rise of emotion in her. I would have respected him for it if I wasn’t an inch away from turning him inside out.
“This ends,” I commanded, addressing Jett. “Whatever it is, it stops before you both end up under Catherine’s thumb. Because if you think I’m bad, you have no idea what she’ll do to you.”
Georgie shook her head at me, her face shifting from rage to bald anguish. “Fuck you,” she said, the words trembling, soft. But they cut all the same.
I watched her take Jett’s hand, he and I leveling each other as they passed me. When they reached the mouth of the hallway, she turned and met my eyes.
“You’re not stopping me. Not this time, Liam. This time, it’s all me.”
A heartbeat, and she was gone.
I stared at that empty space for a long time, the distant thump of bass the only sound. I’d walked through the door tonight in control, but when I sank onto a stack of cases of beer and dropped my head into my hands, I had none. Not over my sister. Not over Laney or Wickham. Not over anything in my life that mattered or meant anything.
I’d lost it all.
And I didn’t know how I’d get it back.
18
Hello, Goodbye
LANEY
I’d never wished for a hangover more than I did that morning.
At least if I’d had a hangover, there would have been a chance I wouldn’t remember last night. And if I’d happened to remember, at least my outsides would’ve matched my insides, which by all accounts were miserable.
When Liam had looked at me with such contempt in his eyes and told me what a fool I was, the pain and humiliation hit me like an open palm. Even though I believed he was wrong about what he’d said to me—and how he’d said it—the truth of what he thought of me hurt so much worse than I could have imagined. Maybe because something had shifted between us over the last week, and the tilt had slid me in his direction. Maybe because I’d caught a glimpse of something in him I wanted to unearth.
Maybe because I wanted him to see something more in me.
But I was a fool, and he was omnipotent—same as it ever was.
I left the second Liam gave me his back, too upset to pretend. Too proud to let anyone see my angry tears. Too wounded for anything but retreat.
I’d just washed my face for bed when the door opened, and Jett and Georgie tumbled in, wrapped up in each other like frantic flames. I’d stopped in the hallway, blinking at them to make sure of what I was seeing. They were well into the room before they noticed me and parted, panting. After a brief overview of what Liam had done, they excused themselves, taking off hand in hand for his bedroom.
And I went to mine with a fresh wave of fury at Darcy.
I’d wished I’d been drunk enough to pass out then too.
But I wasn’t. Emotion had sharpened me to a razor’s edge as I imagined the scene. Liam in a rage. Jett in defense. Georgie between them. I was surprised no one had thrown a punch—as angry as Liam had been about Wyatt, I suspected he had more steam behind him than Jett and Georgie had built on their own. I wanted to believe some of his blowup on Jett had been misplaced, and maybe a bit of it was. But Darcy had been openly defied, and by my encouragement.
Which meant at least some of this mess was my fault.
What little sleep I got was plagued with anxiety dreams. In one, I was trying to get to the airport, but I kept forgetting things. Like my passport. Then my tickets, because in my dream, there was apparently no such thing as the internet. In another, I couldn’t get to the De Bourgh offices for a meeting with Liam. Something was always in my way—a train broke down on the tracks, a traffic jam stopped my cab indefinitely, lights wouldn’t turn green so I could cross the street, my shoes broke. Not one—both heels snapped like chopsticks within five steps of each other.
Between bursts of sleep, I’d tossed and turned, my brain clicking on the instant I rolled over. My thoughts had cycled on a loop, starting with how happy Georgie and Jett had looked despite the fight with Liam. Wyatt showing up at the party, Liam confronting him. Liam dancing with me. Liam telling me I was