Bought by the Boss

I nod and smile. “It does to me.” I realize though there is a lot I don’t know about him. Considering he knows a very personal thing about me, I feel like a bag of shit for that. “What of your family?” I ask to correct my error.

“My family is small,” he explains, moving to a bench facing the water and gesturing for me to sit. After I do, he sits next to me. “My father passed away six years ago. My mother lives in a retirement community in Florida.”

I like how it feels when he possessively drags an arm across my shoulder. Like it a little too much, in fact. “She went that route, huh?”

He nods. “All of her friends ended up moving to Florida so she jumped on that train.”

“How often do you see her?”

“Not often enough, really.” The tension in his eyes tells me he’s close to his mother. “I travel there to see her every couple of months, and of course over the holidays. But she has a good life out there. A busy life with a new husband.”

“She sounds happy.”

He gives another firm nod. “She’s a ball of sunshine and bourbon, my mother.”

“She sounds like a woman I’d like.” I chuckle then admit, “Though, honestly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to leave this behind for Florida.”

“Neither can I.” He drags his fingers along my shoulder, glancing out at the beach ahead of us.

Silence settles in, and it’s a comfortable silence, I come to realize. I’m highly aware of the way I lean into him, how that single touch of his rises my body temperature, and how I pay attention to his every move. Though my mind is on hyperdrive, a

nd I need answers. I glance at Liam next to me. His gaze seems to have never moved away. “What about friends? What do you do for fun?”

“I mingle,” he says.

“With people you do business with, you mean?”

He inclines his head. “Business takes up a lot of my free time.”

“No close friends other than that?”

“I have a few college buddies. We get together when we can. Somehow, though, life seems to get busy, and not just for me.”

I consider that, thinking men are so different than women. Or maybe just businessmen are different. Their professional life and personal life are so intertwined. I can’t imagine that. Sure, Jackson and I catch a game at the pub sometimes. But I consider Jackson a close friend, family even.

Liam suddenly chuckles, dragging me from my thoughts. “You think there’s something wrong with my not having close friends?” he asks.

“Not wrong, exactly,” I clarify with a shrug. “I just can’t imagine that. I have Mallory. And before Mallory, I had other close friends. I still talk to those friends, but life has taken on new directions and stuff.”

Something crosses his face then. It’s like I’ve touched on a sore spot. I begin to wonder if maybe he once did have a close friend.

He glances at the Ferris wheel. “You and I live in two very different worlds, Aria. You see brightness in the darkness. You see good where there isn’t good. And that’s one thing about you that is undeniably beautiful.”

My heart squeezes at the way he speaks about me. It’s sincere and honest, and it feels like it comes from such an honest place. “You seem to see brightness in people as well,” I point out.

He turns and gives a small smile. “In you, I see brightness.” My breath catches at the emotion in his eyes when he adds, “Only in you.”

Unexpected tears rise in my eyes that shock me as much as they overwhelm me when I reach for his hand, holding it in my lap. Liam is power, sex, and control. Yet there’s a sweetness about him. A sweetness that he has toward me that I am only seeing now. Maybe because I’m finally letting myself see it.

With heavy emotions clawing at my throat, I look out at the water, hoping he doesn’t notice he’s affecting me. If he does, he doesn’t say anything. He’s silent beside me, taking in Santa Monica moving by us in a blur. I’m lost in the way I feel in this exact moment.

Here, there’s no feud. There’s no confusion. There is only us. And us feels pretty damn great.

Aria

By the time we return to the house, my belly is full from the seafood dinner we had on the pier. Darkness has settled over the skies, and I leave Liam in the living room, quickly scurrying off to the bathroom, pretending I have to pee. My emotions feel put through the wringer. I’m questioning everything I think I know when I enter the sleek bathroom and shut the door, locking it behind me. I move to the closed toilet lid and take a seat, my cellphone a heavy weight in my hand.

First things first, the information that I learned from Liam over breakfast about the Bakker deal is circling in my mind. What Liam doesn’t know, and what Jackson didn’t want Liam to know to gain leverage over him, is that Jackson is secretly representing one of the clients fighting for the merger, the Pioneer Group. Our clients recently fired their lawyers, hiring Keller LLC instead. It’s something the public doesn’t know yet, and clearly Liam doesn’t know it either because he’s told me something he shouldn’t have. I don’t know if it’s because his guards are down, or if he simply trusts me more now, but I feel like I’m being torn in two directions.