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“It was better tonight. It’s always better with someone there but, you know, as much as we’ve avoided one another for the past several years, it’s been really great to have you here, Grace. I hope that’s all right for me to say.”

She smiled, looking down as she did so, and nodded. “You too. When you’re not being infuriating. I forgot how much of a playful charmer you can be. All I’ve really seen is Actor Man, he of the thousand faces, since... You know.”

She cut that thought off sharply, and scrambled for something else to say. She wouldn’t bring that subject up now. Their forty-eight hours together were almost done. From tomorrow on they could see one another once a day, she’d go back to her less glittery existence, and he’d stay out in the limelight, adored by millions.

“The little boy...”

“Brody.” He said the name she’d missed.

“You asked his name?”

“He offered it. Brody, the budding physical therapist.” He lifted his pants leg and showed off the colorful bandage still plastered to his taped ankle.

“You were really great with him. As much as you say that this stuff drains you, it doesn’t show. It didn’t show. It only showed last night because of the limping, I think, otherwise no one would’ve known.”

“I like kids. I don’t really remember ever being that age. I mean, I remember being in kindergarten and, you know, young grades, but my life was...”

Bad. She knew his childhood had been really hard. She had always known that his mother had died from an overdose, but she just didn’t know any real details. Before he’d told her about the book. That had cleared up all her confusion in a way that gave absolutely no other details. It had hurt him to even tell her that much, and it had hurt to hear it. She didn’t want him to have to go through anything else like that tonight.

“Complicated,” she offered quickly, giving him an out in case he, too, wanted to avoid dissecting painful memories.

If she had her way, she’d know every single part of him, from his past, to the way he thought, to all his future plans... But it really wasn’t her right to ask any probing personal questions. No matter how nice they both agreed it had been to be around each other again, he wasn’t going to be around that long. Once he was back on his feet, her usefulness would be at an end.

“Complicated.” Liam echoed the word. His childhood wasn’t high on his list of things to talk about tonight. The waiter arrived and he tried to think of the least drippy foods to order, and shifted conversation on.

His list of things to talk about really only had two items: that night and that trench coat.

But that felt like an after-dinner conversation. So he steered them back toward small talk, safe and focused on subjects that would make her feel comfortable.

Memories they’d shared after Liam had been placed in foster care near the Watsons’ home, and how he’d befriended Nick.

How she’d ended up at The Hollywood Hills Clinic.

Why she’d left professional sports.

Things he’d never let himself know about her, even when he’d wanted to know.

“I saw you once at a game,” he said, as their dinner plates were taken away. “You were working on one of the players’ knees. You want dessert? I want dessert.”

The dessert he wanted definitely wasn’t on the menu, but in the interest of sublimating his carnal desires...

“I don’t think I need one.”

“Split one. They have this chocolate cake thing with fruit that’s really good.” He ordered one and then took the ice off his ankle, sat up straighter, and slid toward her in the booth.

“If you don’t want to eat it, just take one bite and I’ll pretend we split it equally.”

“I could move over there to you so you could keep your foot elevated.”

“It’s okay. We’re not going to be here much longer anyway. And I think that those pain tablets are kicking in.”

With a nod, Grace went about clearing a spot between them, shifting water bottles and cutlery as needed. Keeping busy.

“Grace, I need to talk about—”

Before he even got the words out her perennially straight posture went rigid, and beneath that California glow he could see her cheeks pinking up.

She still didn’t want to talk about it.

“It’s not what you think.” He caught her hand before she could tidy any more and dragged it to his lap in the hopes that her attention followed.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.”

“The thing is—and this is pretty selfish of me—I need things to be good between us. And be honest. You don’t really owe it to me to listen to my explanations...”

“You really have nothing to explain.” This time, catching her hand didn’t settle her down and her voice rose a little as she looked everywhere but at him. “I don’t blame you. I’m not mad. It was all my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I put you into an unwinnable situation because I was young and stupid. Inexperienced in reading people’s intentions...”

