Page 40 of The Marriage Playbook

“Yeah, well, I’ve been pretty naive.” He shook his head. “I would have thought…I don’t know. I wouldn’t have expected you to act like this, knowing I just lost the one thing that matters most to me in the world. I know you’re my publicist, but I thought you were also…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

“Liam, I don’t know what you want from me,” Cara whispered. “I’m trying to fix it.”

“I just thought you’d care more,” he said, his voice low. “I thought you’d quit trying to be a professional about it at a time like this, and just…care more.”

He got to his feet and made his way toward the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked him.

“For a walk,” he said. “I need to think.”

She shouldn’t ask. She knew she shouldn’t. The words were like rocks in her mouth. But… “Are you going to a bar?”

He stood stock-still. The tension in his back hurt her to look at. He didn’t turn to face her.

“I’ll tell you what, Cara,” he said wearily. “I promise I won’t make it your problem, okay? Whatever I do tonight, you won’t get any calls. You won’t even hear about it. You’ve got enough on your resume from me already.”

“Liam, wait…”

But the door was open and he was walking through it, and then he was gone.

The room was colder, suddenly. Cara shivered. She turned and looked back at the bed, which was probably still warm from their bodies. It would be so comfortable to get back into it.

But it would feel like she was choking, too. Because they had been happy there. Because they had been blissful and beautiful and…

In love.

They hadn’t said those words to one another.

They probably never would, now.

She didn’t know what to do. They had to come up with some sort of plan, but Liam didn’t seem like he was ever going to come around to that idea. And in the meantime, the thought of staying in his bedroom made her sick.

Should I even be in his house? He seems so angry at me. Will he want to see me here at all?

She couldn’t leave, she decided. That would create a PR nightmare, and she couldn’t do that without even speaking to him about it.

Besides, she didn’t want to go. It hurt to even imagine it.

She’d go back to her own room, she decided. She would stay there until he came for her. Which he would, eventually. Sooner or later, he would realize this wouldn’t be solved until they talked.

He would come to her.

Please, let him come to me. Let him understand.

CHAPTER 20

LIAM

Liam lasted nearly twelve hours before finding his way to a bar.

He sat at the barstool, drink in hand, letting the ambient noise wash over him and remembering the last few times he’d been in an establishment like this one. If he got himself kicked out of this one, he wouldn’t call Cara, that was for sure. The last thing he wanted was to give her an opportunity to gloat about how right she had been and that he needed her guidance. I’ve never needed her. I’m worse off than I was when I started thanks to her interference—worse off by a lot. If I’d just waited, I’ll bet the whole thing would have blown over all by itself.

The Stingers had always been wrong to eject him from the team. He’d known that, and by now they would surely have figured it out. They had probably been testing him to see if he could keep his name out of the headlines for a few days. If that was what the point of all this had been, he’d failed completely. He had failed the moment he had engaged a publicist in the first place.

He took a long swig of his drink.