From dinner, we went straight back to our hotel room – rather, my hotel room that we were apparently now sharing.

After grabbing his bag from his suite down the hall, Julian returned to me. Standing in the doorway of the bathroom, he quietly unbuttoned his shirt, getting leisurely undressed while watching me shower through the glass door. I could see behind him into the living room, and out the windows at the moonlight glimmering over the water.

For once, I enjoyed the partition between Julian and me. I wiped at the fog steaming the shower door as I continued watching him drift in and out of the bathroom while taking his clothes, his watch and his shoes off. Without something separating us, I was pretty sure I’d climb all over him again – it was hard not to, even when I was still catching my breath from what he’d just done to me at the restaurant.

Plain and simple, there was no looking at Julian without wanting him. But I forced myself to just pause and take this time to gaze at my current reality.

A little over a month ago, I spent between six and seven days a week in a windowless part of my office at June Magazine. I worked unpaid overtime every day in order to complete my superiors’ assignments, I went through my ritual of sex with Vanilla Jeff in his cluttered office, and my idea of vacation was thirty minutes at a coffee shop with Lia.

Now I was in Biarritz, France, in the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever seen overlooking the stunning Basque coast. To top it all off, I had Julian Hoult winding down with me after a long day out. Just watching him get ready to sleep was fascinating. Just sleeping in bed with him was fascinating. Seemingly everything about that man made me feel better, happier, more hopeful, and while I had been doing a great job of it up to yesterday, as I watched Julian now, I couldn’t deny it.

I was falling.

Hard.

I didn’t feel anything close to secure about it, but it was happening, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop it anymore.

“Hey,” I smiled as he got in the shower with me. I laughed as he gave a crooked grin and leaned his tired body into me for several seconds. I giggled, closing my eyes as he kissed my neck. “You’re almost there,” I murmured. Tomorrow was our last day before going home. Somehow, it felt like forever ago that we were in New York.

“Thank you, by the way,” Julian said when he pulled back. My eyes followed my hands as they ran over his solid pecs then slowly down the ridges of his abs.

“For what?” I asked softly.

“Making this trip easier for me.”

“I hardly did anything with the Roths this trip.”

“I don’t mean in regards to the sale,” he said, taking the little round of soap and running its smooth surface along my side. “I mean just… being here. In Biarritz. It’s not usually an easy trip for me.”

I blinked, water trickling down my hair and into my face. How had I not even considered that? This resort I was having the time of my life in had begun as a home – the one he’d built to bring back Lucie.

Of course it hurt to be here.

“I didn’t even think about how hard it was for you to come back here,” I murmured, frowning at myself.

“It usually is, but it wasn’t this time. I barely recognize this place when I’m here with you. It just feels like another beautiful French city when I get to see it through your eyes,” Julian said earnestly, oblivious to how incredibly sweet I found his words. He looked up at me and grinned. “That said I hope you didn’t enjoy your time here too much, because I have no intention of ever coming back once we’re gone.”

“I can always come here alone,” I teased.

“It would be a waste to let you go somewhere alone,” Julian said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re so beautiful when you see something for the first time,” he answered straightaway. “I wouldn’t want to miss all those faces you make.”

I grinned wide. “Are you trying to make my cheeks hurt?”

“I’m not. But I’ve become pretty dependent on seeing that smile, so whatever makes you happy, I’ll keep doing it,” he laughed, letting water trickle over his head as he leaned in to kiss me.

At night, I drifted off to sleep while Julian sat next to me in bed, looking over some notes. He asked if I wanted him to move into the sitting room so I could turn the lights off to sleep, but I said no. I felt way too much at peace lying there with him reading next to me. I loved every second of it, even in my sleep.

I didn’t even mind that I woke up around two in the morning to find him still up, and still reading, though his material had changed since I was last awake.

“What’s that?” I asked, my voice cracking from the grogginess. Julian looked down at me and frowned.

“Hey. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I just stir here and there,” I murmured, eyeing the pressed flower stationery in his hand. “Is that from Lucie?” I whispered sleepily. My lips curved in a smile when Julian took my hand and nodded for me to crawl up against him. Only when I had my head resting on his chest did he softy answer.

“It’s the last letter she sent where she wrote that she missed me, and she still didn’t understand why she couldn’t see me.”

“How long ago is it from?”

“About two-and-a-half years ago. She had just turned six. She’s thanking me for the birthday presents in this,” Julian said, running his thumb over the paper.

“Oh. You… know where they live?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t ever get tempted to go there and find them?” My voice was small when I asked the question – as if that might lessen the pain of his answer.

“I thought about it every business trip I’ve ever taken out here. I thought about it today,” Julian admitted in a murmur, pulling my leg over his lap. I leaned closer into him, smoothing my hand up his chest to his shoulder. I rubbed it gently as he spoke. “Figured it was almost like a last chance. But I decided against it.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s perfectly adjusted now. She’s moved on from her memories of me, and it would be selfish for me to barrel into her life now and ruin the peace. She’s still too young to fully understand the situation. She wouldn’t know how to handle the fact that her mother has fed her lies about me. She’d just feel confusion and resentment, and all I want is for her to be happy. I don’t want her to feel what I feel.”

I gazed up at Julian, his stunning profile highlighted from the soft glow of the lamp. My heart ached for him, and I wished so badly that he could just see Lucie, but I understood exactly what he meant.

“You’re a good man to give her the peace to move on,” I said. “Most people would just indulge their impulses without thinking about how it might affect the other person.” I cupped the back of his neck and rubbed gently. “I think it’s noble for you to take on the hurt for her. Not everybody would do that,” I said, thinking about the nights I heard my mother’s muffled crying in her room. She was broken up over me, the arrest, and everything I’d been forced to do in college. A couple nights, she caved and came to my room, demanding what the hell I was thinking, and how I could let those girls treat me that way. Didn’t I respect myself?

Those nights hurt.

But they were few and far between considering how many other nights she just held it in, crying into her pillow.

“Maybe in the future, you two can reconnect, and you can give her your side of the story,” I said.

“I hope she understands by then why I eventually stopped trying to see her.”

“She will,” I whispered. “Everyone finds out eventually how fragile the healing process is. Maybe she’ll figure it out after her first big breakup, and she’ll understand that even after the wound’s closed, it’s still delicate, and sensitive, and it still needs time.”

Julian looked me in the eye. “What about yours?” he asked.

“What? My wound?” I offered a little smile. “It’s been healing since we left the Hamptons. It’s in pretty good shape so far.”

“Good.” Julian put the letter on the nightstand, pulling me fully onto his lap. He pressed his lips against my forehead as I straddled him. “By the way, you’re good at this,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Making me happy.”

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh of pure content.

“You have that touch with me, too,” I murmured, cutting myself off right there, because there was so much more I could say.

You make me happy.

Happier than I ever thought I deserved.

And I think I’m falling in love with you.

My heartbeat rose in my chest as Julian tipped my chin up to kiss me. I wanted so badly to say the words, and to just get them off my chest. But I didn’t.

I told myself to save it for another time.