“Grace?”

“You’ve become really good at it, not that I blame you. How else are you going to keep out of those kinds of situations, especially now that you’re on the Freebie List of at least seventy percent of the married women in North America, and probably a significant number of women abroad?”

“Stop.”

“Barring sexual preferences, of course. Oh, then probably men too. I just couldn’t even ballpark a figure on that one.”

“Grace, I wanted you,” he blurted out, his heart suddenly thundering in his ears, and his confession probably carried halfway across the restaurant. The waiter arrived right then and wordlessly placed the plate between them, then placed the silverware and left.

Grace rolled the hand that he held, not pulling away but as if she couldn’t dispel the tension in her body unless she moved something.

“Take a bite of this thing. Strawberry. Chocolate brownie thing. Cream. Get all of it. One big bite.” He kept her hand, and she still didn’t pull away, but she also didn’t look at him, focusing heavily on the dessert instead.

“I’m eating more than one bite of that,” she finally said, and when he let go of her hand, she reached for her spoon.

“You don’t have anything to say about my declaration?”

She glanced up, an uneasy smile on her face now. One of her hands slipped up to cover her collarbone protectively, then gave it a little rub. “You mean besides I don’t believe you?”

“You think I’d yell that in a crowded restaurant if it was a lie?”

“I think...you’re trying to make things right.” She chose her words slowly and carefully, he could see, but the self-comforting actions had already started. “And I appreciate that, but you don’t have to.”

He reached over and pulled her hand from her chest, once more holding it in his own as the other fiddled listlessly with her spoon.

“What are you doing?”

“Comforting you,” he murmured. “You covered your jugular notch, it’s a self-comforting technique. Women often do that when they’re feeling unsettled or emotionally unsafe, while men usually rub the back of the neck... There are other things that could be called tells. Like when you got out of the pool and you saw me there, your feet were pointed toward the closest door, and I knew you wanted to run.”

“I wanted to go to the locker room and get dressed. And please don’t do that,” she muttered, bouncing the spoon in her fingers, having yet to use it for anything useful.

“Don’t hold your hand?”

“Don’t tell me what I’m feeling based on what my extremities are doing!”

“Fine. How about I tell you this instead: I wanted to drag you into that apartment, tear off every scrap of black lace, and make sure that you could never forget me. That’s the truth.” It was still the truth, but not one he was going to admit. He still wanted her in a way that defied logic, in a way he still had to fight his way through even when she was quarreling with him. “But because I couldn’t have what I wanted—which was you, in case you’re not paying good enough attention—I tried to forget it. To forget you. But I never didn’t want you, Grace. You didn’t read me wrong.”

The spoon she bounced on her finger slipped and clattered off the table and onto the floor. She didn’t reach for it; instead, she finally looked him in the eyes again, the kind of measuring look that at least said he had her complete attention. She was trying to decide what she thought.

“You were off-limits. I wasn’t kidding when I said that your home and family were my safe place.” She had to believe him. These confessions weren’t easy, and if they were for nothing? “Or how much you all meant to me. Nick is my best friend, I love your family like my own. More than my own. They never measured up when they were around. It wasn’t a rejection, I just didn’t know how to do it right. You weren’t the only one who was young and stupid. I may be older, but I’m definitely not the smarter of the two of us.”

His heart beat so hard his lungs felt battered.

“There was a girl at the apartment with you. I only realized it as I was running off and I heard her call out to you.”

“That girl?” He stopped, trying to recall who it was. Yes, there had been a girl... “You’re going to call me a pig, but I actually can’t remember her name. I sent her home right after you left.” He let go of her hand and retrieved his own spoon. Once he’d got some dessert on it, he held the spoon to her lips to distract her.

