by Stella Rhys
I heaved a sigh. “No. I think he’ll at least hear me out. Maybe even over lunch.”
“He’ll probably use that corporate voice you love.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my head back. “Fuck it. Send me the links for the flight. I’ll suck it up if he goes Corporate Julian on me. I just need the answers.”
“You got it, girl,” Lia said.
I heard her fingers clicking away, and once I received her email, we spent the next ten minutes comparing flights to figure out which was best. I wanted to go for the one seven days from now, on Friday.
Of course, Lia preferred one leaving tomorrow morning.
“That doesn’t give me time to mentally prepare,” I protested.
“Mentally preparing leads to you backing out of this,” she argued. “Also, I just booked it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Happy birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“Happy Fourth of July then, I don’t know! Aren’t you excited to see me as soon as tomorrow?” Lia demanded. “It’s been five weeks since I’ve smelled your hair.”
“Creepy.”
“Girl, you don’t even know how creepy I can get. I’ve missed you too much!”
I laughed – a real one, almost. Of course it wound down to a sigh.
“Oh God. It’s happening,” I murmured, staring at the flight confirmation Lia forwarded me. “Departing tomorrow at seven forty-five in the morning? Are you joking, Lia?”
“Again, not giving you time to think twice about this. Still scared?” she asked.
“More so, actually.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just start winding down for bed now, because you gotta get up early. And no matter what you do, don’t freak out. Whatever happens with that asshole, at least you’ll get closure. And at least I’ll always love you.”
I snorted, and after another few minutes of conversation, I went to brush my teeth. I had my toothbrush dangling out of my mouth as I packed a weekend bag, questioning myself for the hundredth time if this moment was really happening.
When I went to bed around midnight, I forced myself to relive the last day I saw Julian. It was for the sake of thickening my skin. I wanted to be prepared in case I’d see it again, because chances were that I would. Julian had sacrificed his business for me. There was no way in hell that he didn’t resent me, as well as the fact that he had to work even harder now to make up for all the time he lost with the Roths.
Unsurprisingly, I tossed and turned all night, catching barely a wink of sleep between my dreams of Julian sitting at his desk, refusing to say a single word to me.
41
SARA
Like most of the other early morning travelers around me, I was on autopilot as I moved through security, removing my purse and my bag, and watching both items float ahead of me down the conveyer belt.
After a restless night, going through the airport motions practically lulled me to sleep. But I jolted awake every time I remembered why I was even taking this trip.
I needed to know what happened in Biarritz. Even if explaining made Julian hate me all over again, I needed to at least hear it and close that chapter of my life. At this point, I’d do anything to stop dreaming about him already. I wanted so badly to just move on, but I was stuck. So this was my last hope to get Julian forever out of my mind.
“Would you like a seat, miss?” a man offered when I arrived at my packed gate.
“Oh, no, thank you. It’s not heavy,” I said when he mentioned something about the duffel on my shoulder.
It was in fact heavy – packed with a bunch of snacks and trinkets I’d collected for Lia over the course of five weeks. But I didn’t feel like sitting. I preferred standing by the massive window and staring out at the crowd milling under the enormous concourse. It was oddly comforting. It made me feel less alone, and less crazy for coming here in the first place.
Not that the crazy ship hadn’t already sailed.
The lack of sleep had me seeing things more than usual today. Every man in a suit reminded me of Julian, despite the fact that none of them looked remotely like him.
There was no looking like Julian Hoult, especially not Julian Hoult in a suit.
I still remembered the head to toe impact he had on me the first time I laid eyes on him in that elevator.
Staring blankly out at the crowd, I remembered the blue of his eyes, the way they pierced easily right into me. I remembered the way his lips curled in the slightest bit of a smirk, and I could see it now as I stared over the hundreds of heads at my gate.
I could actually see Julian.
“Miss?” The man who’d offered his seat stood up.
My pulse was racing. I didn’t realize I’d dropped my bag to the floor till he picked it up and offered it to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said hastily, blinking hard and murmuring something else about being fine, though I wasn’t sure I was.
My eyes were wild as they returned to the spot they’d seen Julian. It was empty now, but through the crowd, a silver glint caught my eyes. It was low – below hip level – but I followed it like a shooting star, confirming to myself that it was his Rolex before my eyes traveled up the sleeve of his suit, my heart jumping out of my chest when I finally looked up and saw him walking toward me.
In a tailored blue suit, parting the dense crowd of travelers and flight attendants, Julian Hoult was walking toward me.
Oh my God.
I didn’t blink. I didn’t want to lose him, and I didn’t even realize I was pacing toward him till I saw his lips faintly turn up.
Oh God.
That smile.
I felt the same adrenaline I felt my first time on the back of his bike. It rushed through me so fast and so forcefully I couldn’t breathe. Our steps quickened and slowed in unison as we closed the long gap between us, and I dropped my bag at our feet when I was finally close enough to confirm I wasn’t seeing things.
He was real, right in front of me, and for several moments, I held my breath and just stared.
