“Goodnight, Richard.”
“Goodnight, Juliette.”
When he started snoring lightly less than a minute later, I allowed my mind to fill up with images of a certain fighter come bartender. Every fibre of my being wanted to know him more intimately. Locked away in the safety of my tormented mind, in a moonlit room in the Yarra Valley surrounded by grapevines showing first signs of new life, it felt like I cheated on Richard for the first time. When I touched myself, I imagined it was Leo’s hands on my body. When I brought myself to climax, I imagined it was Leo deep inside me. When a small groan escaped my lips, I imagined Leo’s mouth muffling the sound with his passionate kiss. It was the most erotic experience I’d ever had, and when it was over, my shame and my loneliness found new depths.
I woke up in the morning completely alone. I had no idea where Richard was, and I didn’t care. I just didn’t care. I felt exhausted and depressed by my darkening thoughts. A long shower helped to wash away my fatigue, and I dressed and packed up quickly. I looked around the homestead half-heartedly for either my mother or Richard but gave up, quietly relieved. They were probably having breakfast together, discussing the success of the event and his riveting speech. I rolled my eyes in their honour.
Chapter Eleven
Leo
I woke up the next morning in Bea and Angus’s spare room, still thinking about Juliette. Why couldn’t I get that crazy, complicated woman out of my fucking head?
When the function had wrapped up, she and Dick were the last to leave. She’d shivered when our eyes met. If she was cold, the arsehole hadn’t given her his coat. Or perhaps I had an effect on her too. Either way, she’d been about to go to bed with Dick, a man she appeared to barely tolerate. I didn’t know her and for all I knew, she was happy with him. He clearly had money and social standing, and perhaps she wanted the lifestyle that went hand in hand in these circles. Perhaps I’d read her all wrong. To me, she was like a wild animal pacing her cage, looking for a weak place to break free. With a thousand warring thoughts rushing through my mind, I’d given her nothing. No smile. No wave. Nothing. And then she was gone.
I needed to clear my mind and run, so I got dressed then slipped out the side door and took off. My legs carried me faster and faster, dulling my brain until the burning sensations were all I had to focus on. I headed uphill to the Anglican Church, built in the early 1900s. There was a narrow dirt track that ran along the church boundary and the cemetery behind. I didn’t look sideways, instead focusing on the road ahead.
When I reached the old wooden bridge crossing the upper Yarra River, I slowed down to a walk. The sun was warm, but I hadn’t run far enough to break a sweat. I couldn’t wipe Juliette from my mind. Images of her in black flicked through my mind as quickly as ones of her in white lace. It wasn’t just her changing appearance that had confused me. At fight night, she’d looked like she might take on the world, and last night she’d looked like she had the weight of the world on her slender shoulders. Shaking my head, I took off again, determined to replace confusion with exhaustion.
The path back to Bea’s would take me past my old family home. As I got closer, I was shocked to see a red Mini parked on the grass verge. It was the exact type of car Juliette had driven. A cold dread settled over me when I noticed the front gate, hanging from one hinge, had been pushed open. I walked tentatively down the path and made a full perimeter of the house, glancing with increased anxiety around the overgrown garden.
“Hello,” I called out when I got back to the front door. No answer. “Hello,” I repeated, louder this time. Nothing.
Baxter, the neighbour’s cat, slinked his way out of the house, alerting me to the slightly ajar front door. I stood at the opening and called out into the house. As I pushed gently, the door swung the rest of the way open, and I stood on the threshold of my childhood home. It all felt so wrong, and I was pretty sure at that point I would never be ready to face these demons. What was once the centre of my world was now a place I couldn’t bear.
I stood at the door and reached down to pat the cat that had started to wind himself around my legs, purring. I pushed the door open. Surely no one would go inside uninvited.
“Help.” I thought that’s what I heard coming from inside the house somewhere.
“Hello,” I managed to call out when I had composed myself a little. “Where are you?”
