Page 22 of Accidental Fiancé

“As she puts it, she gets more out of dominating people than she does out of having sex. But on the rare occasion she has sex, it’s almost always with a woman or two.”

“Huh. That explains why she’s such a good litigator.”

She laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

We fell into a companionable silence for a few bites while my mind wandered dangerously close to reality and what the future held. If my body was still, my mind was not.

“So, what’s in the near future for you, Maggie Bryant?”

“That piece of toast.”

I snorted. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, but the future is a dark and scary thing. I’ve been successfully avoiding thinking about it for a while now and I plan to keep doing that. You?”

Given her circumstances, that was as fair an answer as I could ask for. “Truth is, I’m not a big fan of thinking about my immediate future, either. But we all have to face our demons, right?”

Her brow lined in a frown. “Demons? Is everything okay?”

I shrugged. “It will be.”I sure hope so.

“You don’t sound so convinced about that.” She reached over the table, taking my hand. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

She would never understand how much that meant to hear that from her. The weight of my crush threatened to live up to its name. Strange how old feelings could be reincarnated into something new yet strikingly the same.

I patted her hand and took mine back to keep eating. “It’s not your problem but thank you for offering.”

“It’s none of my business, but are you healthy, Jules?”

She was not going to let this go, was she? “It’s nothing like that. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. It’s just family stuff.”

“Oh. Okay.” She returned to her meal, distracted by the mystery I’d failed to lay out.

Now, it’s weird.

Chapter 9

Maggie

Iwasn’t sure how to get him to open up. He’d been so forthcoming about everything before, shutting me out now felt personal. What else could it be? I must have screwed up somewhere along the line. “Did I say something wrong?”

Julian leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. When he sat up again, a lock of it dangled over his forehead the way it had last night when he was on top of me, and I flashed back to that moment. I had to squeeze my thighs together to stop from moaning out loud. He cleared his throat. “I promise, this has nothing to do with you.”

“So much so that you can’t tell me about it? I thought we were, well, not friends exactly, but we used to be. We used to talk about everything. Maybe I can help. It’s not like I have any place to be or a job to get to.”

“You’re right,” he said with sudden interest.

“Well, you don’t have to rub it in.”

“No, no, I don’t mean about the job thing. Actually, I do.” He tapped his fingers together in thought as he took a deep breath that spread open his hotel robe just enough to show off the defined midline between his pecs. When he licked his lip I wanted to climb across the table and take over for him.

If I spent any more time with Julian, I was going to want to pounce on him again, and I was already wrecked from last night and this morning.

He admitted, “I’m going to ask something very, very stupid, and you’re going to tell me no, and that will be the end of it, okay? But I’ll only say it on the condition that you agree you’re going to tell me no.”

“This is about the problem you alluded to?”

“Yes.”

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