Rox was surprised Liam asked her to ride back to the house on her own. He’d been adamant he always be with her whenever they rode to or from work. They’d ridden their bikes separately, so she hopped on and headed back home. It was crazy how quickly she came to think of his house as home. For the first time, it felt like a place she could relax and be safe. Part of that probably had to do with the front gate and extensive security system, but it was also because of Liam. He made her laugh, left her breathless, and their time in bed, whether they were just watching a movie or doing other naughtier things, made her happier than she’d ever been.

She parked the bike in the garage, hung up her helmet, and walked into the house. Most of the lights were off. The soft glow of the patio lights shined through the oversized glass doors that ran the length of the kitchen and living room. There were lights on in the kitchen nook.

“Honey, I’m home,” she called out, laughing. Rox dropped her bag on the kitchen counter. Liam sat at the kitchen table with his back to her. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and moved to kiss him on the cheek freezing when she saw what was laid out in front of him on the table. Her past, her past even before Jon, came slamming into her gut. The wind knocked out of her, she snapped up straight.

“Where did you get that?” She pointed at the file and whipped around in front of him.

“You mean, where did I get a file full of information about Juliette Miles?”

Hearing her old name on his lips sent a wave of disgust rolling through her stomach. To her friends growing up, she’d been Jules. The only person who called her Juliette was Jon and a shiver ran up her spine hearing it. And worse, the life she’d had before Jon wasn’t something she liked to remember. After she’d escaped from Jon, she’d changed it the first chance that she’d gotten and moved as far as she could at the time.

“Yes, where did you get that?” she said, reaching for the file. He slid it away from her.

“Give that back.” Why was he doing this? Why did he want to bring up her past now? How had he gotten the folder? Seeing it was a smack in the face to everything she’d built in her life since starting over.

“If you want it back, then I need you to talk to me.”

“Talk to you about what? You’ve read that file, so you think you know things about me? You think you know me now?” she said, her voice shrill. Her pulse pounded and her palms were sweaty.

“I know more about you than I knew before. You never want to talk about your past. You always shut me down whenever I ask questions about your life before.”

“And you think I owe you that? You think I owe you anything? I don’t. My life means it’s my choice who to tell and what to tell them and I didn’t want to tell you anything about this.” She shouted, jabbing her finger at the folder. How could he do this to her? She’d told him about the scariest time in her life, why did he need her to rip herself open and tell him everything?

“Were you afraid I would kick you out? That I wouldn’t want a felon in my house?” She stepped back like he’d slapped her. Her hands tingled and she swayed on her feet.

“Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. I just know you won’t tell me everything,” he said.

“Maybe I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t know if you deserved to know that part of me,” she ground out. “And it looks like I made the right choice. It takes a hell of a lot for me to trust anyone. That list is pretty short and right now, you’ve just moved yourself off the fucking list.” Disgusted and on the verge of angry tears, Rox stormed over to the counter to grab her bag. She might not have many places to go, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to stay here with someone who thought of her as a felon.

“You’re not going, Rox. We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” she said, slinging the bag onto her shoulder. “It seems you already have everything all figured out, so you can take that folder and shove it up your ass for all I care.”

“Rox, we’re not through here,” he shouted, as she stalked to the garage. She could feel him behind her and her heart raced.

“Come back here,” he shouted, taking the bag off her shoulder and pulling on her elbow to turn her around. “I want to talk to you about this.”

He raised his voice and those old fears came rushing back. She threw her arms up to block her face. Old habits die hard. She'd never thought that he would hit her, but she couldn’t take any chances. She’d been wrong before. Nothing happened and she worked up the nerve to glance up at him.

“Rox…Rox, I would never,” he said, gently backing away from her. “I would never in my life lay my hands on you in anger.”

* * *

Liam stared down at his hands in disgust. He had only wanted to get her attention, get her to look at him. The fact that she could be afraid of him, worried he might hit her, turned his stomach.

