Page 58 of The Love Chase

“Oh, um. You don’t like it?” Crap, why did I ask that? Needing to do something with my hands, I grabbed the ends of my hair and fiddled with it. “Bridget thought it was a good idea. Her makeup artist spent an hour on it. Something about needing contouring to fix my slim face—”

“Take it off.”

I froze, our gazes locking. “What?”

Liam just blinked at me for a moment before his hands bunched into fists and he shook his head. “Take it off.”

I gaped at him, utterly at a loss for words.

He went over to the vanity, searching for something before he returned with a wet wipe. “Take the makeup off,” he repeated.

This reaction was not at all what I’d expected. “Why?”

He was seething, his chest rising and falling in angry pants, his fists clenching and unclenching. I’d never seen him angry like this.

“Liam, what’s wrong with my makeup?”

Sucking down a calming breath, I turned to face the mirror to see if the makeup artist had secretly made me look like a clown, which of course she hadn’t. She had perfectly highlighted and contoured my face—those were the terms, right?—making my hazel eyes pop with a little bit of bronze eye shadow. My lips were bright red, which, combined with the hunter green dress, made me feel both elegant and like I was going to a Christmas party.

Though I didn’t really look like myself, and I definitely wasn’t comfortable, I didn’t think I looked that bad. Not bad enough to warrant this kind of reaction from him.

After another tense moment, he let out a long breath. “It’s not you,” he finally whispered.

I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, so I waited, hoping he’d explain what he meant.

“You don’t look like you,” he said, meeting my gaze. “You don’t need…” He waved at my face. “All this.”

Before I could respond, someone knocked on the door and Bridget came hustling into the dressing room. “Are we ready?” She clapped her hands.

Liam spun on his heel, that anger flooding to the surface again.

Oh boy.

“She’s not going out there like this.”

Bridget cocked her head as she looked at me. “Like what? She looks great.”

“She looks like all the other girls,” Liam spat. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended by that comment or not.

“Yes. She fits in with you now,” Bridget calmly reassured.

Liam’s mouth opened and closed as if he couldn’t believe her audacity.

I wasn’t sure I could believe it. If I wasn’t offended before, I was now.

I didn’t want to be or need to be like those girls that had flung themselves all over Liam. I was Emma Beck—err, Walker—and that’s all I wanted to be.

“She doesn’t need the makeup,” Liam barked.

“Of course she doesn’t need it. But it looks better if she matches your image—”

“That’s my wife,” Liam spat between clenched teeth. “She’s perfect the way she is and doesn’t need to change to fit any image.”

That’s my wife. The words repeated over and over in my head. It was one thing to marry Liam for convenience. It was completely another to hear him call me his wife and be so protective of me.

I’d never seen him lose it with Bridget quite like this either.

Liam…didn’t think I needed the makeup? He didn’t want me to look like all the other girls? My heart swelled so big in my chest that it squeezed the breath from my lungs.

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