She caught his hand as it sneaked under her top and placed it firmly back on her thigh. “So, what’s the plan now? You’ll hole up in your apartment in New York and work on your revisions until you start filming your show again?”
“Um.” What might have been a nervous expression briefly crossed his face.
Her eyebrows rose as she sensed there was something he was hesitant to tell her. “What?”
“I can’t get anything accomplished in my apartment. Everyone knows how to find me there. I thought if I crashed somewhere no one would ever expect, keep my head down for a few weeks, I’d get a lot more done.”
“Where did you have in mind?” she asked, growing nervous herself now.
“I thought I could stay here. With you.”
Her heart gave a hard thump in her chest.
“Think about it before you answer,” he urged quickly, even as she slowly disentangled herself from his arms. “No one would have to know I’m here. You’ve said your parents never come here to you, that you always go to them when you want to see them. I can make myself scarce when you have your study group over, maybe go to a coffee shop or a library to work.”
She laced her fingers together in her lap, her knuckles white from the pressure she exerted on them. “I would love to have you here, of course, but I’m so snowed under with classes and tests…”
“I could help you. Do the shopping, the errands, the housework, the laundry. You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing around the house. That would free up even more time for studying, wouldn’t it?”
She thought about her study friend Connor Hayes, who had married during the past summer. Connor seemed somewhat less stressed now that he had Mia to share the load around his house, especially when it came to his seven-year-old daughter, Alexis. He was still as inundated with schoolwork as the rest of them, of course, but he’d confessed rather sheepishly that he liked having a wife to keep his household running smoothly. She remembered Haley had groaned and retorted that she wouldn’t mind having a hunky guy to do all her chores while she concentrated on nothing but med school.
Now a hunky guy was volunteering to do that very thing for Anne. And she wasn’t at all sure it would go as smoothly as he promised.
“I don’t know, Liam. This has so much potential to blow up in our faces.”
He leaned slightly toward her, sincerity etched on his handsome features. “We could try it for, say, a week or so. It shouldn’t take me much longer than that to finish the revisions. If there’s any hint during that time that I’m interfering with your studying, I’ll clear out. You know I’d never do anything to cause you problems.”
“Well—”
“Just consider it,” he added with a smile that arrowed straight into her heart. “This could be the perfect time for us to be together. I don’t have any other assignments for now, and you need some help around here. It would be the first time since we exchanged vows that we can actually live together like a normal married couple.”
“A normal couple who have to keep their marriage a secret,” she reminded him nervously, thinking of their quarrel at Christmas. Liam had been annoyed with her then for refusing to go to a popular Memphis nightspot with him. She’d declined for fear he would be recognized and too many questions would be asked, which had led to a heated argument about how committed she really was to their marriage. How much worse would it be if he had to hide in her apartment around the clock?
If he shared her memories, he kept his thoughts well hidden when he nodded cooperatively. “That won’t be a problem. I’ve left w
ord I’m holing up to work and won’t be available for a couple of weeks. No one’s going to be looking for me, and I certainly won’t draw attention to myself here.”
The very thought of dealing with her family’s shock and outrage if the truth came out, on top of her hectic class-and-tests schedule, made panic rise up from somewhere deep inside her that threatened to choke her. Her reaction must have been visible on her face, because Liam immediately reassured her again, “No one will know.”
Though she felt a bit cowardly, she nodded. “That would be best.”
He reached out to take her hands in his, his gaze holding hers captive as he spoke in a low voice. “I think we need this, Anne. You have to admit that we’ve been drifting apart the past few months. We need to do something about that.”
Thinking of the tears she’d shed after their increasingly more uncomfortable phone calls, she swallowed painfully. Would Liam’s visit repair the rift between them—or widen it? She was almost afraid to find out. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to leave. “I guess you’re right.”
He searched her face. “So I can stay?”
She moistened her dry lips. “We can try it. You said it would just be a couple of weeks?”
“Yeah, sure. Piece of cake to keep my presence quiet for that long, right?”
Uneasy with his too-optimistic attitude, she frowned. “I guess we’ll see. But we’ll have to be very careful. I just couldn’t deal with my family right now if the truth got out. Not to mention the media attention you would probably draw if they found out you’ve been secretly married for a year and a half.”
“I doubt I’m as much a celebrity as you seem to believe. With this haircut and my glasses and a baseball cap pulled low, I wasn’t given a second look at the market this morning. But we’ll be careful, anyway.”
“Okay, then.” She drew a deep breath, wondering if she were making an enormous mistake. “You’re welcome to clear out a drawer and closet space for your things. You can use the small bedroom for your office. I set it up to serve that purpose for me, but I’m hardly ever in there. I usually spread out here on the kitchen table or on the couch in the living room when I’m not studying somewhere with my group.”
“Are you supposed to meet your group today?”