Liam went to him and gave him that file to give him the same peace of mind that I’ve just received. He went against his brother, against his family, against everything to give that man something that he’d lost.
And in the process, he did the same for me.
If Liam hadn’t given Charlie that file, he never would have come here. I’d never have found out what he knew or didn’t know, and I would have had to live with the uncertainty for the rest of my life.
Now, I know he’s on my side. Charlie White says he failed to serve and protect me, but he’s wrong. In the most important moment, he chose to protect me above all else.
And I have Liam to thank for knowing that.
So, I do exactly that. I pull out my phone with trembling hands and start writing a text. I don’t trust my voice over the phone.
Ashley: Charlie just told me what you did. Thank you.
My heart thumps when I press send. I stare at my phone for two whole minutes, waiting for Liam to text. It stays silent, and I start to feel that out-of-control feeling gnawing at the edges of my heart. I toss my phone aside and go to take a shower.
I need to distract myself.
Still, when I get out of the shower, the first thing I do is check my phone.
Liam: I did it for you. I’d like to see you again.
My heart does a backflip. I bite my lip to try to contain my smile.
Ashley: I have a roller derby game on Thursday. You should come.
Liam: I’m there.
I hold my phone to my chest and let a smile drift over my lips.
I’m sweaty with no makeup on and my hair in a messy bun, but I’ve never felt as beautiful as I do right now.
Liam smiles at me, holding a huge bouquet of roses toward me.
“Congratulations,” he says, leaning down to kiss my cheek. His scent is all around me, and I lean into his arms.
I laugh. “We lost.”
“Did you? I was too busy looking at you I didn’t even notice.”
“Did it live up to all your badass roller derby fantasies of me?”
His eyes darken. “Definitely.”
I blush and bite my lip. I want to let myself run to him. I want to let myself feel everything I feel for him, let myself forgive him and crush my lips against his. But still, something stands between us. I stuff my nose in the flowers and inhale.
“I can’t believe you came.”
“I can’t believe you play roller derby.”
He snakes his arm around the back of my waist and I lean into his shoulder. I take a deep breath as we walk out of the rink together. He walks me to my car, and then we stand in front of each other without saying anything.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Why not?”
I take a deep breath. “You never called. In two months, I didn’t hear anything from you. I thought when you found out about Randy, that you…”
“That I thought less of you?”
“I didn’t blame you,” I say, smiling sadly. “It’s a shock.”
“Ash,” he sighs, bringing his hand to his forehead. “I didn’t call you because I knew my brother would try to ruin you. Even after the police chief resigned, I knew he wouldn’t want us together. I couldn’t come near you until I was away from him and away from the foundation. I should have told you. I just… I didn’t know how.”
We stare at each other quietly. My heart starts to thump, and I take a step toward him. “So you’re not at the foundation anymore?”
Liam shakes his head. “Got a job with the Olympic team. Just a junior trainer for now, but once I get my degree, we’ll see…”
I reach up and run my fingers along his cheek. “I’m proud of you. You deserve to be happy.”
“The only way I’ll be happy is if I’m with you.”
My heart jumps and my eyes widen.
“I mean it, Ash. I’m in love with you.”
“What about your brother?”
“Did you hear what I just said?” He grins. “Ashley King, I am head over heels in love with you. I will protect you from my brother, from your past, from anything that would ever threaten to hurt you. I will throw myself into a pit of snakes for you. I will walk across a bed of hot coals for you. I’ll start my life over just to have a chance at being worthy of you. I love you.”
My chest heaves as I take deep, trembling breaths. Tears cling to my eyelashes, and Liam reaches up to brush them away. His fingers linger on my cheeks and I close my eyes, leaning into his hand.
His fingers slide back toward my hair. He tilts my chin up toward his face and presses his lips to mine.
Teasing my lips open, Liam holds me close and wraps his arms around me. I grip his shirt and melt into him as I kiss him over and over and over.
When we finally pull apart, I look up at him with wide eyes. “I think I love you too,” I whisper, and then I bite my lip.
A smile splits his face open and he picks me up, twirling me around and then holding me close. He presses his lips to my forehead and then makes a noise, wiping them on the back of his hand.
“Sweaty,” he laughs.
“I need a shower.” I glance at him through my lashes and swipe my tongue across my lower lip. “You… want to join?”
Instead of answering, he just opens the car door for me and jogs around to the driver’s side. He revs the engine and then glances over at me, smiling.
“You’re incredible.”
“Incredibly sweaty.”
“Incredibly strong. Incredibly sweet. Incredibly forgiving. Incredibly you.” His hand slides over my lap, and my heart sings.
This time, my feelings for Liam don’t make me feel out of control. It isn’t frantic, it isn’t scary it just… is. I’m his, and he’s mine, and it’s perfect.
Epilogue
Liam
As it turns out, Ashley doesn’t really care about limousine rides and expensive dinners. She doesn’t care about silk dresses and diamond earrings—the ones I gave her for my parents’ anniversary party end up at the back of her closet, never to be worn.
