“Oh, that.” I tossed down my napkin. “Public nudity. Yea or nay?” I started to stand. Her arm jerked out and she grabbed my hand, her eyes wide with horror.
With a smug laugh, I leaned across the table and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “I’m too jealous to let everyone see your body. Let’s just say that’s the reason I’m not shoving the pizza aside and tossing parmesan on your belly button so I can see how long it will take me to lick it off.”
“Wow,” she rasped with a giggle. “You think that’s what’s gonna make me happy? A little parmesan?”
“First of all.” I sat back down. “Cheese.”
“Hah!” She sipped her Diet Coke. “You’ve got me there. And second?”
“I think feeling free will make you happy.”
She dropped her fork, splattering tiny dots of red sauce all over the front of her white silk tank and a few on her white tuxedo jacket.
“Here.” I stood and helped her out of her jacket then grabbed a napkin and dipped it into the water. “We probably need to get it dry cleaned but it’s not enough to ruin it, unless that was your intention, and then my suggestion would be to just take two slices and put them facedown on your chest. More dramatic that way.” I winked.
She gawked and then burst out laughing. “Who are you?”
“Just me.” I smiled at her. “You still look beautiful despite the stains, you know.”
She shifted her gaze away.
“I hate that I’ve done that, forced you to look away when I give you a compliment,” I said softly, returning to my seat. “You really are beautiful, though. I’m sorry for not saying it enough.” Or possibly at all.
She searched my eyes. I wondered if she saw me there, not Julian, but me, Bridge. I wondered if she saw the purity of the words, the sincerity behind them, the man standing in front of her, pretending to be better than the one she would be stuck with the rest of her life.
I wondered if she saw the lie.
Izzy’s lips parted. She licked the bottom one and exhaled softly. “You’re going to break my heart, aren’t you?”
And because I didn’t want to be him, because I couldn’t stand to hear the lie fall from my lips.
I kissed her cheek and whispered a weak “Yes.”
Chapter Sixteen
ISOBEL
That night, I lay in bed with tears streaming down my cheeks, tears of misunderstanding, mistrust, confusion, and finally, lust.
Lust and love for a man who was acting like the man I’d fallen head over heels in love with in college.
He’d been healing in the guest room since after that first night back and said since he was getting up so much to take Advil it was best we sleep apart. I thought it was just another ruse so that I wouldn’t notice when he left to go meet with the maid or with whomever he was cheating.
But true to his word, he’d been different.
“Hey . . .” Julian walked into the room. He was walking better, actually, and his face was damn near perfect again, intense, sharper, and perfect. He flashed me a smile and then pulled his shirt over his head, keeping his low-slung pajama pants on. He crawled into bed and pulled me into his arms. “I heard you crying and then talking to yourself. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and also double-check that you weren’t sticking a voodoo doll with pins since my ribs still feel like death.”
“I’d just kick you, not resort to magic,” I said through a sniffle. “And I didn’t realize I was being so loud.”
“Izzy,” he sighed and held me tighter. It felt so good.
The way he held me was perfect.
The way he spoke to me, straightforward, honest.
God, how I’d missed honesty with another human being. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear truth.
He’d said he was going to break my heart.
And I believed him.
And I also didn’t care, because for now, he was healing it. Better let my heart get broken by this version of Julian than get suffocated by the older version I knew would return one day.
I wracked my brain for reasons behind his behavior and his physical appearance, but the only thing I came up with was he’d finally realized that his father’s approval wasn’t worth it, that our love was stronger than all the things in the world he thought he needed, money, power, position.
For the first time in our relationship, I didn’t have a sick feeling about what was coming, or what Edward would do next.
Because Julian was strong now.
And we had each other.
He kept claiming that being near death changed a person. If that was the case, when did that feeling wear off? I almost googled it because I felt like I was losing my mind.