by Shadow, Lisa
His spoke his words like they were irrefutable. And just for that one tiny moment, Claire let herself believe that they just might be true.
Liam woke to the warmth of a body curled against him. Claire slept in his arms. Her hand tucked under her chin and her dusky blonde lashes kissing her cheeks. He could get used to this.
She looked so young.
She was young.
But sadness clung to her, a vulnerability she tried to cover up with sexiness. She wore her sensuality like it was her one and only currency.
There was so much more to her, if she’d just let him find it out. Claire breathed in deeply through her nose and her arm stretched out from under her chin.
“Good morning.”
A slow, lazy smile lit up her face and her eyes snapped open. “Morning.”
He pressed a kiss to her lips. The loud repetitive squawk of the alarm clock filled the room and he groaned.
He leaned over and swatted at the offending alarm clock .
“No Mrs. Ruiz today, got to get Lexi ready for school.”
Claire slid off the covers. “I’ll make breakfast. Omelet?”
“Perfect.”
Liam climbed out of bed and walked into the bathroom. He didn’t miss the way her gaze tracked his backside. She joined him in the bathroom, and squeezed toothpaste on her new toothbrush. Her eyes caught his in the mirror and she paused. “I’m sorry about last night. I’m not usually so emotional.”
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed.” He squeezed toothpaste onto his own toothbrush. “Thanks for telling me about your sister.”
Claire shoved the toothbrush into her mouth and dropped her gaze.
He sighed and brushed his own teeth. She wasn’t ready to share everything with him yet; hell, he hadn’t shared everything with her yet either. But it was coming, he could feel it.
They finished getting ready. Claire made breakfast, then helped Lexi while Liam was bombarded with phone calls.
“I told you it can’t happen this week. The nanny is on leave, I just can’t.”
Claire ran a comb through Lexi’s hair, watching Liam take his fourth phone call of the morning.
“Well, we will just have to find some other way because I can’t get there.”
Liam hung up the phone and turned to Claire. “Sorry, about that.”
She sectioned Lexi’s hair, winding it into a tight braid.
“It’s fine—” Her chest rose to finish the sentence then hesitated. After everything she’d done she owed them more than small favors. She glanced down at Lexi. “You know, since I’m staying here anyway, you could always leave her with me.”
Liam paused, his coffee half way to his lips. He glanced at Lexi. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking—I’m offering. It’s just one night. We’ll be fine, wont we, Lexi?”
Lexi tilted her head back and looked Claire. “We can have girl time.” Lexi glanced back to Liam. “Can we, Uncle Liam?”
“Are you sure?”
Claire finished the braid with a hair tie. “Positive.” She bent down to Lexi’s ear “You’re all done.”
“Thank you.” Lexi planted a peck on Claire’s cheek, then leaped up to collect her school bag.
Claire straightened and propped her hand on her waist. “So what do you say, do us ladies get the house to ourselves?”
Liam’s attention flicked between Lexi and Claire. “Well if you put it that way, why not?”
Lexi squealed and ran to Liam, diving onto him for a squeeze. Liam squished her then glanced up at Claire. “I’ll call the school and let them know you’ll be in charge for the next two days.”
Liam disappeared down the hallway to his room.
Lexi adjusted the straps of her school bag. “I’m so glad you’re here, Claire.”
Claire smiled at her. “Me too.”
Claire wrapped the tape measure around the waist of Emily Brett, her newest bride, then wrote the measurements neatly onto the form. She’d had to do it twice. All she could think of was last night. She needed to see exactly what was on that CD and then confront Geoff. This whole thing was going to end.
“We should be ready for your next fitting next week. We’ll only need to adjust the bodice a little at the waist.”
Emily beamed at her. “Thank you so much for doing this on such short notice. I thought I’d never have time to find something so beautiful.”
“You’re welcome. I’m just glad you fell in love with the gown in the window. It’s like it was made for you.”
The store phone rang.
“Excuse me a moment.” Claire draped the tape measure over her shoulders and went into the front room to answer it.
“Good morning, Hopetown Bridal. How may I help you?”
“Is this Claire Jones?”
“Yes?”
“This is Marcy, assistant to the headmistress at Hopetown Grammar. You are the emergency contact for Miss Alexia Channing?”
Claire set down the pen in her hand, her blood stilling for a moment. “What’s happened? Is Lexi hurt?”
“She’s not hurt, but we need you to come to the principal’s office and collect her.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Please come to the office and the headmistress will discuss everything with you.”
She breathed out and glanced at the door to the fitting room. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up the phone and pulled her handbag out from underneath the counter and slid it onto her shoulder, then went back to the fitting room to see Emily out as politely as possible.
Claire held her breath and knocked on the principal’s door with a familiar though unfounded skip of her pulse. The last time she’d knocked on a principal’s door she had been the one in trouble.
“Enter.”
She scrunched her nose. Enter, how appropriately headmistress. She plastered on her responsible-grown-up expression and opened the door. Lexi sat in a chair, head down and the skirt of her school uniform squeezed in her fists, where she wrung it like she was trying to take the skin of her palms. Claire’s glanced at the headmistress who held her hand out to the free seat beside Lexi. Claire shut the door and took her seat.