She never dated me for what I had, she dated me for who I am.
When I realize that, it makes me fall even more in love with her. I feel like the luckiest man alive to have found someone who doesn’t think I’m a fuckup, who doesn’t think I’m a useless jock. I’ve found a woman who builds me up and believes in me.
And the least I can do is do the same for her.
She works hard at her new job at the startup, and the business explodes. She’s busy, and happy, and I am too. I keep studying for my sport science degree, and I keep coaching track.
Being closer to athletes makes me feel useful again. I’m no longer surrounded by things that remind me of my heart, of my damage, of everything I’m lacking.
Now, I’m surrounded by things that remind me how much I can contribute.
Day by day, Ashley plugs the hole in my heart. With every smile, every kiss, every touch, she weaves her way into my heart and makes me whole again.
After three months, we move in together. Ashley sells her house and starts her own PR consultancy, and before long she’s running her own successful business.
Three months after that, I work up the nerve to propose. I buy a simple and beautiful ring, because it reminds me of Ashley. I consider doing an elaborate proposal, but I know that she wouldn’t want that. Instead, I get up early one morning and make her breakfast in bed.
She wakes up when I put a coffee on the side table.
“That smells amazing,” she moans. I sit down on the bed beside her and stroke the side of her face. Her eyes flutter open and she smiles. Her eyes flick to the tray in my hands and her eyebrows arch in surprise.
“Poached eggs!”
“They didn’t explode this time,” I grin. “I learned from the best.”
I put the tray on her lap and she laughs, taking the fork and knife and gently poking an egg. She looks at me, nodding. She cuts into the egg and I let
out a sigh of relief.
“Perfectly cooked.”
“Not bad, Mr. Maguire.” Her eyes flash. “Or am I still not allowed to call you that?”
“You can call me Mr. Maguire,” I smile. “But only if I get to call you Mrs. Maguire.”
I fumble in my pockets to get the ring out. Ashley sighs, bringing her hands up to her face. Tears brim in her eyes.
“Oh, Liam,” she sighs. I flip the little box open and she gasps again. “It’s gorgeous.”
“So that’s a yes?”
A tear rolls down her cheek and she laughs, smacking my arm. “Of course it’s a yes.” I slide the ring on her finger. My heart sings. Her eyes are shining and she holds my face in her hands, leaning her forehead against mine.
I grab the tray of food and gently place it on the floor, and then turn my attention back to my beautiful fiancée. I cage her in my arms and brush my lips against hers.
“I love you, Ash.”
“And I love you, Liam.”
She sighs, wrapping her arms around me.
“Make love to me.” Her voice is sweet, soft, and full of emotion. She kisses me gently, and then I do exactly as she says. I make love to her gently, tenderly, lovingly. I treat her like the queen that she is, and I vow to never forget it.
Sometime later, when we’re laying tangled in the sheets, I interlace my fingers in hers. “You’ve just made me the happiest man in the world, Ashley.”
She giggles. “Was it that good?”
I grunt, picking her up and holding her against my chest. “You know what I meant. But yes, it was that good. It was better than good.”
“It always is,” she grins, rolling her hips against me.
I take a deep breath and kiss the woman of my dreams: my future wife, my soulmate, my queen.
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Despise at First Sight
Love/Hate: Book 3
Prologue
Ashley
My ribs are just barely holding my heart in one piece. If I breathe too deep, my lungs will expand and crush it right there in my chest.
I close my eyes for a second as I drive and then open them again, but I can still only see blurred lights and shadows. Squinting, I try to make out a street sign and fail. I don’t even know how fast I’m going. My breath comes in ragged bursts, and it feels like the roof of the car is caving in on me. Is this what a panic attack feels like?
Stella, my sister, the one person I thought I could trust—how could she do this to me? After everything that happened last year with Liam and his prick of a brother…
Betrayal feels like hot lead is being poured into my veins, pumping through my arteries and poisoning my body. Every heartbeat sends another wave of agony through me.
Stella was there for me through my first marriage when I suffered such abuse at the hands of my husband. She was there to pick up the pieces when he died. She was there to protect me when Liam and I were almost torn apart.
But she’s not there for me now. She chose that bastard over me. She chose the one man who deliberately hurt me last year. The man who tried to break Liam and I up. The man who tried to use his political position for his own gain.
He’s rotten to the core, and she chose him.
I pull over and lean my head on the steering wheel. I only live three blocks away, but it feels like I’ll never make it.
Needles of pain pierce my skin all over my body. Everything burns. Every breath is like inhaling a lungful of acid. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to make sense of it all. How can I, when the one person I thought I could trust did this to me?
With a deep breath, I lean back in the driver’s seat and stare out the windshield.
Betrayal feels a lot like rage.
As my vision clears and my breath steadies, I hold onto that rage like a lifeline. I cling to it, and my vision clears. My rage buoys me all the way home. It steadies my hand as I unlock the door and takes me all the way up to my bedroom.