“You’re here,” I said finally.
“I’m here,” he murmured, the sound of his voice rolling like a blanket over my skin. I drew in a deep breath, closing my eyes when I felt tears burning them. I shook my head when I felt his hand touch my cheek and reduce my voice to a whisper.
“How did you…?” I opened my eyes and studied every inch of his face to ensure myself that this was Julian. My Julian. The one who loved me, and not the one who sent me away. “What are you doing here?” I asked. His answer almost buckled my knees.
“I came to take you home.”
The tears fell despite the soft laughter escaping my lips. “Did Lia…?” I asked.
“Send me your flight information? Yes,” Julian chuckled, pulling me close and letting my tears seep through his shirt. I felt eyes from every direction on us as I cried, but I didn’t care. I was so fucking relieved I just didn’t care at all.
“I didn’t realize the deal fell through, Julian. I would’ve –”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, cupping my face with both hands and thumbing away my tears. “That was the last thing I wanted you to think about.”
I shook my head. “You worked so hard for that deal, Julian,” I said, my voice breaking. “It couldn’t have been easy for you to let go of. I know that.”
“It wasn’t. But it was still easier than letting go of you.”
Julian’s chest rose and fell under my palms as he let out a breath. It was short, barely there, but I heard the sound of his pain and guilt in it. I saw the same in his eyes when I looked up at him.
“You had to know I didn’t want to let you go, Sara. I wanted to keep you for as long as you’d have me. I swear,” he laughed softly at himself, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. “I got so fucking addicted to that smile,” he murmured. “I hated watching you leave. I just thought it was for the best.”
“I’ve told you a million times you
don’t have to protect me,” I protested. “I don’t know what Turner said to you that night, but considering what I’ve heard him say about me, both in front of me and behind my back, I can guess.”
“He wanted me to force your compliance, Sara. He wanted me to threaten your job unless you agreed to spend a weekend with him,” Julian said, shocking me silent for several moments. That much I didn’t know. And he wasn’t even done. “People who work for him found out about your arrest. I was afraid he would hold it over you, and harass you. I didn’t know how that would affect you, Sara, and I wasn’t going to assume. Not when it involved something that hurt you so bad in the past,” Julian said, a deep frown in his brow. “I just wanted you to keep healing. You said yourself it’s a fragile process.”
“It is. But it’s even harder without the man who helped me start in the first place.”
Julian drew his bottom lip in as he smiled. It was the closest thing to a shy smile that I’d ever see on him, and it prompted my first real laugh in five weeks.
Goddammit, that beauty. I just wanted to skip this whole damned morning and be in New York with him already. I wanted to climb in bed with him, and kiss him and remember what it was like to feel good again, and whole again.
“I promise you I’m going to be okay, Julian,” I said, and I meant it. “I can do anything on my own, but with you, I do it that much better.”
The way he glowed down at me was contagious, apparently, because a trio of passing women grinned wide as they gazed at us. It reminded me a bit of the sun hat ladies at the gas station, who barely had to know me to tell me to make Julian mine. I laughed to myself as I thought about them, and I hoped that wherever Sun Hat Lady was right now, I was making her proud.
“God, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Sara,” Julian said as his fingers wove into my hair. He kissed the top of my head. “I dreamt of you every day that you were gone.”
My tears hung on my lashes as he hugged me tight against his chest.
“Trust me. I know how that feels.”
JULIAN
I took off of work for the first week that Sara came home. We exchanged the same knowing grin when I offered her my place to stay since she’d given up her lease. She was moving in with me. We were both well aware of that – we just didn’t say it quite yet.
But within the first three days, we fell into a perfect little domestic routine. I woke up early to go for a run, come home to shower then make us breakfast. I’d let it cool on the counter as I crawled back into bed and kissed Sara awake. We generally let breakfast go cold while having sex anywhere from the bed to the bathroom, but it didn’t matter because anything tasted good after the appetite we worked up.
During the day, we went shopping for things that she needed, that got lost or thrown out during the move. We exchanged that same knowing smirk as we purchased everything from a toothbrush to a little silver tray to hold her earrings on my dresser. After that particular purchase, she couldn’t hold her tongue.
“How long do you think I’ll be staying at your apartment?” she asked as we walked out of the store. She giggled at the smile on my face.
“My guess is awhile.”
During the night, she cooked dinner while I read or took calls from work. I could never actually be completely off, but it was certainly nice to conduct business with a view of Sara dancing in the kitchen, her ass wiggling around as she tasted her red sauce over the stove.
Like we’d established during that trip to Biarritz, she went to sleep before me at night while I sat beside her in bed, reading or preparing notes for work.
It was a routine every other couple had, and it was apparently everything I needed to be perfectly happy and content.
My favorite nights were the one when Mom or Emmett dropped by, either to drop off some home cooked food or, in Emmett’s case, to eat it. I loved those nights, because I got to hang back and watch Sara sit with them on the couch as I poured some wine. I got to listen to her talk and laugh breezily with them, as if she’d known them for years.
