Once Upon a Friendship

“I have neither seen nor spoken to him since you and I left him yesterday.”

Really.

She did shake her head then. And didn’t feel light-headed. Just...confused. “I don’t understand. Are you back on the disowned list?”

“I have no idea. Which is why I need you. Something’s going on, Gabi. I can do a lot of the investigating, but I need help. A lawyer. You’re the only one I can trust.”

“Why not call your father? You need to call him, Liam. He needs you. You just have to be the one to capitulate. You know that.”

He shook his head. And, strangely, didn’t look all that devastated. Determined was more like it.

And kind of...no, quite...handsome.

She sat up. Unsure where that thought had come from. Of course Liam was handsome. He was drop-dead gorgeous. As every one of the twenty or so women he’d dated in college and since had been quick to attest.

His handsomeness just wasn’t anything she ever thought about, the way she didn’t think about the air she breathed. It was just there. Normal. Until that moment.

Liam was changing right before her eyes. Not just standing up to his father, but standing up for himself.

He was treating her differently, too. And she had no idea what any of it meant.

She knew what it couldn’t mean, though. Whether she noticed how handsome he was or not, Liam would never be more than a very close, very dear friend to her. Not only did they come from completely different worlds, not only was he a self-professed lover of women who didn’t see himself being happy with just one for the rest of his life, he was, most importantly, family to her. To her and Marie. Their threesome was sacred. And completely platonic...

“My father is the reason George won’t speak with me,” Liam said, his elbows on the wooden chair arms, his fingers steepled in front of him. “He forbade it. And gave orders to have me removed from the building if necessary.”

“Before, maybe, but not now. Not since yesterday.”

“Since last night. According to George, my father emphasized the mandate in the car on the way home. He said I’m not to be trusted.”

“What!” She didn’t mean to squeal. She glanced toward her door, half expecting to see someone there, checking to see if she was okay.

“I know. It’s incomprehensible. He had me escorted up to George’s office by security and escorted back down again, too. With no chance to stop off and see him—he’s back in his office as usual this morning—or to speak with anyone else.”

“Jeez.” She let out a whoosh of breath. Wishing she sounded more intelligent. She’d thought nothing Walter Connelly did would shock her.

“Crazy, right?” He seemed perplexed. Disturbed, certainly. But not panicked.

And Gabi realized again that Liam was changing. And, based on his composure now, probably had been for a while. Subtly. Slowly. Without her being aware.

It was as though she was sitting there with a handsome stranger. Who was occupying her close friend’s body.

He sat forward. “I have to find out what’s going on, Gabi. I have to protect myself. At this point I don’t put it past them to somehow hang this on me.”

“Your father wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t think he would, either. But I would have bet my entire trust on the fact that he’d never gamble again, and I’d have lost that one.”

“You really think he’d hang you out to dry? His only child?”

“I don’t know. I just know that I need your help. I need you to represent me as if I was being investigated. Do whatever you would do to prove my innocence. Tell me what I need to be looking for.”

Over the next ten minutes he told her about the information he’d kept in private files, separate from Connelly, the lists he’d made. His thoughts were ordered. Concise. Intelligent. Spot-on.

“Okay,” she said, her mind fully focused as he fell silent. She had a pad full of notes in front of her. “I need a little time to sort through this. To do some research, maybe make some calls and to think. Can we meet up again in a couple of hours?”

“Away from the Arapahoe,” he said. “I’m probably being paranoid, but I wouldn’t put it past my father to have had it bugged by now. He knew we’d closed on the loan less than half an hour after it happened. Clearly he has eyes everywhere.”

“You want to skate? We could go to the rail trail.” An old railroad track that had been converted into a