Her lips parted and she leaned forward, taking his spoon into her mouth, her warm brown eyes never leaving his. He could feel the slow seductive movement of her tongue across the bowl of the spoon before he slid it back through her closed lips. Good God, he was getting too wrapped up in the idea that this was a date. His heart sped up for an entirely different reason.

“She wasn’t the girl I wanted that night.” His voice went hoarse and he had to clear his throat to add, “So I sent her away, and spent a long, miserable night, staring at the ceiling and waiting for Nick to get back from his date.”

Here beside her, the goose bumps racing down her arms were impossible to miss. He ran the back of one knuckle down her arm, then shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her, as much to warm her as to help his own willpower—hide that soft golden skin beckoning him. And maybe break the sudden heavy, sensual atmosphere that had descended on them. It had to go if he wanted to hold on to any scrap of his sanity.

No more feeding her or touching her. He needed to get the atmosphere back to a more playful, jovial mood. He took a bite for himself, an excuse to make himself stop gazing into her eyes. “Him getting back? Made things worse because your brother always seems to pick up screamers.”

“Oh, God, I don’t need those details,” she said, laughing a little as she pulled the jacket around her and snuggled in, then focused back on him, latching onto what he’d said. “I didn’t misread you. You wanted me?”

“I’m an idiot, but I’m not that big an idiot. Of course I did. You’re...” He stopped again. “You’re great.” Great. Not perfect, he wouldn’t say perfect. His heart felt too big for him in that moment. Enlarged. Sluggish. Sore. It all felt too big for him.

If he’d taken her up on it that night, maybe he’d be able to ignore that want now, but that wasn’t Grace’s style. Maybe she didn’t even want him anymore the way he wanted her.

She shifted in her seat, turning more toward him. Open, inviting. Those walls were coming down. That had to be good. It was almost too much to hope that they could return to being friends.

“I spent the whole night thinking of what I wished I could have done differently.” She whispered her own confession.

“Just one night?” he asked, thankful for the opening to try and get things back on less shaky ground. “I spent considerably more time than that.”

“No. Not just one night. But, well, my rewind fantasies of that night were not very, you know, good. In a sexy way. They were mostly about me dragging that girl out by the hair and keying your car.”

That was easier to smile at. Like she’d ever do either of those things. “If you’d keyed that car I would’ve never noticed,” he said, taking another bite of the dessert. “I still have it, though.”

“You do not.” The waiter replaced her dropped spoon, and Grace reached for it and helped herself to a bite this time.

“Yes, I do. It’s at a shop that restores old cars now. They’re gutting and rebuilding it. So, if you decide to key it in the future, I will notice and be very sad. So let’s keep talking about how sad it is that we’re both so hot and can’t have one another.”

“I never said I was hot.”

“No, that was me. I implied it. I thought you’d be better at reading between the lines than that. Or we could talk about why your—what did you call them, rewind fantasies? Why weren’t they satisfying? I’m told that fantasy me is a stallion.”

She laughed then, so brightly that he instantly felt better. Like the whole of their history was being wiped clean. They could be friends, continue on in one another’s lives, hang out with Nick and do whatever it was that people did when they hung out in groups. Go the movies without formal wear. Something.

“Well, that was the other thing.” She sobered, shaking her head as her cheeks began to turn pink. “I wasn’t... See, I had this idea that you would’ve been...my first time. So I didn’t just make a stupid and unaccountably brave move for me, but for my experience level.”

His head snapped back as her words settled and coldness washed over him.

“You were...?” He must have heard that wrong. “You were a virgin? You were coming to me because you were a virgin?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I HAD THIS HAZY, insubstantial fantasy heavily lacking satisfying details...about you being the first.” Grace shrugged as she said it, like it meant nothing. Like that didn’t make it worse.

Liam sat back, at a loss for words.

“I’m not still a virgin,” she hastened to add. “I’m not still holding out for you or anything pathetic like that.”

Once again, she had misinterpreted his behavior.

“No, I imagine if you were still holding out for me, you’d have been a damned sight happier to see me than you were,” he muttered, his hand lifting to rub the back of his neck. “The guy you ended up with.”

