It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt out yes then laugh at her for even asking such a stupid question. I was incredible at my job. I was rich. I made other people rich. People knew me.
Not the real me.
Not the me I wanted them to actually know or care about.
I sighed. “There’s this park bench I used to pass on my run every morning. An elderly lady used to sit there with a purple jacket, purple hat, a cane, full makeup, and a bag of bread. She was there every day feeding the birds, even in a torrential downpour, and then one day she was just . . . gone.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” My throat felt thick. “But I noticed. And I bet other people noticed too, because she was the sort of person you took notice of. And I couldn’t help but wonder, after a few weeks of her absence, why it bothered me so much.”
She leaned in. “Why did it? She was a stranger.”
My smile was sad as I looked away. “Because it made me wonder if I possessed enough redeeming qualities for anyone to miss me. They’d miss the money, the lavish parties, they’d miss the attention—but would they miss me? And then”—I stood and grabbed my plate—“the worst happened, I almost died, and I woke to find out that the world not only couldn’t care less about my absence, but it was better without me in it. My brother was better at my job, and it took exactly four weeks for my fiancée of three years to fall in love with him. The world, it seemed, didn’t need Julian Tennyson, and I’ve been struggling with that truth ever since.” I put my dishes in the sink and gave a defeated smile. “I, um, I’m going to head to bed.”
Keaton quickly stood and made her way over to me. Without speaking, she pulled me into her arms and hugged me, then whispered against my chest, “You’re wrong.”
Chapter Seventeen
KEATON
“No. I will not go out with you,” I said for the thirty-second time as Noah followed me down the hall, a long-stem red rose between his teeth. I stopped at the nurses’ station and sighed. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”
The rose made its way to about an inch from my face. The insane patient was dangling it like a carrot. This was the third week I had been forced to put up with him.
I gritted my teeth and turned just as he moved to his knees and said, “The cancer hasn’t killed me yet, but you just might if you say no . . .”
I hid my smile behind my hand and shook my head. “You’re relentless.”
“I’m in love.”
“Oh, dear God.” I burst out laughing. “You don’t know me! I’ve been here twice.”
“Three times,” he corrected, his sandy-brown hair falling across his forehead. He was adorable even though I refused to admit it out loud. “The first time was when—”
“We don’t need to rehash the burrito incident.”
“Our hands grazed each other, and you know you did it on purpose.”
“Are you fifteen?”
“Twenty-six.” He grinned wider, his white, straight teeth almost blinding. “If you don’t say yes, I might start singing . . .” Behind me, the nurses groaned. “Hey, I have a wonderful voice!”
“Wear earplugs,” a nurse piped up. “Or just say yes and save us all from putting them in.”
I shook my head. “One date. That’s it.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Well, let’s go, time’s wasting.”
“Now?” I panicked and looked around me.
He pulled me down the hall. “Time’s wasting, K. This is called living. Why don’t we try together?”
Great, he already had a nickname for me. “Living?”
“Spontaneous living, because the clock stops for no one, and I like you. You have a beautiful smile and a big heart. And I know you like me even though you keep rolling your eyes. I’ll win you over. I’m told I’m very persuasive.”
“Or annoying,” I offered.
He squeezed my hand and stopped, then turned to face me. I hadn’t realized until that moment how tall he was, or how good-looking, maybe because I didn’t want to acknowledge any of it. I was horrible at dating, and he was a patient at the hospital.
“Life is meant to be celebrated, Keats, annoying cancer patient and all.” He winked and then twirled me and dipped me in the middle of the hallway. His lips pressed onto my neck like they’d been there a million times. The kiss was light, it was perfect. And it was the first time I felt that feeling you get when you’re with your person, the person you were destined to be with.
I was his.
And in that moment, he knew it.
“I have Twinkies and a chessboard.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “But don’t tell my nurses. Apparently multiple Twinkies are frowned upon.”
“Multiple? How many do you eat?”
“In a day?” He seemed amused. “Only ten, maybe twelve if I’m feeling fancy. Come on, let’s go, time’s wasting. Oh, one more thing.” He tapped my nose. “When you fall in love with me, and I promise you will, try not to be sad when I die.”
Horror washed over me. “What sort of—”
He silenced me with a hug and said, “Promise.”
I was already in his web.
I was already that far gone.
It took Noah minutes to win me.
And the universe took him away in a single heartbeat.
That is something I won’t ever find it in my soul to forgive.
Julian typed the last part of the paragraph and looked up at me. I knew he’d see the sheen of tears in my eyes, and the sheer strength it took to resist letting them fall.
“It’s okay to mourn him.”
“I don’t think I would stop,” I admitted.
“Mourning?”
I shook my head sadly. “Crying.”
“Would he want you to cry over him?”
I smiled. “No, he’d be pissed. It was one of his things: don’t waste tears on stuff you can’t change, stay hydrated.” I did a lame fist pump. “He seriously said that entire sentence to me with a straight face.”
