Page 88 of Sins & Secrets

She turns on her side, pulling the sheet between her legs and letting it fall off her gorgeous curves. I brush her hair from her face, leaning down to kiss her gently on the cheek, loving how she can’t fight me in her sleep.

When I pull back, her long lashes flutter open and she looks up at me. At first there’s a softness to her expression, like the way she used to look at me. But it quickly changes, the trace of a smile dimming as her memories come back to her.

Her shoulders tense and she turns her head, but she doesn’t push me away, even as I run my hand down to her waist and sit next to her on the bed.

The bed protests as I climb in under the sheet, still in my white undershirt and flannel pajama pants. I sigh heavily, feeling exhaustion desperately try to force me to sleep as I rest my head on the pillow and pull Jules close to me.

Just like earlier this week, she lets me hold her. She doesn’t hold me back, though. Her hand merely rests against my chest, her head on my shoulder. Still, I’ll take it. The feel of her small body pressed to mine, the faint sounds of her breathing and the way she nestles her head down against me, brushing the hair from her face is everything to me.

“Talk to me, Jules,” I say softly. I miss her. I miss the banter and her optimistic energy. I miss her stories and the sweet sound of her laughter. “I miss you,” I confess.

“I’m not sure if we’re okay,” she says quietly, as if it’s a reminder to herself. “There are parts of you that scare me.”

I tell her, “But not all of me.”

Her eyes are wide open but staring across the room. I readjust my shoulders on the pillow, keeping my arm around her and debating what to tell her. She’s quiet for a long time but then she asks, “You said Jace had a woman killed?”

I can only nod.

She’s silent, obviously waiting for me to continue.

“I didn’t know him well, but he was …” I pause to take a deep breath and stare at the mirror across the room. In the reflection I can see the top of Jules’s head resting on my chest. Her eyes are vacant, as if she’s broken. Not the woman I once knew, not the Jules I fell in love with. She’s not running from me, as if this new woman has become resigned to her fate.

“I saw him for a meeting, and it was the only time I met him,” I tell her. I want to explain and I pray she understands.

She shifts on my chest and I splay my hand on her back to keep her close to me, to keep her from moving away, but I don’t have to. She’s only readjusting and she stays with her cheek pressed against my chest as she pulls the sheet up higher.

“I did it,” I say, feeling the words dying to come out of me. To tell her the truth. To tell her how angry he made me. How Jace was so sure of himself, so happy with what he’d done. “Her life was meaningless to him.”

“Whose? Whose life?” Jules brings her hand back toward herself, retreating slightly but I reach out to grab it. I bring her fingers to my lips and slowly kiss each knuckle. She doesn’t look at me while I do, but when I set her hand back down, she leaves it there.

I don’t know what to make of her in this moment. Maybe she’s numb, but she’s receptive. She’s lost her fight to deny it all.

“Her name was Avery.”

Jules shifts uncomfortably as she says the words before I can. “She was his mistress?”

I nod my head as I say, “I knew her as well.” It’s the gentlest way I can put it.

“Youknewher?” Jules asks in a tight voice. It’s the loudest she’s spoken for this conversation.

“I did,” I answer honestly. “Obviously it was before we met. Before I knew you.”

She nods her head into my chest and whispers, “Why?”

“Why did he want to kill her?”

My question forces her expression to fall even farther, but she nods.

“She was pregnant,” I tell her and that’s the last straw for Jules’s composure. I hold her close as she tries to turn away. I kiss her shoulder as she hunches over and tries to hide her face from me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper into the tense air between us. The hurt and betrayal are echoed in her ragged breaths. I can only imagine how much it shredded her to hear the words, because it killed me to say them to her.

She pushes her hands against my chest slightly, and I let her go for a moment.

Sitting up as if searching for more air, she pushes the thick sheet off of her and pulls her long brunette hair over her shoulder as she scoots up the bed and readjusts herself to lean against the headboard. All the while I can see her reining in the emotions, hiding it all and shoving it down. But she’s swallowed the truth of it all: her husband wanted his mistress dead because she was pregnant. It will stay with her forever.

“Was the baby …” she starts to ask in a choked voice as she lies back next to me and instantly places her head on my chest. “Whose was it?” she asks.

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