Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I should have stayed in Miami. They liked me there. No one accused me of lying or talked down to me. My chest didn’t feel like someone had punched their fist through it when I was there.
For almost eight years, I had lived in a house where I’d been beaten down, and when I was kicked out the door at eighteen, I’d sworn I’d never let that happen to me again.
Ozzy appeared at my side just as I opened the door to the bedroom, and I sighed, looking down at him. He probably thought we were playing chase. I let him follow me in before I closed the door. The first tear fell, and I let the rest go.
I had refused to cry over Liam ignoring me on a night that I had believed was going to be the beginning of something for us. But this accusation was too much. He had taken my already-wounded feelings and shown me just how much power he had over my emotions.
He had never asked me about my childhood or my parents. My past hadn’t seemed important to him. He thought he knew it all because of the things Selena had told him. He’d had no desire to find out from me. While Country had asked me all about my life, growing up. He knew more about me than the father of my child.
I dropped my head into my hands and let out a small sob.
Ozzy whimpered beside me, but I couldn’t reassure him. I needed to cry.
29
Liam
I stood at her door, listening to the sound of her sobbing. That wasn’t what I’d meant to do. It had all come out wrong, and I’d gotten so fucking pissed that she hadn’t seemed to give a shit about the death of her mother. Her not going to her mom’s funeral or grieving with her sister had seemed so unlike the woman I was getting to know. All the things Selena had claimed Liberty was didn’t match up to the friendly, charming person that she appeared to be.
My club adored her. All of them. Hell, Nina had teared up and hugged her tightly when we left. Then, there was Ozzy. He was in there with her now. Until Liberty, he’d never left my side for anyone other than Cree. Dogs were supposed to be better judges of character than humans.
The only factor here was Selena. Yeah, I had believed what she’d said because she was a well-respected doctor. She had it all, and Liberty didn’t. Wouldn’t an older sister tell the truth about her younger sibling? It seemed to me there had to be a lot of hurt caused by Liberty for Selena to dislike her so much.
Shit just didn’t make sense.
Listening to Liberty’s cries, however, was more than I could handle. I wanted her to stop. I liked it when she was smiling and laughing. This was brutal, and my own damn chest felt as if someone were stabbing me with each heartbreaking sound.
I started to knock, then changed my mind and turned the knob.
Pushing the door open, I took a step inside, then saw her on the bed, her face red and splotchy, lashes spiky from the tears. Her eyes lifted to meet mine, and she wiped at her cheeks with both hands, as if trying to hide the fact that she had been crying from me.
A deep growl snapped my attention from her, and I saw Ozzy standing at the corner of the bed, looking at me with disapproval. He’d never growled at me. That didn’t ease the way I was feeling. He was protecting her, which meant he trusted her over me.
I looked back at her as she crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes shifting toward the far wall and glaring at it. The tight line she was trying to make with her mouth didn’t mask the quivering of her bottom lip.
Dammit. What had I gotten wrong?
“You’re right,” I told her, but she didn’t stop glaring at the bare wall. “I don’t have a college education. I barely finished high school. The men I am closest to, the brothers I trust, none of them went to college. Hell, a few have even been in jail at some point.”
She sucked in her bottom lip to stop the tiny trembling it had been doing.
“I made a lot of unfair assumptions about you. Before I knew you were also the sexy bartender who I took to her motel room and had unbelievably spectacular sex with, you were just Selena’s sister, and she told me things about you that I took at face value. I saw no reason she’d lie about it. But I shouldn’t have labeled you like I did. I’m sorry.”
I stopped when her eyes finally swung back to me. The pretty honey-brown color shone with more unshed tears.