I shook my head, looking him dead in the eye. “Not at all, Simon. You have my word. I care about Chelsea quite a lot.”
Simon chuckled and shook his head. “Well, mate. Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into a predicament.”
“It will be fine. I’m handling it.”
He raised his brows. “Are you? Have you both forgotten where you live? Why you’re here?”
I fought my frustration and took in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “No one has forgotten anything.”
“What happens next, Liam? Have you thought about that?”
The plan had always been to return to London when I had a clear head so I could deal with the wrath of my decisions. Now, I wasn’t so sure that was the best idea. “Not really, no. But I know I need to figure it out.”
“Well, for starters, you can turn on your phone.”
Simon pushed a silver object across the island, and I caught it before it fell over the edge. It was my phone. I hadn’t even looked at the thing the entire three weeks of my visit.
“I charged it for you.”
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Simon would have dug around for my phone and charged it for me. That felt a little out of character. “But why—”
“Bart is why.” Simon rolled his eyes and tapped his phone on the counter. “He rang a few hours ago. I went looking for you and realized you never came back from your run. That’s when I put two and two together.”
“Hold up. Bart rang you? But—”
“He threatened to leak your whereabouts to the media if you didn’t call him back.”
That daft bastard. “How did he find out I was here?”
Simon ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “Not for me to worry about. However, my family is something you should worry about. I let you stay, Liam, but I can’t have my family dragged into your mess. You need to go back to London, and you need to fix this.”
“I will,” I promised. The last thing I wanted was for Simon and his family to get dragged into my mess in any way. “I’ll call Bart back and see what I need to do. You don’t need to worry.” I hopped off the stool, clutched my phone in my hand, and jogged downstairs to my room, where I called Bart.
“It’s about bloody time, you daft twat.” Bart’s greeting was about as cool and unpleasant as I’d expect.
“You rang?”
What proceeded was a string of curse words and British slang that not even I could comprehend, followed by a growled “Get home now!”
I threw myself backward onto my bed and squeezed my eyes shut. “I need more time.”
“Time? Time?” Bart’s voice continued to rise. “Three weeks, Liam. You disappeared weeks ago, and you want more time?”
“How did you even know I was here?”
Bart chuckled. “Do you think you’re Batman? You think a man like you can waltz into a British tearoom wearing shades and go completely undetected? Are you mad? Everyone has been stalking your hashtags, Liam. Me included.”
I sat up again, not believing it was true. If someone had recognized me, surely they would have said something. “What?” I asked while reactivating one of my social media accounts and typing in my hashtag.
“Once I knew you were in Providence, I rang your mum. She wants you to come home too. If you think she’s been free and clear of the media just because you skipped town, then you’re wrong. She’s been hounded.”
My heart sank at the thought of my parents being swarmed with people wanting information. Then I saw what Bart was referencing on social media. “Holy fuck.”
#LiamColborn #BritishBachelor #Spotted #Providence. The string of clever hashtags seemed never-ending after a single photo of me stepping outside of Spill the Tea was shared thousands of times.
“Holy fuck, yes. Come home, Liam. We still have time to salvage this. To my understanding, the Hogues want nothing to do with you and your fame. Come home before the others figure out where you’re staying too.”
“You’re leaving?”
After I got off the phone with Bart, I went straight back to Chelsea’s and told her everything. Then, with tears glistening in her eyes, we made love. We were currently wrapped in each other’s arms, our heavy breaths finally evening out. She lay at my side as I stared up at the ceiling, watching the orange reflection of the flickering candle at her bedside.
When I’d lied to Simon and Bridget about going on a run earlier in the night, I’d known we needed to talk about me leaving. But after seeing her, I’d shoved it all aside for a chance to be with her without worries, without that looming cloud that had been hanging over us since the very beginning, thickening by the day, only promising more destruction when it finally was unleashed. Now, it was too late to run for cover. The storm was upon us.
While I’d stayed away from the world I’d left behind, it hadn’t erased what would be waiting for me when I finally returned. And while I would choose to ignore my past forever to make a new life here, that wasn’t the way the world worked. There needed to be closure, and I needed to be the one who sought it out.
“I wish I didn’t have to go. Everything I walked away from is still waiting there for me. There’s just no delaying it anymore, not now that they know where I am.”
“We always knew this was coming.”
I hated the way her sad eyes stared back into mine, like I was crushing her when I couldn’t think of a single other solution. When she didn’t say another word, an idea sprang to mind.
“You could come with me—for a week, for forever.” I smiled to show her there was some levity in my serious words. Even in my own head, I knew the suggestion wasn’t my best idea. But what was the alternative? Leaving Providence and not knowing if or when I would see Chelsea again? That option felt incomprehensible.
Creases formed in her brows while her eyes searched mine. “Come with you to London?”
I nodded and swallowed, knowing how selfish my question sounded, but I couldn’t stop my mind from spinning solutions on how we could make it work. We’d find a flat for the two of us. She’d meet my family. She’d write while I dealt with the press. I could almost imagine a happy life.
“Oh, Liam.”
Her face looked completely crestfallen, and I readied myself for the rejection I should have expected the second the words came out of my mouth. My question had been unfair for so many reasons, namely the Hogues.
She shifted, propping herself up so she was looking down on me. “I love my life here. My parents are here. My friends are here. I’m about to publish my first book. I can’t uproot myself now.”
My gut churned as I felt my control over the situation, what little I ever had of it, slipping through my fingers. “Maybe you could plan a visit soon. You’d love London.” I felt the stretch of my words. Our situation was far too complicated to create a happy solution from it.
“Then what?” Chelsea’s shaky voice sharpened my focus on her. “I come visit for a week and then what? Then you come back here for a visit, and we rotate once a month?”
I opened my mouth, more than willing to agree to that idea, but then I saw her incredulous expression—the one that told me she’d given up on us before we’d even gotten started—and snapped it back shut.