“Help.” The voice was a little louder and sounded increasingly distressed.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I ran my hands through my hair and sucked in some air, forcing it into my lungs. “I’m coming,” I shouted, trying to push away my own fears. “Where are you?”
A muffled female voice carried down from above. “In here.”
“That’s not helpful,” I muttered to myself, taking the stairs two at a time. I tried not to look around too much for fear of some kind of panic attack. I would just find her then get her the hell out of my house.
“Call out again,” I instructed so I could follow her voice.
“I’m really sorry. I’m trespassing again. I mean… shit. I just wanted to see inside this beautiful house and now I’m stuck in one of the bedrooms. A gust of wind must have blown the door closed and the door wouldn’t open from the inside and—”
I opened the door and walked into my old bedroom. Her rambling stopped mid-sentence and, for the third time in as many days, my heart stopped too. The sheer impossibility of the situation made me question my own sanity again. The fact she wasn’t speaking made me wonder if she was a conjured-up illusion of my messed-up brain. Was my mind playing tricks on me?
“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I wasn’t going to steal anything” she said, gesturing around the sparsely furnished room. “It’s not like there’s anything much to take.” She visibly cringed at her own words. “I didn’t think anyone lived here and the door was open. I’m really sorry.”
“I’ll need you to get out,” I said through gritted teeth. I could feel the panic level rising.
She nodded, shrugging her shoulders the way she had when Richard reprimanded her. It made me feel like shit.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have made a joke about stealing when I’m trespassing on your property. I’m just a bit shaken up about being locked in a room in someone else’s house that I shouldn’t have been in in the first place and then you appear. Again. I mean, who the fuck are you? Are you following me or something? Are you a crazy stalker?” She shook her head and shuffled from one foot to the other. “Sorry about cursing. I don’t usually curse. Well, not out loud, anyway.”
Her apology that had turned into an attack then back into an apology threw me off guard, and the ridiculousness of her accusations blew the tension out of the room. “Seriously? You show up to my fight. Then you show up at the function I was working at. Then you show up at my house. And you think I’m the stalker?” I could hear my own voice softening.
“Okay. I guess you’re not a stalker,” she conceded with the hint of a smile.
“Thank you. That’s big of you to admit.” Our eyes locked and we stared at each other with such intensity, I couldn’t look away.
“Right. Well, I’ll get out of your hair, then.” She shook her head then started walking towards the door. When she passed, I grabbed her slender arm. A shock of electricity hit me, and I snapped my eyes back to hers, where I saw what I imagined she was seeing in mine—dangerous lust.
“Wait,” I spoke in barely more than a whisper. Realising I was still holding her arm, I dropped it and took a step back. I didn’t want her to leave just yet. “I’m sorry I told you to get out.”
“Why?” She looked confused. “You had every right.”
“It’s not you. I wanted to see you again.” I paused, unsure how to explain it. “I don’t live here anymore. I haven’t been in here in five years.” I wanted her out because no one that beautiful belonged somewhere haunted by so much ugliness. But I didn’t want her to lea
ve right away. “I could show you the garden.” It sounded lame, but I was clutching at straws.
A smile lit up her entire face, brightening her beautiful eyes “I love gardening. Apartment living doesn’t call for it much, but yours is incredible.”
I was in trouble. My desire to kiss her was overwhelming and completely ridiculous. Juliette was definitely spoken for, and that in itself was an absolute deal breaker. Despite that fact, there was something about her that gave me a deep sense of calm.
Chapter Twelve
Juliette
He touched me. Leo touched me. The fighting god with the icy stare and the rock-hard body I wanted to run my hands down and do all kinds of naughty things to, touched me. We both felt it. I would have bet my ticket to fight night on it. Was he the reason I’d felt so drawn to this house? Why did we keep running into each other? I didn’t believe in coincidence. I believed in fate.
The crushing pressures imposed on me by my mother were pushed to the furthermost parts of my mind.
