Betrayed

  Chapter 26

  Liam’s hangover was epic.

  As he sat on the couch, both Evangeline and Adela eyeing him, he felt like a boy who had just been chastised by the nuns. He half-expected his knuckles to be rapped with a ruler, or maybe thrown into a volcano as a sacrifice.

  Last night had been a mistake. He knew that before he passed out, as well as this morning when he’d snuck out of Grace’s apartment and hailed a cab. He felt bad about it on many different levels. Grace deserved better treatment, and if Jeff had seen him, he had blown his cover as a married man. He also felt bad for Adela, but why, he didn’t understand. But what was done was done, and he was all about fixing mistakes instead of dwelling on them.

  “You need to figure out your next step,” Evangeline snapped.

  “Well, can I get my wings back?” Liam asked. “I’ll go into Jeff’s apartment and snoop around.”

  Evangeline took a deep breath and shut her eyes. A moment later, she opened them and looked directly at Liam. If looks could kill . . .

  “Liam, you must play by the rules. You cannot set your own. I laid them out specifically for you when we began this a few days ago. You have parameters that you must stay within in order for this to work. You are to live as a human, and humans don’t have wings!”

  Liam nodded. He had never been big on rules and parameters, preferring to go through life making up his own, especially after Annie’s death. After she died, he had closed up on himself, eaten by guilt and self-hatred. It had become very apparent to him that if he actually contemplated his life, he would self-destruct. Deciding the best way to avoid this, he simply lived fast and hard, relying on booze and women to mute his loneliness and act as a distraction from his inner ugliness.

  His time as an angel allowed for very little wiggle room, and even if he wanted to break to the rules, he couldn’t. He thought back to Roy and the Cuban cigar. Sure, he had wanted to smoke that bad boy down to the stub, but it was physically impossible. The restraints of being an angel had kept him in line. Give him a few inches of freedom—like being able to enjoy a beer, feeling the sun on his face, and the taste of a good steak—and he had taken a mile.

  He bet someone upstairs was not happy with him at all.

  Sighing, he stood up. “I’m going to lay down. I’m no good in the condition I’m in. When I wake up, I’ll get it figured out.”

  “Liam—“

  “Evangeline, I’m sorry, okay? I fucked this up, and I get that. But I can’t think right now, so please, just let me go lie down for a while.”

  Evangeline’s wings unfolded. “Very well.”