Page 10 of I Want You

Liam takes a long sip, looking at her over the rim of his glass.

“That’s exactly what you said when you two first met.”

“Liam, I’m serious.”

“Victoria, I was at your wedding. And I was there when you got divorced, too. Your relationship has never been strictly professional.”

“Thanks for the refresher,” she snaps.

Liam throws a napkin at her, hitting her squarely in the chest.

“You ran off six thousand kilometers away like a coward so you wouldn’t have to face her head-on. And now that she’s sitting at the desk across from you, you’re still playing the same game. You don’t even believe it yourself.”

Victoria crumples the napkin in her fist.

“I didn’t leave out of cowardice. I left because I was offered an incredible management position.”

“They offered you the job, and you accepted it in three seconds without a second thought because it meant putting an ocean between you.”

The truth in Liam’s words hangs heavy in the living room. Victoria turns around and walks toward the bedroom, trying to take refuge in the task of unpacking her suitcases.

“If you came to help me settle in, grab a box,” she snaps at her brother. “If not, you might as well go home.”

“You know I always come with the whole package.”

Liam follows her into the bedroom. He starts pulling shirts out of the suitcase and hanging them in the closet in no particular order.

“Hey, stop!” Victoria protests, snatching a shirt from his hands. “The white shirts go on one side, grouped by fabric and color.”

“Oh my God. Five years in France have turned you into a neat freak,” Liam teases. “What a waste of an apartment if you decide to run off again.”

Victoria freezes with the shirt still in the air.

“I’m not going to run away again,” she murmurs.

“I hope so, even if I have to set the record straight,” Liam says, starting to put the sweaters away. “In all these years, Harper has never said a single bad word about you because, against all odds, she’s a queen with more class than all of us put together.”

Victoria turns toward him abruptly.

“Are you still talking to Harper?”

Liam tenses up when he realizes he’s given himself away.

“Sometimes.”

“How often is ‘sometimes’? Spit it out, Liam.”

He sighs, defeated. He crosses his arms and leans against the dresser.

“We wish each other happy birthdays. We send each other memes sometimes. And when Dad was in the hospital last year, she called me almost every day to see how you were doing since you were so far away. Yeah… we were all fine.”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me anything?”

“Because there was no one who could get through to you,” Liam replies. “Besides, I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound.”

Victoria slumps down on the edge of the bed. The stress of the trip, Eleanor’s trap, being around Harper…