Lia’s face appears through the window of the restaurant, causing my lungs to momentarily forget how to breathe. Her face is clean of any make-up, her wavy hair is pulled back in a messy knot, and her jeans and plain blue T-shirt are refreshingly unflashy.
She looks so beautiful. And so…
Angry.
Her stern expression and vacant stare says it all.
She unlocks the door and I draw in a courageous breath and step into the restaurant.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, not a hint of emotion in her tone. She’s cold. Shut down.
I don’t blame her.
I’ve been a huge dick.
I glance around the restaurant, which is currently in a state of disarray. Half-full boxes are everywhere and all the decorations have been torn down from the walls. Blake, the bartender who practically molested Lia on the dance floor, stands in front of the bar with his arms crossed. The sight of him, and the memory of his hands on her, make my blood boil.
Danika, who I remember from high school, is also there. She’s staring intently at me as she lowers herself into a chair, looking like she’s getting ready for a matinee play to start.
I clear my throat. “Um, can we talk?” I ask Lia, eyeing our two spectators. “In private?”
“No.”
Her bluntness takes me by surprise but I nod. Apparently whatever I’m going to say, I have to say with an audience.
Fine.
She calls the shots. I’m just grateful she didn’t take one look at me through that window and keep the door locked.
“Okay,” I agree. But I barely recognize my own voice. It’s husky and warbled. Like I’ve been chain smoking since I was ten. “Look, I came here to tell you that I made a huge mistake. The hugest.”
Lia rolls her eyes, causing me to lose my train of thought. I take a moment to regroup.
“I know you must be pissed as hell at me. And you have every right to be. I’ve been a total asshole. I fucked up so bad. I don’t know what happened. Alex, she just has this power over me. I mean…” I stop, shuddering. “...Had. Past tense. It’s over now. I called it off. I told her I can’t marry her. She doesn’t make me happy. You make me happy. You make me feel like I could do anything. Be anyone. I’ve never felt like that before.”
I watch her face carefully, searching for a shift in her stony expression. Needing there to be one.
I tug my hands through my hair. “I chose wrong, Lia. Fuck, I chose so wrong. For far too many years. I’m tired of doing it. I’m tired of making the wrong decision. I want to start making the right one. You are the right decision. I think you have been for longer than I even realize. And I was just wondering…” My voice trails off, my constricting throat making it hard to keep going. I look to her, every inch of me pleading. “…I was just wondering if you might still choose me back.”
Once I stop talking everything is quiet. So quiet it makes me twitch. Danika’s eyes swivel to her best friend. Blake’s eyes stay narrowed on me. As though he’s reluctant to let me out of his sight for even a second.
Yeah, I feel the same way about you, buddy.
I pull my remorseful eyes back to Lia, who still hasn’t uttered a word. I don’t think she’s even inhaled a breath.
The stillness is squeezing the life out of me.
Lia’s eyes close. She looks like she’s trying to draw strength from somewhere beyond these walls. Beyond this earth. I watch her head begin to sway back and forth, back and forth.
“Grayson.”
The regret that shrouds my own name feels like a thousand needles piercing my chest.
Oh, God. She’s saying no.
She’s turning me down.
I fucked up too badly this time. I can’t fix it. Won’t ever be able to fix it.
She opens her mouth to speak—to finish shattering my fractured heart—but she never gets out another word. The doors burst open and into the restaurant barges a crying, trembling tornado of a girl.
It takes me a second to recognize her as Alex.
She stops short when she sees me, her mouth falling open. She looks from me to Lia to Blake and then back at me again.
The tension in the air is palpable. I feel like I could reach out and run my fingers through it and they would come back wet and sticky.
I watch Alex’s face shift, transforming from shock to relief.
“Thank God,” she says, turning to Lia with an appreciative smile as she dabs at her damp cheeks. “Did you talk to him? Were you able to change his mind?”
“What?” Confused, I glance between them. The two sisters who have ripped me in half.
“I told her to talk to you,” Alex explains, breathless and weary. “I told her to talk some sense into you.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I nearly growl, causing Alex to take a step back.
I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. I want to scream until my throat collapses.
This is not about you, Alex!
It’s not always about YOU!
I manage to calm my erratic pulse long enough to get the words out that have been trapped inside of me for far too long. “I came here because I want to be with Lia,” I say, keeping my eyes trained on Alex, making sure she understands how serious I am. “I choose Lia.”
Dumbfounded, Alex blinks her large, teary eyes and then, after a moment of stunned silence, she begins to laugh. “What? Are you joking?”
I shake my head. “I’m not joking. I’m in love with your sister.”
I steal a quick glance at Lia. She looks like someone just punched her in the gut.
Alex’s expression hardens as the realization sinks in. As the truth hits her. She turns her fierce, venomous gaze on her sister. “You little bitch!”
She lunges for Lia but both Blake and I are there in an instant, holding her back. We each grab one arm and pin it behind her.
I suddenly have a lot more respect for the guy.
Lia recoils and moves a few paces back, keeping clear of this snarling, thrashing, frightening version of her once-poised older sister.
“I’m sorry!” Lia cries desperately. “We didn’t plan it. It just happened.”
“And you’re in love with him?” Alex spits.
