CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

London

The workshop in London was only two days, plus an evening meet-and-greet the night before. Liam usually enjoyed this part—talking with people who shared his interests in meditation and spirituality, listening to their stories. They often had heart-wrenching, difficult tales to share, and he was humbled by the things people could leave behind them. Terrible things, sad things. Most people didn't start to walk the path to enlightenment without a big slap from life.

Tonight, he only wanted to go to his hotel room and wait for the phone to ring. He'd sent a dozen texts and two phone messages to Tillie, and nothing had come back.

He'd had harsh words with Krish on the plane over the incident with Nikki Gonzales, and his manager was now on his best behavior. He knew he'd overstepped, and was contrite, but Liam felt a certain arrogance from him that was unsettling. Liam would have trusted Krish with his life, but something had changed.

Money. That was the problem. None of the team had ever had any, and now they all had a lot. No matter what the intentions, that sometimes shifted the dynamics of things. In Krish's case, a lot of people were depending on him—a brother in an expensive university in America, a sister with bipolar disorder who struggled to hold a job, aging parents. He'd never married, and although he didn't say so publicly in order to spare his conservative family, he was gay, with a long-term partner in Wellington, where they kept a house on a cliff above the Tasman Sea.

But it was one thing for Krish to worry about Liam, fear that he was going around the bend, and quite another to send in a beautiful girl to seduce him.

It was a mean, dark trick, considering how much Krish knew about Liam's struggle to learn how to have healthy relationships.

Liam didn't know if he could forgive it. Or maybe he could forgive it, but he couldn't forget. Which meant that Krish had to go. If that was so, how would the entire machine move forward?

And if it couldn't, was Liam using this situation to dismantle something he'd grown weary of?

As he circled the room, listening and shaking hands and accepting the loving embrace of the people there, he set the puzzle on a back table of his mind. He made himself focus entirely on the moment, the people here, the offering he could make right here, right now.

But he would have to make some choices. Soon.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. Walking away from a little crowd, he checked it. Not Tillie.

Not Tillie.

Not Tillie.

A thread of doubt shimmered in the midst of his certainty. Had he gotten it wrong? Was Krish right? Was this just a repeat of a pattern he'd been employing for decades?

He caught his friend's eye across the room. Sober eyes. Knowing eyes. Until now, Liam had trusted him completely. He'd rescued Liam a half a dozen times, picking him up off the floor when he'd broken up with someone and gone on a bender, poured him into a shower and made him eat. The first time had been at age thirteen, when Belinda Tohu broke up with him after three months with no explanation. The last had been two years ago, when Melanie had grown tired of the demands of his career and decided she didn't want to be a part of it. He'd believed they would marry, and the breakup made him question himself, his choices in women, his ability to be real.

"Liam?" a voice said behind him.

He turned to see a young man, scrubbed and well tended, in a kind of uniform of loose pants and a tight athletic top that showed off his physique. "Yes, hi," Liam said automatically, and shook the extended hand.

"I'm Gregory Baker. Just wanted to meet you in person. I'll be in the workshop tomorrow, but I'm really happy to just be able to talk to you in person. Which I guess I already said."

Liam smiled. "Thanks." He forced himself to put aside the internal whirl to focus outward, on the people who'd come here to meditate with him, explore their inner world this weekend. He owed them his focused attention. "It's good to meet you. Tell me about yourself."

As the man started talking, Liam felt a buzz from his phone. And forced himself not to answer it.