Page 54 of The Focal Point

“Pretty crappy, honestly.”

The guy blinked, looking like a deer caught in headlights. He might be the CTO of a billion-dollar tech firm, but it was clear conversations such as these were not his forte.

“Oh, well—” he started, stopped, opened his mouth again, and shoved a hand through his hair. “Look, Bailey, I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

“I have an idea,” I replied, taking a deep breath to calm my rising pulse. I wasn't sure whether it was out of anger, anxiety, or something else. They were all swirling somewhere inside, making my chest tight.

“I came to tell you how sorry Liam is that everything happened like it did. He never meant to hurt you or lie to you. He was going to tell you—”

“But he didn’t,” I cut him off, anger coming out on top. “If you’re here to make excuses for him, don’t waste your breath. I don’t want to hear them.”

Thomas nodded. “That’s fair. I told him it was going to blow up in his face—”

I leveled my glare at him—so he had known. He had been in on it all, my guess was from the beginning. Thomas gulped, but he stood his ground.

“Look,” he started again, “I know he came out looking like a jerk, but he’s not. That’s not him. He made a mistake—a big mistake—and he’s been miserable.”

“I don’t care how he feels,” I replied, clicking on a random icon on my computer just to give me something else to do. Because I did care—I felt my heart jolt to find out Liam was miserable.

“That’s fair,” Thomas repeated. “And I get it. I want you to know he’s been my best friend since elementary school. He might not seem like it to you right now, but Liam is a really good guy. What you saw? That’s the real Liam. He made a mistake that he regrets. So much.”

“Then he should have thought of that before. He made his choice, and I made mine.” I couldn’t look at Liam as I said it, nor did I look at him as he made a noise of agreement in his throat.

“Yeah, okay. I just wanted you to know. See you around, Bailey.”

I didn’t say goodbye or look up as Thomas’s footsteps retreated from my office. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to hear the tears strangling my voice or see the tell-tale shimmering in my eyes.

“Okay, I’ve stayed quiet long enough. What’s going on?” Kristen demanded from the doorway. Thomas had left it open as we talked, and she must have heard some of it from her desk.

The urge to ignore my assistant and tell her to go away was strong. But I had been holding the entire thing in for too long. I groaned and covered my face with my hands again.

“Hey, come on. Come on over here, and tell me what happened.”

My assistant levered me out of my chair and pulled me over to the couch, pushing magazines and swatches out of the way. Then she got me a glass of water and listened while I told her everything that had happened.

Kristen hugged me when I had finished and let me brush the tears away before she said anything.

“But it wasn’t for another woman, was it? It was for you?” she asked.

It hadn’t been the question I had been waiting for. I had been expecting a tirade about Liam’s callousness, something agreeing with my assessment that he was a horrible person. I needed that confirmation because I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it, either.

“No, I guess it wasn’t,” I admitted slowly. “And the houses weren’t really for me. They were so Liam could keep seeing me.”

Kristen nodded, grabbing a tissue and handing it to me. “I know it wasn’t exactly honest, but it was oddly romantic. I mean, who did he hurt?”

“He hurt me. By lying about it,” I replied, dabbing at my eyes, hoping I wasn’t trailing mascara and liner everywhere.

“Okay, yeah, the lie sucks. But did he lie any other way? Is he trying to get you to believe you were somehow to blame like Russ?”

“I guess not—”

“People make mistakes, Bailey. It was a big one, of course, and he has to come up with a way to make it up to you, but it was one mistake. From everything else you told me, he seems like a decent guy who made a mistake.” My assistant caught my gaze and held it while she waited for my answer.

“I guess,” I admitted, looking at the tissue between my hands in my lap as I crumpled it. “But he knew how much I hated lies, and he still lied to me.”

Kirsten shrugged. “Yeah, that’s true. You have to decide whether the other things you know about him make it worth giving him a second chance. He’s not Russ, Bailey. Whatever he did, he’s not that asshole, and you shouldn’t expect him to be. You might be missing out if you don’t. I mean, I get it. I get your reaction—it was justified. But I would still think about what you could be missing out on instead of throwing it away and maybe find a way to forgive him. I mean, think about everything else he’s done—to me, it seems like he must really love you to do all of that. Even the dumb houses.”

I stayed where I was for a long time after that, my thoughts whirling so fast I couldn’t catch one. All save for one, the thing I had been avoiding thinking about or admitting but became more and more forceful the more I tried to hide from it.