Out fell the parchment scroll wrapped with the familiar red velvet ribbon.
She untied the ribbon and unrolled the scroll to read one single word.
Confess.
Confess? Confess what? To whom?
Puzzled, Katie peered into the envelope in hopes there was something else inside, but it was empty.
“Morning, early bird, I smell coffee brewing.”
She looked up to see Liam standing in the entry way, his hair disheveled, sheet creases on his cheek, looking totally adorable. Her heart melted all over again.
“Hey.” He grinned. “You look much better in my shirt than I ever did.”
She smiled at his compliment.
He yawned and scratched his chest. A total guy. “Watcha got there?”
All at once it was perfectly clear what she was supposed to confess and to whom. “It’s a Martini dare.”
“What’s a Martini dare?” he asked, picking his underwear and pants up off the floor and sliding into them.
“It’s something I have to do for this women’s club I joined. They dare you to do something outside your comfort zone.” She went on to explain the tenets of Martinis and Bikinis.
He sat down beside her on the couch and reached for his shoes. “Sounds interesting.”
“It is.”
He leaned over her shoulder, peered at the scroll. “Confess? What does that mean?”
Katie swallowed. She had a sudden fear Liam wasn’t going to take this dare in the spirit she’d agreed to do it. “I think I’m supposed to confess to you.”
He went suddenly still, one shoe off and one shoe on. “Confess what?”
“That you’re my Martini dare.”
He drilled a hole through her with his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Remember that afternoon in the theatre?”
“How could I possibly forget?”
“It was a Martini dare.”
“They dared you to have sex with me?”
“In a forbidden place.”
He looked as if someone had just kicked him in the gut. “And this trip to Fiji?”
Feeling miserable, she nodded. “Have sex in an exotic place.”
He clamped his lips together and said not another word. He got up off the couch and went to the bedroom. Katie jumped up to follow him. “It was stupid, I know.”
He didn’t even look at her, just stalked to bathroom, and scooped his toothbrush and razor off the counter.
“What…what are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” he snapped, picking his suitcase up off the floor and stuffing his toiletries inside.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.” His jaw tightened as he bent over to zip up his suitcase.
She stared at him. “But why?”
“You lured me here on false pretenses.”
“Oh, come on, you didn’t come here just to assess the value of my family’s real estate.”
He straightened up to glare at her. “No, I came here because you and my best friend convinced me I needed to learn how to relax. That I needed to take a vacation. I came here because…” He shook his head. “Forget it.”
This wasn’t making sense. She couldn’t understand why he was so furious with her. Okay, so her dares were a little underhanded, but they weren’t malicious. They’d both had a good time. Why weren’t they laughing about this over the breakfast buffet?
She touched his forearm, but he shook her off. “What is it?”
His glower cut her like a knife. “I came here because I thought you and I might have a future together. I knew it was going to be tough. I knew you were commitment-phobic, I knew I was taking a chance by laying my heart on the line, but I had no idea you were toying with me. That I was nothing more to you than some stupid dare.”
“You are more to me than a stupid dare.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me about it?”
“We’re supposed to keep the dares a secret,” she said. “Club rules.”
“And you put your oath to your Martini club above my feelings?”
“I admit it. You’re right. I should have told you about the dare before I invited you out here. I made mistake.”
“Damn right you did.”
Stupefied, Katie couldn’t speak. She stared at him, openmouthed.
His eyes flared with anger. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
He pressed his lips together in a hard line. “And that’s the problem. You don’t get me. I can’t believe that I ever thought you did.”
“Liam, I never meant to hurt you. You’ve got to believe that.”
“I won’t be played for a fool, Katie, and I won’t tolerate deception in any form. Especially, not from the woman I’m dating.” He snatched his suitcase off the bed and carried it out the door.
She stood there dumbfounded, hands on her hips, watching him stride away. She could understand that he didn’t think the dare was funny. She could understand why he might be put out, but this angry reaction was over the top.
See, see, this is why you should avoid commitment, shouted the voice that had always kept her from investing in a long-term relationship.
But then another part of her, a wiser part of her she’d never heard before whispered, This isn’t about you. He’s got an old wound and you just knocked off the scab.
When she returned to the living room, she found him on the phone, calling for a taxi to the airport. “You’re really doing this. You’re really going?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t leave you stranded,” he said as he hung up, forever a man of honor. “I’ll take the next commercial flight off the island. I’ll leave my jet for you.”
“Liam, you’re blowing this all out of proportion. You’re a rational man, I don’t get why you’re acting so betrayed.” She reached out to grab his wrist and pushed up the wristband of his watch in the process, revealing the tattoo that marked him.
All at once the anger rolled out of him. She could see it in the sag of his shoulders, the tired shake of his head. “I’m sorry, Katie, I thought we had something, but now I see we don’t. You’re a blue-blooded Brahmin from Beacon Hill and no matter how much money I make I’ll always be the gangster kid from the South Boston projects.”
“Where you come from doesn’t mean a damn thing to me,” she cried.
“Maybe not,” he said. “But it matters to me.”
“Are you breaking up with me?”
He snorted. “How can I be? We were never together. I was only your dare, remember?”
The taxi horn honked outside. He picked up his suitcase, lumbered out of the bungalow.
“Liam, don’t leave. We can talk this out. Work it out. Liam, please!”
But he didn’t hear her. He was already climbing into the taxi, the sound of the ocean wind blowing her voice back into her face with the cold, hard slap of reality.
The man had just broken her heart.
14
ABOUT HALFWAY over the Pacific, Liam’s anger evaporated. He thought of Katie and how forlorn she’d looked standing in the doorway of the bungalow, barefooted and wearing nothing but his white dress shirt.
You did the right thing, he tried to convince himself. How could they have a relationship if she was going to keep secrets from him?
Dude, he could almost hear Tony’s voice in his head, it was just a silly dare. Get over it.
Liam shook his head. It wasn’t the dare that bothered him. It was the level of deception she’d gone to in order to lure him to Fiji. It was the fact that she’d used him for her own gratification while he’d been falling in love with her. He thought of how Arianna had humiliated him back in college. Katie was exactly like her, another privileged female toying with the heart of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks for her own amusement.