Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I pretend not to hear them or let on that just the mere mention of his name makes my heart thump. I have enough on my plate as it is without that mind fuck. But as much as I try telling myself that it’s just my imagination, that I was the only one stuck on Julius Blair, which made it seem like everyone else was as well, I can’t quite shake the feeling that they’re up to something.
I was almost convinced the next afternoon when Dad interrupted my pool time to send me on an errand, something he has never done as far as I can remember. “I’m sorry, baby; I know you’re relaxing, but it’ll just take a few minutes to run there and back.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where his assistant was, but the memory of him coming to my room at night to tuck me in as if I were back to being a toddler again stopped my tongue from moving. Both he and Mom have been amazing since dragging me home. I can’t repay them by accusing one of them of selling out his own kid.
Just to make a point, I didn’t even gloss my lips, nor did I change out of the ratty cargo pants and oversized tee I pulled on over my bikini, and I barely stopped long enough to push my feet into some slippers before sailing out the door. Just in case he thought he was going to get a new son-in-law out of his little errand.
I made sure the bun on the top of my head was as miserable as it could be, with strays straggling the side of my face. I was sweaty and hot from sitting in the sun, and I know it shows. There won’t be any love matches today, Dad.
Look at this; they’ve finally caused me to lose my damn mind. What the hell am I even thinking? And why am I so fixated on Julius Blair after all these years? It can’t just be the timing of everything; this feels like something else, something more, something…deeper.
I don’t believe in coincidence, but if this is fate, that shit is kicking my ass. Why would fate want us to meet now, of all times? Why did every feeling about him that I had beaten into submission in the last few years come roaring back as if they had never left?
I started to get twitchy as soon as I pulled into the parking lot of the upscale business address. I didn’t stop to admire the architecture like I usually would because I was here to be a menace, just on the off chance that this jackass even thinks for one second that I’m trying to get close to him.
JULIUS
I’d barely had enough warning with the phone call from her father when she came waltzing into my office. I’m a hundred percent certain she was hoping to have the opposite effect on me in that getup. I can read her well enough to know that she thinks her disheveled look would put me off, but the truth is, she could wear a gunnysack, and I’d still want her.
Fine, I’d spent the last few days and maybe longer nights thinking about her, me…us. It’s as if I’d finally hit a wall, and there was nowhere to run. If there’s one thing I am, it’s true to myself. I’m my biggest critic and instigator. I admitted that, in the beginning, she was too young. I admitted that I never thought of her as anything other than a cute kid for all the time I had known her.
Even after she made her first declaration of love, I’d put it out of my mind and brushed it off as teenage angst and all that comes with it. I’d seen her sporadically over the years since then, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Until that night, that last night, when I crushed her soul before walking away.
I accept that I’ve been running from her, from what I think she represents, all along. You see, the reason I am so sure that she could destroy me is because of what I like to call the family curse. It’s some crazy belief in certain parts of my ancestry that the men of our blood will know their mate on sight.
There’s a whole lot more that goes into it, and some people have stronger reactions than others, things of that vein. I always thought it was a myth since I never felt any of that with any of the women I’ve chosen to spend time with. I started to give it some thought a few years ago when my younger brother lost his mind over his now wife.
There’s a little bit of it, I guess, in my parents, but they’re older and way too reserved in front of us kids for me to get a real feel the way I did with Roman and Victoria. I saw firsthand what that lightning bolt Dad used to tease us about could do to an otherwise rational man.