Bloom

“I like the food at this place?” I shake my head. “I don’t. I’ve never been here before.”

“You order take-out from here though.”

He has me confused with someone else, with another woman.

Humiliation creeps over me, flushing my cheeks with a pink hue.

“When I threw the broken glass from the vase in the trash at Wild Lilac, I saw a cardboard container in there with the name of this place stamped on it.” He glances at a group of pirates singing Happy Birthday to a woman wearing a tiara. “And their take-out menu was sitting on the counter when I paid for my mom’s flowers.”

Leanna.

She’s always ordering something for lunch. I’ve never taken her up on her offer to share because I know that Al loves the leftovers.

“Someone I work with has been ordering food from here.” I watch as the woman in the tiara stands to give a speech.

“Dammit.” Liam rests both elbows on the table. “I’ll never cut it as a detective.”

I’m touched that he took the clues he found at my shop and ran with them.

“What are you in the mood for?” he asks just as his phone starts up on a ring.

His gaze cuts to where it’s sitting on the table. His hand reaches out once he sees the name that’s popped up on the screen.

“I have to take this.” Shooting me an apologetic look, he brings the phone to his ear.

I’d excuse myself to give him privacy, but he’s on his feet headed straight for the exit before I can say a word.

***

When Liam pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his forearms, my gaze drifts over the shaded ink that covers his skin.

“Tell me about your tattoo, Athena.”

I didn’t think he would remember. I thought when I mentioned it last week that it had gotten lost in the moment.

Twirling around, I lift my hair to show him the back of my neck. “It’s there.”

I feel his breath graze over the exposed skin. It sends a shiver through me straight to my core.

“It’s a flower,” he whispers. “What is that? A lilac?”

I stay in place too long, my hair bunched in my hand, my heart twisting in my chest, and the spot between my legs aching.

“One lilac,” I say quietly into the night air.

“It’s beautiful.”

I close my eyes, willing him to reach out to run a fingertip over it, but I sense the second he pulls back.

My hair falls from my hand as I spin back around to face him.

“I’m sorry again for what happened at the restaurant.”

It’s the second apology he’s offered since we left Times Square. A client had called him. It was someone who had lost a spouse. They needed a few minutes of Liam’s time to get them through the hours until they could see him in his office tomorrow.

I’ve suffered loss in my life but not that final.

The person I lost is sitting in a jail cell upstate. She’s rotting away because she chose a man and money over everything else. The price my mother paid for her pursuit of happiness cost her a future with my brothers and me.