Page 121 of The Ruthless and the Strong

“Right. I’m sure that’s it.”

“Come on, this is your dream, Liz. You’re just finding yourself stuck right now. But things will get better, I promise.”

“You really believe that?”

“Of course I do. You just need to get your head out of your ass soon and forgive Max for whatever it was that he did, and then you guys can live happily ever after.”

I pulled on her hair and grinned. “Always the dreamer.”

She rolled her eyes and imitated me, pulling on my hair. “Too much of a realist.”

I laughed. “I think I would be happier if I was more like you.”

“Of course you would be. Have you seen me? Happiest fucking person around.”

I laughed harder at that. Olivia didn’t often curse, but when she did it jokingly, I always found it odd in an endearing kind of way. Not that I would tell her that.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked, once she sobered up a bit.

“Okay.”

“And you promise not to be mad at me?”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Can’t promise that, but I’ll promise I’ll forgive you. How about that?”

“Okay.” She fiddled with her hair. “You know that big investor that contributed like sixty percent of the funding?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Max.”

I frowned at that. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. He asked me not to tell you.”

“I see,” I said quietly. I stood.

“Where are you going?”

“To see my dad,” I answered calmly.

Her brows furrowed. “What?”

I patted her head. “I’m not mad at you. But I need to see my dad, okay? I think my mom is picking Hunter up from school today, so don’t worry about that.”

My mom and I hadn’t really talked since she’d apologized to me the other morning. But I hadn’t stopped her from seeing Hunter. That would have been a punishment to them both, and I couldn’t be that cruel and take another person who loved Hunter out of his life.

I walked out before she could say anything.

* * *

I pulledup in front of my dad’s restaurant.

This place had been standing strong since before I had been born. It had been my happy place for so long, where I had most of my birthday celebrations when I was a little girl, and where I went when I was feeling down and just needed to try one of my dad’s Irish dishes.

I didn’t get to often celebrate my Irish heritage growing up, considering both of my parents stayed pretty busy in their careers and there wasn’t a lot of time they could have taken off to visit their home country. I had probably been to Ireland four times in my life, and they had all happened when I was pretty young.

But I got to taste a lot of the food cooked by my dad that he said tasted almost like his childhood, so that was something.

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