that never made it anywhere near aboardroom.
At the door, his mum pressed a tin of cookies into my hands.
“Make sure he eats those,” she said under her breath. “But not all at once.”
“I’m a thirty-three-year-old CEO of a pharmaceuticalcompany, Mum,” he said, rolling his eyes again. “And I can hear you.”
When we were about to leave, she hugged him first, then me. She held me for a long time, maybe longer than him.
