recognised it instantly.
Oh, no. Of all the songs he could’ve picked, why did it have to be this one?
She steeled herself as the vocals began. It didn’t matter. She could do this. Think positive, she told herself; at least she knew the song, so that was one less unfamiliar thing to deal with. And she forced herself to listen to Liam, let him talk her through the routine before they started dancing together.
Liam looked at Polly through narrowed eyes. She was crying. Silently, but she was still crying, the tears brimming over her lashes and rolling unchecked down her face.
What was going on? He wasn’t asking her to do anything more difficult than she’d done in the last week.
‘OK. Four basics, then two promenades,’ he said. Once she’d started the routine, she’d realise it wasn’t going to be problematic and everything would be fine. She’d stop crying.
He hoped.
To his relief, she didn’t miss a single step.
‘Corner,’ he said, glancing swiftly at her. Then he realised that her tears hadn’t stopped. At all. She was still silently weeping, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks.
This time, she stumbled. ‘Sorry.’ Her voice was quavery.
And then she pulled her hands away from the ballroom hold so she could cover her face with them. Her shoulders were shaking, and Liam could hear that she was trying to gulp back the sobs.
He couldn’t ignore this any more and try to make her dance on, regardless. Even though he wanted to back away, because seeing such raw, painful emotion bursting through someone’s defences made him feel incredibly uncomfortable.
The Polly he’d come to know wasn’t a crier. Whatever had upset her had to be something major. She needed a shoulder to cry on—and right now he was the only person who could fill that role, whether he liked it or not. He had to make the effort.
‘Polly,’ he said softly.
She gulped. ‘Sorry, I forgot where I was. What’s the next step?’
‘Polly, you can’t cry and dance.’
‘I’m not crying. I’m fine.’
He reached out and brushed a tear away with the pad of his thumb. ‘No, you’re not. And I’m being a selfish jerk, trying to pretend this’ll all go away if I ignore it.’ He bit back a sigh. ‘What’s wrong?’
How could she tell him? Once Liam knew about Harry, she knew he’d treat her differently and she couldn’t bear that. She didn’t want his pity.
She shook her head, unable to put it into words.
‘We need a break. Go and put the kettle on,’ he said.
She knew Liam was giving her some space, and she was glad of the chance to scrub her face with a tissue and breathe hard enough to stop the tears.
When the kettle was just about to boil, he walked into the kitchen and handed her a bar of chocolate.
‘Where did you get this?’ she asked.
‘Amanda’s secret stash. I’ll replace it before she gets in on Monday, but right now I think your need is greater.’
His kindness made her want to cry all over again. She knew her tears had made him uncomfortable. The awkwardness had been written all over this face. She’d expected him to be caustic about her inability to concentrate—and now he’d done this. Camera Liam. Or was this Real Liam?
‘Thank you.’ She bit into the confectionery. The rush from the sugar and the cocoa felt good.
He took over making the coffee. ‘Better?’ he asked, handing her a mug of coffee.
‘Yes,’ she lied.
‘So are you going to tell me?’
She dragged into a breath. ‘I know you’ve been working really hard on the choreography, and I’m being ungrateful, but I …’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t dance to that song.’
‘It brings back bad memories for you?’ he guessed.
‘Not bad memories, exactly.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s something that never happened.’
He frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’
She lifted her chin. ‘If I tell you, I don’t want you to treat me any differently. No pity, no condescension, no cotton wool. OK?’
Liam knew exactly where she was coming from. After the accident, pity was all he’d faced. He’d been at screaming point. And then, when Bianca left him, there had been more and more of the same. People seemed to stop seeing him for himself; it was as if he’d had the word ‘victim’ tattooed across his forehead.
‘OK. It’s a deal,’ he promised, knowing already what she was going to tell him. That she’d been dumped. And somehow he’d have to find some words to bolster her.
‘Today’s my wedding day.’
Her wedding day? Now that he hadn’t expected. The gossip rag hadn’t said that her engagement had ended only a few days before she was supposed to get married—just that Harry had broken up with her and gone off with someone else.
Liam stared at her in shock. He’d had no idea that she’d been coping with this much of a mess.
‘Well, it was going to be my wedding day,’ she amended, ‘until last week.’
Liam still didn’t have a clue what to say. And that only added to the guilt he felt about not comforting her earlier.
‘And this—’ she lifted her chin and treated him to her brightest smile, which he knew now was a sure sign that her heart was breaking ‘—this was going to be the song for the first dance.’
‘I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would’ve picked something different.’
‘I should’ve said something. Except it wasn’t on the list of songs you sent me, so I assumed it wasn’t one you were thinking about using.’ She lifted one shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to tell you before because—well, I didn’t want you to start pitying me. I don’t want to be this pathetic, needy creature.’
‘I know where you’re coming from. And you’re not pathetic.’ Needy, yes. But who was he to judge? ‘I saw the stuff in the paper. But I had no idea he’d called it off this close to the wedding. That’s rough on you.’
‘It could have been worse. He could have just not turned up at the church today. At least he told me himself and he didn’t leave it up to his best man or what have you to do the deed.’
Though Harry hadn’t spared her those terrible photographs in the gossip rags, Liam thought. The photographs of Polly with empty eyes, looking as if her world had ended.
‘Or, worse still, he could have married me today
