Twice in a Lifetime (Carina) (12 page)

He shrugged.

“Are you afraid I am going to sell trade secrets to your competition? Because I couldn’t even name a competitor.”

“Give it a rest, Sarah. It was just a business call.” Liam did not wait for Ahmed to open the door for them.

“Really? Then by all means phone them back. I don’t mind waiting.”

“Just leave it.”

“What is happening with Sam’s case?” She tried another tack because the direct approach was getting her nowhere fast.

“We’re not talking about Sam right now.”

“I think you’ll find we are. I will talk about Sam, whenever and wherever I want. So what’s happening with his case?” she asked again. She tried to keep her tone even but it was difficult. The more controlled Liam was, the angrier she became.

“I am taking care of it.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Is that what the phone call was about?”

“I said to leave it,” Liam said again.

“And I am not a small child or your secretary so I don’t have to take orders.”

Liam sighed. “I am handling the situation.” He got in the car beside her and slammed the door shut.

“What does that mean exactly? How are you handling it?” she pressed. She hated being out of the loop. There was a reason she was the manager of her programme; she liked to be involved with every step in every project. Some would say she was a micromanager, and they would probably be right, but it worked—things always got done.

“It means it is under control, Sarah.” His voice was tight, a bit of the control slipping.

She would not be fobbed off that easily. Things would not be under control until Sam was safely on British soil. “Who was on the phone?”

“My girlfriend.”

“What?” Her mouth dropped open. “You have a girlfriend?” Her heart stopped with a sudden thud.

He smiled. “No. I just wanted to change the subject. But good to know you still care.”

Sarah hit him in the stomach with the back of her hand. “Don’t be an ass. Or should I say, don’t be a bigger ass than you already are.”

Shit. Why had she allowed him to bait her? And shit, shit, shit, why would she care if he did have a girlfriend? At some point she had to stop seeing him as her Liam. He wasn’t even the Liam she thought he was. She didn’t like the man he was, but the bloody reflex always kicked in. She needed therapy, a long detox that involved replacing her obsession with something less toxic. Hell, that could be anything: methylated spirits maybe.

Liam pulled at his bow tie. He opened a bottle of water and downed it in a continuous stream. “That was my lawyer. It was about Sam. It’s fine though, or it will be fine.”

“Well, which is it? Is it fine? Saying it will be fine does not fill me with confidence.”

“Sarah, Sam fucked up big. You can’t just expect me to throw money at it and make it go away. There are limits to what you can buy.”

She studied Liam’s profile, searching his features for any emotion. But there was none. Clearly he was dealing with the change in their relationship just fine. He did not seem to care that she disliked him. Of course he was fine about it. He was the one who left in the first place. He was great at detaching himself and cutting people out. She needed to take a leaf from his book. She needed not to care.

A horrible realisation struck her. She didn’t trust Liam to help Sam. She’d always considered Liam to be honest, brutally so, but she no longer could rely on that. He had been anything but honest, and that was what hurt the most.

“But you are trying to help him, right?” She had to ask. “Before, I would have bet my life on your honesty. You were a lot of shitty things. But you were honest. When you said something, you always meant it. You always followed through. You told me you would never forgive me if I didn’t take my place at uni, and, damn it, you followed through. But now I don’t know… Are you trying to help Sam?” She put her index finger in her mouth and bit down on what remained of her nail.

Liam turned to her, but he didn’t say anything. He gently pulled her finger from her mouth, covering her hand with his palm and resting it on the seat between them. His skin was hot and rough. She knew she should move her hand away, but it felt nice to be comforted by his touch. Her body betrayed her by relaxing. She reminded herself it was an illusion. She wouldn’t let herself believe it was real. But it didn’t matter because she would soon be gone, and for right now it felt good; she felt safe.

“Please, Liam. I know we are nothing to each other. You owe me nothing, but, if you ever cared about me at all, please say you will help Sam. I can’t lose him too.”

