Infinite Possibilities

Chapter Five

Someone wanted me out of New York.

That is what is in my mind as we exit the plane at JFK Airport and enter a private wing of some sort that I didn’t even know existed. We depart the seating area and enter a main walkway, where Liam and I fall into step side by side. Any comfort I garner from him being next to me is diminished to near zero by Tellar moving ahead of us, and my uncomfortable impression that he’s ready to take a bullet to protect us.

Liam seems to sense as much, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and bringing us thigh to thigh, his big body sheltering mine as if he knows that is what I need right now. And I do feel sheltered by this man, protected. It’s taken me years, but I’ve come to believe that my instincts about people and events are strong. Even as a teenager, I’d sensed there was more going on with my family than I’d understood, and I’ve beaten myself up a million times for doing nothing, though I still I have no idea what I could have possibly done.

Liam urges me forward. I follow Tellar down the escalator with Liam on my heels, and I watch a secluded walkway come into view, scanning for that Godzilla behind a wall waiting to jump out at me. Liam takes my hand as we head toward a private exit and I silently amend that to at us, reminding myself of what I would prefer to forget. Nothing has changed since Denver. Liam is either a danger to me or in danger because of me. I can’t win.

Exiting through a side doorway, I shiver at both the cold October New York night and the reminder that my thin cotton waitress uniform is my only possession in this world. I’ve lost everything again, and though I had very little, I’ve discovered that even something can feel like everything.

“Quickly,” Liam says, ushering me toward yet another black sedan with the backdoor already open, and his urgency sets my adrenaline rushing.

I climb inside the car with Liam fast behind me. Tellar settles behind the wheel in the driver’s seat and it hits me that they are urgent to get me deeper into New York City and I was told to leave by my handler, who is now MIA. My hand goes to my throat. Oh God. What if he died warning me to leave New York?

Tellar starts the car and I shout, “Wait!” and then turn to Liam, “Coming here was a mistake. You’ve been asking questions about me and you were with me in Denver. They could be watching your home. They could know we’re here.”

“Who is they, Amy?” Liam asks, a command to his voice, his expression grave. “Talk to me so I know what I’m dealing with.”

“I told you, I don’t know.” I grab his hand. “Please, Liam. Let’s go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

His lips thin and his jaw sets hard. “We’re here tonight. I know we’re safe. We’re staying.” He taps Tellar’s seat. “Go.”

Adrenaline and anger surges inside me and I yank my hand from his. “So there it is. Proof my opinion matters only when I agree with you. I’m a prisoner.”

“Proof that we’re sitting ducks under a streetlight, Amy, and that we have no plan beyond this one. We need a plan. I have private parking at my home and the windows are tinted dark both in the car and my home. No one will know. And once we’re at my apartment, I have the best security money can buy.”

“We can’t stay locked up in your apartment forever.”

“And you can’t keep running forever either.”

“I left everything behind and got out of New York for a reason. What part of that do you not understand?”

“And that reason was what? What spooked you that night I met you?”

I open my mouth and snap it shut as his words replay in my mind. I can handle Amy. The coldness of that statement bites back any confessions about my handler’s existence. “Safety,” I reply simply and still honestly. “I left because New York isn’t safe for me.”

Liam’s eyes harden, his jaw tenses and I sense rather than see, his frustration. “You do know, the more you tell me, the easier it is for me to protect you, don’t you?”

“I was living in New York and I left. That should tell you all you need to know.”

“All that tells me is what I already knew. You need my protection.”

“Why do I keep feeling like that word means captivity?”

He pulls me close, his fingers a tight vise on my arm, his body warm, hard like his voice. “Because that’s what you’ve been in for six long years and I know you want it to end. I want it to end, too.”

“I need my life back, Liam. That’s true, but you taking it over isn’t going to do that for me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, baby. Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to get your life back, which means keeping you alive to enjoy it. Even if you hate me in the process.”

He lets go of me and settles back in his seat, staring straight ahead, his body as stiff and unyielding as his declaration. I stare at him a moment, a million things I want to shout at him racing through my mind while I wish away Tellar. Somehow, I force myself to fall back on the seat and stare forward. The next few seconds of silence ripple with tension and electricity, until I’m about to boil over with emotion.

“You are making me crazy, Liam,” I say, twisting in my seat, pressing my hand to his chest. “If we were alone, I would--”

“You would what?” he challenges, tangling his fingers in my hair and dragging my mouth a breath from his. “Because I can think of a lot of things I would do if we were alone right now.” And before I can catch my breath, his mouth slants over mine and he is kissing me, a deep, passionate, emotional kiss, that is anguish and pain, and everything I haven’t said but I feel. “And alone,” he adds softly when his lips gently lift from mine, “can’t be soon enough for me.”

