Liam kicks off his shoes and lies down next to me. He keeps a respectful distance, bending one arm under his head and waiting. Without pushing or prodding.
“It was small things in the beginning,” I say to the ceiling. “Little comments I brushed off as jokes or misunderstandings. He’d make a remark about the dress I was wearing. Say it was ‘a bit much’ or ‘trying too hard.’ So I’d change. I thought it wasn’t a big deal.” I shrug on the bed. “He started criticizing my friends next. He’d ask why I needed to get coffee with my best friend,Emma, when I’d seen her the day before. He said she talked too fast. That she was loud. That she didn’t respect our relationship because she texted me late at night. He’d suggest I skip girls’ nights to come to dinner with his parents instead. He made it sound like I was being selfish for wanting a life outside of him.”
Liam has gone still beside me, but I can tell he’s listening.
“Then the small things became bigger. Matt would call me multiple times a day, getting annoyed if I didn’t answer immediately. He got upset if I had to stay at work late for a project, because it cut into our time together. He’d say things like, ‘Don’t worry, once we’re married, you won’t have to work so hard.’ It sounded supportive but felt like a threat.”
I turn my head, glancing at Liam.
He’s watching me, his gray eyes intense. His jaw is tight, a muscle twitching beneath the skin, but he says nothing.
“We’d discussed my desire not to stop working once we had kids multiple times,” I continue. That gaze locked on me should intimidate me, should make me want to look away. Instead, it gives me the strength to go on. “At the rehearsal dinner, Matt’s mother asked how soon we planned on starting a family. I reiterated my stance. I wanted kids, but I also wanted to keep my job. Maybe part-time, or with flexible hours, but I would not be a stay-at-home mom.” I swallow. “Everyone nodded. Matt smiled and squeezed my hand. Said whatever made me happy.”
The memory of that moment—his sticky fingers over mine, his studied tender expression—makes my stomach turn.
“Later that night, I was coming back from the restroom and I overheard Matt talking to his mother around the corner. She asked if he was really okay with me being a working mom, adding it wasn’t how things were done in their family. And Matt laughed.” I cringe just thinking about it. “He told her not to worry. He said he’d make sure it didn’t happen. That he could ask for a favor and stall my career. Make me want to stay athome, which, given how fast he got me fired, he wasn’t joking about.”
Liam’s eyes are dark pools of shadows.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I didn’t sleep that night,” I say. “My only comfort was that I wasn’t with Matt as per the tradition that the groom shouldn’t see the bride the night before the wedding.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “And the next day, standing in that dressing room, suffocating in the corset, I just… couldn’t do it.”
“So you ran.”
“Yep, climbed out a window, boarded a bus to a random town, and almost got run over by a reckless driver.”
He smiles as silence settles over us. The quiet isn’t uncomfortable. But the prolonged eye contact is becoming unsettling.
Liam exhales on a ragged breath.
“Your ex is a piece of shit,” he says. The venom in his voice surprises me. It’s dangerous, vibrating with a protective fury I haven’t earned. “He’s a small, insecure, controlling coward. My lawyers are going to destroy him. By the time we’re done, he won’t be able to get a table at a Waffle House, let alone sue your parents.”
Despite everything—the exhaustion, the fear, the weight of the last two days pressing down on me—I laugh.
“We already got the wine opener.” I sniff.
Liam shifts, turning onto his side to face me fully. His midnight-black hair is mussed against the white pillow. His gray eyes are intent on mine, dark and serious beneath the humor.
He doesn’t touch me, but his gaze feels like a caress.
“Matt will never have power over you again,” he says. “I promise.”
The vow lands in a cold, hollow place inside me and sparks a fire. Flames sear their way to the surface. The heat seeps in. Itfills the fissures. Spreads through my body, reaching the darkest places.
I have no reason to trust any promise this stranger makes to me. But I do anyway.
“Thank you,” I breathe.
He holds my gaze for an infinite second, then he nods once, and rolls off the bed.
21
LIAM
Peyton and I are perched on stools at the kitchen island, eating dinner. The silence between us, if not 100 percent comfortable, at least isn’t painfully awkward anymore.
The conversation upstairs—the vulnerability she allowed me to see, how she trusted me with the ugly truth about her ex—was the first brick in a bridge we are building between us.