Chapter six

Liam's POV

 The sun was up, and the bed felt strange under me; Evelyn's face kept coming back. Those photos, a man's hand on her waist. I sat up and rubbed my face hard. I had not slept much, and I did not want to. Cherry walked in with coffee, and she smiled at me like nothing in the world was wrong.

"You look terrible," she said. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Not really." I took the cup. "I need to go home and get ready for work." She sat on the bed beside me.

"You don't have to go back there, not after what she did."

I honestly wished I did not have to go, but i had a company to run. "I have a board meeting at noon." I stood up and set the cup down. "I need my files and a change of clothes .

I won't be long."Cherry walked me to the car in her robe and kissed my cheek. "Come back tonight," she said. "I'll cook." I almost smiled, but the anger was still there, sitting in my chest like a stone.

I drove home with the windows down and the radio off. The house was quiet when I walked in; the maids stepped out of my way without a word. I went up the stairs two at a time and got ready for work. I did not look at her side of the bed; I did not see her and never wanted to. Every time her name came into my head, it came with those photographs and the sound of my friends laughing.

***

By noon I was at my desk with my jacket off and my sleeves rolled up. The boardroom was already full when I walked in. Twelve board members sat around the long black table, and every one of them turned to look at me.

"Liam." Mr. Jade, the oldest of them, smiled and shook my hand. "Good timing. We were just talking about your wife."

I put my folder down. "Why?" I asked with a staright face.

"The Beijing deal," he said. "She did that. All of it. I have been in this business for thirty years, and I have never seen numbers like that."

"She's the best we have," said Mrs. Lang from across the table. "The Tokyo buyers called again this morning, and they only want to work with her. She speaks the language of shoes and money at the same time." of course it is the only thing she was good at and besides its her job.

"She single-handedly opened the Milan market," another man said. "We should be paying her twice what we pay her."

I sat down and opened my folder. "Good," I said. "That's good." But I was not hearing them. Not really. Under the table, my phone was on my knee, and my thumb kept resting on it. Cherry would be at the studio by now. She liked to work with the windows open, and she hummed when she sketched; I wondered if she had eaten.

The meeting went on for an hour. Numbers, new markets, praise for Evelyn, over and over. I nodded in the right places and wrote one word on my pad and circled it. Cherry. "I don't think we need her in the room," I said at one point, and everyone stopped. "She doesn't need to be here for every little thing." No one answered. Mr. Jade cleared his throat and moved on to shipping costs.

I did not notice that her chair was empty and how the room felt smaller without her, or that her name had been on every page of the reports in front of me.. The only thought, I had when somebody said "Evelyn," was she is a cheat, and I moved on to the next line.

Back in my office, I loosened my tie and sat behind my desk. The empty chair in front of it still had a folder on it, unopened, with a small note on top. I did not read it. My phone buzzed. Cherry.

"Liam.” Her voice came out broken and thin. "Liam, please. Please come. She's here. Evelyn is here, and she attacked me. She's crazy, Liam. There's glass, and I'm bleeding. I'm so scared. Please."

I was already standing. "Don't move, don't touch anything. I'm coming." I took the stairs down because the elevator felt too slow and drove fast, out onto Fifth, I passed two traffic lights I should have stopped at. 

My hands were tight on the wheel, and all I could hear was her voice. Cherry, scared and bleeding. The private elevator took forever. I knocked, then I pushed the door open. "Cherry! Cherry, where are you?"

"In here." Her voice was small.

I came around the corner, and my eyes went to her first. Cherry, on the white floor, her arm pressed to her chest, blood on her hands and on the sleeve of her dress. There was broken glass by the table. Her coffee cup lay on its side. She had been crying. I could see it on her face.

Then I saw the rest of it. Evelyn was against the table with her hand on her stomach. Her face was pale, and she was holding her middle. There was blood under her, on the floor, spreading in a thin red pool.

"Liam," she said. "Liam, help me. The baby." I looked at her and did not move.

All I could remember at that point was fourteen years ago; the classroom was full of smoke. I remember my shoulder on the door, the wood not giving, the heat pressing on my back. I remembered the voices outside going quiet, and then one voice close to my ear. 

Her voice, calm. "Close your eyes. Cover your nose. Count with me." I never saw her face. A bracelet brushed my wrist, and then someone pulled the fire door open and dragged me out into the light. In the hall, gasping, I turned to look, and I could not find her in the smoke.

It was Cherry. I owe her everything. My life is not mine anymore. It belongs to the girl who went back inside for a boy she did not even know. "Liam," Evelyn said again. Her voice was shaking now. "I didn't do this; I didn't hurt anyone. Please, help me."

I looked at Cherry on the floor with blood on her hands, and I made my choice; it was not even a choice. It was the only thing I had to do for the woman who saved me. I knelt and slid my arms under her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and put her face against my shoulder.

"I've got you," I said. "You're going to be fine." She lifted her head just enough to look past me, over my shoulder. I did not need to see her face. At the door, Evelyn called after us, one word at a time, like her breath was running out. 

"Liam, please don't leave me here."

I did not turn around I carried Cherry into my car with her head on my shoulder, and her hand was warm where it held my shirt.