Logan blinked and tried to look around me to Isabella. “I…”
I wasn’t going to wait around to hear what he had to say. I turned my back on him and I stormed off with Isabella in tow. I didn’t care that patrons were looking at us as we made our way through the restaurant and I didn’t give a flying fuck if Logan was embarrassed.
We made it outside the restaurant before Isabella piped up, “Julian, just hear me out…”
I didn’t look at her as I walked and she scampered to keep up. “I don’t need to hear you out, Isabella. I know what I heard and there’s nothing you can say that will cancel out that motherfucker telling you to keep shit from me. That sonofabitch has met you a total of two fucking times and he thinks he has the right to give you that kind of advice.” We finally reached her car and Garrett, wisely, stayed in the vehicle. I had her up against the back door when I peered down at her. “I’m the one who is buried balls deep in you every fucking night. I’m the one who will support you from planting peons all over the neighborhood to committing random act of murders all over the world.” I leaned down closer so there was no mistaking my words. “Fuck that guy, Isabella,” I raged.
“Mr. Moretti.” I whipped my head around and I saw Logan making his way towards us.
This asshole must have a death wish.
I turned to face him, making sure Isabella was at my back again. I didn’t purposely use my size to intimidate people, but my frame and demeanor was not to be fucked with. And Logan knew it the second he took in my expression.
“Mr. Moretti, I’m Log-”
I cut him off. “I know who you are,” I informed him. “I know who you are and I know who you want to be.”
“So then you know our lunch was innocent and-”
I stepped to him, my hands in fists at my side. “Innocent? I walked in upon hearing you suggest that Isabella keep something from me. Something important and significant in her life. You’re calling that innocent?”
He had enough dignity to look embarrassed, but the fucker didn’t know enough to walk away. “It wasn’t meant to come out like that…”
Isabella finally stepped forward and I wanted to yank her back and throw her into the back seat of the car, but I didn’t want her to kick my ass about it later. We were still a little raw from the fight on Saturday, so I didn’t want to test her. She placed a tiny hand on my chest in an attempt to sooth me. “Julian, calm down, please.”
Logan was lucky she addressed my anger before she addressed his trepidation. Had she went to ease him first, I would have beaten the fuck out of him until the cops came to arrest me. “I am calm,” I told her. And then I went for complete honesty. “You don’t see me beating the fuck out of him, do you?”
She gasped.
He paled.
“Julian, please, calm down. You threatening to beat him up isn’t helping anything,” she begged.
I looked down at her and the distress in her face was enough to take the edge off my murderous impulses. “Get in the car, Isabella,” I instructed.
Her eyes rounded. She probably thought I was going to fuck her brother up. “Julian…”
“Get in the car, Dove. It’ll be fine. I promise.”
She glanced quickly at Logan and then gave me a pointed look before complying.
Thank. Fuck.
I waited until I heard the car door close before returning my attentions back to her brother. “Here’s how this is going to go,” I started. “You’re going to stay the fuck away from Isabella until she decides where she wants to go with all of this and reaches out to you.”
“I can’t do that,” he tried to protest.
“I’m not asking you, Stanhope. I’m motherfucking telling you.” I stepped closer to him. “You need to stay away from Isabella until she gets control of her confused emotions or I will spend every last cent I have to bury you and your entire family.”
His eyes widened, but then his face flushed with fury. “So, that’s the kind of boyfriend my sister has? Controlling and abusive?”
I grabbed him by his shirt with both fists and flung him against the car. Around me I could hear two car doors open and shut, but I didn’t bother looking up. I knew one of them was Garrett and the other was Isabella. “You want to see abusive?” I threatened.
“Julian!” Isabella cried.
I didn’t look at her as I said, “Your brother’s worried about his sister. He thinks I’m controlling and abusive. I just thought I’d show him just how abusive I can get.”
“Stop it, Julian. Stop it right now. Someone’s going to call the police and I will never forgive you if you have to spend even one night away from me over this crap!” she warned.
I let go of Logan instantly and stepped back. It was then that I noticed Garrett doing this best to block our view from bystanders. Again, Isabella saved her brother by showing concern for me before worrying that I might knock Logan the fuck out.
I kept my eyes on Logan as I ordered Isabella back into the car. “I’m fine, Isabella. Now get back in the car.” She eyed me and barely spared Logan a glance as she did what I asked.
Once Garrett shut the car door securely after Isabella got in, he went around and got back into the driver’s seat. There were still some people lingering about, in case I lost it again, but most everyone else dispersed.
“I can’t believe this shit,” I heard Logan mutter under his breath.
I laughed coldly. “Believe it, Stanhope. Look here, I’m going to clue you in on a little something. I don’t control or abuse Isabella. What I do do is worship the ground she walks on. So, if you think I’m going to let you, your brothers or your father walk into her life, when there’s a chance it won’t do anything but cause her more pain, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”
He straightened up his button up and did his best to regain his composure. “Look, man, that’s not what this is about. I’m not here to hurt her or cause her any unhappiness. I learned about her when my father came clean a few months ago, when neither my brothers nor I were able to help him with his health issues. I’m here because I really want to get to know her.”