“I’m sorry Rox. I’m so sorry I scared you.” He backed away farther, holding his hands out. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths and his stomach turned. She thought he would hurt her. After everything he’d tried to do to keep her safe, he ended up being the one she feared. He never should have yelled at her. The back of his legs hit the table and he sat back in his chair.

“I…I didn’t think you’d hit me, it was a reflex,” she said, biting her lip. But he knew. He saw the fear in her eyes and the way she brought up her arms. He’d done that to her. “It’s something I thought had gone away, but apparently it hasn’t.” She stood in front of him, wringing her hands. IIt turned his stomach.

“I didn’t want you to leave thinking that I didn’t care about you or that I thought any less of you than I did this morning. I want you to talk to me, Rox. I need you to talk to me. To open up to me.” He held his breath. Had he completely screwed everything up? Was she going to leave him now? Suddenly, the need to know took a backseat to his need for her to stay with him.

“I could say the same about you,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. She was gloriously beautiful when she was angry and she was seriously pissed off right now. He had a choice to make. He could understand not wanting to talk about your past. Hell, he avoided it whenever he had the chance, so he couldn’t exactly hold her to a different standard, now could he? Walking into the living room, she followed behind him at a distance, probably trying to figure out what the hell he was doing.

What the hell was he doing? Was he ready to spill all of this out there for her? To lay it all out? If he wanted her to trust him and share her own past, then he’d have to.

“I grew up a fat kid. I told you that before.” She nodded and sat next to him. “And Luc wasn’t. Luc was the popular twin. He was the one people wanted to hang around. I was just me.” She squeezed his hand.

“Hey, I happen to like ‘just you’,” she said, smiling at him. This woman’s smile did things to him that no other woman’s could.

“And I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Growing up, that’s how it was: Luc was popular and if I was lucky other people would invite me to tag along, but I always knew I didn’t belong. Then I started boxing, started to get healthier and lose the weight. By the time we made it to college, people could actually tell Luc and I were twins. That whole time though, I worked on programming. I loved it and learned tons building small programs and websites. But I was still the shy guy from before. We hung out with Mark and chilled in our dorm and that was that. Luc, of course, found his time to go out and be crazy, but Mark and I played video games and had big ideas about what would happen when we graduated. Mark’s dream was to take over the bar and mine was to start a company with Luc to set our mom up for life and have fun while doing it. So, I put together Doppel.

“Using Doppel means companies can send out messages to their customers through their phones when they get close enough and entice them into the stores. Simple enough, but it blew up in a way I never could have imagined. With the company's popularity came ours. And I’d never really had that attention before. It was—” He didn’t even know how to describe the rabbit hole of insanity it turned into, but she needed to know it all. “Attention like I’d never had before and it was obvious to people. The wrong kind of people could tell that.” He thought back to all the rounds of drinks he bought, parties he’d been invited to, women who’d thrown themselves at him. He’d been so damn stupid to not see it all for what it was. He shook his head and Rox squeezed his hand.

“I met a girl. Thought she was great. But she was a liar and I fell into her trap. If I hadn’t stumbled onto her lie, who knows what would have happened.” He would have been married to a viper without a pre-nup, that’s what would have happened.

“What was the lie?” Rox asked softly, encouraging him.

“My ex pretended to be pregnant and was going to tell me she had a miscarriage to get me to marry her.” Rox gasped beside him and rubbed his hand. Having her there centered him. He couldn’t believe what he’d almost fallen for with Yvonne, but in a way, he had to thank her. He might not have left the company and started working at the bar, had it not been for her. And he wouldn’t have hashed things out with Rox and been with her right now.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she was after my money, not me. She didn’t give a crap about me. She was using me and I was too stupid at the time to even notice, or care I guess,” he said, shrugging. “But once I found out, it was over.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, that someone you loved betrayed you.” She got up and sat on the ottoman across from him, her leg bouncing frantically.

