Page 73 of Surrender
“He hates me,” she whispered. Now her tears fell. “He won’t say it, but he does. He won’t even look at me.” She sniffled and wiped her face with her sleeve.
“No,” Liam said, circling his hand on her back. “He’s hurt. And he should be. But hate? Never.”
She didn’t move for a long time. Just stood there with the sea raging below and Liam beside her.
Finally, she let out a breath. “Goddammit.”
He smiled. “That’s my girl.”
She turned toward him, eyes narrowed. “If I do this, and she slams the door in my face?—”
“Then we’ll go to plan B.”
“Which is?”
He shrugged. “We kidnap her for real.”
That earned a reluctant smile from Sophie.
She turned toward the path leading back to the car, bottle still in hand, and muttered, “You better drive. If I’m kidnapping someone, I’ll need both hands.”
Liam fell in step beside her, heart quietly hopeful.
Chapter 22
Liam had dropped Sophie off in front of Gwen’s building with a kiss on the cheek and a whispered, “You’ve got this, a stór,” before vanishing to find parking—or, more likely, to avoid witnessing whatever fallout was about to happen.
She stood in front of the apartment buzzer for a full minute, her finger hovering like pressing it might set off a bomb. In a way, maybe it would.
Finally, she hit the button.
“Hello?” Gwen’s voice came through, flat and tired.
Sophie’s heart kicked. She hadn’t prepared a speech. She barely had a plan. Just a heavy knot of guilt and the hope it wasn’t too late.
“Um... hi. It’s Sophie.”
Silence.
She pressed her lips together, forcing the next words out before her nerves could clamp down.
“I’m not here to fight,” she said quickly. Fighting was her fallback. Apologies? Not so much. “I just—can I come up? Please?”
Another long pause.
Then, just as Sophie’s finger hovered over the buzzer again, Gwen’s voice returned. “Just a minute.”
The door clicked, and Sophie stepped inside. The elevator was slow, the kind that wheezed between floors and gave you time to second-guess everything. By the time it reached the top, Sophie’s palms were sweating.
She stepped out into the hallway—just in time to hear the shrill cry of a smoke alarm.
The door opened a second later. Gwen stood in the doorway barefoot, in jeans and a faded sweatshirt. Her damp hair was pushed back haphazardly, her face pale, eyes shadowed with the dark circles of exhaustion. She looked like someone trying to hold herself together with string.
Smoke drifted from the kitchen behind her.
Sophie arched a brow. At least this time Gwen was wearing pants. “You do know the smoke alarm isn’t a timer, right?”
Gwen exhaled, a humorless little puff. “Overcooked toast. You’ve got about five minutes before I decide this was a mistake,” she added, voice cool but not cruel.
