Infinite Possibilities (11 page)

“You don’t know. You weren’t there.”

“No. I wasn’t. But I know there are things out of our control and if we let them eat us alive, they destroy us. I know, baby. I’ve lived it. In your case, you need answers, and you need to place blame, but not on yourself.” He lowers his forehead to mine. “Not on you. We will find out who did this to you and your family, and we’ll make them pay. You have my word. But it’s time for you to start healing.” 

“I need answers.”

“We’ll get them.” He scoops me up and moves us higher on the bed, pulling down the blankets. I let him settle us beneath the silky sheet, the soft mattress sweet bliss to my exhausted body. “Let’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll come up with a plan.” He caresses my cheek. “Together.” He reaches above us and hits a button on the headboard and the lights dim, then he turns me and curls me against him, wrapping his body around mine. 

My lashes lower.
Together.
I could get used to that word, I think, and I relax into him, truly relax for the first time in months.

***

I wake to the ticking of a clock and blink into sunlight, my eyes fixing on the massive round clock with a heavy etched black wood frame and contrasting delicate silver arms occupying most of the wall in front of me. The same clock I assume that taunted me the night before and now tells me I’ve slept until nearly noon. I inhale the wonderful masculine scent of Liam that surrounds me everywhere, though I sense that he isn’t in the bed any longer. Trust my instincts had been Liam’s message to me last night. About him and everything. They seem to be all I have when I’d rather have facts and answers.

Rolling to my back, I sit up and marvel at the breathtaking view of the Hudson River. Liam was right. It’s as if we are on the water. My gaze shifts and I take in the spectacular room I couldn’t appreciate last night for the overwhelming presence that is Liam. It’s a simple but elegant space decorated with an expensive black wood bedroom set and several paintings of high-rise buildings that I date to the sixties. I wonder if Liam’s mentor, Alex, designed them.

A pajama top is laying on the bottom of the bed, and I smile and reach for it, hoping Liam is wearing the other half of this set. It’s an intimate, wonderful thought to share one set of pajamas that reaches beyond sexy. It’s about sharing and caring, two things I’ve had to eliminate from life in every form, even simple friendships. 

Shoving aside the soft black comforter, I slip into the oversized shirt, disappointed that it smells fresh and clean, not spicy and male like Liam, but I can fix that, I decide. I make a quick dash to the room I think is the bathroom to find a sparkling black and white tiled spa-worthy room with a claw tub and separate shower. I dig for a brush and try to tame my mass of tangled blonde hair, scrub my face, and finger brush my teeth with toothpaste I find in a drawer. 

When Liam has still not appeared, I’m not quite ready to give up my solitary thoughts, and I find myself walking toward the view and the two cozy looking overstuffed black leather chairs.

Shivering against a chill radiating from being this close to the glass, I grab the black throw on one of the chairs and wrap it around me. I’m about to settle into a chair when my gaze latches on to the dagger that sits on the small table between the chairs.  

I stare down at it, struck first by the jewels and markings on the sheath and handle that I’d missed the night before, like I had overlooked the huge clock on the wall. The dagger is Egyptian, and I am certain this is from his time spent at the pyramids. This is a part of my past as well and finally I can talk to Liam about it. 

Frowning, I stare down at the dagger, and the oddity of it being here on the table by the window, when I know it was in the bed with us, hits me. I turn and face the bed and it hits me that I’ve barely slept in months and yet Liam stood here, holding a dagger in his hand, and I snoozed right through it. I’m reminded of how I’d slept so well that first night he’d stayed with me in Denver and I can come to only one conclusion. My subconscious mind trusts him completely. When I’m asleep. In the heat of the moment, when he’s holding a dagger to my skin and I’m tied up. Why then do I still think about his money, his mentor’s money, and pyramids? And why, why, why, did I feel that instant of fear while staring at his tattoo?

Chapter Eight

I reach for the dagger, gauging the weight in my hand.

