He looked thinner than he had last year, like he hadn’t been taking care of himself the way he should.
Like he should’ve spent the entire week in the Hawaiian sun instead of just four days. Even so, he could have just stepped off the cover of a magazine, wearing his slacks and button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, the top button on his shirt undone.
He cleared his throat. “How are you?”
“I’m good.” She shifted back on her heels. How did one speak to the person who probably didn’t even know they’d broken your heart? For all she knew, having a fling on an island was a weekly event for him. Perhaps that was why he could leave so easily, while it felt like her heart had been torn out.
Viola skirted around him to head to the door, calling over her shoulder, “Well, it was nice to see you.”
“Wait!” He followed her out onto the bustling sidewalk. “How have you been? Since Hawaii?”
“Good,” she told him shortly. “Living my best life.”
She walked purposefully in the direction of her office, but he easily followed. He was at least six inches taller than her, making it effortless for him to keep up with her fast pace. He held a couple of bags that swung at his side. One from the bookstore on Spring Street and one from The Sweet Shoppe. He caught her eying the bag. “Would you like some fudge? I have a little rocky road left over.”
Rocky road was her absolute favorite. She could eat the stuff by the pound, but she didn’t want to encourage him, so she kept silent and increased her pace.
“I can’t believe I’ve never been to downtown Eureka Springs before,” he said. “I guess I’ve been too busy in Bentonville with the store to take time to explore. It’s fun.”
“Liam, what is this?” Viola rounded on him, surprised to find him so close. “We’re not friends.”
She hated the wounded flash in his eyes, before he gave her a short nod. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“No. You don’t get to act like I’m the one who hurt your feelings. You stood me up, Liam. And maybe it was no big deal to you, but I was hurt and humiliated. So don’t come into my town and pretend like nothing happened. Maybe you don’t even remember it, I don’t know, but—”
“I remember it,” he said, his voice quiet, intense. “Of course I remember it.”
Her breath caught. She was unsure of how to respond, only that she needed to get out of there, and quickly. Liam had a way of twisting up her thoughts and making her feel like she could be a different person with him. The kind of person people stayed for.
But he’d already proved that wasn’t true, and she wasn’t going to fall for his spell once again. This man was her kryptonite and she needed to stay far away.
“Enjoy your stay in Eureka Springs,” she said, turning.
“Viola,” he called after her, but she pretended she didn’t hear.
Viola deftly wound her way through a group of tourists. One of the college-aged tourists’ eyes went wide. She whispered something to a friend who whipped around and stared behind Viola. Something about the looks in their eyes filled her with trepidation.
Suddenly one of the women had her phone out and snapped a picture.
“Liam Nichols?” a braver one called out.
Liam turned, his face seeming a little paler than before, but he smiled.
“Are you on drugs?” the bold girl asked.
His smile tightened. “No.”
A larger group was starting to form as more people recognized Liam. They surrounded him and took pictures of him, some trying to get his autograph. Liam Nichols wasn’t a movie star, but he’d been on his fair share of magazine covers—labeled America’s Billionaire Heartthrob by one of them—and the moniker had stuck. People who lived in town had gotten used to seeing famous faces, but the tourists still got excited when someone from the Cove ventured downtown. And Liam was easily recognizable. Tall, chiseled, and he had the perfect face to be voted as Most Gorgeous Man Alive by multiple outlets.
Plus, it didn’t hurt that the video of his panic attack had gone viral and been in rotation on the major networks, along with stories about managing mental health, or framed as a tragedy about how it wasn’t possible to have it all.
Viola watched as Liam’s eyes widened, and he glanced around like a rabbit caught in a trap. She should leave him there. Leave him to fend for himself.
But his eyes caught hers, and she saw the glint of panic in them. She closed her own eyes, knowing she could never leave him like that. She pushed through the crowd, saying firmly but sweetly, “Coming through. Mr. Nichols’s security, please move aside.”
To her surprise, they did. She grabbed him by the hand, her skin igniting with a heat from his touch that she attempted to ignore. His hand shifted so that his fingers laced between hers.
She pulled him through the crowd, again surprised that people moved for her and didn’t follow them as they walked to her office, still holding hands and not pausing for a moment, even as more people started to recognize him. She pushed him into her office and shut the door behind him, locking it and closing the curtains.
“Does that always happen to you?” she asked, turning toward him.
His face was white; his expression strained. “Do you have any water?” he breathed out through tight, straight lips.
“Yes.” She rushed to her mini-fridge where she kept water and snacks for clients. She pulled out a water bottle and then an apple, and brought both to him. He drank the water in sips, his breathing still coming out in short gasps.
“Is it happening again?” she ventured to ask.
He gave a short nod.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Distract me.” His voice sounded raspy, barely there.
“Um, okay.” She wasn’t sure what she could say that would be a distraction to him. “So my grandma has this giant spider that she made—I’m talking ten-feet tall, and counting the legs, at least fifteen-feet wide. She made it out of wire and papier-mâché, and it takes up our entire garage when we pull it down. Anyway, the trolley drivers have added our house to their tours of the neighborhood, which made Grandma’s friend, Fern, jealous, so she made her own spider, only bigger and taller, and I’m not afraid to admit that I’m legit scared about where this spider war is going, because Grandma has a glint in her eye. A glint, Liam. That means a harebrained idea, and we don’t have room in our garage for anymore yard-sized arthropods.”
That got a little smile out of him, and he sipped some of his water. She felt encouraged with some of the pink back in his cheeks.
“I’ve got more of those,” she said, “but I can’t give up all my Grandma stories at once.”
He swallowed and finally sat in the client chair, leaning his head against the back of it and closing his eyes.
“How long has this been happening for?” It took everything in Viola to not sit in the chair beside him and stroke his forehead until the lines relaxed. Instead, she grabbed a paper towel, ran it under the sink, and wrung it out before bringing it to him. He wiped his face with it, then went back to his closed-eye, head-back position.
“The first time was at that board meeting,” he said. “My chest has been a little tight here and there, but I thought I was just fighting a cold or allergies or something.”