Fighting With Him

Chapter 24

The next few days are like navigating a mine field. Everything has to be perfect and each of Penny’s schemes has to be pulled off without a hitch and without it being blatantly obvious. Above all Nina has to be kept away Liam.

At dinner Liam sits with his father on one side and me on the other. During walks the men stroll away, led by Brent, and the women amble along, slowed by Penny’s purposeful pace. Above all Liam is never alone, there is always someone there to intercept any possible alone time and with Harry gone it’s usually Abi, meaning that Adam is always with me.

On many occasions I have caught myself watching Liam, constantly searching for anything I don’t recognise, anything that might indicate the mark on his chest is pulling him away from me, but he seems to be exactly the same.

The weird thing is that Nina doesn’t seem to be making any special efforts to get his attention, she seems perfectly happy to spend most of her time with Penny and myself. In fact whilst I seem to keep bumping into her around the house Liam says that he rarely sees her at all.

The day after dress picking, for example, was one of the rare days that it wasn’t raining so Adam and I were training, more like play fighting, on the edge of the woods and she had made a detour on her walk to come and say hi.  Overall, with the exception of the dress day, she is a pleasant and fun person to be around.

“What do you think her game plan is?” I ask Adam. Bored of the apartment we had decided to move to the library, it’s an amazing room and although I don’t get much chance to read I find that just looking at the walls of books calms my mind. We pick a sofa and Adam opens the book he pulled off the shelf.

“I don’t know anymore and she is running out of time, which just means we have to keep our guard up. If something is going to happen it could be at any minute.”

“My guard is never down these days.” I lie on the sofa, rest my head against Adam’s thigh and close my eyes.

“Why have I agreed to read to you again?” He asks flipping through the pages before opening it back up to the first one.

“Because I’m having trouble sleeping and it’s starting to show. Maybe a bed time story will help.” He sighs.

“It’s the middle of the day.” He points out.

“Right now I’m so tired I doubt my body knows the difference.”

“Fine.” He only gets to the end of the first page, however, when the library door closes. We had purposefully left it open so we would hear anyone approaching but neither of us had heard a thing, Adam to absorbed in reading and me in listening to him read. I sit up and peer across the room at a happily smiling Nina. Her dark hair is in one long plait and she is actually wearing small heels even though no one has any plans to leave the house today.

“Hi Nina.” I smile at the girl before sitting up properly on the sofa. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I just wanted something to read. With Liam in town all day on business no one has made any plans. It’s remarkable how someone so young runs his own business. He’s a pretty amazing guy.”

“Hunter has a business too and he’s even younger then Liam.” I point out.

“That’s true.” She shrugs. “Anyway, I thought I’d check out the collection you have here. I’m not interrupting anything am I?”

“No of course not.” I keep my smile in place. “Adam and I were doing the exact same thing. He was just reading to me.”

“Can’t you do that?” She jokes and obligingly I laugh.