The hand that’s not flattened against the wall comes up and squeezes my shoulder gently. “I shouldn’t have had sex with you, so I did. Saying yes was the wrong thing to do, so I didn’t say no.”
I stare at him because—
I’m his punishment?
My mouth falls open just a little. “You married me because you’d feel terrible about it when you sobered up? You used me to make yourself feel bad? Do you do this in all of your relationships or am I just special?”
“Yes?” He flinches. I’ll give him that. Or maybe that’s just a reaction to his phone buzzing wildly from where he’s buried it in the bed.
“You haven’t asked me why I proposed.”
“I know why,” he says. “It’s why you’ve stared at me since you were thirteen.”
“Because I had a crush on you?” At least he didn’t claim it was his money. “That was teenage me. I’ve grown up some since then, Liam. Mostly in the last half hour, because I’m not sure how to react when you tell me that the words we said last night to each other, words that meant something to me, were just some kind of freaking self-flagellation for you. I took a chance on us, and you took some kind of messed-up self-revenge. What you said last night, you said for you.”
He stares down at me, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what he’s thinking. His phone goes nuts in the other room again.
“You should get that.”
He shakes his head. “I really shouldn’t.”
“Because of—” I wave my hand between us.
“That’s my—” He grimaces. I can tell he’s not sure which noun to use next. “Ex. Leda. We dated. We broke up. She’s made it clear she won’t let me go.”
“Wow.” I can’t find the words to respond that will make it clear just how cocky that sounds. I also add inappropriate and provoking to my mental list because now I’m dying to know more. I just hope he’s not drawing some kind of stupid, man-brained parallel between his ex’s behavior and mine. “I agree it’s not a good idea to be chatting up your ex when you’re married.”
He nods. “I wouldn’t. Do that. Not to you.”
That’s the Liam I’ve known for years, protective, casually affectionate, determined to make sure I go through life happy and safe. It’s hard to turn my back on all that, particularly when it comes wrapped in such a sexy package. I know I should let him go.
I should walk out the door, out of his life.
The problem is that he’s taken something that was my dream come true and turned it into a nightmare. Standing here in front of him, I feel naked and it’s a thousand times worse than the pants-less dreams or the dreams where my teeth fall out or I have to pee but can’t find a clean bathroom. I want to scream at him, to make him hurt the way I do, except this isn’t entirely his fault. I loved the man my sixteen-year-old heart had invented, so of course real-life, morning-after Liam disappoints.
So I push past him and start walking because I won’t be like this Leda, whoever she is. I won’t stay where I’m clearly not appreciated, although I still pause in the door because I’m still a little weak for this man. “Isn’t this where you apologize for being such a colossal dick?”
“I’ll take care of this,” he repeats instead. “The lawyers, the paperwork, everything.”
I have no idea what that means or how you unpick a marriage that’s barely had a chance to begin, but I’m sure he’ll handle it. “Money fixes everything, right?”
He doesn’t have to think about it. “Not quite everything, but almost.”
“Let me know when you’ve fixed us, then,” I tell him.
I feel him move behind me and I can’t stay here. I valet-parked my truck last night, so my keys will be in my vehicle and I’ll figure everything else out later. I walk away from Liam and by the time I reach the front door, he’s no longer behind me.
CHAPTER FOUR
A COMM CHECK
Liam
I PRACTICE WHAT I’m going to say to Hana while I sit in my Market Street office in San Francisco. I would find it very convenient if we could stay married for the next four to six months. I’ll make it worth your while.
Too blunt?
Maybe.
Wrong approach? Definitely. Hana’s never been interested in money.
Plus, just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I want to make Hana feel bad. I just don’t want to apologize. It’s not like saying I’m sorry magically fixes shit anyhow. Those are just two little words that people throw around. Because they’re covering their asses. Because they want you to stop complaining or crying or making demands. Because words are cheaper than money.
Am I sorry?
No, I’m not. When you get to the apology stage in a relationship, it’s game over. Apologies don’t cut it in the business world any more than they do outside the boardroom. Or in bars, parking lots and bedrooms. My father apologized over and over to my mother before leaving to do the same stupid shit again.
My parents weren’t picture-perfect. They had a difficult relationship with more blasts and rocky orbits than a space shuttle. Our Berkeley house was colorful and chaotic even by the hippie college town’s standards, with one wildly unpredictable, dramatic scene after another. My parents would fight, then Dad would storm out for a few weeks or months, and come back right about when the money ran out and the electric company started taping shutoff notices to our door. Harmony would be briefly restored and then the cycle of fights and apologies would repeat. If I hadn’t been there, the third wheel in their drama, maybe they could have worked it out.
If Berkeley hadn’t been so staunchly antiestablishment, anti-big corporation, anti-money, maybe I wouldn’t have gone over to the dark side. I love making money. Money’s easy. It’s about patterns and algorithms. Not only does two plus two make four, but it makes four every single time. There are no surprises in math, unlike relationships, which is great. I’m maxed out on exploding shit, so I prefer to limit my personal interactions to my dick or my bank account when possible. This definitely worked for Leda, but Hana has always insisted she won’t touch my money or Jax’s, but those are just her emotions talking.
Leda, my ex, has also been doing some serious talking.
For years I’ve been the business golden child, the moneymaker, the acknowledged king of Silicon Valley. I build tech companies that eventually sell for mind-blowing numbers of dollars and everyone involved goes home happy and rich. And then I do it all over again. And again. You can’t have too much money or success, and I’ve never failed when I’ve made the effort, so my current situation is difficult to process. The first blow to my throne was the day I realized that the portfolio of patents held by Leda’s company, Swan Bio, was worthless because none of the tech she’d patented had ever worked. She’d lied to me, to her investors, and to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. There were a few casualties of the lawyerly type as well. I’m the king strutting around in a really expensive set of invisible clothes with my dick hanging out for the whole word to see.