Julian burst out laughing. “I think I would have liked Noah.”
“I’m sure the feeling would have been mutual.”
Julian made a face. “Just how much do you know about me? I mean other than the rich-playboy thing you keep tossing in my face. Thanks, by the way.”
I was so thankful for the subject change that I relaxed in my chair. It was late afternoon, and we’d already been through two chapters. Things were getting easier, or maybe as easy as they were going to get, all things considered.
I studied him a bit then sighed. “Well, I know you’re rich, I know you almost died in a head-on collision, went into a coma, came back not really the same . . .”
He barked out a laugh. “You wouldn’t have liked me precoma.”
“News flash: I barely like you now,” I teased.
It earned me another devastating smile from his side of the table. It was hard not to study him, the way his body moved, muscles rippling in his forearms like he couldn’t help it, and that playful grin that could turn serious and intimidating in a heartbeat.
“I would have used you.” Julian said it like using people for his own benefit was an everyday thing. “I may have cheated on her with you if I was tempted, and I was tempted often. I would have done everything in my power to make you like me, and I would have probably gotten bored by you or felt guilty for how I treated you, maybe both. You would have made my dad jealous, furious actually. He was always competing with me. I was skewed by a false sense of reality. I was taught as a Tennyson that the world was mine and rules didn’t apply. No, Noah would not have liked me—he would have seen right through me.”
I gulped, trying to digest the information he set on the table like a heavy bag full of his past sins. It lodged itself between us and just sat there. “What made you change?”
“Waking up from the coma. You know, that and the fact that my mom beat some sense and logic into me, reminding me where I came from, what my purpose was. I went t
o the hospital every day, and every day she gave me a lecture and a challenge to be better. That was more than a year ago, when we first reconnected.”
“And in that entire time, the old you never popped up and said screw it all?” I wondered as I picked at my thumbnail and folded my hands in my lap to keep from fidgeting.
His intense stare was back, the one that made my stomach erupt into butterflies and my guilt double up on itself for even reacting that way.
“Well . . .” His smile was crooked, it made him look playful, sexy. Noah would have said Julian looked ready for a photo shoot and probably got manicures on the regular, and he would have probably been right, but Julian didn’t seem to shy away from that ugly side of him. He didn’t care. “I did yell at my brother and ex a few times, I may have flipped over a desk in my office and gotten painfully drunk a few days in a row, and thrown a mild temper tantrum at the Four Seasons, where security had to escort me to my room, but other than that, nah . . . not tempted.”
I burst out laughing. “You threw a temper tantrum at the Four Seasons? What, did your mini bar run out of peanuts?”
“Funny,” he said sarcastically, “and no. If you must know, I was also drunk and pissed off. Apparently seeing your ex marry your twin brother does that to a person, and I wanted more M&M’s. Can you believe they refused to deliver them to my room?”
“Monsters.”
“I used more colorful language at the time.” He shrugged. “And should have probably gotten arrested for assault, but I’m a Tennyson. Rules don’t apply to me.” He seemed disgusted by that.
“I know what that’s like,” I said softly, and I did. People were always watching and saying how wonderful I was. The scary part is trying to maintain that level of perfection—the scary part is the failing and risking everyone turning against you. Fame is a ticking time bomb, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I fell—or was pushed—from my social media pedestal. “I’m a Westbrook, goody-two-shoes daughter of Hollywood royalty. I can do no wrong.”
“I bet I could dirty up that reputation a bit for you.” He seemed almost sad about it. “Trust me, hanging out with me would be enough.”
I frowned. Hadn’t I thought that same thing earlier? How the press would have a field day if they saw us together in the same room? But now . . . now that I saw him differently, I didn’t want to think that, refused to believe it. “I don’t really think that’s true.”
“Clearly you haven’t been reading the newspapers . . . My dad’s still bitter and finds great joy in uncovering every sin I’ve ever committed and leaking it to the media. The idea that I have his blood in my body makes me want to slit my own wrists.”
“Harsh.”
“True!” he fired back. “Anyway, sorry, didn’t mean to travel down memory lane like that. They aren’t fun ones anyway.”
“And mine are?”
“Good point.” He laughed. “At least yours are good ones, solid ones you want to hold on to forever.”
“That’s the thing about memories. They always fade, don’t they?”
He was quiet and then said, “That’s why you talk about them, that’s why you’re writing this down. Your words keep his memory alive.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah.”
“Hey, Keaton?”
“Hmm?” I didn’t want him to see me get emotional again, but it was impossible not to look at Julian when he spoke to me, almost like I was doing my body a disservice by not making eye contact.
He walked around the table and then pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Only the luckiest of men die knowing they lived even a few days with a love like this.” His smile was so sad my heart pressed against my chest like it needed to escape, needed to reach out to him, be the salve to his still gaping wound.
Both of us were broken.
But in different ways.
He was mourning the loss of not just his mom, but of his past, of the time he misused as the man he’d been.
