INICIAR SESIÓNPreston looked at Liam and waved one hand with the idle authority of a man who has decided the topic is closed."Forget my problems." He dropped back into the chair. "Let's talk about yours. When are you going to go get your wife?"Liam's gaze stayed on the window. The city. The ten thousand lights that were easier to look at than anything else right now."I'll figure it out.""That's not an answer.""It's the only one I have."Preston studied him — the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hand pressed flat against the glass, the particular stillness of a man who has run himself into a wall and is still deciding whether to try to climb it or just stand there."You were insufferable, you know," Preston said. "When you first got together. Walking around like you'd invented happiness. Made the rest of us want to push you into traffic." He paused. "And now you're standing at a window at midnight like something out of a Victorian
"He accused you of what?"Chloe is sitting cross-legged on the guest bed, staring at Allie with an expression that suggests she has just heard something so absurd it physically offended her."You and Adam," Allie says flatly. "He thinks there's something between me and Adam."Silence."Adam Hart," Chloe says carefully. "His nephew.""Yes.""The one who was just discharged from the hospital.""Yes.""With broken ribs. From saving your life.""Chloe—""Has Liam Hart lost his actual mind?" Chloe puts both hands flat on the bed. "Like — genuinely. I want to understand the cognitive pathway that takes she visited him in the hospital and arrives at something is happening. That's not a misunderstanding, Allie, that's a malfunction."And somehow, despite everything — despite the bus bench and the tear tracks and the cold-lit horror of
Preston Whitmore.Allie stares at him and the pieces rearrange themselves so fast she almost gets dizzy.Liam's best friend. The one who showed up at his birthday with three bottles of single malt and a story that kept the table laughing for an hour. The one who Liam trusts the way you trust someone you've known long enough to have survived things together.That man is standing at the top of Chloe's staircase in a gray robe with damp hair and an expression that has just gone from possessive-toward-Chloe to completely blindsided-by-Allie in under three seconds."Sister-in-law?" he says again, like maybe he misidentified her the first time."Hi, Preston." Her voice comes out surprisingly level. "Didn't expect to find you here.""I could say the same." His eyes move to her face — reading her the way men who are good at reading people do, fast and comprehensive and landing on the parts that hurt. "You're alone."Not a quest
"You live here?"Allie stares at the building in front of her — different entrance, different unit, same complex — and then at Chloe, who has her key out and her expression arranged into something carefully neutral."I told you I was married," Chloe says."You told me you were waiting to get divorced.""Both things can be true."Allie opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks at the building again. "You live ten steps from my husband's front door and you didn't think to mention this?""You've been busy." Chloe pushes the door open. "Come inside."The Ashwood is the kind of building that was sold before the first brick went down — developers calling future owners before construction, asking for preferences, building every unit to spec. Every apartment is different. Intentional. Personal.Liam's is clean lines and low drama, the aesthetic of a man who finds visual noise exhausting.Chloe'
She makes it two full blocks before the tears come.She doesn't mean them to. She has been fine — she has been walking in a straight line with her chin up and her hands steady and she has been absolutely fine — and then she hits the bus stop and her legs just stop working, and she sits down on the bench, and everything she's been holding together for the last two weeks stops holding.The city moves past her. Cabs, pedestrians, a couple sharing earphones outside a restaurant. The ordinary machinery of a Tuesday night completely indifferent to the fact that she is sitting on a bus bench in the dark, crying, because her husband has decided she's a person she's never been.She presses the heel of her hand against her mouth.Don't.She breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She has survived things that were worse than this. She has survived Cher. She has survived a forum post and a rigged scaffold an
She storms back into the house.Liam is right behind her.They make it to the hallway outside the bedroom before the argument finds its voice — not loud, not theatrical, but worse: the low, compressed fury of two people who have been holding this particular grenade for two weeks and have finally run out of hands to hold it with."You had no right—""I had every right—""He's been through enough—""You don't get to tell me what my nephew has been through—"The hallway light catches the edge of Liam's jaw, the set of it, the absolute unyielding certainty of a man who has decided he's right and has built a wall around it.It makes her want to put her fist through that wall.Then footsteps.Elizabeth appears at the end of the corridor, reading the situation in half a second with those sharp, perceptive eyes of hers. She looks between them — Allie rigid with fury, Liam sealed shut &m
Robert Hart leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping rhythmically against the polished wood of his desk. His sharp eyes settled on the two sitting across from him. “I just spoke with David Brooks. Now that the marriage certificate has been signed, we should move forward with the wedding as soon as
AllisonVivian was just fishing.Tossing bait into still waters, hoping for chaos to bite back.But what she hadn’t expected—what none of us had expected—was how fiercely Liam would defend me. Even now, I could still hear his voice echoing at the dinner table, clear and resolute: "That guy was neve
Scarlett Renwick stood off to the side, arms folded tightly beneath her chest, that signature smirk curling her lips like she was permanently entertained. “He’s in the lounge. Alone. And from what I heard,” she added, her voice dipped in amusement, “even his assistant barely made it out alive.”I d
“Oh? An actor confessed to you, and you turned him down?”“I don’t like him.”Allie could barely breathe. Liam’s gaze burned through her, dark and unreadable.He tilted his head slightly, studying her. “You’re sure?”Her heart pounded. “Yes.”Liam leaned in, his voice a whisper against her lips. “G







