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Liam pondered that, looking disapproving. “I’m no animal.”
“I never said you were,” I snapped. “You’re taking this way too personally.”
“I don’t know any other way to take things. But you don’t have to run away to make me take notice. I was interested from the first photo Lucia showed me.”
“She showed you more than one?”
“Two photo albums,” he admitted. “Your high school graduation photo was cute. Hell of a hairdo you had back then. I personally like it better long.”
I groaned. “Don’t tell me you didn’t wonder why a reasonably attractive young woman would need her mother to find her a date.”
He smoothed a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Strike out ‘reasonably attractive’ and insert ‘drop-dead gorgeous.’ And yeah. Of course I wondered.”
I blew a lock of hair out of my mouth. “So, to get back to what I was saying?—”
“Stunning,” he added.
“Liam, we’ve been through the beauty-of-the-flower lecture. It was lovely, and I got it, okay? Do you want to hear the rest of this or don’t you?”
He leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. “Go for it.”
“Well, to start with, Lucia hated all of my fiancés,” I told him.
That got his attention. “All your fiancés? How many did you have?”
I huddled into the quilt. “She didn’t tell you about my train wrecks?”
Liam shook his head.
“I give her credit for masterful restraint, then,” I said. “I was engaged three times. All three of them dumped me. Not exactly at the altar, but uncomfortably close. Two happened to be my clients. Which was probably not a great idea from the get-go, but hey. Mistakes were made.”
He looked incredulous. “So what happened with these idiots?”
I plucked the quilt, embarrassed. “They fell in love with someone else.”
He winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, it sucked. At least by the time Freedy dumped me, I knew better than to get the wedding dress made in advance. I’ve only got two wedding gowns in storage, not three. One takes comfort in the little things.” I kept my eyes down, so I wouldn’t have to see pity in his eyes.
“They did you a favor,” he said. “They did me one, too.”
“How do you figure?”
“If you were married to one of those boneheads, you wouldn’t be here with me right now,” he said.
A silent giggle shook me. “It really is just as well. Lucia nagged and nagged about how they took advantage of me, but I never really saw what she meant until this morning. After last night, those guys with the knife, then being with you…it finally came together for me. Lucia was right all along.”
“This morning?” He looked confused. “You’re still in contact with these assholes?”
“Of course, but they’re not assholes. Just temperamental artistic types. Two of them are my clients, as I said. Or three, I suppose I should say, counting Enid. I manage her, too, since she and Peter are a duo now.”
His jaw dropped. “These dickheads dumped you for other women, and you still work sixteen hours a day managing their careers?”
“Don’t you start,” I said huffily. “I will admit that I have problems setting limits, putting my foot down, defending my own interests, yada yada. Those character defects have been exhaustively pointed out to me by Lucia and my sisters. I have gotten all the sermons and lectures in full, multiple times. Trust me. But these people are genuinely my friends, and they’re very talented musicians, too. We’ve put it behind us.”
“That guy who called this morning—was he one of your exes?”
I hesitated. “Uh, well, yes,” I admitted. “That was Peter, my first fiancé. He’s married to Enid now. She’s another singer whom I manage. I was the one who introduced them, ironically enough. He’s an incredibly talented?—”