“Or possibly you’re taking it too seriously. You don’t have to please them or answer to them, Jules.” I was living proof of that. I lived life on my own termsnow.
“Easy for you to say,” hesighed.
I frowned, considering. It didn’t feel easy. It felt like a hard-won thing. I’d spent a really long time trying to please people who refused to be pleased—parents, critics, readers. I’d had to reshape my whole life in order to break free of it. But now that I’d done it, I couldn’t imagine going back. I didn’t even like to think about the guy I’d beenbefore.
“What?” Jules said, blue eyes watching me in concern. “What are you thinkingabout?”
I sighed. “I’m thinking that your family loves you. Your mother, Con, and Theo, at least. Marina’s more in awe ofyou.”
“Awe. Yes, I felt theawe.”
I chuckled. “It was there. She’s just at an age where the awe pisses heroff.”
He made a hmphing noise. “I think you’re categorically wrong, butokay.”
“Your family is really protective of you, Julian. It’s not a badthing.”
“My family is…” Julian shook his head. “The way my mother treated youwas…”
“Protective?” I supplied. “I mean, I get why you weren’t happy, and she went about it wrong, but I’m not mad ather.”
Julian sighed. “I’ll never live this down. I didn’t charge my phone last night, but I’m guessing when I turn it back on there’ll be four missed calls from my mother, three emails from concerned O’Learians my mother turned to for sympathy, and at least two texts each from my brothers, giving meshit.”
“And a partridge in a peartree?”
“Stop being cheerful,” Julian grumbled. He heaved himself off the sofa and walked to the charger he’d plugged into the wall this morning. The line of his back when he bent overwas…
Distracting.
“I’m rarely accused of being too cheerful,” I told him. “This is novel.” I bit my lip. “Speaking of novels, how goes the plight of Lady… what’s hername?”
Julian glanced up from his phone. “Madelynne. Madelynne McBrideBuchanan.The laird marriedher.”
“Color me shocked. So she tamed his heart afterall?”
He sank down onto the cushion and quirked an eyebrow. Coupled with the hair, the shirt, the pants, and the memory of the kiss that had been seared into my brain, it was a fucking compelling sight. “No. They’re married, but it’s a marriage of convenience so he can take over her father’s land. Their fathers have been feuding for twenty years or something. His father was anasshole.”
“Of course.” I shifted onto my hip so I could see himbetter.
“But Buchanan’s first wife hated and betrayed him, then ran off while pregnant and died ofexposure.”
“Gasp.”
“So he can’t bring himself to trust Madelynne, and he’s all dominant and controlling and whatnot. The marriage isn’t a happily ever after guarantee here. It’s only a catalyst for trouble, really.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Staytuned.”
I forced a smile, thinking of my own marriage and debating whether it was something I should mention to Julian or not. There was a point where keeping certain things from him felt a little like lying. But we weren’t in a romantic relationship, right? So there was no reason for me to recount my sexualhistory.
And I would rather attend one of Hannibal’s dinner parties than open this door with Julian. He saw me as a whole, complete person, rather than as the bits of ash and paper left behind after failure upon failure upon failure had burned me down. I knew him well enough now to know he wouldn’t look down on me like some people had, but he might just pity me… and that might just beworse.
“Hey, think we can get pizza tonight?” he asked. “We could do half pepperoni, half broccoli, or… What?” he said when I’d stared at him a bit too long. “Will the vegetables contaminate the whole thing? What’s going on in that inscrutable mindnow?”
“Inscrutable? Hmm.” I trailed my hand up his bent leg, from his knee to mid-thigh. “Well, I’m thinking a lot of things, Jules. For example, I’m thinking about how I hopedNetflixmeant something that didn’t involve Netflix at all. I’m thinking of how you looked this morning when you woke up in mybed.”
Julian’s blush was visible even in the fading light. “That’snotwhat you were thinkingabout.”
Well, he was right. Partly. But the imagehadbeen simmering in the back of my brain all daylong.
It had been pretty obvious even before we left dinner at Julian’s mom’s house that we’d have to postpone our plans for “later” last night. Jules had been adorably tipsy—not nearly as out of control as he seemed to think, but way more than I figured he should be for anything more thansleep.