Nor me, I think, my breath coming out in a pant. My body is on fire, nipples aching, a low throb between my thighs. I want him to kiss me again as much as I fear he will and I’ll forget Tellar is here this time.

Somehow I force myself to lower my head to Liam’s chest, to discover the wild thrum of his heartbeat, the proof he is on the edge of the proverbial cliff with me. With me. I like how that feels. I am not alone when I am with Liam.

His hand comes down on my head, a gentle but somehow seductive touch, and my lashes lower. My body relaxes into his, and for the first time in months I’m not thinking about Godzilla. I’m not thinking about lies and trust. There is just Liam.

Considering Liam is a brilliant architect who inherited a fortune from a brilliant architect, it’s no surprise that his home is in New York’s ritzy Greenwich Village and resembles a stone castle on the edge of the Hudson River with a tower next to it. But what does surprise me is that in a city where parking is non-existent, we enter through a double metal gate that allows us entry to private parking under the ‘castle’.

“You designed the building didn’t you?” I ask, glancing at Liam as automatic lights flicker to life in what appears to be a four car garage.

“It was Alex’s brilliance I inherited when he passed,” he replies, Alex being his father figure and mentor. “There’s the main house where I live and a fifteen-floor building next door that houses twenty-five luxury apartments.”

“Is this where he mentored you?”

“Yes. It is.” And there is a wistful sadness to his voice that tells me he still misses the man who’d come to mean so much to him.

I wonder what it must have been like to be only thirteen, living in poverty with a single mom and an absent father, and being suddenly pulled into this world of wealth and power. “He changed your life.”

“In more ways than you can possibly imagine.” He takes my hand. “But I want you to.”

Tellar opens my door, and for an instant Liam and I just stare at each other, a warm understanding spreading between us. Me being here isn’t about Liam holding me captive. It’s about what he’d once said to me about giving what you get in return. This trip to his home is about him trusting me by inviting me into his life, where few are welcomed.

“Let’s go inside,” Liam urges softly.

That warm feeling seeds deeper inside me and becomes heat and fire. And hope. I feel more hope than I have felt in months. “Yes. Let’s.” I slide out of the car, and the nerves I’ve juggled for hours are now blessedly mixed with anticipation rather than fear.

Straightening, I take in my surroundings to find a garage that also holds a sleek convertible Jaguar and no other cars, and I’m somehow certain it’s Liam’s only one, when he could afford a fleet. It hits me that he’d flown commercial the night I’d met him though he can obviously afford a private jet. I wonder what makes a man as powerful and wealthy as him pull back just beyond truly extravagant one moment and throw money at everything the next.

My gaze lifts as a buzzer goes off and Tellar disappears through one of two doors. Liam steps to my side and leads me to the other, keying a code into a panel and opening the door. “Welcome to my home,” he says with an extravagant wave of his hand.

I smile at the gesture and head up a small set of stucco steps to reach the grand foyer of the home where I blink in awe. Everything, from the intricately painted tiles beneath my feet of varied designs to the high triangle-shaped ceiling, is spectacular.

Dashing fingers through his dark hair, Liam joins me in the center of the room, towering over me like the dangling teardrop chandelier above me that glistens with tiny lights. I tilt my chin up to study it. “It’s magnificent.”

“Alex was big on small details which made him exceptional at design work.”

“Like you are,” I comment, shifting my gaze from the fixture to him again.

“I can only hope to one day be as brilliant as he was.”

I think of the many hours of research on Liam Stone I’d done in my time away from him and all the praise he’s been given by experts. “Many believe you already are.”

“And I’d humbly submit that they are mistaken.” He laces his fingers through mine and motions to the left. “Come,” he says, and then leads me under a magnificent stone archway.

Stopping just inside the new room, the tiles have given way to some sort of shiny, amazing dark wood and I am immediately in love with the cozy setting of warm brown leather couches and chairs, a fireplace, and several huge wide round pillars set in front of the amazing ceiling-to-floor windows.

Liam’s hand settles on my lower back. “There’s a view of the Hudson River from every almost every room in the house. In the daylight it feels like you’re sitting on the water.”

But now there is only the inky blackness of the night sky dotted with city lights that seem to form a triangle, like the tattoo on my handler’s wrist, and at least partially resembling the one on Liam’s stomach. Like the pyramids Liam is as obsessed with as my father and brother were, though despite my efforts otherwise, I’ve found this to be nothing but mutual interest that seems justified by their career choices.

