Because of His Future (For His Pleasure, Book 26) (12 page)

“What does that mean?”

“It’s just…I wrote off all her threats
and warnings as scare tactics.
 
I
never told you about it because I didn’t see the point.”
 
Grace fell silent as she realized the
gravity of what she was about to tell him.

“So why tell me now?” Liam pressed.

Grace looked directly at him.
 
“Because now I’m not sure she was lying
after all.
 
Everything she predicted
is coming true, Liam.”

He grunted an annoyed laugh.
 
“Give me a break.
 
Don’t tell me that, Grace.”

“She said that you wouldn’t know how to
handle any of it.
 
She said you’d
turn to drinking and fighting as a means of coping.
 
And that we’d be struggling to survive.”

Liam’s jaw worked and Grace could see
she’d hurt him deeply.
 
“Fuck her,”
he growled.
 
“So I fight
sometimes.
 
What the hell does that
have to do with anything?”

“We’re drifting, Liam.
 
We’re lost.
 
And you’re not fighting the right
war.
 
You’re picking stupid battles.
 
Who the hell was that guy you fought tonight?
 
Mack Truck?
 
Really
?”

“He’s a tough kid—“

“He’s a kid.
 
Exactly.
 
Some dumb punk with a head full of
rocks.
 
Meanwhile, we’re fighting
for our lives against your brother and sister and their lawyers and business
partners—and we’re getting killed.”

Liam shook his head, looking away from
her.
 
“I don’t see it that way.”

“I know you don’t,” she whispered
softly.
 
“I’m not angry with you,
Liam.”

“And I won’t hurt my family, ever.”
 
He met her gaze.
 
“I just can’t do that.”

She nodded, swallowing.
 
“I know.”

A nurse emerged and called Liam to the
exam room.
 
He stood up slowly.
 
“I’ll be back in a second,” he said,
giving her a small smile.

“I’ll be here,” she told him.

She watched him turn and walk towards the
exam room and it seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

***

They didn’t resume the conversation again
until both of them were close to sleep, laying exhausted in her bed in the
darkness.

In fact, Grace was already starting to
drift into sleep when Liam spoke.

“I feel like you left something out,”
Liam told her.

His voice broke the silence and startled
her awake.
 
“What?”

“That story about meeting with Vera,”
Liam said.
 
“I was thinking about
it, and I know her.
 
I know that
there was more to it than just insults and threats.
 
She had some ulterior motive to meet
with you.
 
Some kind of bribe, some
kind of offer.”

Grace was surprised.
 
“Wow, you really are smart,” she
laughed.

“Did you think a couple punches to the
head had turned me into a caveman?”

“No, of course not.”

“So tell me the rest,” he said.
 
“I need to know.”

Grace sighed.
 
“It doesn’t even matter,” she lied.

“It does,” he said.
 
“Now tell me the whole thing.”

“It was stupid,” Grace said.
 
“I didn’t even consider it.”

“Consider what?”

“The money.
 
She offered me money for my pain and
suffering if I agreed to break up with you.
 
Two hundred thousand dollars,” Grace
said.

“That cheap?” Liam laughed.
 
“I think you’re worth a hell of a lot
more than that.”

“No you don’t,” Grace laughed in
return.
 
“You offered me a hell of a
lot less, remember?”

“That was different,” he said.
 
“A joke.”

“It doesn’t matter because I didn’t even
consider it,” she said, rubbing his chest.
 
“It’s over.
 
It’s long
past.
 
I know I should’ve told you
sooner, but I didn’t want to upset you any more than you already were at the
time.”

Liam grew quiet.
 
“You were right…what you said earlier…”

“What did I say?”

“That I’m fighting the wrong war.”
 
He swallowed and she could hear that he
was choked up with emotion.

“Liam, I was just scared.
 
You were in that awful fight and I
freaked out.
 
I didn’t mean it.”

Now that she was in bed with him, cuddled
up and safe and warm and together—it all felt like a bad dream.

“The thing is,” Liam continued, “I’m not
strong enough to do what needs to be done.
 
I can’t hurt my family, Grace.”

“I don’t want you to hurt them.”

“But instead, I’m letting them hurt you,”
he said.
 
“And that’s worse.”

“You just need to sleep.
 
We both need sleep,” she told him.
 
She was already drifting again.
 
