Page 87 of The Savior

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

An engagement ring.

Chelsea couldn’t breathe—and she shouldn’t. She’d slept with her best friend’s boyfriend, the same man who’d bought the most perfect diamond for Julia.

Liam leaned against the doorjamb, and he whispered her name so hoarsely that her shock turned into repugnant self-loathing. Her stomach ached, and even as her lungs started to work again, she couldn’t face him.

“I’m sorry.” He shut the mirror.

Why? Because I saw the ring?She could’ve guessed that last year, a proposal would’ve been in their near future. An engagement wouldn’t have been a surprise. The only bewildering bombshell was how life twisted, and she had fallen for him.

“Please don’t apologize.”

They stared at the mirror. The jeweled color in his eyes deepened. She wished that she could read his mind. Chelsea didn’t understand their intensity or the way his jaw held tight, almost straining as if he were choking away something more.

She couldn’t comprehend how lost and lonely she suddenly felt. The only other time she could remember feeling like this was when Mac had told her what happened. Chelsea’s legs wobbled, and her vision blurred, not with tears but with shame.

Nothing could make her true feelings clearer. She had fallen for Liam. No rationale could explain what had happened. She never saw their physical connection coming. And the chemistry, it had scorched her common sense away.

“I have to go.” She spun under his arm, unwilling to slow down when he called her.

Liam caught up quickly and clasped her shoulder. She tugged. The hopeless desire to stay and curl into his chest made her want to weep. She didn’t know how to fix what didn’t feel broken or stop what made her happy.

He blocked her way. His throat bobbed, but nothing came out as he glanced painfully at the bathroom then over her shoulder. “Everything is…”

So different.But neither of them would offer such a pathetic excuse.

“I know.” She pinched her lips shut.

“You don’t.” His expression turned, unreadable and rueful. Liam angled back, not stopping Chelsea as she ran away.

***

The door slammed. A hollow echo resounded, and Liam was trapped in his apartment. If the bottoms of his bare feet weren’t weighed down by his conflicted remorse, he would chase Chelsea down. But he couldn’t.

Losing Julia had crushed his soul. Misery twisted him inside out until he’d gone numb as the months crawled by. He couldn’t even look at that ring and had stored it close but in a place that he never used.

It wasn’t that he forgot where the ring had been… Except he had. Sometime last year, the pain mutated into a daily bleakness—one that he’d been able to break from with the time spent lately with Chelsea.

He dropped his head back and pictured the anguish on her paling face as she registered the engagement ring. What was wrong with him? She’d run, and he remained like a lead-lined statue.

He pinched the top of his nose then walked toward the bathroom. The mirror forced him to stare at his reflection, and he didn’t like the regret and exhaustion facing back.

“She’s good for you,” he said, then opened the mirror and closed the ring box. Liam shut the door over his sink and turned toward the hall.

The apartment felt sad and empty, with darkness closing in. The farther away Chelsea got, the hollower he became until a simple husk of a man stared at the door she’d fled through.

Liam’s phone rang. Hope leaped through him, and suddenly alive, he hustled to take the call. But disappointment grabbed him by the balls when he read Chance’s name.

“Yeah?” Liam grumbled.

“Yeahto you too.” Chance laughed. “Just calling to see if you’ve had an opportunity to check out the equipment.”

Liam’s heavy eyelids sank. “More or less, yeah.”

“You’re welcome.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry. Thanks.”

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