I wasn’t lying about my love of the garden. It was overgrown and more like a jungle than a garden, but it had a tangible beauty, just like the house. Despite its neglect, I could still see that someone had gone to a lot of trouble establishing it. It just needed a lot of love. Seeing the garden also gave me an excuse to stay there longer—stay with him longer. I wanted to be there for as long as possible.
He gestured for me to exit the room ahead of him.
Standing at the top of the staircase, I examined my manicured nails and smooth hands. “I used to spend lots of time in my grandmother’s garden when I was young. I loved getting my hands dirty.” I paused. “I miss it.”
I looked up to find Leo studying me. When he realised I was staring back, he smiled, and I placed my hand on the bannister to steady myself. This man made me weak at the knees. It wasn’t just his hard-to-fathom good looks, bad-boy edge or ability to crush men with his bare hands. There was something deeply calming about being in his presence. He didn’t say anything further. He just bit his bottom lip and ran his hands through his hair. He was so sexy; I found it incredibly distracting.
We walked down the stairs in silence, a delicious tension hanging in the air between us. At the bottom, instead of going straight ahead towards the front door, Leo led me around to the left and down the hallway. I tried to look everywhere at once—double-height ceilings, exposed stone walls I was compelled to touch, the occasional spider web and a definite lack of any touches making it a home. I was looking at the bare bones of a house, built when time, skill and care were taken to ensure a quality rarely seen in more contemporary homes.
As Leo led me further down the hallway, I stopped outside an open door. Leo stopped too. I couldn’t resist poking my head through the doorway and taking a tentative step in for a quick look. It was the room I’d peered into when I dirtied my dress—I recognised the furniture.
“It’s a beautiful room,” I whispered. Despite the dusty furniture and the grimy windows not allowing the natural light in, it was still a beautiful room. Much larger than in contemporary homes, the room was given a focal point by a cast-iron fireplace with a slate hearth. Despite the size of the room and the high, decorative ceilings, I had visions of a warm and cosy lounge room where I could relax with a good book on cold winter evenings.
“It was.”
He was standing right behind me and the words sounded like breaths, kissing the air that separated us. I turned slowly, and what I saw in his eyes was pain. Deep, cutting, agonising pain. I could not only see the tension in his tight shoulders, but I could feel it rolling off him. There was something really off about this beautiful man in this beautiful house. I just didn’t know what it was. What I did know was that I had to get us out of that room and out of that house to diffuse the tension, so I stepped past him back into the hallway.
“Take me to the jungle, Tarzan.” God, did I just say that?
Leo’s shoulders dropped slightly, and I heard a quiet chuckle as he shook his head. Then he turned to face me. After a few quiet seconds of what felt like him studying me again, he spoke. “Come on, then, Jane of the Jungle.” The pain in his eyes had dissipated and the joy that gave me was confronting.
“Jules of the Jungle,” I corrected.
“Jules,” he repeated, reverently, as he moved past me and started to walk slowly towards the back of the house.
I followed, admiring his broad shoulders and powerful physique. My eyes travelled south down his back and over his backside. I scolded myself for the dirty thoughts I had of my manicured fingernails digging in, pulling him deeper. Further south. His calves were a finely tuned mass of muscle I longed to see put to work again at the next fight night. In my lust-driven perusal of his body, I almost bumped right into it.
He didn’t turn around—he was just standing motionless in the doorway to what I realised was the kitchen. The tension I’d seen in the lounge room had returned tenfold. There seemed to be a mild tremor starting in his hands now balled into fists. What the hell was going on? I wondered.
Gingerly, I took a step closer to him and lightly touched his shoulder, hoping to help a situation I couldn’t comprehend. In what felt like an instinctual move of a seasoned fighter, he whipped around and grabbed my hand, his strength crushing me. I cried out in pain both from the shock of being so easily overpowered as well as the sensation that he’d really done me some damage. When he dropped my hand, I fell to my knees, cradling my throbbing hand. I looked up at into crazed, wide eyes. When they met mine, he seemed to snap out of his stupor.
