Tyler, Lynn - Be With Us (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (11 page)

“I know,” she said thickly. “I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

Liam’s heart started to pound. He had a feeling that he was going to get to the bottom of Lindsay’s reluctance to begin a relationship with him and Nick. “Do you want to go and talk to her?”

“Not right now. I don’t even know what she’s doing here. Can you hold down the fort for me? I think I need some air. Maybe I’ll speak with her after that.” She pulled away from him, glancing at him with haunted eyes before walking out the back door. He tracked her across the yard until she brushed the snow off the swing hanging from the huge maple tree and sat down.

“God, she’s beautiful,” a light female voice said beside him. Liam looked down to see Lindsay’s mother standing next to him, staring out the window at her daughter. “Are you her husband?”

“Not yet. I hope to be someday. But something is holding her back.” He ached to tell her about Nick, but wasn’t sure if Lindsay was ready for people to know the specifics of the three them. He paused, weighing the wisdom of plowing on. Throwing caution to the wind, he went with his instinct. “I wonder if the reason she is not ready to commit has something to do with…you? I’m Liam, by the way.”

Lindsay’s mother nodded jerkily. “Probably. And please, call me Katrina.” She twisted her hands compulsively, anxiety written all over her face. “Look, do you think we could talk for a minute?”

Liam’s stomach clenched. This was it. He could feel it. He led Katrina to an empty bedroom and nodded toward the bed. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, and waited.

Katrina started talking abruptly. “Lindsay’s father and my sister dated for a few months back when we were in high school. They broke up because they were better as friends than as lovers.”

She sucked in a deep breath and stared at a spot on the wall as if she were watching the events of the past on a television screen. “Anyway, I graduated the next year and went to the same university as Phil, Lindsay’s father. He was nice and showed me around and introduced me to his friends. I had always had a crush on him, and we started dating with my sister’s full approval.” Katrina began pacing the perimeter of the small room, clearly restless and agitated.

“Phil and I eventually got married and moved home. He and my sister were still best friends, and they spent a lot of time together. I never thought anything about it until one of my friends”—Katrina framed the word
friend
with air quotes—“brought up the fact that I was the only one of us who dared to let her husband go out alone with his ex-girlfriend. His first love, she said.” She practically spat out those last few words.

Liam had an idea of where this was going but wasn’t sure how it would impact Lindsay’s fear of entering into a ménage relationship with them. He wandered over to the window and watched her swing gently, her feet making tracks in the pristine white snow. She looked so lost, and he wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and shield her from life, but he needed to hear the rest of the story.

“Go on.”

Katrina nodded distractedly and continued. “I tried not to dwell on it, but she had planted the seed of doubt, and it buried its way deeper in my mind until I couldn’t think of anything else. I made the mistake of confiding my concerns in the wrong person, and the next thing I knew it was all over town that Phil was having an affair with my own sister.

“They swore up and down that there was nothing to their relationship other than friendship. The rumors got more and more detailed until one day a well-meaning friend told me she’d heard that Phil and my sister had been caught leaving a motel room together.”

Katrina began twisting her hands again. “I wasn’t strong, Liam. I didn’t know it at the time but I was suffering from major depression. I couldn’t bring myself to look anyone in the eye, including my husband and sister. It got so bad that I considered killing myself. Eventually, I couldn’t take it any more so I left a note saying that I couldn’t live with a liar anymore, and I left.

“Anyway, I got on with my life, eventually finding another man I could love and settling down. Eventually, I realized that leaving Lindsay behind is the greatest regret of my life.”

Liam could feel his heart shatter for Lindsay. No wonder she was reluctant to make their relationship permanent and public. The one person who should have loved her more than anything had left her. In her eyes, if her own mother couldn’t love her enough to stay, why would he and Nick be any different? “Why didn’t you ever go back for Lindsay?” he questioned.

Katrina looked down at her hands, a dull flush sweeping across her high cheekbones. “I was in a really bad place right after I left. I ended up on medication for depression and anxiety. At first every time I thought about contacting Lindsay, I felt physically sick. It was like I would be opening a door into the life I had grown to hate so much. Later I didn’t want to uproot Lindsay from everything she had ever known. I thought she was better off here, I really did.”

Liam waited for the other shoe to drop, barely hanging on to his patience. When Katrina didn’t continue, he decided to push the subject. “Have you seen her since?”

“She found me when she was eighteen, right before she went to university. I answered the door and was stunned to see her. Right then, my new husband put our two-year-old daughter down and told her to go see mommy. God, I’ll never forget the look on Lindsay’s face. She turned around and walked off. I haven’t seen her since.”

A sickening sense of dread pooled in Liam’s chest.
Mon dieu
, it was worse than he thought. Not only had Lindsay been left behind, her mother had essentially replaced her. “Why are you here now?” he asked lowly, his tongue tangling up his words as he began to lose the ability to translate his thoughts into English.

Tears began shimmering in Katrina’s eyes, and she took a shaky breath. “I’ve felt guilty about Lindsay’s role in this whole drama for a long time now. It’s been affecting my relationship with my husband and my daughter, Laura, negatively. I thought if I could get her to forgive me, things might work out.”

