Page 80 of Begin Again, Part 2

"He touched you!" he fumed beside her. "That son of a bitch touched you."

Matthew turned to him. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing," Eden assured him. To show him how perfect everything was, and they weren't being threatened by the Russian mob, she raised her glass at him and drained its contents in a few quick gulps.

"Look at me," Liam whispered beside her. She shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes because she was very close to a nervous breakdown. The stress of trying to keep it together since her run-in with Ivanov was finally getting to her.

"Princess," Liam said again as he took her hand and kissed it.

Eden took one long breath and plastered a brave smile on her face as she turned to him.

He brought up his hand and caressed her cheek, "I'm sorry. I'll take care of this. I don't want you to worry, okay?"

"How can you say that—" Eden tried to argue that they were way beyond the point of not worrying now.

But Liam shut her down with a firm shake of his head. "I told you I'll take care of it. Do you know how many of these he's sent me in the past? This is nothing to worry about."

The hostess interrupted their tense exchange as she took the stage to get the ball rolling. For an hour, Eden had to watch a bunch of wealthy people haggle over jewellery and paintings. Liam fought like a rabid dog to get Cleopatra's ring, pushing the bid ten times higher than the initial price.

"It's not even real; why would you blow so much money on it?" Eden asked, hoping to bring him back to his senses.

Fake or not, Liam was hell-bent on getting the ring. He ignored her words of caution and fought on. The only other person in the running, the same man who'd put a target on his back, seemed equally determined to get his hands on it.

Aleksei gave up after the eight million mark, and the room erupted in applause when the host declared Liam the new owner of Cleopatra's ring.

"Why couldn't you just let him take it? You already took LUSSO from him." Eden smiled sadly.

"He hurt you. He had the nerve to come after you. I'll never give in to him!"

"You have no idea what you've just done," she said. If Aleksei was mildly pissed off before over the LUSSO deal, he was downright enraged now, after losing the bid, and Liam had firmly thrust them on a collision course. Eden was so terrified that the only man left standing when their bitter fight finally came to a cataclysmic end would be the one half of the crazy Russian mob.

"Eden," Liam took her hand again.

But she snatched it from him. "You really have a death wish, and here I am, worried for you. For us. For Aiden. But you don't seem to care."

She stood up before he could say anything else, almost colliding with Isaac.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, swaying on her feet. The three glasses of bubbly she had were starting to work their magic.

"Well, this is the 'thing' I told you about," Isaac said and waved at the Anderson Logistics crew. Everyone was cordial to him as they exchanged pleasantries and warm smiles. Everyone but Liam. He kept grunting inaudibly under his breath every time Isaac tried to make small talk with him. Eventually, he turned his attention back to Eden. "Enjoying the party?"

Hardly, she wanted to say, but smiled instead. "You said you have something important to tell me?"

"Yeah, do you want to dance while we talk?"

Eden had barely wrapped her head around his question when he held out his hand to her. "You know what, let's dance."

In a flash, Liam rose to his feet and put a damper on Isaac's plans when he propped himself between them. "I believe as Aiden's father, I get the first dance."

"Of course. Edie, I'll be over there when you're ready to chat," Isaac said and pointed at his table before he drifted off.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

WON’T SEND A BULLET

Liam pulled Eden to the dance floor. He needed to get her away from their table to figure out what was wrong with her. But the moment he held her in his arms, and they gently moved to the song—something about a lady in red—he forgot all his anger.

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