“Oh my God, Jules. What have I done?” He crouched down in front of me and cautiously held both my hands in his. His touch was so gentle it was hard to believe he was the same man who’d just turned on me. “I’m so sorry.”
I managed to fight back the threatening tears as the throbbing subsided. “It’s fine. Honestly, I’m fine.” I pulled away, but he took hold of my non-damaged hand and helped me up, not letting go.
“God, Jules. I could’ve broken your hand. I’m so sorry.” His eyes were filled with fear and self-loathing.
“You’ll have to try harder than that to break me. I think my self-defence needs some work.” I tried to lighten the mood again, but it didn’t work this time.
His eyes darkened. He dropped my hand and ran his through his hair. “You shouldn’t need self-defence around me.”
“Look, Leo. You clearly don’t want anyone in here for whatever reason, and that is your choice. You told me that when we were upstairs and kindly offered me a tour of the garden. I shouldn’t have been so nosy coming in here without permission. Your body language is screaming loud and clear that you don’t want me here, so let’s just go outside and forget about all this. Okay?”
“I’ll never forget hurting you. Never.” He reached for my hurt hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it lightly. “Never, ever.”
“I think I need to see the garden now,” I croaked, not even sure if I could still find my voice. Leo’s lips touching my skin had sent my whole body into a spin. What would it be like if they kissed my lips? There was something really dangerous about this man—dangerous, exciting, sexy and liberating. But I wouldn’t actually cheat, and something told me Leo wouldn’t either. He had a quiet integrity about him that made him even more attractive. When I was with Leo, I felt like I was in the presence of a real man—the kind of man I wanted to be with. Knowing that was impossible hurt more than the physical pain Leo had caused only minutes earlier.
I was in big trouble, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to ruffle some feathers. I wasn’t looking for the path of least resistance. I should’ve been running away from the man who was making me question all my choices so violently. I should’ve been running from that house that made me feel so alive. Instead, I stepped out into the garden, the cool air making me shiver, and I allowed myself to imagine it was mine. He was mine.
Leo loosened up a bit once we were outside, but he would occasionally throw me a glan
ce, riddled with angst. I wished he could just forget what had happened inside. I knew he was physically dominant and capable of hurting me far greater, but I also believed it was a one-off and had something to do with being in that house. I knew he was mortified and his overreaction to my touch was based on something in his past. I didn’t for a second blame him or feel threatened. Perhaps I was naïve, given the fact I barely knew him. Perhaps it was the masochist in me who revelled in danger. Perhaps it was the connection I felt to him every time he looked in my eyes and I felt like I was being seen for the first time. Perhaps I was losing my mind in the heady combination of everything the last few days had thrown at me.
A million thoughts flooded my brain. I knew I had to leave that house, that garden and that man, and I had to leave soon. I couldn’t organise all my thoughts, and I felt panic-stricken. Overcome by what felt like a supercharged shot of adrenaline, I bent over and put my hands on my knees, trying to draw air into my lungs. My heart was fluttering too fast, as if I’d had too much caffeine. My palms felt sweaty and I couldn’t swallow past the choking lump in my throat. The garden looked foreign and my mind couldn’t reconcile what I was doing there. I was losing control.
Chapter Thirteen
Leo
“Juliette. Are you okay?”
I had walked ahead of her into the garden, eager to get out of that damned house, eager to escape. I’d hurt her. Regardless of my primal desire to protect her, I had turned on her in an instant and crushed her perfect little hand. I stood there staring at the overgrown hedges and the tangled mess of wisteria and wondered if she would really forgive me—if I would forgive myself. I turned around to see her bent over, struggling to draw breath, and immediately rushed to help her.
“I. Can’t. Breathe.” She could barely get the words out.
“You can get through this, Jules.” I’d seen panic attacks many times and I knew what to do.
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