The head mistress bent her graying head over a paper in her hand, then peered at Claire over the rim of her spectacles. “Claire, is it?”
She nodded, glancing at Lexi who remained unmoving beside the twisting of her hands in her lap. Wild curls had tugged loose from her braid.
“I see here you are temporarily responsible for this child while her uncle it seems has more important things to do than monitor his wayward niece.”
Her chin snapped up, and she met the headmistresses gaze levelly, biting back the words that jumped to her tongue. “Yes, I’m responsible for Lexi while Liam is on urgent business.”
The headmistress leaned back her brow raising. “Lexi has been fighting. She pulled another child’s hair and shouted in class.”
Claire glanced at Lexi who’d hunched tighter, the hands squeezing on fabric had lost all color. She reached across and placed her hand over Lexi’s. The fingers ceased their wringing and gripped hers.
“Why was she fighting?”
The headmistress slid her spectacles from the hooked point of her nose. “Frankly, I am not interested in why.” She snapped the handles closed. “Why is not the issue here.”
Claire’s brow drew together, and she frowned.
“This is not the first time Lexi has been a disruption in class.” The headmistress directed her assaulting gaze at Lexi. “She has been involved in several clashes with her classmates and this is the last outburst we are prepared to tolerate.” Her glasses tapped down on the high gloss varnish of her timber desk. “I can only hope, Claire, that your presence here indicates this errant child is now receiving more appropriate supervision.”
The implication seethed through Claire in a fiery wave. She gritted her teeth prepared to show the cow what an ou
tburst really looked like. Instead she squeezed the small hand in hers. “Lexi, would you wait outside for me please.”
Lexi rose immediately and rushed to the door.
“That is hardly necessary.”
She shot the headmistress a look that silenced her protest. “I believe it is.”
The door clicked shut.
“I’m curious, if this is really an ongoing issue, how you have attempted to address it?”
The headmistress eyes narrowed. “I am attempting to do so now. But Lexi has received detention, yard duty, lines, and restriction of privileges…”
She leaned forward. “I mean what have you done to address the underlying issue. Why has Lexi been behaving this way, and what are you doing to help?”
Mrs. Burke’s fingertips touched again. “Well, if we are going to be honest here, then I may as well tell you—I am convinced it is a matter of inadequate parental guidance. A child who has had a difficult experience being placed with someone who is simply unqualified and unequipped to deal with her.”
Claire’s fingernails scraped her palms and the headmistress continued.
“I was enormously relieved when I discovered that a woman had moved into the home. I mean, a man like Liam Channing expecting to know how to raise an eight-year-old girl—it’s just ridiculous!”
Breath puffed out of Claire’s nose and her voice turned to ice. “Actually, there’s been a woman in the home for quite some time. A nanny with twenty plus years of experience, but I guess that’s just not interesting enough for the gossip mongers to pick up on.” She rose to her feet. “You know what I find to be inadequate? That a child who is clearly traumatized, clearly experiencing distress in the classroom, is punished instead of supported.” Her chest heaved. Her finger pointed at the headmistress who leaned back in her seat, eyes fixed on the finger like it might leap off its hand and stab her. “But what I find truly ridiculous, is that the most dedicated, loving guardian I have ever witnessed is undermined because of ignorant sexists and completely unjustified stereotypes.”
She dropped her hand to her side and lowered her voice. “It takes a special kind of person to take in a child who is not their own and love them like they are. Believe me—no one knows that more than I do.”
Mrs. Burke’s hand rested on her throat, her eyes like a glazed fish. She didn’t wait for a response, just snatched up her bag and went to the door to comfort the other little girl who had managed to secure a slice of her heart.
Chapter Sixteen
Lexi scooped up a huge spoon of chocolate ice cream and swallowed it in one bite. She glanced at Claire from her bowl. “You know, I don’t think Uncle Liam would let me have ice cream when I’m sent home from school.”
Claire jabbed her straw repetitively into her iced mocha. “You’re not the one in trouble today, Lexi. Not with me anyway.”
Lexi curled her mouth to the side and scooped up another spoon full of the gooey brown mess.
“However, I do want to talk about what happened in class today.”
“I pulled Stephanie’s hair.” Lexi made the confession without any inflection and devoured more ice cream.
“Why? I don’t think you’d do that for no reason. Can you tell me?”
“I don’t want to say.”
Claire took a long sip of her mocha and then leaned closer. “I promise I won’t say anything to anyone.”
Lexi’s gaze flicked up. “Not even Uncle Liam?”
“Not even him.”
Lexi tapped her spoon on the table. “Stephanie said she can’t play at my house because I have no mom. Just an uncle.”
Claire took a deep breath into her stomach. Ouch, poor kid. Looked like the judgment went further than the uptight headmistress. “It must just be that Stephanie doesn’t know how awesome your uncle is.”
Lexi shrugged, and tucked one hand under her chin.
