Fantasize about you.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” His left brow lifted.
My mind was drawing a blank. What did I do for fun? The only thing that I could think of was binge-watch reality TV. Currently I was on a 90 Day Fiancé kick. After his reaction to my Bachelor reference, I wasn’t about to admit to that.
“I read.”
“I’m talking about for fun.”
“Reading is fun. All the cool kids are doing it,” I accidentally slipped and repeated one of our inside jokes. Whenever one of us had to do something that we didn’t want to do, the other one would say, all the cool kids are doing it.
It started when I had to get immunizations for school. Romeo had told me that all the cool kids were doing it. Then when he had to get his wisdom teeth pulled, I’d said the same thing to him. It became our thing. A thing that I hadn’t said since the last time I’d said it to him.
Romeo smiled, but thankfully didn’t comment. Instead, he made a fairly insightful statement for someone who hadn’t spoken to me in twelve years. “Self-help books don’t count.”
“That’s not all I read.” Although, it made up about eighty percent of it.
“Really? What else do you read?”
The last book I read was Tessa Dare’s The Duchess Deal: Girl Meets Duke. It was a Regency romance where the brooding, menacing Duke of Ashbury returns from war in need of a wife. When his betrothed bails who happens to show up in his library in a wedding dress but the Vicar’s daughter who happens to be the seamstress of the dress of his no-show bride and who is looking for payment. But, I didn’t think he needed to know that much detail.
“Women’s fiction.” I took a bite of my sandwich.
A smile tugged at his lips. “Women’s fiction like Yaya used to read?”
I came by my love of romance honestly, I’d inherited my literary obsession from Yaya. She had stacks and stacks of what people at the time called bodice-rippers. I started sneaking and reading them when I was twelve.
I’d never forget the time that Romeo caught me reading my grandma’s romance novels up on the roof when I was thirteen. He’d grabbed it from my hand and started to read it out loud before I snatched it back and rushed off the roof. I’d been humiliated.
But I wasn’t a kid anymore. Not that that was evident by my experience, but still. I had no shame in my romance-novel-loving game.
At least, I didn’t until I was speaking to the one man that had starred in every book, every fantasy and every erotic dream of my life. Yeah, that was a little embarrassing. But still, he didn’t know the part he’d played in my limited sexual life.
“Yes,” I answered confidently, hoping he wouldn’t read my mind and know that he’d been my Christian Grey, Jamie Fraser, Travis Maddox, and every other hero from every romance novel I’d ever read.
“You read romance novels?” he clarified.
“Yes.”
The spark of amusement in his gorgeous blue eyes told me exactly what he was thinking.
“I don’t just read them for that.” I said, defending myself. I found myself doing that a lot around him. It wasn’t something I was in the habit of doing. I rarely, if ever, felt the need to defend myself in my day-to-day life. But it was all I seemed to be doing around Romeo.
“For what?” He asked in faux-innocence.
I, once again, took the bait. “I don’t read them for the sex. I read them because there is always a happy ending. Guaranteed.”
Why couldn’t I shut up? I heard myself talking and I couldn’t seem to stop. I’d always been that way around Romeo. With most people, all people really, I was guarded, quiet, and reserved. But around Romeo…I blabbed and blabbed and blabbed.
Apparently I was also a glutton for punishment, because I continued. “When I pick up a romance novel, I know that I’m going to be transported to a world where there is always the perfect match for the heroine no matter what her quirks or idiosyncrasies are. The hero always thinks that she is adorable and cute and that they are what makes her perfect for him. And vice versa. I love that the hero and heroine always see each other.”
I finished my rant and waited for him to give me a bad time and tease me for my naivety. I waited for a crack about me living in a fantasyland or that those books set an impossible standard for real-life relationships. Instead, the look in his eyes didn’t hold a fraction of humor. He held my gaze with an intensity that set my entire body on fire.
“Is that what you want? You want someone who sees you? You want someone who thinks everything you do is cute and adorable and made just for him?”
Yes!
“No,” I lied defensively. “That’s not real life. But it’s a nice escape.”
“Are you seeing someone?” he asked bluntly.
“What?” I wasn’t sure why his question came so out of left field. Maybe because he’d never really shown any interest in my love life. Not that I’d had much of a love life in high school. Aside from Kevin Murdock, who I dated for two months senior year, my love life had been non-existent.
“Is there a romantic hero in your life?” he reworded his question.
Romeo always had a way with words. He was very poetic. It made sense that he ended up being a Grammy-winning songwriter.
I didn’t think a lot of people knew that Romeo was so much more than just the drummer for Valentine. