Waking Kiss (28 page)

All of Monday I vacillated. I couldn’t reach Liam’s dad directly, and I couldn’t reach Mem for advice without possibly running into Liam. I wasn’t ready for that confrontation yet. I wanted to know about these demons, about this Eric thing Mem had dangled in front of me. My curiosity eventually got the best of me, and I headed to Knightsbridge on Tuesday, to talk to a man I didn’t even know.

Damn Liam. These were my free days, and I was spending them tracking down answers that might, just might, fix the disconnect between us. Then again, they might not. All the way to Ironclad’s offices, I fought the urge to turn tail and run home.
He helped you. Maybe you can help him.
I remembered Liam as I’d seen him last, enraged, grappling with Rubio, yelling at me to get out. I looked up at the high-rise where the offices were located, steeled myself, and walked to the elevators in the lobby. No one questioned me, no one stopped me.

Halfway to the twenty-fourth floor I realized that I wasn’t just heading to his father’s place of work, but Liam’s too. I knew he normally worked from home, but what if he happened to be here today? I’d have to play it off and pretend I’d come here to see him. It struck me then, how very much I wanted to see him, even with all the confusion between us, and the way we’d parted ways.

Bolstered by that thought, I entered the double doors to Ironclad’s impressive headquarters. The entire back wall was a sheet of security glass. Two male receptionists looked up from behind a long, sturdy-looking edifice that I supposed was a desk. Wait. Were they receptionists or security guards?

“Can I help you?” asked the one closest to me.

“I’m a— I’m a friend of Mr. Wilder’s. Uh, Ronan Wilder, not Liam,” I added quickly.

The man was clean cut, blond and short-haired, in a suit. He gave me a tight smile. “Is he expecting you?”

“Yes,” I lied. The other guy watched me. I could tell they both knew I was full of shit. I backtracked, stammering in embarrassment. “N-no. Well. I just need a moment of his time. He’ll want to see me.” They looked at each other. I had a sinking feeling I was about to be thrown out. “Please, just ask him. Ask if he has a moment to see me. My name is Ashleigh Keaton.”

The first one stood and I waited to be shown the door, but instead he went to one of the office doors behind him. He gave me a look that let me know he was definitely doing me a favor. “One moment, please.”

“Thank you,” I said in relief. I waited, wondering who was checking me out from behind the glass. I was dressed in my version of professional, non-troublemaker, office-type wear, which was black slacks and a pale blue sweater with a silk scarf. It had taken me twenty minutes to get the scarf to look right. Dancers didn’t wear these things.

The door opened again, and Blond Security Guy emerged with another gentleman. Oh shit, I was in trouble. This couldn’t be Liam’s dad. The man was short, maybe 5’ 6”, with ruddy pale skin and a stocky frame. He moved toward me to apprehend me—but then he smiled and held out his hand. “Miss Keaton. What a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Ronan Wilder.”

Or, maybe it could be his dad. “Mr. Wilder,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment. If you’re busy—”

“I’m not busy. I have some time, if you don’t mind joining me for lunch?”

“Um. Sure. I mean, thank you.” I followed him back through the door, into a maze of cubicles and desks. “Is Liam here?”

Mr. Wilder looked over his shoulder at my anxious tone. “Am I to understand this is a hush-hush operation?” I didn’t see any of Liam in Mr. Wilder’s appearance, but I heard him in the man’s dry humor and the casual lilt of his voice.

“Sort of hush-hush,” I said.

“Well, don’t worry. He’s not here at the moment.” Mr. Wilder ushered me into a large corner office. I was momentarily distracted from my mission by the panoramic city view.

“We, uh…” I stared in awe at the floor-to-ceiling windows. They were even bigger than the window-wall in Rubio’s loft. “We recently had a break up. Well…” I turned to him, determined to be honest. “Me and Liam were never really together. But we were close.”

Mr. Wilder gestured me toward a spread of take-out containers on his desk—grilled salmon, rice, and oriental-style green beans. “Please, help yourself. They always order too much.” He handed me a plate and I took a little bit of everything, then seated myself in a nearby chair.

“I knew you were close,” he said once he set about serving himself. “I mean, Liam mentioned you to me, more than once. He seemed concerned about you.”