“I never had an issue with that. My dick is bent over the fact that you would dare to tell her that she should keep something from me in the best interest of what you want,” I stressed. “Isabella is mine, Stanhope. Mine. And you’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to let some stupid fuck-brother or not-come into her life and think he can get away with influencing her in any direction that isn’t leading her straight to me.”
“That’s not what-”
“At this point, I don’t care what you were trying to do or not do,” I cut him off. “Stay away from Isabella unless she reaches out to you. If not, I meant what I said earlier. I will ruin every motherfucker in your family. I’ll even go after the pets of your distant cousins until I’ve wiped out everything positive about the Stanhope name.”
His gaze finally drifted and he shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, Julian. I really am. I didn’t mean for any this to happen. I was desperate, and perhaps, a little careless with my words. I’m pissed at my father, sad for my mother and torn between what exactly is the right thing to do here.”
“The right thing?” I was done talking to him, but if there was even a remote chance of Isabella wanting him in her life, I had to balance this delicately.
What I really wanted to do was beat him so badly that his father felt it.
“The right thing for me is to get to know my sister. In talking with my brothers, they feel the same way. But it doesn’t seem like the right thing when the possible association can hurt her, my mother, her mother, my father...everyone,” he confessed brokenly.
“If you’re looking for sympathy or compassion, you’re speaking to the wrong man. My sympathies and compassion extend to Isabella only. All I can advise you is to make sure you have your shit together if she reaches out to you in the future, because I’m going to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.” I ignored his
look of dismay and stalked over to the backdoor of the town car.
I opened the door and slid in next to Isabella. As soon as the door shut, Garrett started the car and we were on our way. The entire ride back to Whillshire was in silence.
I wasn’t sure who was more pissed off, me or her.
When the car came to a stop, Isabella immediately clutched the door handle to leave. I reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “We’re going to have a conversation about this later at home, Isabella,” I informed her.
She arched a perfect brown brow at me, and without uttering a word, she wretched her arm from my hold and exited the vehicle.
I guess that answered who was more pissed.
Chapter 18
Wrath: Because I have enough demons tormenting me!
Julian~
I walked into the house to find Isabella muttering on the phone, as she paced our bedroom. I had no doubt she was telling Quinn or Avery, or both, about what a disaster lunch was today. I didn’t mind. Our group didn’t keep many secrets from each other.
Isabella came to an immediate halt when she spotted me in the doorway, though. “I have to go. I’ll call you later,” she said to whoever was on the other end of the phone, right before she hung up.
I walked into the bedroom and started removing my suit jacket and tie. My eyes never left hers as I got comfortable for our argument. I drove right in when I asked, “Why didn’t you call me or text that Stanhope had called you to meet him for lunch?”
She fidgeted a little. She wasn’t expecting that question. She dropped her phone on the bed, buying some time, before she answered, “Because I know you don’t like the idea of…us.”
I could feel the fissure splintering in my heart.
Just because I didn’t agree with her viewpoint on connecting with her family, she chose to keep her lunch with Logan from me. Logan didn’t need to put the idea in her mind to keep me in the dark when it came to her family.
She was already doing it.
If someone asked me what I was feeling in this moment, I wouldn’t be able to tell them.
Sadness unlike any I have ever felt before flooded my soul.
Isabella was my everything.
I spent the last few months of my life doing everything I could to put her first.
Or so, at least, I thought I did.
It took only ten seconds for me to go from feeling nothing but despair to wanting to burn the entire city to the ground. Everything I thought I was building with Isabella was suddenly threatened and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle it.
Without a word, I walked out of the bedroom and headed towards the basement.
I barely managed to get to the door when her voice called out to me from behind, “So, that’s it? You have nothing to say? I’m supposed to just stay up here until you’re finished with your theatrics downstairs?”
My mind kept screaming at me to just go downstairs, but my rage and pain had my body turning back around to face her. I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Yeah, Isabella, that’s it.” Her face twisted in wary confusion. “That’s it, because I don’t know what to say to you, right now.”
“Meaning?” she pushed.
I stood there and took in the sight of her in all her outraged glory. She was so beautiful; it hurt to look at her sometimes. But the realization that, this entire time, she’s never really been mine, hurt way worse. “You dare to lay into me about keeping pieces of myself from you and how I don’t get to pick and choose which parts of me you’re allowed to love, but you’ll keep a meeting with your brother from me?” Jesus, I was pissed. I could feel my body heating from the inside out. I was so furious at her level of insecurity and betrayal. Because, yes, keeping secrets that don’t need to be kept is betrayal.
Her face paled a bit. “I…it wasn’t like that,” she tried to argue.
