Love. Julian’s words, the vision of his tattoo before his shirt returned to his back, all swirled around, battling for truth in my mind over what I once believed were nightmares.
“Why couldn’t you tell me any of this months ago, Julian? After I got out of the hospital?” I demanded, all blood leaving my body, threatening to kill me in that very moment as I filled with fury. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
“Because you would have died.” His tone was curt. “I had to handle this as I did because it was the only way to keep you alive, Aideen. This was the only way you would remember. If I told you right away, you would have run. You’re gorgeously stubborn, and that would have left you vulnerable. This was the only way to keep you alive. Don’t you get it? They wanted you dead.”
“Who are they? Your family? Well, fuck you, Julian, and fuck them. I’m leaving. Don’t you dare follow me.” My words were laced with venom, spitting every syllable at him with a poison I could only hope killed him. That’s not true. Stop lying to yourself.
“You’re not going anywhere.” His chair scraped against the floor. His fingers were quick to wind around my bicep. “It isn’t safe out there.”
“It’s safer than in here.”
“I promised you in the hospital that I would do whatever it took to keep you safe, Aideen,” his voice rattled, trembling with an unfamiliar uncertainty. “It needed to happen this way, baby.”
“You missed a b,” I snarled at him, spinning around only to feel my heart crash to my feet as Julian’s brows met with tightened concern, his nostrils wide with fright.
“I didn’t,” he uttered. “I want to care for you. I have since I saw you bound and bandaged in the hospital because you happened to trust the wrong person.”
“And trusting you is the right thing to do?”
“What does your heart tell you right now, Aideen?” To shoot you. To kiss you. I don’t know. It isn’t talking to me.
“Don’t change the subject, Julian. This isn’t about me. This is about you and the fact you’re a scoundrel, filthy scum with the fancy name and reputation to cover up for your true identity. You’re a murderer, Julian. You have killed people.”
“You’ve done wrong to protect yourself, Aideen. Don’t place moral blame on only me here. You have wanted to kill me just as much as you’ve wanted to share my bed.” Well, screw this.
“You’re not frightened because I carry a gun or even that you’ve seen me take someone’s life.” The warm knuckles of his right fist grazed my cheek, searing my skin with their delicate touch. “What frightens you is more powerful than that. I have loved you from the moment I saw you. That is what frightens you: the consuming, unconditional devotion another bestows upon you. When will you accept that what actually scares you, what terrifies you, is that such love could surround you?”
“Maybe,” I finally found my voice, “when I begin to surround myself with people who aren’t lying criminals, Julian.”
“You’re not understanding any of this, Aideen,” he groaned, agony consuming his face. “I love you. I have always loved you. I was put on this earth not to lead a family, not to lead in government, but to be yours and only yours. You’re my purpose, babby, nothing more. My grandfather, my father…we talked about this in the hospital. God dammit! I wish you could remember.”
“Well, I don’t! I can’t! I never will because, as you so kindly reminded me, someone literally shocked away my memories. God! If that is even the truth! It’s kind of funny, Julian. Someone tore my past from me, and now you’re tearing apart my future.” I glared at him, pointing to the door. “Now get out of my room.” Love. What the hell is that, anyway?
“Absolutely not.” His arrogant scoff rattled my nerves. “I have just divulged everything to explain who we are, Aideen. Don’t run from this. You can’t.”
“Oh? Well, I suppose,” I spun to watch him, fighting the urge for my angry eyes to examine his defined abdomen, “if the heir of a powerful mob family says not to do something, I better not do it.” Mic drop. I said it. There. I put it out there to float in the air around us, catching Julian like a slap against his face.
“I never doubted your intelligence, Aideen,” his quiet voice lacked emotion, “but you already knew that. I told you in the hospital. I confessed everything about who I was to you.” Julian’s dark eyes pleaded, begged me to go to him. Part of my heart ached, craving to fall into his arms, to finally accept the ridiculously unbelievable story he told me, but I couldn’t. He was capitalizing on my nightmares, trying to manipulate my heart and broken mind.
“You told someone with a brain injury, Julian, someone who later had their mind rattled. Of course you could have told me, if what you say is true, because I would never remember it. My God…why are you even telling me any of this?” This couldn’t be true, and yet it felt real.
“I wanted to, Aideen, for so fucking long,” he groaned, his hands pulling against his shoulders in despair. “Keeping you around me, with me…touching you, kissing you…Christ! Holding you in your bathroom…it’s killed me, tortured me, to know what you can’t remember. Every time I look at you, each time I think of the fact you’re near me, I have wanted to scream the truth, but I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Both.” His hands fell to his sides in defeat. “I thought I would lose you again.”