“What is it between you two? You said you’re not in love with him. But you came here for him. I doubt I was high on your list of people you wanted to visit. And he had your name tattooed across his bloody chest. You might not be in love with him, but he is sure as hell in love with you.”

“You saw his tattoo? Did he tell you why he got it? It’s not because he is in love with me. He got it because we are friends.”

He pulled his hand away from her. “I don’t tattoo my friend’s name across my damn chest.”

“That’s because you don’t have any friends,” she couldn’t help saying. “You really should work on that.”

“Friend, my ass. He loves you.”

She shook her head. Liam would never understand. “Of course he loves me. I stood by him. I saved him from himself. A few months after he got out of jail, he tried to commit suicide. He had just been diagnosed with Hep C, he was depressed, he had no prospects and he thought his life was over. He took a load of sleeping pills and then sent me a text saying goodbye. I found him, called the paramedics and he lived. He was clean for a few years after that. And to say thanks he tattooed my name on his chest. Nothing to do with sex, just love.” She turned and looked into the pink horizon of the setting sun. She wished Liam’s hand would cover hers again, give her at least the illusion of comfort. “So, yes, I love Sam and he loves me. I want him to make it. I know you look at him and see druggy scum. But I still see the little boy who beat up Calum Reed when he called your mum a whore. I see the boy who helped teach you how to read when you first moved to our block. You had never been to school but Sam was determined you wouldn’t be held back—you were going to be in our year if it killed him. He stole a copy of the first
Famous Five
book, and by the end of the summer you were reading. Do you remember the Sam I know?”

Liam nodded. “That was a long time ago.”

“It was. It was a lifetime but I will continue to fight for Sam for ever because he will always be that kid to me. I’m not going to give up on him. He may not make it. He might die from his addiction. But I am not going to give up on him. You don’t give up on people because they are not perfect. We are all flawed and messed up in our own ways. Sam just wears his messed up for the world to see. I for one bury my crazy deep down under a layer of ice cream.” She tried to smile but her mouth had forgotten how.

“You wear your crazy too, Sarah. Your need to save the world is your crazy.” Liam’s body relaxed; he settled deeper into the soft white leather of the seats, his head pushed back onto the headrest.

“And here I was, just thinking I was being nice.”

“You are, you’re easily the nicest person I have ever met, but that does not preclude your crazy.”

She thought about it for a moment. “Fair enough. But you wear your crazy too. Yours is a posh accent and a private jet.”

“They call that success,” Liam said dryly, his eyes closed.

“No, they call that overcompensating. And we both know it is not for your penis. I am still sore, by the way.” Not that that was a bad thing—it was nice to have a reminder of some sort of intimacy, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Sorry about that. Maybe if you had opted for the kissing and fumbling options, you wouldn’t be sore. Again, not my best work.” He held his hands up.

She ignored him. “You have to be the best, the smartest, the richest, to prove you’re not Niddrie Nae Socks.”

“You say that like it is a bad thing.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not bad, it is just your crazy. That and you flirt with me to deflect your feelings. You aren’t good at dealing with emotion so you fall back on what you are good at.”

“No, Dr Campbell, I flirt with you for the reason men flirt with women—I fancy you.”

She shook her head. “Nope, it has nothing to do with fancying. You do it when I bring up something you don’t want to talk about, anything related to the past.”

He turned and looked her directly in the eyes. “I do it because I want to screw you in every position ever tried, and some they haven’t thought up yet. Simple as that, Sarah. I want to fuck you.”

A hot flush crept across her cheeks and down her neck. Her heart pounded hard, pushing blood down, settling between her thighs. She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump that had formed in the back of her throat. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. “You think that because that is part of your crazy. It’s easier to say you are horny than say you’re upset. You hide behind your penis.”

“Love, my cock is big, but not big enough to hide behind.”

She shook her head again. Her skin was burning. “Yes, it is…metaphorically speaking.”

“And what about you? Shall I hand you a mirror?”

“Nope. I don’t hide behind my penis, or your penis, or anyone else’s for that matter. That particular crazy is all you, Liam.” she managed to say.

