And when I was near him, I could smell up close and dear god, Julian Hudson was intoxicating.
He was smirking at me and I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes, all trance of intoxication gone in an instant. There was always something about his smirk that made me want to slap it off his face…or maybe kiss it from his lips.
Julian motioned at the food on the table that I surprisingly did not see. “I ordered you some coffee. You know it’s weird that I’ve spent so much time with you but I have no idea what your usual coffee order is.”
I sipped the heavenly cup and closed my eyes in satisfaction. “Skinny vanilla latte with almond milk but I’m not really picky with my coffee. As long as it hits right, it hits.”
He leaned close, his breath tickling my neck. “Like how I hit it right?”
I almost choked on my coffee with what Julian just said and I hastily put down the cup, looking around the shop to spot any employee of Finch Records. Anthony already walked in on us at my house with Julian around and we weren’t even doing anything at that time. The last thing I wanted to happen was for any employee to think that something was going on between the chairwoman of the company and the recently signed band vocalist.
Julian was smirking even more when he leaned away from me and I glared at him, hissing, “Don’t you ever do that again, Mr. Hudson.”
He cocked his head to the side and reached for a cinnamon cookie. “Pity, I actually like doing so.”
My eyes narrowed even more as I hastily pulled the plate of Belgian waffle that he hadn’t been touching which meant he intended for me to eat. I quickly ate the food on the plate until nearly nothing was left of the waffles and grabbed a napkin to wipe my mouth with, all the while ignoring the amused look Julian was wearing in front of me as he gaped at how quickly I finished the food.
“Aren’t you going to get indigestion with how quickly you ate?”
I downed the remaining coffee in my cup and wiped my mouth again with a napkin and looked at Julian pointedly. He hadn’t touched the remaining food on his plate since I arrived but at least he finished his coffee. “I’ve had to learn the art of eating my breakfast quickly enough so I wouldn’t be late for class in college.”
Julian’s right eyebrow rose. “You could just skip.”
“And then faint because of an empty stomach. I usually skip lunch though. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day…” My words trailed off as I pulled out my wallet to pay for my breakfast but Julian held up a hand to stop me and mouthed that he already paid for everything back at the counter. He stood up and then held out a hand for me to take.
“Time to take the world by storm,” he said jokingly, wiggling his eyebrows but all I could do was stare at his hand and then I let out a nervous laugh as I took it only to lower it down to his side.
Julian stared at me behind his glasses for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, the light in his eyes slowly extinguishing and making way to a question forming inside them. I flashed him a small smile. “There’s a fine line between being your producer and being whatever I am to you, Julian. What we do during our private time, be it together or not, will remain private.”
He chewed on his bottom lip as he watched me stand up. “So are you trying to tell me that we’re meant to keep each other a secret?”
I paused at the question, my heart racing slightly at the thought of what ‘we’ meant to Julian. “Do you really want to expose us to the public when technically, there isn’t really an ‘us’? Besides, how would it look like to everyone when they find out that I signed you up in my company and there’s something going on between us in closed doors?”
Julian pursed his lips and let out a cold chuckle, crossing his arms across his chest and tilting his head to the side. “So what do you want me to do, Audrey? Because it seems to me like you want to make an announcement other than announcing that Born from Ashes is signed with Finch Records.”
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I began to shake my head. “Seriously, Julian. I’m not kidding nor am I pulling any reverse psychology on you. When I say that I want to keep things between us private, I mean every word of it.”
I grabbed my purse and finally stood up, looking at him levelly. “I’ll head in first and you can follow after. That way, no one’s going to suspect anything or start any rumours.”
Julian was laughing by this point. “You’re acting like we’re sixteen, Audrey. We’re not in high school anymore. To hell what people will think.”
I pursed my lips and held a finger to his lips to stop him from speaking even more. “We’re in an industry where people can have a lot of opinion on us, especially you. The last thing we need is a controversy in our lap, Julian. So please, cooperate.”
Julian raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes but nodded. I finally released a sigh of relief and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you in the building.”
I was near the door when I heard Julian call my name. “Audrey!”
I turned around and faced him and he had that cocky smirk on his face again and my eyebrows furrowed in confusion with what he was doing. “Yes?”
When he cleared his throat and smoothened his features into a serious expression, I knew he had something up his olive-green plaid sleeve. By now, everyone was looking at us and my heart was racing in fear of what he was going to say. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something.
“I want you.”
For a moment, I thought I misheard it. Three words, eight letters…but he didn’t say what my heart thought he did.
For a moment, I thought the world stopped spinning and everyone else dissolved into the light but Julian remained standing a few feet away from me, the satisfied smirk making its way on his face again.
Jesus Christ, this guy was going to be the death of me.
21
Julian
Audrey’s brown eyes widened and she quickly crossed the distance between us, looking peeved at me with what I just said. “Julian!”
I feigned innocence as my eyebrows shot up in question. “Did I do something wrong?”
“I told you we keep it low-key!” She was whisper-yelling at me at this point and her eyes darted around the café and I knew that she was making sure there wasn’t anyone in the café that worked in her company and started any rumours between us.
The thing was, I understood what Audrey wanted to happen. Starting a controversy before anything remarkable happened with the band under their management would be a reckless thing to do but to be honest, I didn’t really see anything wrong with what was going with Audrey and I. If there was, it was the fact that we never really made anything official between us and I never made it clear to her that I wasn’t planning on seeing anyone else.
I’d been looking for her for five years and I finally found her. Maybe it was time to finally allow myself to fall in love. Not that I already wasn’t falling for her anyway, even before I found out that she was the girl with that voice.
“I know. I know you did and I agreed with you,” I said with a shrug, making sure I was acting as nonchalant as I could. “I don’t even know why you suddenly come up to me in a frenzy. Did you miss me that much already?”