“Ugh. People keep using that word. There’s a difference between my company’s net worth and my own liquid assets. I don’t have a billion-dollar bill in my wallet, if that’s what you mean.”
“Damn it. Because I was hoping you’d get me a small impoverished nation for Christmas. Preferably something tropical, where they grow coffee or chocolate. Any chance I’ll find that under the tree?”
He just grinned at me. “I’ll see what I can do.” He relaxed then. I guess he thought that since I was joking around with him, all was forgiven and forgotten. He was wrong.
~ ~
The day that split my life in two started out as the happiest one I’d ever known. It was almost three years ago. I’d had a crush on Nick practically from the day my mom and his dad took us out to dinner to tell us they were getting married. It seemed like the biggest cheat on earth that the one guy who had ever captured my full attention was about to be off limits. I might as well have fallen in love with a movie star—it had the same chance of ever working out. I could tell that Nick thought of me as his kid sister, nothing more. Just someone to tease. Obviously he wasn’t interested in me, because he always paraded his many, many girls in front of me. He would flirt and touch them in a way that made me feel an almost sickening mixture of desire and rage.
We were out at the lake with our friends, and I was pissed at him, so when he challenged me to race with him, I stupidly did it. I could barely swim then, but I kept that information to myself.
I started off okay, but pretty soon I was exhausted. I knew I was in trouble, but there was nobody to call for help. Nick had pulled far ahead. With the little air I could get between gulps of lake water, I called his name, but he didn’t hear me. I had somehow blundered out into deep water, and I just couldn’t stay up on the surface. I remember looking up at the sky, trying to keep my head above water, but failing. Water kept coming into my mouth and nose, and I started to panic. I thrashed with my arms and legs, but it didn’t help, and then the air was way up above and I was down in the cold dark water. I looked up through the water, and I could still see the light in the sky, slowly getting smaller as I sank down.
The next thing I knew, someone grabbed me from behind and yanked my head above the surface, which I seemed to break with a big crash. I gasped for a huge breath of air, but it made me cough, and that made me panic again and flail around.
Nick spoke in my ear. “I have you Julia. You’re okay.” He held onto me from behind, and his firm warm arms around me and the rumbling sound of his voice gave me the strength to calm down.
“Just breathe slowly and relax,” he said, and he started to swim on his back for shore, with me above him, my back pressed to his front.
When we got to shallow water, he asked if I could walk, and I nodded. He kept his arm around me, supporting me, but my knees were wobbly, and I sank down on them when we were in about a foot of water.
He knelt right in front of me and peered into my face. His hands moved my hair back, and then his thumb traced my cheek, caressed my face. The other hand strayed to my shoulder as he kept looking into my eyes.
“My god, Julia, I thought I’d lost you. I’d want to die without you. Tell me you’re okay.”
“Oh, Nick,” I said. My feelings were too big for words, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his.
In the next moment he roughly pulled me to his chest, and brought his lips to mine. His mouth was an unstoppable force of nature. His lips pulled at mine, hungrily taking them. He took my bottom lip between both of his. His lips opened, and his questing tongue traced the line between my closed lips, and I yielded my mouth to him. Our tongues met, and for the first time I knew what it was like to swirl deliriously into a kiss. My whole body, which had been so cold when trapped by the lake, felt like it was about to ignite. My hands went to Nick’s hair, buried themselves in it, in an attempt to bring him closer still. All the feelings for Nick that I’d hidden and tried to deny, burst forth, and I poured all of them into that kiss.
CHAPTER TWO
2
Nick
I kept thinking that the dinner with Julia and the folks was going fine. Except for those few minutes with Julia at the hospital a few days before, I hadn’t seen any of my family for going on three years. It was so great to see my dad, to just hang out with him and laugh and talk. He looked older though, which is kind of scary. I could tell that Lucy, my stepmom, was a little nervous. Maybe she thought Julia and I would fight or something.
Julia looked smoking hot. When I saw her, I swear I lost the power of speech. That girl has a body that just…. She could be one of those Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. I sat across the table from her, and with that dress she had on, every time she leaned forward a little, the view was amazing. I mean, she looked like a lady, of course, nothing slutty about what she had on, but damn.
She didn’t talk much, though. Dad and Lucy kept asking me questions and making a big deal out of the Fitband app and my company, so I felt like a total braggart the whole time. I mean, yeah, it’s not every day that a gu
y my age has an idea that takes off and makes a bunch of money, and yeah, I worked my ass off for it, but I gotta say, more than a little bit was just dumb luck. Not that I say that too often.
I really wanted to get Julia talking. I wanted to hear the story of how she got out of that wheelchair. I mean, that’s some kind of miracle, right? I remember the day the doctor came into Julia’s hospital room with the bad news. Dad and Lucy had gone home for a while, so I was the only one with her. I never left her room after the accident. Julia was all doped up on painkillers, and I didn’t even know if she could understand when he explained that she’d never walk again. But she understood, all right. After the doctor left, she cried and cried until she was almost howling, squeezing my hand the whole time. I left town the next day. Go ahead, call me an asshole. I’ve called myself the same thing a million times. But, much as I wanted to hear from Julia about how she got better, she resisted all my attempts to ask questions.
In fact she would barely look at me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. A few times I caught her looking my way before quickly cutting her eyes away from me with this Fuck You look on her face. Later, she started to joke around, but she was still super pissed at me. She had a right to be, of course, but I guess I was hoping she’d gotten over it. Nope.
When Lucy served the dessert and coffee, Julia started checking her phone every few minutes. I thought she might be expecting texts from a guy, and my gut twisted up at the thought. I had to get her alone for a little while, just to talk to her. It was like this fever inside of me. I didn’t want to let on, though, make her realize how obsessed with her I was. Though really, how could she not know? But still, I wanted to play it cool. Dumb, right?
“Lucy, this dinner was so delicious, I’m afraid to enter the calories into my fitness app! I need to walk off some of them. Julia, do you want to go for a walk with me?” Smooth, huh? Being around my stepsister turned me into a fourteen-year-old boy.