“Replica.”

My gaze lifts at the deep baritone of Liam’s voice speaking the very word I was thinking. I find him leaning on the doorjamb wearing nothing but the pajama bottoms to match my top and my reaction is pure instinct, that of a primal kind. He is beautiful, this man, power and sex radiating off of him.

“Yes,” I agree and my voice is hoarse. “I thought so.”

He pushes off the doorjamb, his dark hair a finger-rumpled mess that is sexier because it was my fingers that made it that way, and he starts walking toward me. Try as I might to keep my eyes level, they seek out and find his “pi” tattoo, tracing the inverted triangle beneath the 3.14 that is filled with numbers and still, there is not even a sliver of fear. All I feel is my desire to shove him down on the bed, crawl on top of him and lick the darn thing again. 

“How old?” he asks, stopping in front of me, his hand closing over the dagger in my hand.

I blink up at him and he is just so damn masculine and beautiful that my mouth has gone dry and my brain seems to have stopped functioning. “How old?”

His lips quirk and I am certain he knows how easily he affects me and I can’t seem to care. “How old is the dagger, Amy?” 

“Oh. The dagger. About a century.”  

Those sensual, punishing, pleasing lips of his, curve. “Right on the mark, but then, you are your father’s daughter.”

My father’s daughter.
It is painful to hear those words but also liberating, powerful. I no longer have to pretend to be what I am not with Liam. “Yes. Yes, I am.” 

He pulls me closer, our hands and the dagger between us, our knees touching.“Why were you standing here holding the dagger?”

“Why’d you bring the dagger over here while I was sleeping?”

His mood shifts subtly, the lines of his face hardening, his lashes lowering before they lift. “A walk down memory lane,” he confesses. “Alex collected daggers from all over the world. I bought it for him while I was in Egypt and never got a chance to give it to him. I keep it close, like I do his memory.”

My heart squeezes for him, my hand flattening on his bare chest, the warmth of his body seeping into my palm the way he has seeped into my soul, my heart. “You were living that regret this morning.”

“I was reminding myself that regret is a disservice to those we loved and who loved us. It leaves no room for celebrating their lives and the memories we have with them.” He leans in, pressing his cheek to mine, his hand tightening over mine and the dagger. “And last night is quite the memory.” 

I lean into him, and now
I
let my lashes lower, seduced by this growing bond between us that defies the time and space we’ve had between us, and even the reason it had existed. Deep down, I’ve never questioned us. This is real.
We are
real.  

The doorbell rings and Liam groans, pressing his forehead to mine. “That will be the breakfast I ordered that is very poorly timed.” He brushes hair over my shoulder. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. We’ll eat and then I’ll give you a tour of your new home.” 

He turns and walks away, leaving me staring after him. For several seconds I stand there, processing what he’s said and what it means to me and us. He wants me here. I want to be here but it isn’t that simple for me, no matter how much I wish it was. 

I launch myself into action, rushing down the steps to the foyer and then crossing through the living room with barely a glance at the gorgeous view out of the window. Rushing into the kitchen, past the island, I find Liam setting plates on the table. “This isn’t my home,” I blurt. 

He stills for a moment, a fork in his hand, before setting it down very precisely on the table and leaning his palms on the wooden surface. “I want it to be. I hope you want it to be.”

“My family’s dead. Someone killed the PI. Me being with you or anyone else is like painting a bull's-eye on their forehead. I won’t do that to you.”

He studies me, that penetrating blue gaze of his unnerving me and telling me nothing of his reaction. Finally, he moves, pulling out the chair at the end of the table. “Come sit and let’s eat.” 

“You can’t dismiss my concern. It’s real.”

“And we’ll deal with it.
After
you eat.” His tone is that familiar absoluteness I’ve come to know from overbearing, dominant, sexy Liam Stone that tells me I won’t win this battle. I, in fact, probably need my strength to fight it. 