I had never seen him that way, hopeless, desperate, weak. Nor had I seen myself so direct and explosively confident. I’m not a victim.
“I wanted to tell you tonight and every night since you came to my house,” he continued. “I wanted to confess to you all of these secrets when you’ve called on me for help, when you’ve woken in my house, when you’ve been in my arms.” Julian stepped toward me, his hands reaching out for my face, his expected form of affection that melted my soul.
“When,” his lips met my forehead, my lungs tightening in response as more tears threatened, “I’ve kissed you. When I’ve upset you. When you’ve hit me. The first time I saw you after learning you were alive, the second you came to the front of your shop when Maureen and I were there. I wanted to take you into my arms and tell you everything, but you didn’t remember.”
“So you kidnapped me? You threatened me, made me feel weak and incapable? You truly thought that harming my dignity and confidence would make me…what…fall in love with you again?”
Julian’s eyes scanned my face, the longing swirling with subdued lust, aching my heart in reflection of his. “I had hoped. It was foolish. It was drastic. I talked to my doctor, I researched it. It was supposed to…I had to do something jarring to shake your memories back into place.”
I spun away from Julian without words. There were no more. I trembled with a blistering pain in my heart. I reached the kitchen, collecting the bottle of merlot from the table and started to swallow, and swallow, and swallow until it was empty. I felt Julian behind me, his quiet steps infiltrating my solace. We walked in isolated unison toward the sofas, my body the first to crash into the soft comfort of the pillows. Think, Aideen. Think! Any of it…does any of this make sense? Is this why you hate him so much—or why you think you hate him? I do have a lot of passion for disliking him…no. It’s ridiculously absurd. Isn’t it?
I peeked at Julian, watching him gnaw his thumb while his nostrils flared. His shirt was still open, suspenders dangling at his side while he sat on the sofa opposite me. His gaze was absent from mine, focused on his thoughts. He is still so beautiful. Deranged, horrible, and a liar. A beautiful, delicious, exquisite liar. Oh my God.
“Who knows?” The question trickled from my merlot-stained mouth in a whisper, catching his eager and desperate attention. Julian’s head lifted, his hand dropping from rubbing his jaw while his elbow rested against the back of the couch.
“Just Liam,” he admitted. “I’m sorry for what that will do to your friendship.” I could only shake my head in response to that. Friendship.
“How dare you even say such a thing, Julian?” I mumbled, his name still a peculiar taste on my tongue. “You clearly aren’t leaving, so let me do us both a favor.” He moved from the sofa as I stood, staking claim over my confidence, but he wouldn’t follow. Does he want me to leave? No. Of course not. He created this mess. Maybe it is really his way to let me off the hook. Maybe he does want to marry Noelle. Maybe…this was just a game and he’s grown tired. Me too. I was halfway between Julian and the open door to my bedroom when I froze, my body responding to the sweet murmur of his voice.
“I love you, Aideen.”
With those words haunting my mind, destroying each nerve ending that misfired within my skull, my head hung with remorse, regret…agony. The shaking breath I sucked into my shattered lungs was excruciating, pushing against my weakened heart. It needed their support; otherwise I would have fallen to my feet. I needed its support now too. I continued to walk, securely holding myself while I entered the bedroom. Once the door latched behind me, I glanced at the mockery of my wardrobe, wishing only to throw it all around in a tantrum. Instead, I fell onto the bed and plotted my exit. I’m so gone.
***
I slowly kicked my legs back and forth while I sat on the mattress, anxiously eyeing the door to my hospital room. It was liberating to not have my monitors attached around the clock, but continuing to wear an itchy hospital gown was where the doctors and I did not agree. None of that mattered the moment he walked through the door.
“You’re up.” He beamed at me, his smile stretching the width of his perfect face while it was hidden inside the hood of his drenched sweatshirt. “You’re really, actually, vertical. They wouldn’t let you sit unassisted two days ago. You amaze me.”
“Stop.” I blushed, watching him rush toward me, the squeaking of his wet sneakers against the tile floor of my hospital room echoing throughout the small space. It was a welcome sound, a beautiful distraction, and one that made him so much more real. His palms cupped my cheeks, holding me in his present. I loved when he did this.
“Can…can I hug you or will they…will that hurt you? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can do whatever you want.” I laughed, nuzzling into his left palm. “Screw them all.”
