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“They gave me the best financial aid package.” The honest answer slipped out more easily than it should have. Embarrassed about his financially insecure past, Liam had a stock answer in place about how Harvard had a good mix of academics and real-world experience. Yet something about Amelia brought out the truth.
Sure enough, Amelia looked a little surprised. “You needed financial aid?”
“I did.” Liam needed to change the subject, fast. This was getting uncomfortably personal. “Next question. We should set a story for our relationship. I already told Stanley that we met when your nephew spilled ice cream on me, which is the truth, but we should flesh out some additional details. How long ago did we meet? Have I met your parents? That kind of thing.”
“Ideally, let’s keep it a little vague.” Amelia bit her lip. “If we offer too many details, it’ll be suspicious. But I suppose we should say we’ve been married at least a year or two.”
Liam nodded. “You have a good point about keeping things vague. If we give too many details, Stanley might start asking specific questions about Grace’s parentage, and I don’t want to lie about that. Grace should never be confused about where she came from.”
Amelia tilted her head to the side. “Grace’s mother… you’ve never talked about her.”
Liam didn’t want to admit his rather sordid history to Amelia. It was better not to tell her about Cora, at least not right now.
“I doubt that’ll come up at the barbecue. For now, we should focus on things that will.”
Amelia shrugged. Unlike last night, when Liam had redirected her, she didn’t blush or look uncomfortable. She just looked thoughtful. She was clearly becoming more comfortable with him. He didn’t have anyone he was close with in this way.
“So, have I met your parents?” Liam asked.
“Yes, definitely, you’ve met my father. If we’ve been married at least a few years, you would have met him quite often. And he would have been at our wedding.”
“Okay, then. Tell me more about your parents. What should I know?”
“Okay. My dad’s name is Jim, and he was an architect before he retired a few years ago. He and my mom were high school sweethearts.”
“And your mom?”
Amelia bit her lip, and Liam wondered if he’d made a mistake in asking her. Then she took a breath.
“My mom passed away almost ten years ago. Cancer.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Liam felt like a total jerk for pushing Amelia to talk about her parents. It must hurt that her mother was gone.
Knowing that Amelia’s mother had passed away also helped him understand why Amelia was so caring and wonderful with Grace when the child was sad about her mother being gone.
“It was a long time ago. How about your parents? Have I met them?” It was a clear signal that Amelia didn’t want to talk about her mother anymore, so Liam moved on.
“No.” Liam shook his head firmly. “You haven’t. How about our wedding?”
“I don’t know.” Amelia shrugged and crossed her legs. “What about it?”
“I mean, was it big, small? Where was it? What were the… you know, colors and flowers, and all that wedding stuff?”
“I don’t know.” Amelia crossed her arms over her stomach. Now both her legs and arms were crossed, giving her a very defensive posture.
“It doesn’t matter,” Liam said. “We should just agree.”
“All right. We got married in a garden lit with fairy lights and strewn with flowers, in June. It was a small wedding, just close family and friends.”
“Great.” Liam realized, belatedly, that Amelia might have just described a wedding she’d dreamed of having. Guilt swept him. He shouldn’t have pushed her on this detail — but he needed to. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t exactly easy, for either of us. But it’s important that we know all we can about each other and about our fake relationship history.”
“I know, I know. It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Amelia’s brown eyes were inscrutable.