He grinned at her knowingly. “You use quickies as a way to avoid intimacy.”

She scoffed. “No, I like quickies because having an orgasm is the part of sex I like the best. I am just efficient.”

“Sure you are, Sarah. Tell yourself whatever you want. But I knew you before. The real reason you prefer quickies now is because if you let a man keep his dick inside you too long, you just might start to care about him. And you couldn’t have that. You have got to be the one who loves the least and controls the most. That is your crazy.”

She scoffed. “That is bullshit. I like sex quick and hard because it is fun. I don’t need an excuse, and I am not going to apologise. It is just the way I like it.”

“No one wants you to apologise. I bet Rich and Jonny didn’t even notice that it is like a race to the finish with you. Probably just counting their lucky stars you were letting them have a go. But I knew you before. I remember when foreplay was your favourite pastime.”

“I liked foreplay because it was my only option then. Now I know you can skip to the good part.” Sarah shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She was not going to let Liam make her question the person she had become. Besides, he had no room to talk. “At least I have had proper relationships. How long did your last fling last? Did you even shag her more than once? Or are women completely disposable to you?”

“Careful, you are showing your crazy,” Liam said, the faintest of smiles playing on his full lips.

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“That is how you think men view women. All men. That is how it works in your world—fuck and flee.”

“That is certainly the way you work. We had sex once—”

“We actually had sex five times that night. It pains me that the last four were so unmemorable,” he said with affected angst.

“That is hardly an important part—” Of course she remembered that; she had not forgotten a single touch or kiss.

“Just making sure your memory is working properly, because you have got the facts wrong on everything else about that night.”

Not this argument again. How could two people view the same situation so wildly differently? “I know, I know. You left Scotland because it is a horrible, grotty place. But would it have been so horrible for you to stay in Edinburgh? It is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.”

A look of repulsion darkened his features. “Beautiful? I actually find it quite ugly that wherever you go people ask you what school you went to so they can pigeonhole you and sum up your worth. People are defined by the geography of where they were born. They don’t ask where you went to university because that doesn’t matter. It is where you started from that matters. If you were born scum, you stay scum. And God forbid you try to make something of yourself. Then you are just uppity scum. Nothing worse than that—scum should know their place.” His voice was deep with bitterness.

“You’re right. People do always ask that. I wish I could say that had changed, but that’s just Edinburgh.”

“And that is why I am never going back. My start was shit, I can put my hands up to that, but that has fuck all to do with the man I am today.”

It had everything to do with the man he had become but she knew better than to say it. There was so much of Edinburgh still in him that he didn’t want to see—even the way he swore too much. His accent had changed but that hadn’t. “You won’t even go to visit?” She tried to keep the optimism from her voice. She had no illusions of him visiting her but his absolute resolve was unsettling.

“Why would I visit there? There are hundreds of places I would like to see if I had the time. I have seen enough of Scotland to last a lifetime. If you’ve seen one green field, you’ve seen them all.”

“So you will never go back. I can’t imagine not being there. Everyone I love is there. Every good memory of my mum and Granny is there.”

“Luckily there is nothing left there I love.”

She turned to look out of the window again so he could not see the hurt in her eyes. “Yep, that’s lucky.”

The driver pulled up in front of the Burj Al Arab. Luxury cars lined the circle in front of the entrance. She had never seen so many Rolls-Royce cars in her life. Again Liam didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. He offered Sarah his hand and helped her out of the car himself. She strained her neck to look up to the top of the hotel. She had seen it many times in postcards, the sail-shaped building was synonymous with Dubai, but the photos had not captured the way the steel and glass glistened, reflecting the sun. It really was a beautiful building. There certainly wasn’t anything like it anywhere near Scotland. She wished she had brought her phone—the ladies at the office would be so excited to see the iconic building. They would be more excited to see Sarah in a ball gown, though. She lived in jeans and jumpers covered by a red duffel coat that had given a few too many years’ service.