I pull away from Liam, walking toward the stairs to stand in front of the window and I hear my father’s voice in my head. Beneath the ground are the secrets of the universe. We just have to uncover them. From third grade through the rest of grade school, I was home-schooled and went on digs with my family. I’d developed the passion to uncover those secrets and thrilled at every second of our exploration. Now, I need to uncover the secrets, not of the universe, but of why my father and the rest of my family were stolen away from me too soon. And I will.

“I will,” I whisper vehemently.

“You will what?” Liam’s hands come down on my shoulders, goose bumps rising on my skin, the low, familiar, and somehow soothing sound of his voice echoing by my ear.

I turn to face him, my back to the eternal darkness of the sky, studying his handsome face, searching his eyes for something, though I don’t know what. “Find out the truth. No matter what it is or how painful it might be.”

“And I’m going to be there by your side and holding you up if you need me.”

“I need a minute, Liam.”

At the sound of Tellar’s voice, Liam and I both turn toward a door to my left where he’s standing in an archway. “Now?” Liam asks.

“That would be my preference,” Tellar agrees.

Liam’s jaw clenches and he strokes a hand down my hair. “I’ll be right back.” He doesn’t wait for an answer and I watch him disappear through the doorway with Tellar. My fingers curl by my sides and it’s as if I am sinking in the water beyond the window while they surf the top. Without a question, they’re talking about me and somehow I’m the outsider. I swore the day I overheard that conversation between Liam and Derek that I was taking control of my life. Standing here is not me taking control. And unlike Denver, when I had no clue if Liam and Derek truly meant to kill me, I do not fear for my life. I fear where my ignorance has kept me and where it will hold me down now.

I charge toward the door and push it open, entering what turns out to be a kitchen and the first thing I see is a unique round island in two-toned pale and dark blues, with fancy pots and pans hanging from black finished cabinets above it. Male voices sound from the other side and I walk toward them, bringing into view a finely etched black triangular table with eight black leather chairs, with not two, but three men standing around it. And for once it’s not Liam who has my attention. It’s the tall blond man in a finely fitted suit with his back to me.

Liam’s gaze lifts and finds mine. “Amy.”

The man in the suit turns and his eyes go wide. “Amy!”

“What are you doing here, Derek?” I demand, tension rippling through me at the memory of that night in Denver.

The next thing I know he grabs me and pulls me into an embrace. “Thank God you’re okay. I’d never have forgiven myself for spooking you if you’d gotten hurt.” He leans back to inspect me, glancing at Liam, who has appeared by my side. “And Liam would have gone to jail for killing me, let me tell you.” He releases me, his hands going to his hips. “How are you?”

“Confused,” I say and hold up my hands, stepping back and bumping into the island. “And claustrophobic.”

Derek takes a step backwards as well and Tellar smartly stays on the other side of the table. “You’re upset.”

“Of course, she is,” Liam bites out. “Which is why I told you not to come by tonight.”

I frown at Derek. “Don’t you live in Denver?”

“I have a place here too and I feel like crap for spooking you back in Denver.”

“You didn’t. Liam did. I barely knew you. I trusted him.”

“Amy--” Liam begins and I cut him off, turning to face him.

“You’re in here having a meeting about me that doesn’t include me, Liam. I don’t like it.”

“You’ve been through enough for one night.”

“Believe me, if I haven’t broken already, I’m not going to break now.”

He grimaces. “That’s up for discussion.”

“Damaged, not broken, Liam. I made it six years without you running my life and coddling me. Suffocating me is not the way to make me feel safe with you again. Transparency is.”

His jaw flexes. “And if you have another flashback because of something I tell you?”

“I might not like my flashbacks, but I welcome anything that makes me remember.”

Liam’s eyes narrow on me a moment before he steps in front of me, his hands going to the counter on either side of my body, his body blocking the others from my view. “I knew you didn’t know certain things,” he says softly. “But you don’t remember?”

“No,” I whisper. “Or yes. Some of it. Not all of it.”

His eyes soften and he reaches up and drags gentle knuckles down my cheek. “Let’s do this in the morning when you’ve eaten and rested. They’ll still be here.”

I shake my head. “No. No. We’re here now and I’ll rest far better knowing what you already know.”

Concern etches his face. I want it to be real. It feels real. “You need to eat,” he finally says. “And sleep.”

“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep, Liam. I just want answers.”

His jaw clenches and he looks like he’s wrestling with himself over battling with me. “You really want to do this now.” It’s not a question.

“I’ve wasted six years of my life waiting. I’m not wasting another minute I don’t have to.”

“Very well, then.” He inhales and pushes off the counter, and Derek comes back into view, only now Tellar is standing on this side of the table as well. The two of them are staring at me. Liam is staring at me. The room shrinks and it suddenly feels like me against them, though I don’t think it’s really sudden at all. Maybe that’s how it’s been from day one.