The rage dulls to a steady beat as I open the walk-in closet and kneel down in front of the safe.
My phone won’t stop ringing. Stella again. I bite back the anger that threatens to explode out of me and I turn my phone off. Now is not a time for outbursts. Now is a time for action.
My fingers don’t tremble as I press the code to unlock the safe. My rage carries me onward, silencing any doubts or protests that the sensitive side of my heart might have made.
I shuffle through our important papers, behind my mother’s jewelry, and I find the little USB key that Liam put in here over a year ago.
It’s black, unassuming, and hardly bigger than my thumbnail.
The contents of this USB key could ruin his brother’s life. I silently thank Liam for keeping this for a year. When he first brought it home, I wanted nothing to do with it.
Now, though, I’m glad. A cruel smile curls my lips and the demon inside me laughs.
Adrian is already ruined, but it’s not enough. He needs to be gone from our lives forever. He needs to stop poisoning my sister’s mind and stop creeping back into my life.
I put one hand over my stomach, where my unborn child grows inside me.
I won’t let my child grow up with that monster in his life.
It’s time for Adrian Maguire to go away for good.
1
Stella
Six weeks earlier
“Pass me the remote.” I take the clicker from my sister’s hand and mash the volume button. “Have you heard about this? Apparently, your brother-in-law has been handing out construction contracts in exchange for straight-up bribes.”
“He’s your brother-in-law, too, technically,” Ashley says with a grimace. The picture on the television cuts to the half-constructed riverfront development which was apparently promised to a local construction company in exchange for campaign funds. Also known as blatant corruption.
The reporter points to the grounds. “The three hundred million dollar project is currently six months behind schedule and is expected to be at least fifty million over budget.”
I glance at my sister, and she avoids my eye. Finally, she drags her gaze up to mine and I watch her blush. I frown. “Did you know about this?”
She moves her head from side to side and shrugs. “Maybe…?”
My jaw drops. “Ash!”
“I didn’t condone it!”
“But you knew!”
“That’s the whole reason Liam broke up with me last year! Because his brother thought I knew about it and would expose him. I used to work for Hansen Constructions, remember?”
I whistle, leaning back on the couch. The picture cuts to the weather and I turn the volume back down. I shake my head. “That’s crazy. I can’t believe you knew!”
“I didn’t know the details. Liam told me a bit about it after we got married, but he hasn’t even spoken to his brother in over a year. He doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Drama.”
“Serious drama,” Ashley agrees.
“Are there any honest politicians?”
Ashley just laughs. I put my feet up on the coffee table and sigh. I nod to my sister’s stomach. “How’s the baby.”
“Good. Very active. Kicks a lot whenever Liam is around.” Her face softens. I smile at her and watch her rub her hands over her protruding, pregnant belly. Her eyebrows arch and she smiles at me, her whole face lighting up. “Give me your hand—here.”
She puts my hand on her stomach and I feel a surprisingly powerful kick. “Holy shit!”
“Don’t swear, Stella!”
“It’s still inside you, Ash,” I laugh. “It’s not like it can hear me!”
She glances at me sideways and arches an eyebrow. I stare at her stomach. “I’m sorry. I meant ‘holy moly’.” The baby stops moving and Ashley smiles.
“Are you nervous?”
“Yeah. Terrified,” she laughs. “Between this and th
e business, I think the next year or so is going to be intense. At least Liam will be out of school soon.”
“I can’t believe he can graduate so quickly!”
“He was able to use credits from his first bachelor’s degree, so he’s graduating early. Just in time for this little bun to pop out of my oven.”
I grin and squeeze her arm. Pushing myself off the sofa, I head to the kitchen to get a glass of water—a part of me just wants to get away from her overwhelming happiness.
It’s not that I’m jealous, exactly. I’m just… well, I’m the older sister. I’m the one who has a successful career and I thought that by now I’d be married with a kid of my own.
But every relationship I have seems to end in disaster. I haven’t even dated anyone seriously in over a year. I take a big gulp of water and then head back out to the living room. I open my mouth to ask Ashley more about the Mayor and his corruption, but she’s fast asleep, cradling her stomach.
I pull a blanket over her and tuck her in, and then I head over to my home office to do some work. Her husband, Liam—the Mayor’s brother—will pick her up when he’s done studying for the night. It’s been our new routine since she got pregnant. It’s been nice having her around a bit more, but I know that once Liam finishes his sports science degree and the baby comes, I’ll be seeing a lot less of her.
Sighing, I sit down at my computer and open my email. It’s nearly 8 p.m., but that doesn’t stop the emails from streaming in. I flick through them one by one, replying when I need to and ignoring when I don’t.
My computer dings when a new email comes through. My eyebrows jump up at the subject line, and I skip half a dozen unread emails to jump straight to that one.
Subject: Mayor Maguire Defense
I skim the email as my heart starts to thud. My firm has decided to take on that corrupt piece of shit’s defense. I start mashing my keyboard in reply.
Love/Hate: The Complete Enemies to Lovers Series Page 35
