The mighty Quinns: Liam - By Kate Hoffmann Page 0,63
many ways he was far more dangerous—because he held her heart in his hands.
She’d thought about a future with Liam over and over during the past few weeks, but until now she hadn’t been faced with a decision. All of her instincts told her to walk away. The other men in her life had hurt her, but Liam Quinn had the capacity to shatter her into a million pieces. Ellie took a deep breath, gathering her resolve. Now was the time to leave, if she was ever going to leave at all. “I should get home,” she said, starting toward the door.
He followed after her, his long strides easily keeping up with hers. “Ellie, you’ve got to at least give me a chance here.”
“Why?”
He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers, pulling her to a stop. “I don’t know.” He paused. “Yes, I do. I need you, Ellie. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. And in between, I think about you a million times a day. I don’t know why I can’t get you out of my head, but it must mean something.”
“It does now,” Ellie said. “But believe me, it will fade. You’re a man. Sooner or later you’re going to feel compelled to move on.”
“Don’t lump me in with Ronald and all the others that have hurt you.”
“Why should I believe that you’re different?” Ellie asked, praying that he’d give her an answer she could believe.
“What if I loved you?” Liam asked.
Ellie sucked in a sharp breath and looked up into his eyes. She’d heard those words before and, in her experience, they usually signaled the end of a relationship rather than the beginning. Once a man said it, he believed that it gave him the license to stop trying. Then boredom would set in and then, one day, it would be over.
She’d never realized how jaded she’d become. Was she even capable of loving a man, capable of summoning the trust it required? She’d spent most of her adult life searching for the one person who would return that love. Just one person who’d make her feel as if she wasn’t all alone in the world. “That’s a nice sentiment, but saying it isn’t going to change my mind.”
“Damn it, Ellie, you can’t just walk away.”
“Yes, I can,” she said, her heart aching with tightly controlled emotion. She reached out to touch him, then thought better of it. “Goodbye, Liam. Take care.”
Ellie started toward the door, praying that, this time, he wouldn’t follow her. Yet with every step she took, she was a heartbeat away from turning around and running back into his arms. But Ellie refused to go back. She’d made her decision and now she was prepared to live with it. She’d take control of her life again and think about what she wanted beyond a romantic relationship. When she’d come to Boston, she’d resolved to spend a year without a man in her life, to put all her bad experiences in the past and begin fresh. And now she had to follow through on that promise to herself.
But as she stepped out onto the street, Ellie fought back a surge of tears. Maybe she was walking away from the best man she’d ever met. Maybe she was making the biggest mistake in her life. But she wouldn’t know for sure unless she actually walked away.
She took a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life.
LIAM SAT AT THE BAR, a pint of flat Guinness sitting in front of him. It was the lunch hour and there were only a few regulars at the bar. Seamus stood at the far end, chatting with one of them while Liam flipped through the latest edition of the Boston Globe.
He’d taken a nice photo of the governor opening a new factory in Woburn that should have made the paper, but it was nowhere to be found. Well, at least he’d gotten paid, whether they printed the photo or not. And he still had the money from Sean’s embezzlement case burning a hole in his pocket.
He’d thought about buying a new lens or maybe a new camera. Or spending the money on some decent prints of his work, putting a portfolio together that he might be able to take to a few galleries