“It was exactly like that, Isabella,” I bit out. “Just because I’m not sold on Stanhope’s motives, you chose to keep me in the dark. If you’re willing to keep an insignificant thing like lunch from me, what the fuck else do you keep from me?” And just like that, my demons came out to take advantage of my state of emotions. “Do you even have a secret admirer, or are the flowers from someone you’re fucking on the side and you panicked when they got sent to your condo?”
Isabella’s gasp was loud and laced with pain and disbelief, “What?!”
I lifted a shoulder in indifference to her shock. The darkness that I normally held at bay was washing over me with a vengeance. “It makes sense now why you were so against having a driver and a bodyguard. It makes sense why you didn’t want to move in with me. And it really sheds light on why you’re still holding onto your condo.”
By the time I was done with my assumptions, her eyes were spilling. “Julian,” she breathed in complete astonishment, “you can’t really believe all that.”
My devil smirked. “I guess the silver lining is my dick must be better than his, because that’s the only thing you willingly take from me.” I ignored her look of dismay as I kept going, “But even as delicious as your pussy is, Isabella, I don’t share.”
I saw it coming, but I didn’t stop her. I knew it in her purposeful strides to reach me.
Bring it on.
I didn’t give a fuck anymore.
The force of her slap did snap my head sideways, though. And, honestly, I wasn’t expecting her punch to have that much pack, but it was hard enough to leave my face stinging.
Good for her.
I turned my head and peered down at her. Her face was flushed with anger and wet with tears. “You sonofabitch,” she hissed. “You’re going to stand there and take a simple lunch with my brother and turn it into accusations of me being an unfaithful whore? I decide not to tell you about it because I didn’t want to fight with you, and now all of the sudden, I’m fucking someone else?”
“Then explain it to me, Isabella,” I challenged. “Explain why you have fought against every step forward in this relationship? You’ve done nothing but refute everything I’m constantly offering you that I don’t even know why you’re in this relationship.”
Her anger vanished and was quickly replaced with sobs. “Because I love you,” she claimed.
I just nodded my head at her declaration.
Maybe she did.
Maybe she did love me, but she just didn’t love me the way I loved her.
Or maybe I am just fucked up.
Nick and Chase loved me because they understood me. They were able to accept me because they were broken, too. Yeah, they weren’t as fucked up in the head as I was, but since they had front row seats to how I was raised, they understood and didn’t judge me.
Maybe my mistake was in believing that someone who never experienced those kinds of ordeals could really love a person like me.
Sure, Isabella had her own issues in the form of emotional abuse, but she never had to endure starving. She never had to endure beatings from anyone who got off on beating little girls. She never had to endure watching her mother snort up so much coke that she research what to do in case of an overdose. She never had to endure trying to erase the images of her mother sucking strange men’s dicks in her living room. She was never used as a human ashtray or carving board. And she sure as shit never had to hide in a false wall panel to keep strangers from touching her secrets.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck was I thinking asking her to understand me and love me in spite of all the evil that clung to me?
Nick, Chase, Kane and Teresa.
They were the ones who loved me.
They were the ones who I owed.
They were the ones who were safe.
Isabella wasn’t safe and I was a fool to ever think that she was.
I studied Isabella’s face with every ounce of concentration I had. I needed to burn the memory of her beauty in my brain, just in case she walked. She repeated herself when minutes went by without me speaking a word, “I love you, Julian.�
�
It was too bad my demons were still in control. “Maybe you do, Isabella, but it’s pretty evident that, while you may care for me, you’re not interested in everything I’m offering.”
I think she realized where this was going because she started frantically shaking her head. “That’s not true.”
Love and pain are a dangerous combination. Both are equally crippling. “Yes, it is. There’s only one thing you’ve willingly and happily accepted since the night I met you and that’s how dirty I fuck you. Everything else has been refused.” I gestured around the house. “Hell, look around. Most of your shit is in storage and not even here. This house looks damn near exactly the same as before you moved in. The only thing that’s changed is all your clothes are in the bedroom closet. If you had to move out, it’d take you a couple of hours to pack your shit and leave and this house would be looking the same as if you never lived here.” I was getting more pissed the more all these realizations started coming at me. “So, I’ll ask you again, why the fuck are you even dating me?”
Her face was pale and her voice was raspy with pain when she repeated herself again, “I love you, Julian.”
My devil rolled his eyes. “Sure you do. Just as long as your love is safe and you’re not having to take any real risks with it.”
“That’s not fair, Julian,” she whispered brokenly.
“And you not committing one hundred percent to this relationship is?” I asked coldly. “I’ve always been completely honest about what I’ve wanted from you, Isabella. So, why did you waste my time by pretending to want the same thing?”
“I wasn’t pretending. I’m not pretending,” she insisted. “I want forever with you, Julian.”
This fight was shredding me to nothing. “Well, I want forever with someone who trusts me as well as loves me. I want forever with a woman who isn’t afraid to love me for me.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying all this,” she uttered, as she wrapped her arms around her waist as if that could save her from the truth in my words.
Claiming Isabella Page 21