I was mourning a love that ended too soon, like a flower that never gets to fully bloom.
I wondered if it was all the same, because it was painful no matter the reasoning behind it, and pain couldn’t lie dormant for long—no, it must be felt.
Chapter Eighteen
JULIAN
I told her more than I told my own shrink.
How’s that for pathetic?
She was easy to talk to—and I was way past trying to impress someone who was too busy mourning to care if I was a good guy or not—not that I wasn’t trying to at least make her understand I wasn’t that man anymore, or I tried not to be.
Being a jackass was my default mode.
It protected me.
It kept me safe.
It was the only thing that kept me sane when my dad laughed at me or told me I would never amount to the investment he put into my education and upbringing.
I ran my hands through my hair and leaned against the tile wall of the shower.
I’d needed an escape, not a shower.
Her hands looked like they were healing when I rewrapped them, leaving some fingertips out that seemed undamaged, but I knew I was putting her in danger by not calling someone, so before I flipped on the water, I went outside, called my brother, told him that we needed a car sent up, and then momentarily wanted to take it all back.
I felt desperate.
Like the bubble was about to pop.
It would take a few hours, but they would be here soon.
And this thing between me and Keaton, whatever it was, would end just the way it started, with our cars going in opposite directions, our hearts still sore and healing.
Alone.
It would end with both of us alone.
Loneliness felt like death to me. I’d always had Izzy, I’d always had an end goal, and now I was in limbo, going through the motions and trying to deal with a death I refused to acknowledge.
My own.
The death of the man I used to be and the rebirth of someone who was trying like hell to be better—to be the man my mother had raised.
I pounded my fists against the tile again then flipped off the water and wrapped a towel around my wet body. I was so immersed in my own thoughts that I wasn’t watching where I was going when I jerked open the bathroom door and made my way toward the guest bedroom.
Keaton turned a corner.
I stumbled to catch her arms without falling on my ass, and she pressed her hands against my chest as we collided against the wall.
Her hands slid down my wet chest, her stunned expression half hidden by her black hoodie. My blood roared as my heart hammered against my chest, faster and faster the longer she kept her fingers pressed to my skin.
I had promised I wouldn’t seduce her.
My body was currently cursing me to hell as her eyes roamed down to the towel that was wrapped around my waist.
She gulped.
If she licked her lips, I was a dead man.
If I saw tongue, I would have no choice but to taste her.
“You—” Her voice was breathless, like she’d been running up and down the halls. “Were dirty?”
I pressed my lips together to keep from smirking. “That’s generally why people shower.”
“Not the only reason,” she teased and took a step back. “Hot or cold?”
“Excuse me?”
“Hot or cold shower?”
I gaped and then narrowed my eyes “If you’re suggesting I’m taking cold showers because I told you I’d keep my hands off you and you’re just that fucking irresistible that I’m having a hard time keeping my promise . . .” I leaned down and whispered, “You’d be right.”
I quickly sidestepped her before I did something that would shatter the cease-fire between us and hurried into my room, shutting the door behind me.
My heart thudded against my chest as I dropped the towel to the floor and walked toward the closet just as a soft knock sounded and the door opened.
I turne
d, not thinking.
She walked in, eyes lowered to where the towel had just been.
I held my groan in. “Staring doesn’t help, Keaton.”
“Sorry.” Her eyes jerked away. “I, uh, didn’t think you would be naked, but it’s fine, I can handle naked, I just wondered”—her eyes lowered again, widened—“if . . .”
“If?” I prompted, enjoying the way I distracted her. “Eyes up here, Keaton.”
“Sorry!” she snapped. “I just saw something . . . on . . . the wall.”
“Something big?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you want me to make chocolate chip cookies or not?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Well, good.” She crossed her arms. “I’ll just be doing it now . . . uh, not it, the cookies, not doing the cookies, making—”
“You should go.” I grinned.
She rolled her eyes, more at herself than me, it seemed, and left my room so fast the door almost hit her on the way out.
I ignored the release in my chest as I put on a pair of black jeans and a cream sweater.
And realized that several minutes later I was still smiling as I passed the bathroom and walked into the kitchen.
I don’t know how long I leaned against the wall and watched her bake. She was actually doing a pretty good job, gauze and all. I’d rewrapped it tighter this time and made sure that a few of her good fingers were exposed on her right hand so that she could do more.
She stared at the mixing bowl and put her hands on her hips then very slowly turned around. “I need your muscle.”
I pushed away from the wall. “For homemade cookies, I’d do pretty much anything.”
She seemed to perk up. “Really?”
“I feel a question coming.”
She frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re full of questions.” I laughed, grabbed the wooden spoon, and started stirring. “Bet you love puzzles and find extreme enjoyment when each piece fits where it’s supposed to. Bet it would drive you batshit crazy if I stole one piece and it was incomplete.”
She elbowed me in the side, her closeness giving me a whiff of perfume that had my body aching in all the wrong and right places. “Who would do that?”
Finding Him Page 9