My eyes flicker to Lia. Her shoulders are rising and falling rapidly. She finally turns and meets my gaze. Her steely facade has crumbled. I no longer see hate there. I no longer see rage. All of those emotions have simmered away, leaving behind something else.
Something that makes the pieces of my heart slowly begin to fuse back together.
“I’ve loved him for eight years.” Lia answers Alex’s question, but keeps her eyes locked on me.
Alex lets out a wild, animalistic shriek. With a single powerful thrust of her arms, she breaks free from our grasp. At first I think she’s going to try to attack Lia again, but instead she makes a move toward the door.
“You are a whore!” Alex shouts, turning back to her sister “You are just as bad as Mom.”
“Me!?” Lia thunders in return. “What about YOU?” The intensity and confidence in her voice seem to surprise everyone in the restaurant, including her. “I know about you and Blake! I know you slept with our bartender. Just. Like. Mom.”
My gaze whips to Alex then to Blake. The shame on both of their faces is proof enough.
Lia is telling the truth.
Holy shit.
“You think you’re above everyone else,” Lia bellows. “You think you’re superior but you’re just as weak and fragile and fucked-up as the rest of us. If you wanna judge anyone in this room, Alex, judge yourself.”
“At least I didn’t knowingly steal my sister’s fiancé,” Alex spits. “That’s just lower than the lowest, scummiest thing anyone can do.”
“No, but you would have,” Lia accuses, her voice calmer now. More controlled. “If it was someone you wanted, you would have stopped at nothing until he was yours. Because that’s what you do. You take things. You claim things like it’s your God-given right.”
“I have to take things!” Alex screams. “I’m not you. Adorable, talented, helpless little Lia. Everyone’s favorite. People just give you shit. Because they’ve always liked you best. Mom, dad, everyone!”
Lia blinks in surprise, looking stunned. “T-t-that’s just ridiculous!” she sputters.
“You get all the attention. You always have. Ever since you were a baby, stuck in that incubator and everyone thought you were going to die. Do you know what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of little Natalia, the miracle baby? You got everything you always wanted!”
Lia lets out an indignant snort. “Hardly.”
Alex turns her scathing glare to me, then back at Lia. “Oh really? Then how do you explain this?”
Lia doesn’t respond. She looks like she’s about to fracture and break apart.
“Well, congratulations, Lia Smart,” Alex seethes. “You win. Again.”
She bangs open the door and marches through it, screaming at the top of her lungs for all the world to hear, “I never want to fucking see you again!”
We all stand speechless and frozen inside the restaurant, waiting for someone to speak. I glance at Lia and see that’s she’s visibly shaking. I run to her and wrap my arms around her. She crumples against me, her head collapsing into my chest as her body is racked with sobs.
“Shhh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Danika approaches us hesitantly and strokes Lia’s hair. “Are you all right?”
Lia shakes her head into my shirt.
I give Danika a reassuring smile, letting her know that I’m not going anywhere.
She nods back at me, understanding, and then says to Lia, “I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need me.”
Danika jerks her chin sharply to Blake, beckoning him to follow her. They disappear behind the swinging door, and Lia and I are alone.
I let her cry. I let her let it all out.
But I don’t let her go.
I keep my arms clasped tightly around her. Her body pressed to mine.
Seconds pass. Minutes. I don’t know how long I stand there. But I don’t care. I would hold her like this forever if she asked me to.
She finally lifts her head and I peer down at her.
“Do you think she meant it?” she asks quietly. Painfully.
I shake my head. “I don’t think she meant any of it.”
“It’s not true,” she vows with a sniffle. “Alex always wins. I never do.”
I plant a tender kiss on her forehead. “You did this time.”
She’s silent for a moment, her shiny eyes staring intently into me, as though she’s trying to mine my soul. “You chose me,” she murmurs, barely audible, barely convinced.
If I have to spend the rest of my life convincing her, I will.
“I chose you,” I repeat.
She bites her lip pensively, It’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
“And you quit your job?” she asks.
I shrug like it’s no big deal. “It wasn’t for me.”
“But what are you going to do now?”
I exhale and glance around the empty restaurant. “Well, I was kinda hoping I could work here. I heard you’re in need of a good chef.”
Her face falls. “But I sold it. The restaurant. It’s gone.”
“Um, well,” I begin in a lofty voice, “I might have, sort of, bought it back.”
Lia gasps, pulling away from my embrace. She stares at me like she’s never seen me before. “You did what?”
“James Hallenworth is a client of my bank. Or, I guess I should say, my former bank. Before I quit, I convinced him that it was a bad investment and that this neighborhood was falling apart. The sucker believed me. I got it for a bargain.”
Her beautiful eyes widen. “But…I don’t want to run this place,” she protests. “I failed miserably at it.”
I point at her. “That’s only because you didn’t have me helping you. In case you haven’t heard, I majored in business.”
Lia cracks the tiniest of smiles. It melts me. “So, you’re going to save my restaurant?”
I move toward her, reeling her in with my gaze. “Actually,” I correct, “I was hoping to save you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, defiantly holding back a grin. “What if I don’t need saving?”
I reach out, pulling her into me again, crushing her body against mine. Then I delicately brush a fingertip across her quivering bottom lip. “Everyone needs a little saving.”