*  *  *

During the entire car ride Harper had sobbed uncontrollably, her head in Celeste’s lap. When they’d gotten to the house they’d sat in the car—parked in the driveway with the air conditioner running—for a good ten minutes before Harper had calmed down enough to get out. At that point, all she’d wanted to do was take off the clothes that smelled like vomit. That and to wash off the last hour of panic and sweat that had settled on her skin.

The hot shower had been helpful, and the tea had calmed her stomach…but nothing was helping her heart. The ache at the center hadn’t been dulled in the slightest. And try as she might she couldn’t shut her brain off long enough to fall asleep.

She’d been lying in the bed in her aunt’s guest room for what felt like forever, staring at the wall and doing everything in her power to not start crying again. She was also fighting with the need to have Liam in bed with her while at the same time wanting space to breathe.

How was she going to do this? How was she going to deal with this kind of life and not lose her damn mind every single time something like this happened? It was too much…way too much for anyone to deal with in normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal circumstances.

It had been less than four months since she and Liam had met each other. Two and a half since they’d found each other in Jacksonville. It was more than a little terrifying when she looked at it that way, especially as she’d only had a handful of weeks with him in between all of that.

Barely any time at all, and was it enough to really know each other?

Had they caught up in such a short amount of time? Was that possible? She wasn’t sure. She did know that she was in love with him…and that he loved her. But did that mean they were ready for all that was going to follow?

Sofia would be here in five months. Five. Months. It was all happening too fast. She just wanted more time to figure it all out. Time she didn’t have.

Lights lit up the window behind the closed blinds as a car pulled into the driveway.

Liam.

The engine turned off and a car door shut a moment later. She counted the seconds, breathing with them and finding a steady rhythm as the front door opened and closed…and then two minutes of whispered murmuring between Liam and Celeste.

The bedroom door opened four minutes and twenty-nine seconds from when his truck had pulled into the driveway. He moved around the room slowly, trying not to make too many sounds.

There was a shuffling as he pulled off his shirt, and then his boots hit the wooden floor with two barely audible thuds as he set them down one at a time. His belt buckle rattled only slightly before the snick of his zipper filled the space.

And then he was pulling the sheet and blanket back, climbing in behind her and pressing his body to hers. His mouth brushed her neck as he buried his nose in her hair and inhaled. The oversized T-shirt she was wearing was pushed up as his hand moved under it, his palm on her belly.

“My girls,” he whispered, his breath washing out across her skin.

At some point Harper had stopped counting her breaths and started counting the steady taps of her tears hitting the pillow.

Chapter Twenty-Two I Don’t Think I Believe Everything You’re Trying to Say to Me

It was the tiny popping against Liam’s palm the next morning that woke him up. Sofia was kicking.

Harper shifted against him and stretched, her hand moving to the space next to his.

“Morning,” he whispered in her ear.

“Morning.” Her voice was rough, way more than it should be from just waking up. No, this was ravaged from her getting sick and hours of crying, most of that while he’d been lying right there next to her.

It made every part of him hurt. He’d known she’d been awake when he crawled in bed next to her. But she hadn’t rolled over seeking his comfort, hadn’t wanted him to know she was still up. It had taken her hours to finally fall sleep, and only then had Liam been able to do the same.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, trying his damnedest to keep his voice even.

“Okay,” she said with absolutely no conviction.

He kissed her shoulder before he shifted, moving so he could gently pull her to her back. He needed to see her face, and when he did it was that much more painful. Her eyes were puffy and filled with a sadness that he hadn’t seen since that morning in Jacksonville…before he told her he still wanted her.

“Honey, what happened?”

“I just…I just got a little overwhelmed at the concert. And I think whatever I ate at dinner didn’t sit well…it all just kind of hit me at once.”

“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s all that happened?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, looking him straight in the eyes. Lying to him as she looked him straight in the eyes.

Well, that was new.

“Harper—”

“I’m fine,” she cut him off. “And I need to use the bathroom.” She pulled away from him, heading for the attached bathroom and disappearing behind the door before she closed it.

Liam rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling and the spinning fan above him. Why was she lying to him?

*  *  *

The rest of the day passed in an unsettlingly slow pace. It was like Liam was watching from the sidelines as Harper started to build up that wall again. Brick by brick. But what was he supposed to do? Push her for answers? Ask her why she was lying to him?

She’d just had an emotional breakdown and the truth of the matter was being with him was the root of it. This lifestyle wasn’t easy, he knew that, but she hadn’t known it when this had all started.

She hadn’t been the only one hiding things in the beginning. When she hadn’t known who he was at that bar all those months ago, he’d ran with it. And he’d kept running with it that entire weekend.

The thing was, when it was just the two of them, it was just the two of them. There weren’t outside factors impacting what they had…at least not to this extent. Sure there’d been those stupid blog posts by that Bethelda woman, and that tabloid the week before. But in the end it was nothing to what they’d already worked through.

This though…this was different. This was Harper getting a taste of the life Liam had and the life they would have together.

Between what Celeste had told him when he’d gotten to the house the night before and the few things that Harper had told him, Liam knew that she’d gotten upset before anything that had to do with Kiki had happened. Whatever that woman had said had just been the icing on top of the shit cake.

And Harper wasn’t revealing anything else.

They’d gone back to the cabin late that morning, leaving when Celeste was called in to the hospital for a patient who was having complications. Liam was with Harper the entire day, but she was only there physically. Mentally? She was somewhere else entirely. She took a long nap that afternoon, clearly wanting to be alone. She barely ate anything, picking at her food and moving it around her plate like he wouldn’t notice.

After dinner, he cleaned up while she went to get a shower. The walls of the cabin were starting to make him feel claustrophobic, closing in on him as this beyond shitty day came to an end. So he poured himself a tumbler of whiskey before he headed outside to sit on the porch.

The sun was sitting low over the lake, and he grabbed one of the Adirondack chairs off to the side, putting his feet up on the banister that ran around the house.

He’d really thought coming up here would be good. They’d get a different ending than the last time they’d been in this cabin. He’d planned on proposing, that night in fact. He’d planned on recreating their first date…with a few minor alterations, like no gin and tonics.

Some things would’ve stayed the same, like the menu of food he’d made before. And he’d planned on singing “Forever” to her in the first place he’d ever performed it. But this time it would’ve been in its entirety and where she’d realized she’d fallen in love with him.