supposed to say, is that a baseball bat in your pants, or . . . ?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “I’m talking about my heart, Liv.”
He felt her breath catch before she exhaled quickly. “It’s racing,” she whispered.
He lowered his forehead to rest against the back of her head. “It’s been like this since the minute you kissed me in that bar, and I can’t get it to stop.”
“Do—do you want it to stop?”
“Only if yours doesn’t race too.”
Liv slid her hands to cover his against her stomach. He reacted immediately, lifting his fingers to lace with hers and then curling them together into a tight, tangled fist. Liv rubbed her thumb against his, and he rubbed back. All the while his forehead remained pressed to her head, his breathing warm and fast against her hair, his other hand splayed across her stomach, branding her with his touch.
“Liv,” he whispered, the questioning lilt making him sound young and vulnerable. “Am I the only one feeling like this?”
Liv flattened his palm over her pounding heart, his fingers brushing the tender swell of her breast above her wet towel. “I lied to you,” she whispered.
Mack froze. “About what?”
“All that stuff about me giving you time to process and not wanting to break your heart?”
He smiled softly. “I remember.”
“I was talking about me.”
Mack nuzzled her hair, his heart in his throat. “I know.”
“I was protecting myself, because . . . I was afraid of getting too close to you.”
“Why?” His voice barely sounded human beneath the layer of emotions clogging his throat.
“I don’t know how to do this. How to trust.”
Trust. There was that word again. That fucking word.
“My father . . .” She paused to swallow. “He used to lie to us all the time. Say he’d call and then not do it. Promise we could spend a week with him during summer break and then have excuses why we couldn’t. I don’t know how to believe in people.”
Believe in me, he silently pleaded. Mack tightened his hold on her, his body trembling with the need to tell her the truth. He could do it. Right now. All he had to do was open his mouth and say the words, tell her the truth about him and that she was the only woman in the world he trusted to know the truth, the only woman he could imagine telling the truth to, and then maybe . . .
Maybe what? She’d understand? Kiss him and make it better?
Or would she walk away in disgust?
Sweat pooled under his arms. With a long exhale, Mack dropped his face to her bare shoulder. She leaned her head back against him and held him as if she sensed that he needed . . . something.
Then she turned her face and kissed him. Sweetly. Softly. “I have to get ready,” she said.
And then she slipped from his grasp.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Can you hear me?”
Liv spoke quietly as she stepped off the elevator on the top floor of the Parkway Hotel. Her heels sank into the carpet, and she paused just long enough to steady herself before following the sounds of the gala in the ballroom at the end of the hallway.
“Gotcha, Liv,” came Noah’s response. “Check in again when you get in the room.”
Her stomach clenched with every step. What if she failed? What if Royce refused to talk to her, or what if he did talk to her but revealed nothing? What if he spilled his guts but it was too loud in the ballroom for Noah to pick it up on tape?
“Liv.” It was Mack this time, and just the sound of his voice calmed her racing heart. “You don’t have to respond, but I just wanted you to know I’m here.”
I’m here. Such simple words, but they carried so much meaning. How could someone be so good at saying so much in so few words? How had she misjudged him so completely?
Am I the only one feeling like this?
No, she’d wanted to say. No, you’re not alone. I’m feeling it too.
She regretted not saying it. She regretted not letting him come with her. She regretted her fear, her insecurities. She regretted that she couldn’t be as open with her emotions as other people, that her past made her doubt and distrust. She regretted that she hadn’t turned in his arms and told him her heart raced for him too and she never wanted it to stop.
A man in a tuxedo stood by the doorway to the ballroom and