Wrong Man, Right Kiss (Gage Brothers 2)

He turned her face up to his with his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to look into his piercing eyes. “You ratted me out to my brother, Molly. How the hell could you do this to me?”

Just to stand there under the searing heat of his reproachful green stare made her empty stomach churn. “I didn’t mean to! It slipped. It slipped. What? Are you going to hate me now, is that it?”

“Hate? Molly, I freaking love you! I can’t believe you’d line up with them against me.” He raked his hands through his hair and then backed away, as though she had a rash he needed to distance himself from. “You want to know why I would leave a thriving, billion-dollar business, Molly? Fine, let me tell you why. Because as long as I’m under my family’s thumb, I’ll never be able to be with you.”

His expression was grim as he watched her, his eyebrows drawn sharp and sullen over his eyes; eyes that killed her with emotion as he looked at her.

“That day you came to me begging me to help you get another man…I thought to hell with my family. I wasn’t going to let them ruin my life anymore and let them keep me away from you, Moo.”

Molly incongruously wondered why Julian could say Moo and make it sound revered and womanly, sexy and beautiful, but she was so distraught over the rest of what he said that she didn’t wonder for long. Julian’s face had hardened with pain and his voice felt like icicles on her skin. Molly’s eyes had blurred with tears because each and every one of the words he’d said was eating her up inside.

“They’ve sent me away dozens of times, they’ve threatened to disown me, they’ve tried every twisted plot to keep me in line. And I’m sick and tired of dancing to their tune. I just want to be with you.” His green eyes clawed her like talons as he spread his arms out, his jaw clenched so tight she feared it would crack like her heart was cracking. “So this was the plan. This was my plan. With my full financial independence, I’ll need no one—no one—to tell me what to do, or tell me if I can or can’t love you, Molly. Dammit, I can’t freaking believe you’d crucify me for them—for him.”

He pulled at the collar of his polo shirt as if he wanted to rip it off him and then stalked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Molly mourned his affection already. No more sparkling green eyes. There were only tornadoes and storms now.

And she’d put them there.

A tear slipped down her cheek as her brain replayed his words over and over in her head, then a second tear followed, and a third, and they wouldn’t stop. Julian loved her. Oh, God. To know that he’d cared for her all this time, had wanted her like she’d secretly wanted him and had been actually doing something so he could be with her…

To know the truest kind of love could have been hers all along…

This should have been the happiest day of her life. But instead it had morphed into the worst.

Because to learn that you had something on the same day you lost it sucked.

Molly wanted to tear her skin off with her nails, her heart out with her hands so she could show him all she wanted was to give it to him. “I’m sorry, Jules,” she said, clutching her stomach. “I didn’t know it was so important. I swear I would have watched my mouth better—”

“I trusted you, Molly,” he interrupted, shaking his head over and over again. “You know me better than my family, better than anyone. I’ve trusted you with everything. Everything I think and want, and… Jesus, I just can’t do this right now.”

He put even more distance between them and jammed his fingers into his hair as each step carried him farther away.

“You can still trust me, Jules! I was careless, that’s all. I mean…you’re not going to let Garrett push you into anything you don’t want to do. Are you?”

He halted. And she trembled at the expression on his face, so…vacant, as if not only would he never, ever trust her again, but neither would he care to try.

This steely detachment on his part was so new and alarming, when he turned to face the window and gave her a view of his broad, impenetrable back, she actually wanted to flee to her studio and lock herself up the rest of her life in a sanctuary of paint, brushes and blank canvases.

But her life would never be the same without him, would never be the same if she didn’t stay here and work things out. Julian was, quite simply, the most valuable and treasured thing in the world to her.

He had to forgive her.

So she remained. She remained glued to the floor, to this present, this horrible alternate reality where Julian looked at her as a…fraud.

“Jules?” she prodded when he remained staring silently out the window for too long.

He ran a hand all the way through his hair and gripped the back of his neck, then stared down at the floor. “Was I your consolation prize, Molly? Do you still have…an idea of you and Garrett in your head?”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but only heard a shocked gasp, the question so terribly painful to hear. Did he not realize she adored him? Did he think she would spend a night like last night just for the fun of it?

“If it had been Garrett kissing you that night at the masquerade, for real, would you even be here with me, Molly? Or would you have left here with him?” he asked, and when he dropped his arm and turned slightly, his empty stare slashed her to bits.

How could he think that?

She wanted to hit him for even thinking it, but she felt shattered inside.

The magic she’d felt in that kiss could never have been there with Garrett or anyone else. It was him, Julian, it always had been, no matter how much she’d tried to fight it. He was The One.

Him and only him.