“Make...people...” Against her will and despite her pride, her chin began to wobble. “Make them hire me. Buy my way into good graces with your financial backing.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Then how did you mean it, Liam? Be very clear so I don’t hear the wrong thing. Again.”
“You’re wildly talented. Look at all you did for my sister’s wedding.”
“I nearly killed the groom. That’s a real résumé builder. How much money would it take to hide that little ‘oops’?”
He looked out over the beach, his gaze fixed somewhere near the horizon. “I can’t undo that, but I want you to know I can help you regain what was lost. I can arrange high-profile events, hire you to coordinate them, make sure there’s media coverage and promote the rebuilding of your brand.”
“And what about me, Liam? As an entrepreneur or, better, as a woman? What about my self-respect? My pride at having recovered from being screwed over the first time by my former business partner? My sense of self-worth that people desired my skills, my name on their registry, my vision for their perfect day? How do you propose to buy those back?” she demanded.
“I have resources you can’t imagine. I have contacts with more power and influence than the combined social power of the entire guest list at that rehearsal dinner. I can pave the way for you to reclaim your social status and reassert your position as the elite event planner in more than just LA.” He shifted his gaze to her and threw his hands in the air. “Why is this so hard for you to see?”
“Because what I see is you throwing your name and your influence and your money at a problem thinking you know the best way to fix it. Here’s the thing, Liam. You might be able to buy my way back into society’s good graces. You might even be able to save my business. But you can’tbuymy reputation. And if you can’t buy that, you sure as hell can’t buy my pride or my self-worth or my ethics. They were never for sale. Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. You broke that...” She paused and then thought,What the hell, and threw down the truth. He could do with it what he would. “You broke that, Liam, and you broke my heart.”
With that, she turned and walked away from him.
This time, he didn’t follow.
Liam had always known where he belonged in the grand scheme of things, always knew just what he was supposed to do, who he was supposed to be, how he was supposed to act. From which fork to use at a formal dinner to the right putter on the golf course to the best wine to pair with steak,he knew. But just then, sitting on the beach in his suit pants and his tailored shirt with French cuffs and his polished wing tips, he had no clue what to do. He wouldn’t have been surprised to look in the mirror and find a stranger staring back.
There were so many things he’d planned to say and do, so many ways he was going to make things right, and not a single one would come to pass. Not with Jenna and certainly not with Ella. Both women had made it clear that they were done with the whole debacle. They hadn’t been talking entirely about the wedding, either. They’d been talking about Liam. They were done withhim.
The image of Jenna’s hurt but furious face flashed through his mind and was followed immediately by Ella. He remembered everything he’d said and done, from their initial meeting where he’d landed in her lap to the first time he’d kissed her to the first lie he’d told and his moment of conscience when he’d told her not to change the seating charts. Memory after memory flashed through his mind, the more personal ones—the scent of her perfume, the sound of his name sighed across her lips, the feel of her arching beneath his hand, her laugh, the way she looked when she slept—becoming rapid-fire kill shots that left him struggling to breathe. A single truth threaded its way through every interaction, every conversation and every moment he’d spent with her: the way she made himfeel.
She’d made him doubt his cynicism and believe that, just maybe, finding his own happily-ever-after was possible.
He’d been such an ass.
“Oh, Leem,” said a soft voice behind him. “What have you done?”
He whirled around and found Jenna standing there, the sun beginning to stain the darkness with dawn’s light. Jenna, the sister he loved to the ends of the earth.
“Jenna. I’m so sorry.” His voice broke on the last word, a word he couldn’t remember offering to anyone before.
She crossed the sand and, in seconds, held him in her embrace. So huge, so all-encompassing for such a pixie of a woman. Arms tight around his waist and cheek against his chest, she spoke low but with undeniable fervor. “You really screwed up.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Ella?”
His entire body twitched in her embrace, but she didn’t let go.
“I thought so.” A smile lurked in her voice and he wanted to chastise her for relishing his defeat, but he’d earned her scorn. Then she surprised him by hugging him impossibly tighter. “You know, I still love the pudding out of you, but youreallyscrewed up.”
“I did,” he admitted, breathing easier at her reassurance. “And with a self-righteous vigor reserved for few of my ilk.”
She tilted her head back and considered him. “Your ilk?”
“I’m a capital ass, Jenna.”
She smiled beatifically. “You so are.”
Something in him—the fear he’d lost her—suddenly eased. She would forgive him. And somehow, some way, he would earn her trust as well as her respect again.
Jenna let him go and stepped back. “What happened?”