Liam stiffened as his rage battled with disgust. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he growled, barely able to form the words in English. “Lindsay does not have a role, as you put it, in your drama. You abandoned your daughter and basically replaced her. And now, you talk to her,”—he struggled with his English as his anger mounted—“ask for her forgiveness to make yourself feel better.” He shook his head, loathing rolling off him in waves. “I do not think that it is your guilt that angers your family. I think it is your own selfishness. Regardless, I cannot keep Lindsay from hearing what you have to say, whatever I feel. And whatever your motivations are, I think Lindsay needs to hear what you have to say.”

Katrina stood up and stumbled over to the window to stare down at Lindsay. She stood there for what seemed forever, never making a single move to the door. Finally, she took a deep breath and turned to face him, her head hanging. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “What if she won’t forgive me? I couldn’t live with that.”

Liam had had enough. “I think it is best if you leave now,” he said flatly. “Think very hard about ever trying to contact Lindsay again because our partner, Nick, is a lawyer, and if you hurt her, he will find a way to hurt you.”

Her face blanched at his words but he wasn’t sure if it was the revelation of a third lover or the threat of legal action that scared her. Regardless, Liam and Nick were going to protect Lindsay as best they could, even if it had to be from a distance.

Katrina nodded jerkily and practically ran from the room. He heard the front door slam and a car roar down the street. When he looked out the window again, Lindsay was nowhere to be seen.

He took off down the stairs and found her standing in the kitchen, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she was struggling to hold her body together. “
Chérie
?”

Chapter 11

“She left.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. She didn’t seem surprised. Obviously she was used to being left behind. She looked around the room at the people she admittedly despised and straightened her back. “It’s time we left for home.” She ushered the crowd out of the house, dumped the leftover food in the trash, and handed the real estate lawyer the key with instructions to give it to the buyer at closing.

Liam hauled the garbage bags to the side of the street for pickup and watched her take a seat in the car. He was proud of the graceful way she had marshaled the vultures out of her life but wondered at the impact the whole trip had made on her.

The look of despair on her face made his stomach turn. He and Nick would do anything in their power to protect her and take care of her. They would cook for her, squash spiders for her, hell, they would even go buy tampons for her if they had to. But this was something he couldn’t fix for her, and it literally made him sick.

They traveled in silence. He laid his hand on her thigh, and though she didn’t reciprocate, she didn’t shrug him off, either. She just stared out the window, her face drawn and pinched. Eventually the silence grew too large for him, and he dug out a CD. “Do you mind if I play some music?”

Lindsay shook her head, and he was rewarded with a tiny smile when the vocals filled the air. “Really?” she said. “Roch Voisine?”

“Hey, he was my idol growing up. My one regret about my family moving to Ontario was that I just missed out on one of his concerts.”

The French lyrics floated through the car until they hit the outskirts of Toronto. “Liam?” It was the first time she had spoken since ribbing him about his choice of music. “Would you please just drop me off at my apartment?”

“Of course,
chérie
. But I know Nick is worried about you and that he misses you. What do you say we phone him and have him pick up something for supper on his way over?”

Lindsay turned and regarded him with hollow, haunted eyes. “All right. I think we need to talk anyway.”

We need to talk.
Liam’s gut clenched at those four dreaded words. At least when it was just him and Nick, neither of them ever said anything as scary as, “we need to talk.” He pulled into a parking lot and phoned Nick and told him the plan. “Everything okay, babe?” Nick asked. “You sound anxious.”

“We’re okay, I think,” Liam answered, looking for some reassurance from Lindsay but finding none.
Mon dieu
, he hoped they really were okay. He was terrified of what she was going to say. “Lindsay says we need to talk.”

“Fuck.” Nick swallowed loudly. “That’s never good.”

Liam fought the urge to drop his forehead to the steering wheel. “
Non, mon cher
.”

After hanging up with Nick, Liam pulled out of the parking lot and drove to Lindsay’s apartment. They found Nick already waiting for them, a bag of Chinese takeout in his hand. When he tried to kiss Lindsay hello, she turned her head so that his lips grazed her cheek instead. Liam’s hope began to deflate. She didn’t even want the small intimacies that had seemed to come so easily before. Not good.

She led them upstairs and disappeared into the bedroom while Nick set the food on the table and Liam got out plates. When she came back, she was dressed in baggy jeans and a thick, loose sweater that she wore like a shield.

They sat at the table, Nick and Liam filling the silence with small talk that didn’t feel natural. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and cling to Nick for support but didn’t want Lindsay to feel that she was being shut out.

Finally, she looked up from picking at her food. “I can’t do this anymore.”

The bald statement was like a punch to Liam’s gut, and he had to fight to keep his dinner down. This was it. She was letting her past dictate her future. “Lindsay, don’t do this. Don’t leave us.”

Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, but she held her head high. “I have to protect myself. I have to do what I need to do to survive.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Nick asked. He, too, looked sick.

Lindsay stood up and walked to the sink, turning so that her back was to them. “Please understand. I could love you both so much. I think I already do. But I won’t survive what happens if you decide that you can’t handle the potential fallout of what our relationship will cause when people find out about our lifestyle. I’ve already picked up the pieces of my life once. I can’t do it again.” Lindsay got up and paced the perimeter of the room.