Page 1 of Harboring Secrets
Chapter 1
Brodie
Evenafterthesunset, the scent of white-hot sand lingered. Liam and I had spent the afternoon as true tourists, going through the markets, looking at all the stalls and the things people had for sale.
Liam teased me for buying nothing but a postcard. But back in our hotel room, he’d nibbled at my ear while I sat at the desk and scribbled out a message to myself.
Dear Brodie,
Today was one of the greatest days of your life
xoxo
Somewhere, back home, there was a stack of postcards. One for every day that I’d been gone. I tried to get them from the place I was sending them from, and I was usually successful, but whenever I got to a new country, I bought a bunch of generic ones from the airport.
“That’s a bit cryptic, isn’t it?” Liam asked, kissing his way down my neck.
“I’ll know what I meant.” I closed my eyes. I’d know that I meant today was the day I realized how much I loved Liam. I’d know that I meant today I looked at a man and saw my future. I couldn’t picture where we’d end up, or what that future would look like, but he was there.
Liam cupped my cheek and turned my head so he could kiss me. Our noses bumped against each other and Liam smiled at me. His lips brushed over mine gently. He kept his eyes open and I thought—not for the first time—how stormy his green-gray eyes looked.
All day I’d tried to tell him that I loved him, but I could never get the words out. It had hit me that morning when I woke before him. I’d come inside from watching the sunrise, something I tried to do as often as I could, and he was still sleeping. Bathed in the glow of the barely risen sun, he looked peaceful in a way that he never quite managed when he was awake.
Liam was only a few years older than me, but we couldn’t have been raised any differently. He was born into wealth and privilege, though he wasn’t arrogant about it. And me, well, I’d grown up broke, surrounded by people who worked their asses off to try and get by. Until Shane won the lottery, we’d been drowning.
I still felt that way sometimes, but it had nothing to do with money.
And then it hit me that I hadn’t felt that way since I met Liam. I’d wanted to wake him and tell him that I loved him. To tell him all the sappy, lovesick thoughts that turned my brain into syrup around him.
But his eyes had begun fluttering and he reached for me in the bed, one arm groping blindly, his face scrunching when he found nothing but emptiness. His eyelids opened then, and he saw me standing there. His face lit up when he smiled and I loved him even more for that.
I’d tried all day to find the perfect moment to tell him what I discovered that morning, but no moment was perfect enough. Or private enough. I wasn’t about to declare my love for the first time in the middle of a market while Liam haggled over prices. Lunch might have been a good opportunity, but I’d been shy, struck silent by the weight of my own feelings, by how heavy the words felt in broad daylight.
The sun was down now and we were alone.
“Liam,” I whispered against his lips. “Liam, I—”
His phone, which almost never made a sound, rang.
“I have to get that.” Liam pulled away and dug his phone out of his pocket. He stepped back and brought the phone to his ear.
“Yes?” He said instead of hello. He never answered the phone with a hello. It was always yes. Always what do you want from me? What can I do for you this time? What do you need from me? All those questions and more wrapped in a single three-letter word. Yes.
I wasn’t sure what Liam’s life was like back home, but he never looked particularly happy to hear from anyone there.
Liam huffed out a sigh and looked at his watch. “Now? Are there even any flights—no, of course. Yeah. No, I didn’t forget.” Liam ended the call and tossed his phone down on the desk with a clatter. He rubbed his hands down his face and looked at me, abruptly distant like he’d already left.
“I’m needed at home,” he said.
Home, which I knew was Boston. I’d never been to Boston before, but I could see myself there as a tourist. There were probably all kinds of historical sites to see.
“I’ll go with you.” I was about to stand when I caught the barely perceptible shake of Liam’s head.
It was the loudest refusal I’d ever heard. A fucking earthquake. The ground fractured beneath me and threatened to swallow me whole.
“That won’t be necessary.”
I watched the man I loved transform from Liam, the carefree, starry-eyed stranger I’d fallen in love with, into William Everett Lawson, son of Robert Lawson of Lawson Pharmaceuticals. William Lawson was colder than my Liam.
