Begin Again novel Chapter 39

"Finally, the trash is out!" Laura clapped her hands with glee, her eyes sparkling with joy, as they all watched Eden McBride and her entourage leave the club.

Liam picked up his drink and sipped it slowly, trying his damnedest to put a firm lid on the quiet rage swirling in his heart as he appraised his ex through narrowed eyes.

Coming to Crush was a mistake.

But coming to Crush with Laura was a terrible idea. He knew that as soon as she called—hysterical and in tears, for the second time this week—insisting she didn't want to be alone tonight, she was still struggling to come to terms with their breakup.

Liam had wanted to let her down gently as he had earlier in the week. But riddled with guilt for ending things so abruptly, he'd agreed to one drink.

He should have listened to Matthew and Julian and cut off all communication with her.

"You reported her?" He drawled, in a calm voice belying the fury in his eyes when he was sure he could speak without losing his shit all over her.

No matter how much he hated Eden, watching her being led out of the club like she's some criminal, pissed him off far more than he cared to admit.

Eden is his problem. His ex had no right to interfere, plain and simple.

"Someone had to." Laura batted her ridiculously long fake lashes at him, blissfully unaware of her grave mistake. "She was talking trash about you. I mean really, I know you'd never sleep with a lowlife like her."

"She's not a lowlife." Liam placed his glass back on the cube forcefully, all the colour draining from his knuckles as he clenched his hands on his lap.

Nobody is allowed to bully Eden or make her life miserable. Except him, of course. And no one is allowed to call her names either.

"Whatever she is, I know you'd never touch her," Laura prattled on, utterly oblivious to the dark storm brewing over their table. "Seriously, look at her. Did you see her sale-rack outfit? What hole did she crawl from? And that hair, goodness it's so 2020!"

"Enough!" Liam slammed his fist on the cube, splashing his drink all over the surface. He'd taken just about all he could of her foul mouth. "Do you have to be so rude? What did she ever do to you?"

"Do I need a reason to hate her?" His ex shrugged carelessly and picked up her cosmo, twirling the colourful paper parasol between her French-manicured fingers. "Poor girl, she's deeply delusional if she thinks she can hook up with you. I mean, I know you would never touch her."

Liam gritted his teeth, a stunned look in his eyes; he was blown away by the vitriol spewing out of the lips he'd once gotten drunk on, a mouth he couldn't get enough of in the past. If he didn't know her so well, he would have found it hard to believe that the foul-mouthed, vicious woman beside him is an attorney at Hayes & Jones, one of the largest law firms in the country.

With all her elite education, one would expect Laura to have some level of class. Kindness is a bit of an ask from her; he knew that. But some grace at least.

Julian and Matthew shifted uncomfortably in their seats, their matching blue eyes constantly darting between the two of them as they topped up their drinks faster than Liam could blink.

He knew this wasn't the platform to air his dirty laundry, but he was seething and beyond being reasonable. "I did touch her, and I did sleep with her. And you know what else? I loved it!"

His confession was not a stunning revelation to his cousins; they already knew his past with Eden. But it was a tremendous shock to Laura.

Laura though was all for a very public showdown; she refused to go away quietly. "Honestly, were you that fucking desperate? You haven't touched me in two years. You don't want to have sex with me, but you can touch her?" She accused, shocking both brothers with her accusations, and the venomous twist of her lips.

"Shut up!" Liam warned, his voice dangerously low. If he weren't above hitting a woman, he would have ripped out her throat.

"No, I will not shut up! I've been patient with you for two years, even when you barely touched me. Now I know why you didn't want to sleep with me. It turns out you like rolling in the mud with pigs!"

"Watch your mouth," he snarled, his nostrils flared, his jaw clenched. "And don't you ever call Eden a pig! Your issue is with me. Leave her out of this."

At that moment, his head banging like fireworks on New Year's eve, his anger rumbling deep in his chest, Liam finally understood what his Mom's been trying to tell him all along about Laura. They were always an ending waiting to happen, postponed by his sheer stubbornness to hang on to something that wasn't meant to be, even from the very beginning.

"Are you for real right now? Look at her, she's a freaking midget and blind as a bat too," Laura spat at him, her face contorted in an ugly grimace. "I'm a TEN, and you know it."

"Not with that attitude, you're not! Now leave," Liam pointed at the exit, the dull ache in his temple finally exploding into a full-blown headache. The sooner Laura left, the quicker the storm raging in his heart can blow over too. "And don't ever show up in front of me again. Don't call me. Don't text me. We are over!"

"Trust me; I am done with your shit!" Laura muttered as she riffled through her purse, fished out his black card and threw it on one of the cubes. With a haughty sweep of her platinum blond extensions over her shoulder—which Liam had paid for, along with the R275K Birkin handbag on her arm—she pranced off, leaving the sourness of their confrontation and the cloud of her cloyingly sweet perfume behind her.

"Bye-bye!" Julian called after her, raising his glass in the air.

"Don't let the door hit you on your way out!" Matthew added.