Five(56)

Liam knows all of this, because unlike Emma, Liam can read people instantly. A lifetime of caretaking and empathizing, providing, protecting his brother and supporting his mother, made him an expert in detecting the needs of others. It’s a useful skill if you like to help people. Or control them.

Once Doreen was gone and Danny lived in the safety of his wealth, Liam moved on to his life with his wives. Elizabeth the First, his first wife, was a receptionist at D-Tech. When he met her she was a single mum with beautiful legs who had recently escaped an abusive marriage. Liam told her she could stop working, took on her two children, and raised them as his own, delighting in how soon they called him Dad. But once Elizabeth got a bit old and puffy, with less time to be grateful to him because she was earning a degree and starting her own small online business, Liam felt restless and bored.

Which was when he met Trisha, his second wife, a stripper, who adored him and wore lingerie all day and planned a Pretty Woman–themed wedding because she felt that it was the story of their lives. She gave him two more children, never gained an ounce, and wore stilettos throughout each pregnancy. Over time, with the unlimited decorating budget he gave her, Trisha developed a knack for nouveau riche interior design and soon had a client list of WAGs of overpaid football players and boxers who shared her taste for gold accessories, mirrors, and white marble. Liam loved their children but found the luster had worn off his life with Trisha once she started wearing designer suits over her negligees.

Which was when he left her for Elizabeth the Second, Beth, a cocktail waitress at an exclusive social club of which he was a member, a tough cookie with a hard-knock life who’d been on her own since she was sixteen. She had the heart of an early Elizabeth the First and the body of an early Trisha, but unlike her predecessors she understood that her husband did not know who he was unless he was saving someone, so she kept her ambitions to herself and played the part. She liked money, so she earned it by doing her work in the kitchen and the bedroom, raising their sons, ignoring Liam’s occasional indiscretions, and thanking God for her good fortune. Beth’s simple attitude toward her simple husband accounted for the longevity of their marriage.

So when Liam meets Emma, he is intrigued by her performance of independence and achievement, but he is experienced in the desperation of women, and he feels hers right away. Even if she doesn’t know that’s what it is. When Emma meets Liam, she mistakes his interest in her and she thinks it is like looking at her own reflection. She sees his drive, ambition, grit, self-sufficiency, the kind of self-belief a person is born with who is sure of their exceptional destiny, and thinks he is like her. He has an intangible quality the dating apps and sperm bank websites could not find for Emma. He is the one for what she has in mind. So when the time is right, she makes him her offer.

“I just want your genetics,” she says, sitting behind her desk, late one night at the office, several months into her new role at D-Tech.

“I don’t need your money, and I’m not interested in snatching you away from your wife or your kids. My child will not knock on your door eighteen years from now, asking to join you for Christmas dinner. If I do this right, he’ll never care about you at all. He’ll be too busy running things.”

“You’re strange, Emma,” Liam says, coming around to her side of the desk, leaning against the edge, leaning into her. He moves a strand of golden hair behind her ear.

“What’s that got to do with it?” she asks, lifting her eyes to his.

“Everything,” he says, leaning down, kissing her, forcefully, so she will feel it.

And she does feel it, but she does not feel what he feels. Emma is not very good at feelings. She lacks the internal voice that should warn her to beware the narcissism of the savior, to look out for the man who wants to rescue her, who wants to protect her, whether she needs him to or not.

And one morning, several months after the first encounter, when she has fallen for him but refuses to admit that there is anything more to this arrangement, she says, “Well, our work here is done,” as they rise from her silk sheets to start the day.

“What are you on about?” he says, sleepily, one eye open, gazing admiringly at the curve of her bare back as she sits on the edge of the bed.

“I’m pregnant,” she says.

“Nice one, congratulations,” he says, pulling her toward him. “Who’s the father?”

“Now, don’t get sentimental,” she says, “We had a deal. This one’s mine.”

“Yes, boss,” Liam says. He will let her think it is all going according to her plan because it’s easier for her than the truth, which is that he’s her hero. She said she didn’t want him involved, and he’ll sign her little paper, but soon she’ll see. She’ll need him to save her from what she thinks she wants. Women always think they know what they want until they get it.

“Hey I’ll always be here, for you, you know, if you need anything,” he says, because he knows it works, as he runs a finger from her shoulder to her wrist.

“Okay,” she says, closing her eyes, to keep from feeling.



* * *





D-Tech grows and Emma helps the brothers reach the next level. And as Liam distracts himself with Emma, Danny also finds new ways to occupy himself. He buys an old stately home that once belonged to a baron whose disappointing son managed to lose control of the family fortune within a generation. Danny has it modernized and refurbished, equipped with ramps, lifts, and adaptations, some of them experimental prototypes for machines D-Tech will someday produce. He fills the house with art and rare books. He hires a chef, a personal assistant, a gardener, a housekeeper.