Once Upon a Friendship

“Chances are he’s with your father.”

He agreed. Which made him more eager than ever to get where they were going. Ten miles had never seemed so far.

“Did your father really cut you out of his will?”

Did he detect a note of hurt in her voice? Liam glanced in her direction. Gabi was watching the traffic. Of course. She was always on the lookout for the dangers ahead.

“Yes.”

“Last week?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” The bite in her tone bothered him. He’d hurt her. As usual, he’d been thinking about his own life.

“It had nothing to do with you or Marie, so my not telling you—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. And I should have known that. I’m... I didn’t like the way I saw myself in your eyes.” They were stopped at a light and he glanced over at her. “Like I’m some kid whose daddy abuses him and he just keeps going back for more.” It was humiliating. And worse.

Her gaze softened. “You might have wanted to check your vision against ours,” she said. The small smile on her lips had him looking back at the road. Staring at it.

He’d...felt...something. From Gabi. His Gabi. The feeling hadn’t been sister-like.

And that was not only humiliating. It was horrible.

“You’re way stronger than you know, Liam,” she said, as the light changed and he started forward. “I see a man who puts up with his father’s abuse while still managing to claim an identity in his own small ways, because you know he has no one and relies on you. You subjugate your own desires for his, but because you think it’s the right thing to do, to be responsible, not because you fear what he can do to you.”

Her vision was definitely different from his. But it wouldn’t be forever. He was working on becoming the man she seemed to think he was.

“What about this car? He didn’t take it.”

“I paid it off last year, but even so, the old man kindly informed me that I was welcome to keep it.”

“He didn’t know you’d paid it off?”

“Are you kidding? Nothing happens without him knowing about it. He knew we’d closed on the building before I drove from the closing back to the office. His car remark was just to get a rise out of me.”

He waited for her to ask if it had. Any other time she would have.

But he hadn’t run to her this time. He’d shut her out.

“It didn’t,” he said, frowning as he signaled a turn and changed lanes. “Get a rise out of me,” he clarified, pushing harder on the gas pedal, increasing his speed to two miles above the limit. Any more than five could get him a ticket, and he didn’t have time for that.

“You’re really cut off, Liam. When the government freezes assets, they aren’t kidding. It means they have some pretty substantial evidence...”

Biting back his irritation—why was it that people couldn’t see that he was going to be just fine without his father’s money?—Liam said, “I was already really cut off.”

“But...”

“And you know what?” He took a corner with enough speed that his tires kicked up gravel. “When those agents told me that some of his assets were being frozen, my first reaction was relief.” She turned and met his gaze briefly before he returned his attention to the road. “Yeah, relief,” he repeated, measuring the words for their accuracy and finding them completely so. “For the first time in my life I don’t have the weight of that blackmail tool hanging over me. I don’t have to fear losing what I’ve been given, or measure every single one of my decisions by the dictates of my inheritance.”

“But—”

“I know, I’ve still got my trust. And you’re right, I am relying on that security while I get established. I get that I’m really lucky...”

“—I was going to say that your inheritance should never have been fodder for blackmail...”