Page 92 of Liberating Lily

Actually, maybe she was better off not knowing.

“Are you going to eat that?” he asked as he finished off his sandwich and stood.

“No, I’m not very hungry.” She felt bad that she was wasting food. “I’ll put it in the fridge for later.”

She waited for him to scold her, for him to tell her that she needed to take at least five bites before she was allowed to move away from the island.

Harvey simply nodded and took the plate to the fridge.

And that’s when she realized that things really had changed, and she’d have to figure out exactly what she wanted and fast, so she could fix this.

20

By ten o’clock that night, he’d had three voicemails from the doctor and four from Lily’s mother.

They were definitely starting to get desperate.

Paddy had been right to suggest that they take a step back and wait. With their desperation growing, they would fuck up, and then he’d be able to step in and figure out what the hell was going on.

Plus, Ronan wanted them to keep a low profile for the moment. Kidnapping the mother or the doctor could bring too much attention when he’d already taken Lily.

Harvey had spent most of the afternoon in his office trying to figure things out. He’d also been hiding.

From Lily.

It made him sound like a coward. But it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be near her, quite the opposite. He wanted to be as close as possible to her.

It was difficult to stick to his plan to cool things off a bit, to cool himself off a bit, when he was close to her.

Because all he wanted to do was take care of her and probably smother her. She’d made it clear that he was being too controlling, too much like her mother, and so he needed to change his ways. That meant that earlier today he’d had to hold back from ordering her to eat.

However, the urge to check on her was getting too strong to ignore. He had to see her. She’d barely eaten, so he needed to figure out a way to get some more food into her without being too bossy about it.

God, this was difficult. He never thought that he’d have to work so hard not to be himself.

Walking out, he found her sitting on the couch, watching a movie. It looked to be a romantic comedy, and he winced as the two main characters kissed.

This was not going to help his current state, because it seemed like the more he tried to stay away from her, the more he wanted her.

Seeing her sitting there with her hair tied up in a messy knot, no makeup on, huddled under a blanket, made him hard as hell.

He wanted to strip her bare and kiss every inch of her.

What was wrong with him? They didn’t have a clue what she’d really been through. It could be weeks or months before she was ready for anything more to progress beyond kissing in their relationship. Hell, at the moment, he wasn’t even sure they had a relationship.

Sure, he’d told her that she was his.

Unfortunately, he was all too aware that he couldn’t force anything. Although that didn’t mean he was going to give up on trying to win her over.

Gallaghers were known as stubborn, pig-headed, and determined

And they always got what they wanted.

“Hi, is everything all right?” She looked shyly up at him.

Adorable.

He gave her a small smile. “Everything’s fine. Sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been arranging a few things.”