“You know, Lexi, some people are just too silly to see it doesn’t matter what name you call someone, what matters is who they are too you. Liam loves you, and if anyone can’t see how great he is then that’s their problem.”
Lexi looked up, her eyes dewy. “Is that why you love him?”
The question wound a constricting vice around her heart. Love. The word she’d tried so hard to deny. Something that was obvious to an eight-year-old.
She bit her lip hard. “Yes, Lexi. That’s one of the reasons I love him.”
Some of the sadness washed out of Lexi’s expression and she finished her ice cream. Claire sat frozen. The ground seemed to no longer exist under her feet. Now acknowledged, she could never take those words back. They were true. She couldn’t lose him. Would never let anything hurt him—not even herself.
By the end of the day, Claire had called three of Lexi’s friend’s mothers over for coffee. Had wooed them with stories of Liam’s heroic rescue of her, his exceptional parenting, and organized several play dates including one for the next day.
Putting Lexi to bed had been the hardest part. Reading her stories and tucking her in, all the while reminded that Penny would take herself to bed without so much as a kiss goodnight.
Finally, she sat herself in front of the computer in Liam’s study and inserted the disc from Geoff’s safe. She clicked through folders, no energy left for anxiety. As suspected, the files were on her. Recordings of their telephone conversations, planning, backups of the emails. Worse—evidence of how he set it all up to pin everything on her if she backed out. Enough to give him the confidence to think he could get away with it. She ejected the disc from the computer. Of course he’d be confident. With her laptop still trapped at the B&B, he’d know any back-up emails were out of her grasp. If her laptop was even still there, she’d bet that one item would be thing to never turn up again. He held all the cards.
The one thing he hadn’t counted on—she’d take jail before she’d do another thing to Liam.
She stared at the disc. Now that she had proof, she’d need to find somewhere to hide it where Geoff would never get to it. She glanced around the room and spotted a picture of a smiling Liam and Lexi. She pried off the back of the frame and placed the disc behind the picture, then put it back together and set it back where she found it.
Then she picked up her phone and sent Geoff a text telling him she’d like to talk to him the next day. The phone rang before she could put it down.
Her heart jumped. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
She relaxed back into the chair. “Liam.”
“How was everything today?”
She sighed and gave Liam the abridged and censored version of the day’s events. The phone stayed silent for a long time.
“It’s my fault. I’m a bad role model.” Liam’s voice whispered down the line. “I don’t play nice. I don’t play fair. That’s what she sees.”
She pressed her hand over her eyes. Her heart thumped. He’d brought it up. The things he did that were so out of character to the guy she’d fallen for. She had to speak. Had to. Had to address the thing that made loving him so excruciating. “Why Liam? You’re such a great guy?”
“I never had the option of playing nice, Claire… You wouldn’t understand, it’s not in your nature to be ruthless.”
“Try me.”
The line crackled for so long she didn’t think he’d answer.
“After my father left, our mother got sick. I had to look after mom and Sarah, had to take care of everyone. I did what I needed to do, whatever I needed to do.” His breath shuddered. “Do you know what it’s like to do things you don’t want to do to protect your family? After a while, it just becomes normal.”
Tears flowed under the hand clamped over her eyes. “Yeah, I think I do understand.”
They weren’t so different. What she’d done wasn’t so different. She started this to protect Penny and didn’t care about the casualties because she’d rationalized he deserved it. But she couldn’t keep holding the past against him. Now there was nothing to protect her from how m
uch this man made her feel.
“Do you?”
“Yes, I understand that you’re a man who would do anything for the people you love. You might not think so but we’re the same like that…” She took a breath. “And, I love you, Liam.”
A groan filled the line. Her heart dropped.
“Why did you have to say that over the phone, when all I want to do right now is touch you and look at you when I tell you I love you too.”
She gave a breathy laugh. “You love me? You’re not just saying it to be politely reciprocal?”
“Trust me, I don’t believe in polite reciprocation.”
Hot tears poured over her cheeks. “I have so much I need to tell you when you get home tomorrow.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.” His voice was a sensual growl that rolled over her skin.
“I love you too.”
She hung up the phone and stared up at the roof. She knew what she had to do.
Perhaps it was the nervous energy hyping her up like a ballistic drug, but after she’d dropped Lexi off at her play date, she scrubbed Liam’s house from top to bottom, baked two trays of cookies and a tray of muffins. She still hadn’t heard a thing from Geoff.
Claire went to her handbag and checked her phone for what felt like the billionth time.
The long loud drone of a car horn blazed outside. She abandoned her handbag and ran to the window. Geoff’s car parked out front. She tugged on her jacket and raced outside.
Geoff wound down his window as she approached. The look on his face told her everything.
Shit.
He knew what she’d done.
“Get in.”
“I said I’d meet you at the office once Liam was home.”
Geoff’s face twisted. “I guess I couldn’t wait.”
She glanced up at the house. “Liam will be home in ten minutes. It’s better we don’t have this conversation here.”
“Fine. Get in, we’ll go to my office.”
“Now?”
“Yes, Claire. Get in the car now.”
She wrapped her jacket tighter and glanced around the street. “Alright but we are making it quick.”
