Page 7 of His Juliet

But I didn’t want her to be afraid of me.

“Truth or dare, beautiful,” I said softly, silently begging her to pickdare.

She did.

My heart skipped.

“I dare you to come here.” I widened my legs and patted the space between them.

She scowled. “Why?”

“Because I dared you to,” I said with a wink. Then I softened my voice. “I won’t hurt you. Promise.”

She slowly,slowlymoved towards me until she was between my legs. I put my arms around her, pulling her into my chest until she was resting fully against me. My fingers trailed through her hair.

“Just relax. You can rest here. I’ll keep you safe.”

Her body was stiff, but I was patient. I ran my hand slowly up and down her arm, her back, her hair, until she let go, relaxing fully against me. It wasn’t long before she fell asleep.

My phone screen lit up and I glanced down at it. It was a text from Matteo giving me the all-clear. Franco had finally gained access to the street cameras and confirmed that the Butcher had left the area.

I ignored it, hugging Juliet closer.

I’d cultivated a reputation throughout the years of going through women and never having long-term relationships. I was Romeo, the jokester, the playboy. It benefited me to have people not take me seriously. To not see the darkness that lurked underneath the surface.

Juliet was too pure for my life, and that made my throat feel strangely tight.

She shifted in my arms, letting out a distressed whimper like she was having a nightmare. I murmured quiet promises in her ear about how nothing bad would happen to her while I was here. She settled down, her breathing even and slow.

And I wished my promises could extend past this one night.

4

JULIET

I layin bed until even my alarm was irritated with how many times I’d hitsnooze. My bones felt as heavy as my heart. Getting up each morning was growing harder and harder.

Running the bookstore was the only thing keeping me going, but I still went through each day with the sensation of being trapped. Trapped in my boring life, trapped in my head. The rare times I let myself think about the future, all I saw was a dark abyss.

My mind flitted to a certain dark-eyed Italian man, and I groaned as I swung my legs off my tiny bed. When Romeo left the bookstore two days ago, he took the magic of that night with him. Those hours with him were already firmly tucked away into the recesses of my mind. Being with him had felt special… had mademefeel special. But now, the memory of him made my heart squeeze with pain. It was a reminder of how empty the rest of my life was.

I finished getting ready in the world’s tiniest bathroom and grabbed my jeans from the small chair in the corner of my dingy studio apartment. I put my feet through the pant legs and jumped up and down as I tried to get them over my hips. These were old, like all my clothes, and didn’t really fit anymore. But getting new clothes would require me to either shop online, where everything I bought would inevitably look horrible on me, or go to an actual store.

Not happening.

So I was stuck doing my best with my ill-fitting clothes.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my bag, and headed down the three flights of stairs to the small lobby, taking a deep breath before stepping out of the apartment.

There were ten steps from the door to the entrance of the bagel shop next door. I counted each one. Kim, behind the counter, gave me a distracted wave as she started on my order—plain bagel toasted with strawberry cream cheese. We were around the same age and never talked, but it felt nice to know that someone would at least notice if I disappeared.

Bagel in hand, I stepped back onto the Lower Manhattan street and walked the same route to the bookstore I took six days a week: seven blocks, one right turn, one left turn. Then I was unlocking the front door, my fingers trailing along the faded Olive Branch Bookshop lettering on the glass.

It was already 9:30 a.m., giving me thirty minutes to set everything up and eat breakfast. The last time he’d been in town, I’d asked Arturo, the store owner, if I could push the bookstore’s hours so we opened at ten instead of eight. He’d gently patted my cheeks and said it was really my store now and I could do whatever I wanted. I’d taken that as permission to expand the already large romance book display. Arturo was more into historical books on World War II, but I’d brought in a lot of money with our expanded romance section. I’d always felt that Arturo gave me this job out of pity. Increasing store sales made me feel like I was worthy of his trust, like maybe I wasn’t totally useless.

I pulled a stack of books out of a box I hadn’t had time to unpack last night when I’d gotten caught up on inventory—this time with a pack of ramen instead of pizza. My eyes had definitely not flitted to the door the entire evening, hoping someone would walk through.

I flipped the sign toopenand made a few social media posts of the new book displays, including our spotlight on indigenous authors in preparation for Thanksgiving just a week away.

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