Chapter 9
I lowered my gaze, burying every emotion deep in my throat, hiding it in my voice.
I gently pried his fingers apart, slipping my hand free.
When I looked up again, my expression was indifferent.
“I forgot.”
I lied.
The truth was, even during my years abroad, I often thought of Liam, especially that winter when he was nineteen, right before he returned to the Hughes family.
That had been the peak of our time together.
Winters in the north were brutally dry–so dry that every kiss sent tiny sparks of static between us, little stings against our lips.
I thought about telling him the truth.
There were so many moments when the feeling was overwhelming, when he would kiss me softly, voice hoarse as he whispered against my ear, “Linda, Linda, don’t leave me.”
It was like a bucket of ice water poured over me.
In that instant, it always hit me.
From the very beginning, I came to him with an unspeakable secret, stepping into someone else’s place.
Liam once told me, “When I was a kid, my cousin locked me in a closet. I nearly died in there. If there’s one thing I hate most in this world, it’s being lied to.”
If he ever found out the truth… would he hate me just as much?
On the eve of Liam’s twentieth birthday, the truth came out anyway.
The Hughes family patriarch fell gravely ill, and in the midst of it all, he accidentally uncovered what happened back then.
From the very beginning, Liam was set up.
Even the car accident had been orchestrated.
