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“Babe…” Marcus blanched. “It’s not like that. I can explain.”
“No!” Neve yelled, her face blotchy and red. “I’m sick of your bullshit! We’re over! Get the fuck out of my parents’ house!”
Dad caught her arm before she landed another punch. “You heard my daughter. Get out of here.”
Marcus dithered. “Babe, that ring cost a lot of money.”
Neve glared at him. “Fuck you. It’s mine now. I’m going to sell it for fifty bucks and a bottle of vodka.”
“You’d better leave, Marcus,” Dad said. “Let’s not make this more awkward than it needs to be.”
Translation—Don’t make me punch you, because I will.
“You’re making a mistake, Neve,” Marcus said, but he began to move down the hallway, through the assembled Connellys. His shoulder brushed against Liam’s, and his mouth turned up in a sneer. “And your boyfriend’s a dirty slut, Liam.”
“Takes one to know one!” Neve screamed at Marcus’s retreating back.
Liam winced. He appreciated where she was coming from, but he was also really glad Ambrose hadn’t heard that.
Marcus headed for Neve’s bedroom, presumably to grab his bag. John Phillip growled and followed him, his claws clicking on the polished wooden floorboards.
Neve took a giant, shuddering breath. Her face crumpled, and she started sobbing, real ugly-crying with no holds barred, and Mum immediately pulled her close, squeezing her tight and making soothing noises, all the while wearing a face that showed a willingness to commit murder, if necessary.
It was Bridget who turned to Liam and said, “What did you mean about knowing Ambrose was on a date with someone else? What the hell’s going on, Liam?”
Liam looked at his assembled family—his dad with arms folded over his chest, his sisters with hands on their hips like matching sugar bowls, his mum with an arm full of Neve and a face like thunder, and Grandad, who for some reason was still grinning madly—and took a deep breath. If he wanted to salvage any kind of relationship with his family—and with Ambrose—he was going to have to come clean.
“Ambrose isn’t really my boyfriend.”
Dad’s brows drew together in confusion. “But you said he was. And he certainly acted like it!”
Liam sighed. “I hired him, Dad. When Mum was threatening to set me up with rat-faced Richard, I panicked and said I’d met someone, just so she’d stop fussing. And Ambrose, well, he’s a boyfriend for hire, so I paid him to date me.”
Riley’s mouth fell open in an O of shock, and Orhan’s eyebrows hit his hairline. In the background, John Phillip barked loudly, and the front door slammed. Marcus was gone, then.
When Mum spoke, it was in that very calm, very quiet voice laced with steel that they all dreaded, the one that meant there’d be hell to pay if someone didn’t explain what was going on right this very minute. “William Patrick Connelly, did you bring a—a male prostitute into our home?”
Mum looked like she was about to have an aneurysm, and Liam quickly shook his head in denial as he hurried to explain. “No, Mum, not, um—not like that. Ambrose hires himself out as a bad date. If, say, you want your parents to stop interfering in your love life, you introduce them to Ambrose. He acts like a dickhead, and then when you break up with him, they’re so happy he’s out of the picture, they stop questioning your choices. My friend Kelly suggested him.”
“But he was lovely at family dinner!” Mum said, almost pleading.
“That’s because I asked him to be nice. I just wanted a date, so you’d get off my case, Mum. I didn’t expect you’d like him so much you’d invite him for the weekend!”
Mum’s face crumpled in confusion. “Get off your case? I’ve never pressured you to be in a relationship, Liam. I don’t interfere?—”
“You do a bit though, Mum,” Bridget said.
“Yeah, you really do, Mum,” Riley agreed. “You’re already after me about who I’m taking to the school formal.”
Will wrapped a comforting arm around his wife’s shoulder. “We know you just want the best, love,” he soothed.
“We know it’s because you want us happy,” Liam said with a nod, “but it’s a lot of pressure even if you don’t mean it, you know? So I thought, if Ambrose came for the weekend, he could be a dick and you wouldn’t like him, and then after he dumped me, I could plead heartbreak, and you’d give it a rest. I didn’t mean for any of”—he waved his arms vaguely—“this to happen.”
“Bollocks,” Grandad said loudly, and every head swivelled to look at him. “That was never fake dating. That boy was making sheep’s eyes at you every chance he got, and you were making them back.”
“Um, yeah. About that,” Liam said, face heating. “It sort of got…less fake? We were maybe hoping this might go somewhere. I guess that’s out of the question now, though.”
“Why is it out of the question?” Grandad asked. “Just because Neve’s fiancé turned out to be a fecking arsewipe doesn’t mean you and your boy are a lost cause. Sorry, Neve,” he added, barely apologetic, “but I never liked that little tit. He’s a real, what’s the word, Liam? A Jimmy Fig?”
