Twice In A Lifetime

She was going to see all the things she missed out on by choosing Sam. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Her head snapped up to meet his gaze. “I have a return flight booked. I need to get to the airport.”

“Cancel it.”

“I can’t cancel it. I can’t afford to change my flight. I can’t even afford this flight.”

“Lucky I have a private jet.”

“Congratulations. I have a mortgage I can’t afford and a cat that won’t stop peeing on my carpet. I guess you win,” she shouted over her shoulder as she made her way for the door.

“If you leave now, I won’t help Sam.” It was blackmail and he was not above it.

She dropped her case and spun around on her heel. “You said you would. You are many things, but you have never been a liar.”

“It has been a long time—you have no idea what I am capable of. You didn’t expect to come in, demand I help your tearaway friend, and then leave again. Oh, I can see by your face you did. That’s not the way things work here in the real world. If you want me to help him, you will stay until it’s done.”

“I can’t afford to take any more time off work. I have service users—”

“Make time. Life is about choices, Sarah. Stay and I help Sam or go and see what justice the Emiratis have in store for him.”

She looked him square in the eyes; defiance flashed in their aquamarine depths. “Why? Why do you want me to stay?”

Liam let out a breath. Sarah was here. After a decade of wondering where she was and what she was doing, she was here with him. And he wasn’t ready to let her go again, not yet. Ten years had passed but the emotion was still there, as raw and palpable as ever, all the hurt, all the anger, all the betrayal. And all the passion. He just needed a few days with her, maybe a week. She wasn’t the only one who needed closure.

Christ, why did he want her to stay? Because he wanted her to see what life could have been, because he wanted to punish her, because the idea of helping Sam made his skin crawl, or maybe because, even though he could never have her, he never stopped wanting her?

No, it was because this time when she left, he wanted to be able to close the door for good. He wasn’t going to waste any more of his life chasing ghosts. “Because nothing in life is free.”

“I can’t stay.”

“I already told you, I would let you use my company’s jet.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then? Is there someone waiting for you in Edinburgh? Do you have a boyfriend?”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend. I have real responsibilities. I think you can understand that.” She gestured to the large office space that lay just outside his door. “I have people that need me. I have my work. I have Dave. I have—”

“You just said you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Dave’s my cat,” she said.

“Of course he is. Christ, Sarah, you sound like a spinster. You can’t go away for a week because you have a cat. Can you hear yourself?”

“Yes, I can hear myself. Can you hear yourself? You don’t even sound Scottish any more.”

“Thank you.”

“It is not a compliment,” she said.

“I don’t think speaking properly is an insult.”

“You don’t speak properly any more. You sound English.”

“Because I went to university in Cambridge. This is what you would expect me to sound like.”

“Well, good thing I didn’t go, then,” she bit out.

The colour was intensifying in her cheeks, going from pink to an angry scarlet. It had always been her tell; she wore her emotions. “If your goal was to spend your life in the gutter, then, yes, it was a good thing you turned down your place at Cambridge.”

She balled her hands into fists. “I turned down my place at Cambridge because my friend, no, our friend needed us. But you left and never looked back.”

It was his turn to be angry. She made it sound as if he abandoned her. “Is that the way you really see it, Sarah? Because if you do you are remembering someone else’s life. That is not how things went down. Let me remind you how it really went. We worked our asses off to get places at Cambridge. We had our lives mapped out and then you chickened out at the last minute. Sam was an excuse. You never had any intention of leaving.”

Sarah took a deep breath. She tapped her foot and silently counted to ten in an attempt to control her rising anger. “How dare you? I would have left but someone needed to be there for Sam.”

“Why did it have to be you? Why do you always have to rescue people?”

“Because I don’t see anyone else queuing up for the job. First sign of weakness from Sam and you cut him off, the same you did with me.”

Liam grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. “I am not the one who jumped ship, sweetheart. That was all you. You turned your back on us.”

She didn’t pull away; it had been so long since Liam touched her, and she didn’t care if it was only anger fuelling him. She could feel his hot breath against her. Somewhere in there was her Liam. She needed to see him again, any small part, to prove to herself she had not imagined it. “I didn’t turn my back on us. I turned down my place at Cambridge. There is a big difference.”

“No, there isn’t. We had a life planned and you gave up on it.”

“It’s all or nothing with you, isn’t it, Liam?”

“Yes. And you could have had it all too.”

She shook her head. No, she couldn’t. Liam had left. He was always going to leave; she shouldn’t have been surprised. That was what men did, after all. She’d thought he was different, but it turned out her mum was right: men were all the same. “Look, Liam, I am tired and hungry and more than a little annoyed. I just want to get home to my bed.”

“I can’t help with the annoyed, but as luck would have it I have food and a bed. It all came with the new accent, package deal.”

The sound of a bed, his bed, made her stomach do a back flip. She needed to get away before she did something stupid like start to believe sharing his bed was a good idea. “I can’t just leave Dave.” It sounded pathetic even to her but entirely plausible given her lack of social life.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Make another excuse. Call whoever you left in charge of your cat and tell them you will be home in a week.”

“I didn’t—”

He cut her off again. “Don’t lie again, Sarah. It really doesn’t suit you. We both know you would never leave any creature unattended. You’re a bleeding heart—even the thought of someone in distress upsets you. You will have given someone a key just in case you were held up and didn’t get your flight back.”

He was right but she was not going to admit it. “Fine. Dave is fine. I just don’t want to spend any more time with you.” The truth was she wanted to spend as much time as she could with him, and that was what scared her. Despite his harshness, she could already feel her heart opening to him, searching for the connection that had been severed too many years ago. Spending any more time with Liam would be too painful.