“Anywhere far away from you,” I grit out, tears stinging my eyes. Just hold on. Don’t cry now.
“You don’t mean that,” he whispers softly, holding me like he’s never going to let go, but I’m livid, I can’t even breathe.
“I do mean it, now let me go!”
“Never.”
“Don’t say never now when you were willing, eager even, to believe that I would do something as sinister and fucked up as to set you up for crimes like that.”
A low, animalistic growl starts in his chest. I can feel his agitation and as the tension in the room becomes unbearable.
“I didn’t know any better, Mia.”
“But you did!” I cry, pounding his chest with balled up fists, not caring about his groans of pain. “You could have trusted me!”
He really could’ve. I didn’t ask for much. And now, the rift between us is so great, so twisted and messed up, we can’t even stop hurting each other.
“Mia…” he starts, his voice scratchy but I don’t want to hear it.
“How could you do that to me, you sonofabitch? Come after me like fury personified and have the guts to make me feel cherished, safe and wanted when I hated myself and wanted to end my own life,” I whisper brokenly. “I wanted to end my life and you… you.” He what? Watched me like a hawk with these intense eyes as if he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let me die. He made me believe that life is worth living. Held me through my nightmares and made love to me so good, OI swear I touched Heaven in those brief moments of peace. He did all that, and then… “After all that, you couldn’t stop for just a second to listen to the truth in my words?”
He looks devastated.
“It wasn’t meant to be like that, Little Minx,” he whispers almost desperately, holding me close. “All of that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
But it did.
“I told you before, don’t you ever call me that!” I snap, but he only holds me tighter, clinging to me. “Let me go, Julian!”
“I fucked up. I deserve your anger. So you can it me, punch me all you want, baby, but you’ll always be my Little Minx. You’ll always be mine, end of fucking story.”
End of fucking story, huh?
“Let me go, Julian or I swear to God, I’ll scream bloody murder and make do on the thoughts you have about me and my evil mind!” I demand, looking up at him.
For the first time since he creeped his way in here, our eyes connect and hold. The world could explode into a billion pieces right now, I wouldn’t notice, too busy drowning in the depths of his eyes.
The room is dark, but we see each other.
Everything around is crumbling to pieces, but he holds me up with just his tortured gaze. In mine, it’s all fear and anger.
I’m pretty sure he can see how dangerously close I am to bringing this hospital down if he doesn’t let me go, so tentatively, definitely begrudgingly, Julian unwraps his cannon arms from around me.
I launch out of his arms like a demon from hell only to come to a dead stop when the pain awakens in my body.
“Ah!”
“Hey, hey, easy there,” Julian mumbles, then he’s right there, breathing down my neck. Slowly, his good arm circles my waist, then his large hand splays over my stomach, his touch so possessive and unintentionally sensual, I suck in a breath. “Are you all right? Should I call the nurse?”
His lips are so close to my ear, a shudder moves through me.
Gah, get a hold of yourself!
Shaking my head, I swallow in a ragged sob, but I can’t get myself to move away from his touch.
It’s almost as if that one touch is branding me, warming my chilled skin and bones, bringing me back to life as much as his kisses. I know this is far as I can go, sitting here in my hospital bed with the sexy god behind me, biting down the pain of sitting up so fast when I’, still obviously weak.
I don’t want to be weak anymore. Not after everything.
“I’m fine,” I choke out. “Don’t pretend to care now, Julian. Just leave before they come in here.”
I feel the brewing storm before he even says a word.
“You and I both know I don’t give a damn about people. I’m not one to care, Mia.” He spits out the word, then he drops his voice, still holding me. “But against my better judgement, I care about you. I more than care about you, Little Minx.”
The audacity of this man!
“You have no idea how much I wanted to hear those words before,” I whisper hoarsely, then look at him over my shoulder. “Why didn’t you say them that day?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Well, I don’t need them now!” I don’t need anything from him now. I’ve suffered enough.
“Hey, settle down now,” he mutters. “You’ve already heard me bleed my fucking soul out for you. Every word I said is the truth l don’t dismiss me like that.
He’s right, of course he is. There’s nothing more than sucks like having your raw feelings dismissed and forgotten. I can’t do that to him.
Silently, I rest all my weight on him. We’re silent for a while until he speaks again.
“You remember me.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
“Do you really mean that?” he mutters silently. “You wish you’d forget me?”
Silence falls over us.
What do I say to that?
“No,” I confess. “I could never forget you.”
Those were the right words to say, apparently. Relief washes over us when I feel the tension ebb some.
We sit in silence for a long moment. The pain in my body ebbs until it’s tolerable. I want to lie down but that will only put Julian and I in an intimate position I can’t handle at the moment, so I just use him as a cushion.
Silently, he holds me, then I feel his prickly chin on my shoulder.
“Are Liam and Cole all right?” I whisper, my anxiety about them being in danger kicking in. “Nathan threatened to go after them.”
“He’ll fucking fail,” Julian grits out. “For what he did to you, he’ll pay.”
Silence.
Maybe if I was the forgiving type, I would have been concerned about the threat toward my father, but the thing is, I stopped seeing Nathan as my father a long time ago. Whatever happens to him from this point on, he deserves it.
“The amnesia,” Julian mutters, kissing the shell of my ear. “You faked it.” It’s not really a question, so I don’t say anything. “You did it to protect me, didn’t you?”
“Does it matter?”
“When you constantly defy me by not going with Cole when you should’ve, jumping in front of a fucking bullet for me, and now want? Faking amnesia so you can hammer home the truth that a lot of people are working to bury, it fucking matters, Mia!”
I can feel his agitation that keeps expanding on layers. He’s a short breath away from snapping and I can say is, “I did what I had to do.”
“Yeah, of course you do, without any regard whatsoever to who you leave behind or who is affected.”
“How do you think it makes me feel, when I see a gun pointed at you, knowing damn well that those bastards wanted to kill you, Julian?” I cry, twisting around to look at him, ignoring the rush of pain from my abdomen. “I wasn’t going to just stand there, let alone leave you knowing that something would happen, damn you!”