He glanced up at Rox, sitting across from him. He reached out and took her hand in his. Now, it was her turn to look away. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes.

“My mom died when I was four. I have almost dreamlike memories of her. Things that I’m not quite sure were real or if they were just a dream. Every memory I have of her, real or imagined, is a happy one. I don’t know when my dad started drinking, I’m thinking it was after she died, but he sort of went into this cave inside himself and didn’t come out. He didn’t hit me, but from a young age, I had to learn to do everything for myself.” She swallowed hard and her hand trembled in his.

“We didn’t have much money at all. There was never food in the house. Clothes were something I had to find or…” she nodded toward the folder. “Or steal. There were a lot of times couldn’t wait to get to school just to get some food in me. The stealing started as a necessity to survive and turned into something more. People started giving me money to steal things for them. I could use the money to buy whatever I wanted then. I didn’t have to steal everything I needed.” The shimmer of tears clung to her eyelashes. She was always trying to be so damn strong. Rubbing his other hand over hers, he silently urged her to go on. He was making her relive these terrible memories by bringing that folder into the house. He’d let Luc get under his skin and put Rox through this.

“As you can see,” she glanced over at the folder again. “I wasn’t always as stealthy as I needed to be. I was caught and charged. There were some big-ticket items I was stealing, so it wasn’t a misdemeanor. My dad had gotten a new girlfriend. I don’t know how, he almost never left the house, but whatever monthly money he had coming in was enough to attract that witch. He never hit me, but she sure as hell took pleasure in making my life a living hell. She’d hit me, break my things, whatever she wanted and he’d sit in that fucking recliner drinking his beer and watching TV like nothing was happening.” She pulled her hand from between his and rubbed them on her jeans.

“The night I left, she tried to set me on fire.” She let out a startled laugh and shook her head. “That bitch had a lighter and lighter fluid standing over me while I slept. She said she didn’t want a felon living in her house. I’d only had to spend a couple of days in jail. They let me out early, but to this day, I’ll never forget the look on her face. I knew that if I stayed there, she would have tried to kill me. I didn’t want to go to a group home or a foster care or anything. I was seventeen, I didn’t have much time left being a minor. So, I packed up my shit and left.”

“I met Jon not that long after. Thought it was finally my life turning around. I moved in with him. He took care of me. Everyone thought he was a saint taking in the underage felon runaway. He didn’t hit me until our one year anniversary. At that point I was completely dependent on him. I didn’t have any skills, I didn’t have anything. And well, I told you what it took to get me out of there.” Liam reached for her hand across the table and pulled it to him.

“I’m sorry Rox. I’m sorry you had to go through that and none of it was your fault.” She gave him a stiff nod.

“And none of what happened with your step-mom was yours either. You were a kid.” If he was going to tell her none of it was her fault, then he guessed the same would have to go for him. He gave her a sad nod back and she reached across the table to rest her palm against his cheek.

“I guess we’re both pretty screwed up by things that happened to us in the past that weren’t our fault.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, leaning into her hand and bringing his up to caress it.

“I’m tired. Do you want to go to bed now?”

“Yeah, let’s go to bed.” He held her hand in his and led her through the house, to the bedroom, turning off the lights as they went. She sat on the end of the bed and he pulled off her boots.

“I’m going to take a shower, okay?”

“I’ll get things ready for you when you come out.” That had been close. He’d been so close to losing her. The file sat on the kitchen table and he wanted to chuck it into the ocean. He cursed himself for making her relive those painful memories. Hadn’t she been through enough?

“Okay,” she said, walking into the bathroom. The shower turned on and he could hear the water splashing. Going over to her drawers in the closet, he pulled out a t-shirt and some pajama pants and laid them out on her side of the bed for her.

Her side. It was amazing how quickly sharing this place with her seemed like second nature. He could only hope that he hadn’t screwed things up by letting his own insecurities drive a wedge between them.