“Brad.”

“Brad.” He repeated the name, as if it weren’t giving him those rewind fantasies about beating the hell out of Brad. “I don’t want details! Just... Was he good to you?”

“I guess so. I haven’t had very serious relationships. I always pick badly,” she said, shrugging again.

“Stop shrugging. Was he the one with the motorcycle?” If her rebound guy had...

She nodded, mouth twisting to the side. No doubt she could tell by the tone in his voice, which he had no hope of disguising, exactly what he wanted to do to Brad.

“Did he survive?” Earlier, Liam hadn’t thought to ask about the ex-boyfriend, but now that he knew his name and that he’d hurt her after being her first...

“Yes. He had all the leathers and such. I was just in jeans and—”

“Okay! Stop. I can’t know more right now. And to think I was hoping that this talk would make things better between us.”

“It has,” she said, putting her hand on his, so small and fragile to his eyes now. So breakable. He should’ve been there to protect her. He should’ve been there to make sure that Brad damned well knew he should give his date the damned leathers anytime he took them out on his motorcycle.

“Liam, I put you into a no-win situation. There was nothing you could’ve done right in that situation. Even if you’d done what I wanted, it’s unlikely that things would’ve been good between us now. My rewind fantasies also included how later, after you’d come to your senses, you came after me. Sometimes with gifts.”

He wanted to put his arm around her again and know that as long as she stayed by him he could keep her safe.

He pulled his hand free instead. “Those are normal girl fantasies.”

“No, I mean quintessential boyfriend gifts. Like flowers, candy, and a kitten in one hand and a puppy in the other. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“That you had relationship feelings.” It had never just been about sex. She’d had relationship feelings, she’d wanted him to be the first. And now? It was worse, because his mind was exactly in the same place.

Hell.

“Right.”

“Again, how does that make things better?”

“Because they’re another example of my being irrational and sentimental. You were living away at that time. I was about to go to college at the other end of the state.” She dropped her hand into her lap and once again the oversized shoulders of his jacket rose. “It’s okay. I got over it. I met someone else.”

“Brad.”

“Brad,” she repeated. “And then we broke up, and I met Austin. And then—”

“Stop. Please. I don’t need your dating CV.”

“Because this is not a date?” she prompted, grinning at him finally. “I feel better. I do. You shouldn’t feel badly about events you had nothing to do with.”

He felt badly about the event he had had something to do with. “If I had taken you aside and said I want you but we can’t do this, it would have been better. Because then I could’ve been there to make sure Brad knew what I’d do to him if he hurt you.”

“You assume that one change would have changed everything. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe it would’ve made everything worse. I know for sure what you telling me that would’ve done. It would have led to me upping my game.”

“Grace, your game started with you at my front door in your underwear.”

“No. My game started long before that, but then you went away and I got desperate. That was my big plan when you came back to visit. It was my grand gesture.” She pushed the plate away and then flattened her hands against the tabletop. “I thought if I stopped beating around the bush, once you knew I wanted you, you’d be all for it. Everyone says teenage boys will have sex with any girl they find remotely attractive if offered the chance. I thought once the chance was offered, that the underwear would make you want me, and then everything would fall into place and they all lived happily ever after...”

“No reflection on your attractiveness, but that’s not how it works. At least not for me.”

“I figured that out later. But my point is that if then you had already wanted me and were just being rational? What eighteen-year-old girl do you know who cares about being rational when feelings are in the way? Heck, I barely care about rational now and I’ve supposedly had six years to grow up since then.”

The waiter came, the dessert between them was only half-eaten, and he’d lost his appetite for the chocolate-strawberry confection. “Check, please.” He nodded toward the jacket and said, “My wallet is in the pocket with the phone.”

“No,” Grace interjected before the waiter could get away. “Two checks.”

Because this wasn’t a date.