“It isn’t them I care about, babby.” I melted into his thumbs while they gently grazed my cheekbones. “It’s you I don’t want to break.”
“I’m unbreakable,” I challenged. “I promise. Go on. Kiss me. See what happens.”
His grin lifted, parting his face to reveal the sparkling sea of white that was his beautiful smile, as his face lowered to mine. It was like the first time every time he touched me; my body exploded, my heart palpitated like an earthquake, and my limbs became raw appendages craving his touch, hungry for him. He was so beautiful I couldn’t stand it. Literally. It destroyed me. Pulling away, his lips moved to my forehead, pressing against my skin and sending waves of deeper euphoria through my soul.
“Beep, beep, beep,” I shouted, his body quick to leap from mine.
“What the hell?”
I grinned. “Kidding.”
He shook his head, his mischievous smile burning into me. “When you’re out of here,” he threatened, pointing a finger at me, “I’m going to do a lot of things to get back at you for that.”
“Oh, I like that type of threat. Tell me more.” My legs kicked with excitement. “You’re soaking wet, though. God, I’d just about kill to go outside. To feel the rain on my face again.”
“It’s pouring.” He pushed back the hood of his sweatshirt, running his fingers through his soft brown hair. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.” He reached for my elbows, helping me from the bed.
“And never come back?” I smiled at him, wishing my heart would be true to itself. He looked down at me, again kissing my forehead with a gentle passion that only showed how worried he was about breaking me, but it still filled my heart.
“And never come back,” he repeated. “We can, you know. We can go and never come back. We can go anywhere you want.”
“What about your family?”
“I don’t need them, babby. I just need you.”
I wrapped my arms around him, tumbling from the bed on wobbly knees, rewarded by the intoxicating smell of his cologne that doubled in glory from his wet sweatshirt.
“I’ll only ever just need you,” I whispered into his shirt, feeling his arms tighten around my back. His hold was secure, binding me to him. It was a promise in which I could believe.
“Let me take you outside first,” he murmured into my ear. “You can feel the rain. I’ll hold you, and then we can discuss the rest.”
He reached across the narrow path between my bed and the door, pulling the hospital robe from the back. I wiggled into the arms as he held the fabric up for me like the elegant gentleman he was. I spun around, facing the bed, but he stopped me with his arms wrapping around my shoulders, pulling me against him once more. His lips found my neck, and they pressed against my skin but waited…teased…destroyed.
“Stop.” I sighed, my head pleasurably falling against his chest.
“Nope,” he taunted, his lips trailing their dangerously soft kisses along my neck, sending a shiver through my skin. “We better get you outside quickly or I might actually cause your machines to explode.”
Feigning frustration, I turned back to face him, pouting until he chastely kissed my lips and wrapped the blanket from my bed around me. I took his hand, cradled by the blanket and his grasp, and followed him out of the room. The hall was empty except for two nurses, both of whom stared at him with deliriously hungry eyes, but mine was the hand he held. I didn’t understand why, but I also didn’t care to ask. What mattered was that our fingers were intertwined, connected, and unbreakable. It was hard to walk so far. My knees wobbled with each step, but I refused to let him know. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t strong enough. I needed to be strong enough for him.
When we stepped into the elevator, I fell into him, delighting in his embrace and the soft hum vibrating from behind his ribs. Listening to his heart, I knew his feelings echoed mine. I could see the rain pouring violently from the opened sky as the elevator doors opened to the ground level, the downpour revealed from the massive glass windows overlooking the harbor.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I mumbled, following his slow footsteps. He was so damn adorable in sweats and sneakers that I almost died on the spot while watching him lead me to the front door. I was close to freedom. I could taste it in my mouth. That’s not freedom. That’s him. He tastes amazing, like a candy bar or delicious piece of caramel that you never want to end.
“Ready?” he questioned, his blue eyes sparkling as he reached for the door, prepared to push us out into reality. I replied with a feverish nod, too excited for words, and he opened the door for me. I looked at him, watching him stop just inside the doorframe, his hand extended to suggest I step out without him.
“No,” I pleaded, “come with me.”
“You go first,” he encouraged, his face bright with his glorious grin. “This is something you need to feel on your own. I’ll be right behind you.”
“No,” I disagreed, tugging on the pouch of his sweatshirt. “You’re coming with me or I’m going to pout. That’s ugly. Don’t make me ugly.”
