Once Upon A Friendship

There was no moral obligation to tell them he’d been disinherited. Their investment, backed by the trust which his father couldn’t touch, was completely safe. If he was truly going to stand up and take control of his life, he had to do this on his own. A part of Liam eased at the thought. Leaning on no one meant that no one could yank the rug out from under his feet. The loss of a job, of a fancy home, were worth that freedom.

He was going to be someone people leaned on. Starting with Gabi and Marie.

“I’ll pay for the renovations,” he told them. For instance, he wasn’t going to need two kitchens. The idea was growing on him. He’d make one kitchen an office. Or maybe one of the four bedrooms should be used for that purpose. Truth was, he had no idea what he was going to do with the space. He just knew he wanted it.

More and more with every minute that passed.

He didn’t feel quite as desperate anymore.

“And another thing,” he added, nodding as he looked first at one and then the other. “I’ve decided to give myself one year to make it as a writer. I’m going to devote myself to full-time writing. And if, at the end of the year, I’m not self-supporting, I’ll go back into finance.”

“Your father agreed to that?” Marie’s shock was evident. Liam looked at Gabrielle. Expecting—he didn’t know what. Doubt, maybe? Concern, certainly. She always saw the risks.

And saw through him, too.

She was staring at him, and for once he couldn’t tell at all what she was thinking.

“You don’t think I can do it.” Why he said the words, he didn’t know. Didn’t much matter what she thought. His life was unfolding before him, one wilted petal at a time.

“When are you moving in?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

She nodded. And he figured she knew his father had disowned him.

“If you need any help unpacking, I’ll be home after four.”

Chin jutting, hands in his pockets, he nodded.

“Tomorrow? Before the renovations?” Marie asked.

“We signed the papers today because it’s the end of the month and that worked out best financially,” Gabrielle said before Liam could think of a believable explanation. “Liam’s expenses run month to month as well, I’m sure.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Not that I paid rent, of course, but the association fee will come due tomorrow...” The twelve hundred a month he paid for his share of the doorman and upkeep of the communal facilities.

Marie looked at them for a minute. And then she nodded, too. Something was going on. They all knew it. And somehow had just agreed to leave it alone.

They talked a couple more minutes. Marie offered to make dinner for the three of them the next night, since Liam would be busy getting settled. And then she was called out to help with a rush up front and was gone.

“Are you okay?” Gabi didn’t move from her seat at the desk. So why did he feel as though she’d hugged him—and like the feeling? Was he really that pathetic? That he needed a hug because his daddy was mad at him?

“I am okay.” Surprisingly, he was. “It’s past time, my doing this.”

She studied him a long minute longer. “Okay, then,” she said, glancing back down at her papers. Not dismissing him. Just going on with life as though everything was normal.

So he turned to go. Because it was what he would have done the day before. The week before. The year before.

“Liam?”

Hearing his name, he turned back. Looked at her.

“Good to have you in the partnership,” she said. Her gaze, her voice, was completely calm. Serious. And filled with something else, too. Something new. Something he needed. And something they were never going to talk about.

“Good to be here.”

He smiled. So did she.

And his new life had begun.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_9649288f-3eb6-5a12-9c1d-cdaf7075c643)

GABRIELLE HOPED THAT Liam would talk to her about his father. After so many years of being half of his sounding board, she was concerned about his silence on a move so bold. Which was why she’d left work early the day after Threefold’s big purchase to help him move in. And why she’d decided to stay and help him unpack after Marie left to take the dinner leftovers to Alice in 409, who’d had knee replacement surgery.

He didn’t mention his father at all.

She found reasons to run into him every day that first week of his residency in their building—an easy enough feat, considering that they’d just gone into business partnership and there were a lot of decisions to make, regarding the order of tasks the old building needed them to complete.

All three of them agreed that the elevator was priority one. They wanted its historical value preserved but needed it to be dependable and safe. Liam knew which historic renovation company to hire and even obtained a quote at 40 percent off the going rate.

A day passed, then six, and still he hadn’t mentioned his father.

He’d written a couple of human interest stories, though. One regarding an incident that had happened that week outside a yoga studio close to their building, a near abduction. He’d heard the call on a new scanner he’d purchased, had been on the scene and had sold his story all within a matter of hours.

“I made a whole fifty dollars,” he’d told Gabi when she stopped up to see him after work the Monday following his move. He was brimming with something she’d never seen in him before.

Pride, maybe? Not that he’d ever been lacking in that department. But...this was different.

He wasn’t the same old Liam he’d always been. She loved the old Liam. He was family to her.

And yet, the difference was... Well, she didn’t know.

“I’ve been watching the site,” she told him, standing there in the arch between his kitchen and dining table, leaning on the wall. “Marie sent me the link. Your article’s the headliner.”

“Yeah, it’s had thousands of hits. But when it’s a hundred thousand I’ll get excited,” he told her. His grin was different, too. It made her stomach jump.

Shaking her head, Gabi asked him about the editor of the independent news site who’d published him, June Fryburg—a local woman he’d sold travel stories to in the past. She wasn’t making millions, but she was making a living. And she believed that if Liam turned his focus to human interest, with his ability to see inside the story to the honest emotions that made everything come alive, he could be the one who took her to the big leagues.

Gabrielle wanted to ask what was going on with his father. But she didn’t.

And he didn’t say. He’d never not said before.

Maybe that was why she didn’t just ask. She’d been awake in the middle of the night two nights that week—concerned about Liam. And glad that he was living upstairs.

It wasn’t until that Wednesday, when Marie called her at the office to tell her that someone from the FBI had just been in the coffee shop and asked to see Liam, that Gabrielle’s reticence ended. Finishing up with her last client—a divorced woman with three children who needed help with child custody enforcement—Gabi packed up for the day, slung her bulging soft-sided briefcase over her shoulder and locked her office door.

She didn’t stop to say goodbye to anyone and sped home as fast as Denver traffic allowed. She wanted to get to Liam before the agents left. To invoke his right to counsel, just in case. Liam tended to think that everything was going to be fine. He didn’t always take things as seriously as Gabrielle knew he should.

And...he was hers. Hers and Marie’s. They looked out for him whenever he was around. And now that they had him full-time again—for the first time in more than a decade—she felt...extra responsible. At least until he settled in.