She snuggled into Liam’s warm body, put
her head on his chest as he stroked her hair…

She was asleep almost right away,
dreaming of Liam’s fight.

Only this time, he wasn’t fighting anyone
human.

Liam was fighting a dark shadow, some
sort of wraithlike figure that towered above him.

The shadowy figure was escaping anything
Liam tried to do to grab hold of it, and then it would swat him aside like he
was nothing.

Grace was powerless to stop it.
 
She was in the audience, forced to watch
the ghoulish spectacle.

Finally, the wraith climbed on top of
Liam as he lay, half-conscious, beaten, and it turned into his brother and
sister and mother—they were like wild dogs.
 
Attacking, biting, clawing Liam to death
while he screamed and screamed.

Grace sat up, awake, her heart hammering
in her chest as she caught her breath.

“What a dream,” she said.

It was morning, and Liam was no longer in
bed with her.
 
She wiped the hair
out of her eyes and continued trying to calm down.
 

The imagery was still vivid in her mind,
and somehow it felt all too real, even if it was silly in the light of day.

Getting out of bed, she threw on a
t-shirt and went out into the hallway and saw the bathroom door was open.
 
Liam wasn’t in there.

And then she went downstairs.

He wasn’t anywhere to be found in the
apartment.

This was strange.
 
Had he run out to the store for
coffee?
 
She couldn’t quite imagine
what it was that had taken him away without a word.

She ran back upstairs and checked her
phone.

There was a voicemail and it was from
Liam’s number.

Her hand was shaking a little now as she
checked it.

Liam’s voice was quiet and subdued.
 
“Grace,” he said.
 
“I couldn’t sleep at all last
night.
 
I just lay there and held
you and thought about how much I care for you.
 
And I realized that I can’t do this to
you anymore.
 
I can’t bear to let
you suffer for my weakness, my sins.
 
So I won’t do it any longer.”
 
There was a lengthy pause and then he resumed.
 
“Grace, I love you more than you’ll ever
know.
 
I’ll never stop loving
you.
 
But we…we can’t be together
anymore.
 
Now you…you go on and have
a good life.
 
You hear me?
 
Be strong, be beautiful, be brave.
 
Have the life you deserve, Grace.”

And then the message ended.

Grace sank to the floor, the tears
spilling from her eyes.

She sobbed, deeper and harder from her
chest than she thought possible.

Liam had ended it.
 
He’d truly ended it and she was
broken—completely and totally broken.

She stayed in her room for hours, almost
catatonic.

People were calling and texting.
 
Of course they were.
 
She’d made the news because of Liam’s underground
fight and her showing up there.

The clip of her and Liam arguing after
the fight had gone viral.
 

But Grace didn’t care about any of it,
because her life was over.
 
The one
person she’d ever truly loved was gone and not coming back.

He
didn’t love me enough to fight for me,
she realized.

And that brought a fresh round of tears.

Finally, there was a knock on her bedroom
door later that afternoon.
 

“Please go away,” Grace said to whoever
it was.

“I’m not coming to bother you,” Eliane
said.
 
“I just wanted you to know
that someone came and delivered an envelope for you.
 
I’m going to slide it under the door,
okay?”

“Fine,” Grace said, miserably.

The envelope slid under the door.
 
“Feel better,” her roommate said, and
then walked away.

Grace stared at the envelope for a long
time.
 
It had her name on it, and
she could tell it was Liam’s handwriting on the outside of it.

After a few moments of staring, she
climbed off her bed and walked over, bent down and picked up the envelope.

She turned the envelope over in her hands
a few times, even smelled it.

Already, she missed the smell of
him.
 
The taste of his skin.
 
The smile he always wore so easily.
 
His sexy grin.

His
love.

His
love.

Grace opened the envelope slowly, not
wanting to see the finality of what would be contained inside it.

A
letter?

What?

And then she saw that it wasn’t a letter
at all.

It was a check.
 

A check for two hundred thousand dollars.

Grace sat down heavily on the bed, the
breath knocked out of her.
 
It felt
like she’d taken a baseball bat to her solar plexus.
  
She couldn’t believe it.

Despite all of the pain and suffering,
she’d never thought that they could be broken quite so easily.

But they had been broken.
 

In a week’s time.
 

And in the end, Vera and Exley had gotten
off cheap.

THE END OF FOR HIS PLEASURE, BOOK 26

Book 27 in the series is coming
soon.
 
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