And yet now, today, it was as though seeing that headstone with her name engraved on it might somehow answer all of those last questions that had burned inside his entire life.
Liam rounded the corner of the building, a vague idea of where the grave was, and then stopped abruptly. He might have known his father would be there. The man had always visited the grave daily when Liam had been a child. It had been his pre-dawn ritual. Why would it be any different now?
He was just about to turn and leave when something made him take another look. A closer one this time. And all at once Liam was seized by the incongruity of the scene. The man that he’d built up to be such a heartless titan all these years was now gone, and in its place stood a hunched, wizened, sad creature.
But it was the profile that drew Liam’s gaze. Such an angry set to a jaw that matched Liam’s own bone structure, an unpleasant grimace to the mouth, and even the nose threw off baleful vibes.
This was the man who had once told him—bawled at him—that he hoped his son would never get to be happy. That Liam didn’t deserve to find joy, or comfort. That he certainly didn’t deserve to find love.
How had he allowed this man and his spiteful words to colour his life all this time? Liam wondered abruptly. How had he allowed himself to miss out on so much? To lose so much? To lose Talia?
You haven’t lost her. Yet.
The voice was quiet yet urgent. And all of a sudden Liam could see the colour and vibrancy all over again. As if Talia’s very presence in this city had already begun to infuse it with new life.
He’d already pushed her away once, was he really going to stay silent, too afraid to open his heart even for a chance at love, and risk pushing her away again?
She was right. He wasn’t his father. He never had been.
Spinning around, Liam hurried back to the hospital and got to his car. This wasn’t the place for him. It was too full of death and sad memories.
Talia was the one who signified life for him, she always had. And surely it was time for him to grab that life by the proverbial horns?
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He practically threw himself into his car, pulling the door closed and revelling in the low, powerful thrum of the engine, as if it approved of his intentions.
Fanciful, perhaps. But after the decades of sombre solemnity this moment of whimsy seemed somehow fitting.
Executing an efficient turn, Liam wasn’t sure how he controlled his speed as he drove up the hill and back to the main road. And then at last he opened her up and let her fly, racing towards Talia’s hotel and his new life.
A life he should have claimed long before now.
And every junction, every set of lights, every turning seemed complicit in the plan as they each emptied or turned to green on his approach. The entire universe seemed to be coming together to ensure he didn’t change his mind at the last moment.
But he wasn’t going to. Because now, after all these years, he understood what love was. And he didn’t know whether to be more annoyed or regretful that it had taken him all this time to realise that true love didn’t resemble anything like his father’s display.
Pulling the car to a halt in the car park of the hotel, Liam covered the potholed tarmac in a matter of a few short strides and headed across the clean—if a little tired-looking—lobby and to the reception desk. Then another lifetime as he waited for the receptionist to call through to Talia’s room and then send him up.
But then, at long last, he was there. Standing in the corridor as she held open her door.
‘Are you coming in?’ she asked, a nervous smile lifting those lovely lips. ‘Only I don’t think I want the entire floor hearing our conversation.’
He wasn’t sure how he made his wooden limbs move as she opened the door wider to let him in, turning slowly as the almost paper-thin door closed and she stood, eyeing him with an expression that couldn’t decide whether it was more nervous or excited.
A dilemma with which he could fully empathise.
And at that instant he fully believed everything she had said to him.
His incredible, soulful Talia.
Because when she looked to him like that, and smiled at him in a way that poured sunlight and warmth into every last corner of his blackened soul, he didn’t know how he could ever have thought otherwise.
Or why he had ever been so afraid of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘I DON’T HAVE a conversation in mind,’ he bit out.