From her subdued response he could already tell that this wasn’t going to be good. “Hey.” He gripped the edge of the counter with his free hand, waiting for her to say something.
“What time’s your flight tomorrow?”
“Oh-seven hundred.” Which she already knew and there was no way she’d forgotten. Honor didn’t forget details like that.
She paused. “I’m outside. Can I come in?”
Liam blinked. She was outside right now and seriously thought she had to ask? The slight bit of hope he’d been holding onto all this time burst like a popped balloon.
He drew himself upright, all his instincts urging him to retreat emotionally, protect himself against what was coming. The grinding sensation in his gut worsened. But dammit, no matter what she’d come to tell him, he still had to see her and have his say. The constant uncertainty was killing him.
She was waiting on the front doorstep when he opened the door. Dressed in dark, fitted jeans and an embellished bright pink tank that showed off the curve of her breasts and the toned muscles in her arms, she searched his eyes in silence. The lack of a smile didn’t bode well either, but when he looked down he saw she was wearing his ring.
Some of the tension inside him eased and he could breathe again. She didn’t reach for him though and given the way she’d been treating him he wasn’t going to be the one to initiate physical affection.
Keeping his expression carefully blank, Liam stepped back without a word and let her in. Following her to the kitchen where she took a seat on one of the barstools at the island, he went to the opposite side, folded his arms and stared at her, waiting. She was acting so cool and distant and the level of dread inside him was growing exponentially by the second.
She glanced around the kitchen rather than look at him. “I’m guessing you’re all packed up?”
“Yes.”
At his clipped tone she met his gaze and swallowed. When she didn’t say anything else he lost his patience. “So you just wanted to drop by and say goodbye before I left, or what?”
“Partly,” she acknowledged with a nod, looking uncertain. She knew he was angry and had to understand why.
“Then why else?”
When she hesitated again the anger that had been simmering below the surface burst free. “Then how about you start by explaining this whole cold shoulder routine you’ve been giving me,” he demanded. Goddamn it, it wasn’t like her to be cruel or play games.
Honor dropped her gaze to her lap, her posture stiff. “Liam, you don’t understand.”
“You’re damn right I don’t.”
Her mouth thinned at the verbal jab and she took a deep breath before continuing. “You have every right to be mad at me, but you don’t have the first clue how miserable I am right now. You have no idea what it’s like to be in my position at the moment, okay?”
Because she wouldn’t fucking talk to him! “Don’t I? I was there, Honor, I heard what your dad said to you.” He’d never liked the asshole in the first place but the other night Liam had lost what little remaining respect he had for the man. The sooner Honor was out from under that man’s influence, the better.
She shook her head, adamant. “Yes, and you know how important my family is to me—how huge a part of my life they’ve been and still are, but you can’t ever relate to it because you’ve never had it.”
“I thought I finally did,” he fired back, staring at her. He’d finally had that sense of bone-deep connection and unconditional love, with her. He’d given his heart away and for the first time in his life he’d actually felt like he belonged with someone. Did she get that? Did she understand how huge that was for him? He’d thought so but maybe he’d been wrong.
Jesus, maybe he’d been wrong about a lot of things where she was concerned.
“We’re talking about two totally different things,” she insisted with a shake of her head. “Your family was never there for you when you were growing up in Tucson, and you don’t even have contact with your father or step-sister anymore. Not that I blame you for making that decision after the way they treated you,” she added.
He raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to point out the hypocrisy of her statement but she kept going. “I know they’re not the easiest people to get along with and I know they have issues. But they’re still my family and I love them anyway. I’m sure you think I should just cut my family off after my father’s threats the other night, but that’s not the way I work, so I can’t. God, Liam, I can’t, okay? And I don’t know how to explain my reasoning to you or make you understand why.” Though the pain in her voice was real, it was the grief in her eyes that sent a shock of fear through him.
In that moment he realized the truth of why she’d come here. And fuck him, but one look at her face and he knew she was actually prepared to go through with it.
It left him reeling. He couldn’t move.
Stunned, not even remotely ready to face this even though he’d known for the past few days that this was a possibility, he could only stare while his heart seized in his chest.
Honor stood and raked a hand through her hair, looking tortured as she went on. “If we got married it would literally kill Charity, and my parents as well. I can’t do that to them, but especially not Charity. I know you don’t have much respect for her, and now less than you did before, but she’s the only sister I have left. I love her.”
Didn’t take a genius to decipher the underlying message there. The punch line: Charity was more important to her than he was. So Honor was breaking up with him.
He wouldn’t accept it.
Somehow Liam found his voice, striving to stay calm, to hear what she was saying and try to understand. “I get that, but how does that mean I automatically take last place in your life?”
She blinked and frowned at him in apparent confusion. “You don’t.”
He didn’t? Her reaction threw him for a second. So she wasn’t here to dump him? Liam stared, certain he was missing something. “Sure looks that way to me.” Felt that way, too.
Honor shook her head, her hair swinging gently against her cheeks. “Liam, I love you, you know I do. But she needs me right now, more than she ever has. Once we get her through this I’ll be able to fix the rest and everything will be okay.”
Liam sincerely doubted it. “So what are you saying?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. “I want to keep things quiet for a while, until everything settles down.”
He didn’t think he liked where this was going. “Quiet as in how?”
“You and me. We’ll just keep doing what we were doing before all this happened and my family doesn’t have to know.”
Oh, hell no. His jaw clenched. “You want to lie to your family and everyone else and pretend we’re not together.”
“Nothing will change between us,” she said quickly, her aqua-blue eyes wide and pleading. “It’s for the best. Just until this whole situation blows over and I figure out how to smooth everything out.”
Liam rubbed a hand over his face and looked at her. “I don’t believe this.”
Alarm sparked in her eyes. “Just for a little while,” she stressed, taking a cautious step toward him.
“You seriously think that’s gonna help the situation?” he asked, frustration clear in his voice.
“Well it won’t hurt it. I know the timing’s shitty with you being deployed, but this is only for the short-term.” She seemed sincere and truly surprised by his reaction, as if she couldn’t fathom why he wouldn’t simply jump at the chance to go along with her plan.
That only made him angrier.
After everything she’d put him through the last couple of days, knowing that they’d be separated for at least another nine months, this is the best she could offer? “Dammit, Honor, after the other night I can’t believe you’d even ask that of me!”