Page 92 of When the Stars Fall
“I’d still have a hand in the business but I don’t need to be there as much as I have been over the years. It’d be good to spend some time in the garden. Maybe take up golf.”
I snorted. I couldn’t see my dad golfing.
“Give it some thought. No need to make any decisions right now.”
The door opened, saving me from having to comment further. An enormous canary yellow bouquet entered the room. A bouquet of flowers attached to a pair of slender legs with sculpted calves from years of running. I’d be able to pick out those legs in a lineup. I knew every curve of her body. Every dip and swell. Every freckle. Every inch of silky soft skin.
Or, at least, I used to. I used to know everything about Lila Turner. Her hopes and dreams and fears. Her strengths and weaknesses. I used to be able to read her face like a well-loved book that I’d committed to memory.
She set the flowers on a table and we stared at each other across my father’s hospital bed. If anything, she was more beautiful now than she’d been the last time I saw her. Dark, glossy hair fell in waves around her bare shoulders. Full, pink lips I’d kissed a thousand times.
Mine.Except that she wasn’t. Not anymore.
Unlike the old days, the times I’d come home on leave, catching her by surprise twice, she didn’t fly across the room and throw herself into my arms. Of course she didn’t. Why would she? We were strangers now.
“Hey Lila.” I leaned back in my chair, adopting a relaxed posture that belied my inner turmoil. As if this was just an ordinary day and it hadn’t been six years since we’d last spoken.
“Hey Jude.” She licked her lips and lifted a trembling hand to adjust her top. It was one of those off-shoulder numbers—dark blue with daisies. Her skirt was denim, and I studied the brass buttons down the front, trying to work out if they were snaps. Irrelevant. I wouldn’t be ripping the skirt off her so it didn’t matter if they were snaps or buttons.
I dragged my gaze away from Lila and focused on my dad, who’d been watching us with an amused look on his face. Not sure there was anything to be amused about.
“Well, I um... I need to go,” Lila said, backing away toward the door.
“Don’t leave on my account.”
“I just wanted to drop off the flowers.” She smiled at my dad. “I tried to choose the manliest ones.”
My dad returned the smile, his fondness for her apparent in the gruffness of his response. “You did good, darlin’.”
“I, um...” She glanced at me. Her chest rose on a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. “I have to get to work. I’ll stop by tomorrow, Patrick. Good seeing you again, Jude.”
Good seeing you again, Jude.
Her tone so formal, so polite, like we were merely acquaintances.
She left in a rush, practically tripping over herself to get out the door. When it closed behind her, I continued staring at it.
“Go,” my dad said, giving me his blessing to chase after the girl I’d been chasing since I was nine years old.
I stayed seated. We weren’t kids anymore.
But now that I’d seen her, one thing was certain. Those old feelings had never died. For all my fuck-ups, for all the shit I had done to her and the hell I had put her through, I had never once stopped loving her.
Question was, when hadshestopped lovingme?
When I came home a different man, that’s when. I’d seen it in her eyes and on her face. She’d never had a good poker face. Her eyes didn’t lie. I’d taken the light out of them. I had failed her in every way imaginable.
I had broken her heart and in true Lila fashion, she had come back swinging.
Fucking ripped the beating organ out of my chest and stomped all over it. She’d always been a fighter. It was one of the many things I’d loved most about her.
But never in a million years would I have thought she and Brody would betray me the way they had.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lila
Shell-shocked.That was how I felt after seeing Jude. Nobody had even bothered to warn me that he was coming home. Maybe they weren’t certain he would actually show up.