There had been moments when it had felt date-like, and then everything had gone pear-shaped.

The waiter looked at Liam for confirmation before he went to split the order.

She frowned, but didn’t keep on with the subject. Instead, she slid the jacket off and handed it to him. “Thank you for the loan of the jacket. Mind if I visit the ladies while he sorts the checks out?”

“It’s that way.” He gestured and scooted back around to his side of the booth as she departed the table.

Before he moved to LA proper to start chasing the dream, he’d known about the boys who’d called Grace, and the few that she had tried—and quietly succeeded—in making him jealous of. He probably owed her for teaching him to hide that emotion, even though the ability had abandoned him tonight.

He called his driver and had him ready the car and pull around to get them. The waiter brought the checks before Grace returned, and Liam paid both of them.

When Grace came back he stood with his cane and offered her his elbow again. “Checks?”

“Paid,” he muttered, and added, “I don’t want to fight about the check. The restaurant was my decision, and you’re here as my employee, right? It’s not a date. It’s not two friends having dinner together. It was my responsibility. And I tipped him well for his trouble. Clear?”

She didn’t take his elbow, but walked ahead of him through the restaurant for the door.

He’d known she’d had a crush on him when they’d still been in high school. Idiot though he may have been, he had been love-deprived enough that he’d developed a keen way of detecting it in every incarnation. And if he was honest with himself, that was probably a big part of the draw of his occupation. He’d gone from having very few he could claim who loved him to having thousands, to having millions. He’d gone from the unwanted son of dead junkies to the man on top of every producer’s wish list.

He could identify a lot of emotions on sight—studying body language to improve his acting had come with other benefits. He could tell the difference between fondness of friends, adoration of fans, and when past girlfriends were getting Too Close to Love—aka Time to Break Up. He knew the difference between the way his parents had looked at him the times they hadn’t been looking through him, and the way the Watsons had always looked at him—loving and always a little worried about him.

He could identify love in its many flavors.

But apparently he sucked at spotting a virgin.

Liam had claimed he’d wanted honesty and to clear the air. Obviously he hadn’t thought that through.

Grace was just trying to be completely honest, because all her instincts said to lie about the whole ordeal. Protect herself. But when her instincts were the most selfish, that’s when she did her best to ignore them. Do the opposite. Do the hard thing if it could help someone else.

Protect Liam. Absolve him of his guilt. Don’t leave him wondering why she’d been the one to hold on to it for so long, make sure he knew this had never been his fault.

But this was apparently also wrong. Now that she’d told him, they sat in the back of the limo in silence and tension even worse than when she’d been wondering when he was going to bring up how much he hadn’t wanted her.

“You’re gritting your teeth,” she said softly, trying to fix this before it got worse. “I’m fine, Liam. You should be fine too. You were right.”

“I don’t want to hear again that it was the only course of action. I know that. I still know that, but that doesn’t make this better.”

“Why? Are you such a caveman that you’re angry that I’ve had boyfriends?”

“No. God, no. I’m not angry.”

“Have you told your face that? I don’t think your eyebrows got the memo. Did you ever notice that the angry characters in children’s shows either have a unibrow or they have just really heavy, straight brows that come together in an angry way?”

“I never played a Muppet,” he joked, if that tone could be called a joke.

She scooted up against him, mirroring the way he’d dragged her to him earlier, and lifted his arm so she could get under it. “See? I’m completely at ease with you now. I understand limits. I understand why you felt that way. I really do. At least now. You felt like you should be more like a brother to me, only I didn’t feel that way. You—”

“Couldn’t have won. Let’s stop talking about it.”

“You were the one who wanted to talk.”

“And now I want to stop talking,” he said, sharply enough that she leaned forward, out from beneath the arm she’d just wrapped around herself, and slid away from him on the seat again.

He was going to be the end of her sanity. Should she have trusted that instinct to keep hiding things? She’d not trusted them because when she had, all those years she’d been wrong.