I looked up at him with a green bean hanging out of my mouth. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. Or rather, as little as possible, which is why I grew curious. He did tell me you’re a dancer.”

“Yes. We met through a mutual friend. Fernando Rubio.”

“I know Ruby,” he said. “And I know Mem, who told me you might be visiting. I’m actually very close to my son.”

I pushed rice around with my fork, spearing it with some fish. “I was wondering if you could answer some questions about him for me.”

“It depends,” he said. “Do you love Liam?”

The question was blunt and direct. So was my answer. “I’m here, aren’t I?” We faced each other across the desk. “I love him, Mr. Wilder, but I’m not sure I know who he is. Mem told me his real name is Eric.”

Mr. Wilder nodded. “His name was Eric once. Not anymore.” He picked up his plate and brought it around the desk to the chair beside me. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Water, if you have it.”

He brought me a bottle of Evian and cracked open a Diet Coke for himself. “I suppose it would be best to start at the beginning. I’m not Liam’s real father, but I’m the only father he’s ever known. I adopted him, legally, when he was twelve. I was working as a cop in south L.A. at the time. Tough beat, tough streets. I responded one night to a six-person homicide. Five children dead, and one mother, and one living child hiding behind the sofa with a gun. Liam was that child.”

I almost choked on a mouthful of salmon. “He— He shot them?”

“Liam shot his mother,” Mr. Wilder said. “But it was in self-defense. Liam’s mother had six children by six different fathers. She struggled with illiteracy, drugs, mental illness, you know the story. And being poor, this whole family of children slipped through the cracks.” His expression darkened. “Back then Liam was Eric, and he was the oldest. He went to school when he could, when he wasn’t helping with his siblings. Somewhere along the line—not from his mother—he learned morality and compassion. From the age of seven or eight, he pretty much parented the five younger kids, and his mother too. Perhaps you’ve experienced his obsession with caring for others.”

I nodded, my chest heavy with emotion. I’d experienced it firsthand.

“His mother was never the most stable influence, and after the last baby, she developed serious post-partum depression. What we know of that night, we know through neighbors, forensic evidence, and what Liam told us. I took that report.” He stopped a moment, as if to collect himself. “To make a long story short, his mother decided she was going to leave this world and take all of them with her. She started with the baby, a gunshot to the head. She shot all of them, youngest to oldest, while Liam pleaded with her to stop. He blames himself, you know,” he said, looking at me. “To this day, he believes he could have saved them somehow. After all, he was their parent. They depended on him for everything.”

I put down my plate. My throat was too tight to eat anyway, and tears pricked behind my eyes. “He never told me any of this.”

“He never tells anyone. He’ll be angry that I told you. At any rate, to complete the grisly tale, he was the last one in his mother’s crosshairs and he fought for his life.” Mr. Wilder leaned back in his chair, his lips flattening to a grim line. “Obviously, he won.”

“My God,” I whispered.

“And then he hid behind the couch from the police. He thought he’d be blamed for her death, and for the deaths of his brothers and sisters.” Mr. Wilder closed his eyes a moment. “I can never describe to you what it was like to come upon that scene. It’s a horror no one should ever know. I left police work shortly afterward, started my own security business. And I adopted Liam. I couldn’t look into that child’s eyes and hand him over to the foster-care system, not after the life he’d lived. We left L.A. and moved to New York. Liam entered counseling, chose a new name, a good Irish name like mine, and started a new life. They were difficult years, don’t get me wrong. He struggled with his past, but I tried to keep him oriented toward the future. He was homeschooled because he couldn’t stand crowds, or other kids, or any relationships at all for many years, except for me, who he barely tolerated, and Mem, his teacher.”

“Oh. That’s why they’re so close.”

“Mem was a blessing, a godsend.” Mr. Wilder picked up his plate and started eating again. “He taught Liam academics, but he also tutored him in martial arts and self-defense. Liam needed a way to feel safe again. As for me, I tried to heal him emotionally. I tried to make the world seem like a sane place. As he grew older he became interested in my work, and with his instinct to protect, security was a natural career for him. We moved to London when Liam was twenty-one and went into business together. Within a couple years, Ironclad exploded, went worldwide. You know, Liam will protect a client like a rabid dog. He’ll protect anything weak or damaged, unless…” He sobered, studying me. “Unless it’s someone he loves. Or, let me put it this way. Liam does not allow himself to love anymore. Because, of course…” He spread a hand in a helpless gesture. “Look what happened last time.”