“You? Ugly? Never.” He tugged my hand from the pouch and kissed it, stepping out into the rain at my side. “I’m sorry you haven’t felt the rain for so long, babby.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, my eyes closed while I let the rain fall against my face. “Nothing does from before I met you.”
“Hey,” someone shouted from behind us. “Miss Leary needs to return to her room immediately.” We both spun around, my skin crawling as the doctor beckoned us from the doorway.
“Give her a minute,” he scolded, tightening his hold around my waist. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”
“I do,” the doctor ordered. “Now get back to your room. I have orders to follow a strict protocol with you, Miss Leary. Now.” I looked between the men, one my savior and the other an arrogant master of medicine. I hadn’t met that doctor before; his demands seemed too harsh and domineering. Someone clearly needed to work on his bedside manner.
“Now,” the doctor repeated, taking my left arm in his hold.
“Don’t touch her,” my other half snarled, pushing the doctor away from me, my arm burning as his tortuous hold released.
“Don’t let them take me away from you,” I shouted to him, my heart pounding with misery behind the cage of my chest, wishing to burst through the gate and free itself with his hold.
Jesus. My eyes snapped open, widening while I hyperventilated on the memory infiltrating another dream. It has to be fake. This isn’t possible. I didn’t know Julian. My heart was in my throat, burning with acidity as my lungs and brain throbbed in response to my dream. Nightmare? Dream? It was too real, too tangible. I felt tears ending their stream of torture along my cheeks. Real?
My heavy head rolled to the side of my pillow, and I glanced up to see the small digital clock on the nightstand. It was four in the morning, a silent four in the morning. I told myself before sleep took over that I was leaving, but that horribly naïve girl bubbled back into my subconscious, warning me against it, almost begging me to look to see if Julian was still there, hoping to fix this. But there wasn’t anything to fix; whether true or not, he lied to me. He hadn’t simply eaten the last cookie and said it was his brother. He stole my identity, destroyed my heart, and continued tearing apart my fragile soul. He kept my past locked away in his heart, while I searched everywhere but there, naïvely assuming other dishonest versions of my history were accurate.
My ribs throbbed, a symptom of having cried myself into a sleeping stupor a few hours prior to my dream ripping me back to reality. I tried to smother the piece of me that wanted Julian, the piece that craved him like an addiction because I would crumble if I didn’t.
I couldn’t even think about what happened last night. I simply did not have the emotional energy to process it. I need to write this stuff down somewhere. My sore feet struggled against the floor, holding my weight above ankles not ready to stand, while I slowly walked around the room. I didn’t need anything from that space. I had my sweatshirt, what I was wearing, and my fragile heart. But then I touched my chest, remembering I’d left Julian’s necklace on in the shower, allowing it to anchor me throughout the night. The two diamonds felt enormously rough and heavy beneath the fabric of my sweatshirt, refreshing my tears with reality. I have to leave. I battled with myself about the necklace as I began turning the doorknob. Why do I want it? It was from him. Why do I need it? It was from him. Maybe I can sell it since I have no money. Or I can keep it because it was from Julian.
With the quietest steps I could muster, I opened the door and stepped into the living space of the suite. Sure as shit, my heart stopped. There he was—sprawled on the sofa, his left leg dangling off the edge with his height, the bandages against his side visible as his unbuttoned shirt was crumpled beneath his head for an additional pillow, and his eyes closed softly through a dream. Why did I know this? Why did I know he stayed? Why would he have? Honestly. I wasn’t coming back out here to him. He should have left. He is a horrible human, and I hate him. Want him. Hate him.
Looking at Julian left me mesmerized, given the elusive opportunity to stare at an actual semblance of a deity. The soft scruff of a morning without shaving gently consumed his jaw. His hair was a wild, matted mess. The way his chest sank and lifted like the ebb and flow of a lonely but calm sea was beautiful. Mr. Friendly was still there, sparkling at me from the kitchen table behind Julian. He let all vulnerability expose itself in there, last night and in that moment.
I had to go. If I looked at him any longer, watching him sleep, watching him dream, I would have lost the last part of me left together. Biting my lip to subdue the impending sob that threatened my throat, I tip-toed to the main door and snuck between the panel and frame. Watching it close, the slow, methodic progression of its weight preparing to latch, sealing our division forever, I waited to see if the fantasy would hold true. Would he wake, storm the door, and stop me? Would his fingers break the seal, refusing to allow the door to close? No. The devil was sleeping, as he soundly deserved, while this angel just earned her wings.