Page 58 of Somebody's Watching Me
“Ask me, Jamison.”
Was it always going to be this hard? Would it always be so unbearable to have someone, who would eventually become a stranger, know her as intimately as he did?
“Are you sleeping with this Izzy person?”
The asshole grinned. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
Liam’s smile widened, his white teeth beaming down on her like a spotlight. “No.”
Remaining quiet, she traced the intricate pattern sewed into the bedspread. Maybe she wouldn’t hate this Izzy person after all.
“Did you know Claudia is pregnant?” He turned away to rummage through the duffel bag, and Knightly followed like a traitor. “From what Holden has learned, she took an at-home pregnancy test a few weeks ago, and it came up positive.”
The news punched her straight in the gut. She hadn’t known. Not that she spent much time with her cousins. Claudia lived her life away from the rest of them; however, Emily was a different story. As the secondary head of Fairweather’s PR department, Jamison constantly interacted with her, but never outside the office.
Then there was Damon, the youngest of Trevor’s kids and someone she avoided like the plague. Slated to take over the North Carolina division once his father retired, Damon was no stranger to company gossip, with most of the rumors being that he had his sights set on something bigger. Texas, maybe? Or the entire company if the more outlandish ones were true.
“I didn’t know.”
“Claudia can’t recall much, but when she woke up in the back of the van, she begged the men to let her go and blurted out she was pregnant.”Liam extracted a toiletry bag from the duffle he’d brought with him and turned to face her again. “That’s when they started arguing.”
“You think that means something?”
“Everything means something.”
He headed to the bathroom, and she popped up on her knees. “Where are you going?”
“To take a shower.”
“Why are you showering in here and not in the guest room where you’re sleeping?” The panic in her voice was sadly not over his assumption that he would automatically be staying in her room, but because she wanted him to do just that. “You’re a guest, and guests sleep in the guest rooms.”
Liam paused in the bathroom doorway. “I’m not staying in a guest room because I’m not a guest and haven’t been one since I showed up at Haven five years ago,” he said, that damn smirk returning to taunt her. “I’m sleeping with you like I always do.”
The bathroom door snapped shut, and she stared at it for a minute.
“Shit.”
In a flurry of sheets and blankets, Jamison buried herself under the covers. Knightly padded over, curling into a ball to sleep against her back. Good. After his betrayal earlier, the least he could do was protect her from being inadvertently cuddled.
Because she would hate being cuddled right now. Totally hate it.
She squeezed her eyes shut when he emerged a short time later. At least she’d had the sense to turn the other way to avoid the temptation to peek.
“Abe is staying in his cottage. Simone didn’t even fight him on it since so many guards are here.”
The teeth of his duffle bag zipper ripped apart, and she held her breath. If Liam ever slept in anything, it was boxers, and it currently sounded asif he were searching for clothes. So, did that mean he was standing mere feet from her butt ass naked?
“I talked to Selah. He said he isn’t staying long,” Liam continued, not buying her fake sleeping act. “Ben wants all his kids close, so I imagine this short stay won’t go over well.”
His voice moved around the room as the lamps clicked off one at a time. “Klausen is being helpful, but that’s probably because this shitstorm will look good in his file.”
With everything dark, he came to tower over her. “Jamison.”
Opening one eye, she thanked every God that ever existed. Her restraint only went so far and seeing him clad in boxers and a T-shirt had her breathing a sigh of relief.
“I know it’s hard having me this close.” As if looking at her caused too much pain, he lifted his face to the ceiling. “I know you don’t want me here.”