Sighing in resignation, my shoulders slump and I walk to the chair and sit down, finding my plate piled with a stack of pancakes that smell sweet and almost spicy. My stomach rumbles in a strange mix of hunger and queasiness I didn’t know was possible. How can anyone be famished and sick at the same time? 

“I hope you like gingerbread,” Liam comments, all of that intensity of moments before sliding away. “Evans’ Cafe next door does breakfast all day and since they only do these in November and December, I admit to overindulging.” 

“They smell wonderful but I find it hard to believe you overindulge in anything.”

That sensual mouth of his curves ever so slightly. “I have a few weaknesses. Gingerbread Pancakes. Architecture.” His voice deepens. “And you, Amy.”

Me.
I am his weakness. I don’t let myself think of how true that might be, how dangerous I could be to him, and quickly indulge in a real treat for me. The truth. “Mine would be macaroni and cheese, ancient history, and you, Liam.” 

His eyes blaze blue-green with a hint of amber lifted from the sunlight and water behind him. He is magnificently male in that moment, absolutely, devastatingly, a work of art. He motions to the pancakes. “Try the gingerbread. I want to see what you think.”

Remarkably relaxed considering I charged in here for a confrontation, I dig in. “Hmm. Yes. Wonderful. I see why you like them.” 

Obviously pleased, he takes a bite. “Evans is one of two restaurants next door. There are also several high-end clothing stores, and a hair salon, as well as several medical offices, most of which have been there since I first met Alex.” 

“How old where you when you moved in with him?”

“My mother died when I was fifteen.”

“And your father--”

“Long gone.” His tone is short in a way that says he’s done with the topic and he reaches for a glass of orange juice I think must be as bitter as the topic clearly is, from the sugary pancakes, but he gulps it down just fine. The same way he has every sour note life has thrown him and not for the first time I envy him that control. 

An odd sensation churns in my belly, and I’m not sure if it’s about food, or how poorly I’ve handled my life. “Any chance you have something carbonated?”

He stands up and walks to the fridge and returns with Ginger Ale and a glass of ice. “My mother’s cure for all stomachaches. I had Evans bring you a bottle.”

I tilt the can to fill my glass. “They had Ginger Ale in stock?”

“They do now.”

He had them stock it for me and I soften inside with this knowledge. For all the hardness on Liam’s outside, he is capable of such tenderness. I take a sip of the soda and it is soothing to my stomach. 

He claims his seat again, watching me. “Good?” 

I nod. “It’s perfect. I thought rest would make me a hundred percent but I’m still not quite right.”

“You’ve been through hell. Give yourself time. When we get done eating, I thought I’d show you the rest of Alex’s dagger collection. There are some unique pieces that might interest the history lover in you.” 

The idea intrigues me. “I’d like that very much. Do you collect as well?” 

He leans back in his chair. “Not my thing, but Alex spent a lot of time in Asia and developed the interest, and about seventy-five percent of his collection, while living there.” 

“What drew him to Asia?” 

“Architecture. They like tall buildings. He wanted to be able to master that craft.”

“Like you have. Did you study in Asia as well?”

He nods and I feel relief at the confirmation it gives me. “Alex insisted I spend time there. He wanted me to learn from the best and he never considered himself that, even when everyone else did.” He leans forward. “I spent a lot of time in Asia, Amy. I never went to Egypt until a few years ago and I can prove it through my passport records.”

I reach for his hand and cover it. “I didn’t ask.”

“But you should. Knowing what you’ve been through, you have to suspect everyone. Just like you had to run when you heard that conversation between me and Derek. I don’t want you to ever doubt me like that again.”

I inhale and decide to embrace more of that honesty I’ve so rarely been allowed. “You have no idea how much the idea of you being the enemy crushed me.”

“I’m not the enemy and I want to be able to talk to you about Egypt and the pyramids and anything you want or need to talk about without creating fear and doubt in you.”