I’d lived in this apartment for years now, but somehow the bells of her voice were what it took to make it really feel like home.
Then again, she had a way of carrying that feeling with her wherever we went. The first time I’d felt it was when I brought her to my house in the Hamptons. I felt it more in Biarritz, and I felt it strongest now that I had her in the place I returned to every night after work.
She was my sense of home. My sense of family. She was everything I had tried to work for and pushed myself to find when I was younger. I wish I could have told myself then to save myself the pain – that if I could just wait long enough, the answer to every one of my dreams would come in the form of a girl named Sara.
She was the glue that pieced everything together for me, and she was the motivation behind my new top priority in life:
No matter what, keep her happy.
Keep her parents happy. Keep even Lia happy.
Do whatever it takes to lift even the slightest weight off her shoulders, and keep that beautiful smile on her face.
That was the new goal, and it was a lofty one. But I was known to work my ass off for something I truly wanted.
And plain and simple, she was it.
Epilogue
SARA
Twelve Months Later
“What… is going on?” I asked, slowing down at the top of the steps when I spotted Julian at the bottom, looking dashing as ever in his black suit and grey tie.
It wasn’t unusual for him to wait for me there when I was taking too long to get ready for dinner, but tonight, he had music playing, and he wore a crooked little smile as he held what looked like a white rose in each hand. He didn’t answer my question, simply saying, “Come here, baby.”
It was hard to say no to that.
When I got to the bottom step, Julian stopped me, taking my hand and slipping what I thought was just a rose on my wrist. In reality, it was a small but intricate corsage. I was still a bit lost, but I broke into a huge grin when he pinned the other rose next to his lapel – his boutonniere.
“Julian Hoult. Are you taking me to prom?” I asked, giggling my ass off as he helped me down the last step.
“We covered the motorcycle ride on your wish list. We’ve been to your french fry spot about a dozen times now,” he said, his gorgeous lips curving up. “Figured we should cross off prom before we get to the rest.”
“Fair enough,” I smirked as he brought me to the floor between the open kitchen and living room, both of us laughing as “You Are The Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne played over the speakers. “But you realize you’ve set a bad precedent for yourself here, right?” I teased, my lips close to his as we danced.
“How so?”
“You remember that wish list right? Now you have to take me to Monaco and Tuscany.”
“Not a problem. Remind me what else is on that wish list? Because I’m actually going to get to another part of it tonight.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really, Mr. Hoult. That’s interesting, since the rest of that wish list is entirely up to me to complete.”
“Something about buying your parents a three-bedroom in London.”
“Yes. And trust me, I’m saving,” I said, giggling as I took a look at my corsage next to his boutonniere. From the white roses, I looked up at his beautiful face – at all those perfectly sculpted features that, once upon a time, rarely bothered to move. It was funny to think about now considering I got at least one of those crinkle-eyed laughs every day. The Miracle Worker. That was what Lukas and Emmett called me for bringing life to Julian in a way they’d never seen.
Since busting my ass to get my job with Una Magazine in the States, I’d achieved quite a lot. But being Julian’s miracle worker was perhaps still my proudest achievement thus far.
“So where are you taking me tonight? Monaco or Tuscany?” I murmured my question against Julian’s lips as he kissed me softly. “And do Lukas and Lia know ab
out the trip?” I giggled. “Because they’re kind of expecting us at our reservation in thirty minutes.”
“I’m sorry, baby, but we’re not leaving the country tonight.”
“But you said we were covering another part of the wish list tonight, and I don’t see myself buying a house for my parents before midnight.”
Julian laughed, slipping the corsage off my wrist and unpinning his boutonniere as Ray LaMontagne faded out. I watched with amusement as he set the flowers onto the kitchen counter, returning to me with a hand reaching in his jacket pocket.
The grin dropped off my face as I watched him pull out a little velvet box.
“Julian…”
His blue eyes glimmered when they looked at me.
“You said you wanted to buy a three-bedroom for your parents, so you could visit with your kids. And I kind of imagined from the day you said it that they would be our kids,” Julian said softly, laughing at my instant tears. It was just a few at first, but the moment he went down on one knee, they poured. “Sara, you’ve been everything I’ve ever wanted from the moment I laid eyes on you, and every day I spend with you, I find myself wanting more. I want to bring you to Monaco and Tuscany. I want to see you walk down the aisle to me in a big white dress. I want to see the way your eyes light up around our children. I think you rubbed off on me,” he chuckled, “because all I do these days is fantasize about you, and us and the life we’re going to have together. You make me want to be a better man, and the best father in the world. For all the ways you’ve changed my life, and all the happiness you’ve brought me, you deserve nothing short of that.”
I could barely see through my tears, and my knees were weak enough that Julian read my mind and returned to his feet, laughing as he held me tight against his chest and kissed my forehead.
“Making you happy has been by far my proudest achievement, Sara. And I’ll never stop working to keep that smile on your face,” he murmured, his lips spreading in a grin as I let out one more sob. “So marry me. I’ve been waiting for awhile to call you my wife.”