I sat in silence. All this time I’d thought myself the damaged, love-deprived child. Liam had watched the violent deaths of his siblings and then shot his own mother to save himself. The bleakness of it defeated me. I put my head in my hands.

“I know it’s a lot to process, Ashleigh. I know it’s horrible, nightmarish. I think he turned out pretty well, considering.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“I think what happened with you is that you got a little too close to his heart. Honestly, we’ve been waiting for this. Me, Mem, his stepmom, all of us who love him. We’ve been waiting for you. For someone capable of piercing that iron barrier of women and partying and stoicism and making him feel something.”

“I’m not that person.” I shook my head miserably. “I didn’t pierce that barrier. He pushed me away.”

“He’s survived so much. I’m sure he can survive love too, if someone forces him to do it. I’m sorry for all you’re going through, but there’s an opportunity here.”

I took a sip of water. I felt so confused, so overwhelmed at everything Mr. Wilder had revealed.

“I just…I can’t believe he hid all this from me,” I said.

“Do you feel angry? Betrayed?”

“No. I mean, I understand why he hid it. I feel awful that he went through all that. But he was the one…” I looked at Mr. Wilder. “He was the one who wouldn’t let me hide, the one who pressed me until I told him about the bad things that happened in my past. I exposed everything to him, really deep, dark secrets that I’d never told anyone else.”

“So Liam was the first person you confided in?”

“Yes.”

“Why him?”

I stared down at my plate. “Because he pushed me, I guess. And because I trusted him. I guess he was the first person who made me feel safe enough to do it.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Wilder said slowly, “you can be that person for him.”

I didn’t think about Ashleigh. I refused to. Instead, I plunged myself into work. Work and partying, my eternal shelters. I skulked around the play room Saturday night but chose not to play with anyone. Rubio wisely didn’t show up. Maybe he was with Ashleigh. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. Ruby knew when to hang around me and when to stay away, which was a key part of our friendship.

Because I couldn’t fucking stand him sometimes.

It wasn’t jealousy. I wasn’t jealous over Ashleigh or anything like that. It was manners. You didn’t fucking kiss girls during threesomes, not like that, and he knew it.

But Ruby was the least of my problems, and Ashleigh…she was past tense. I didn’t need complications like that in my life, not with a new office opening next month in Amsterdam and the ongoing clusterfuck in Washington, D.C. I had real shit to worry about. So I wasn’t pleased when, Monday at noon, my phone buzzed on my desk.

Little Ishi is here.

I glanced at the message, pushing down the sudden, crippling desire to see her. She was here. She was right downstairs.

I’m busy
, I typed.
Send her away.

I didn’t read the next text, or the third. When he texted the fourth time, I pushed back from my desk and headed for the stairs. I had no hard feelings toward Ashleigh, I just needed her to move on with her life so I could move on with mine. I found her with Mem in the living room, sitting on the couch in a cute little black and white dress. She had a pink rose in her lap, balanced across her knees. It pained me to look at it, just like it pained me to look at her, so I glared at Mem instead.

“I was working. I was right in the middle of something.”

“Ashleigh has come to see you.”

“Yeah, I got that. You texted me four fucking times.”

Rude. Very rude of me. I flicked a glance at Ash, pale and agitated beside him. Mem gave me a scathing look. “Why don’t I leave you two alone?” he said.

He touched her hand and stood to go. Neither of us said a word, even after the door closed behind him. Ashleigh fingered the stem in her lap while I sat in the chair across from her, leaning my head back with a sigh.

“I’m sorry I disturbed your work,” she finally said. “But I needed to see you. To talk to you. I wanted to bring you this.”

I didn’t take the rose when she held it out to me. I felt embarrassed for her. “Very nice gesture,” I said instead. “Great sense of symmetry you have.”

She put the rose on the couch beside her and pushed her hair behind her ears. She didn’t seem angry or offended by my coldness. No, there was something else in her gaze, some enduring tenderness. I needed to stomp out those tender feelings once and for all.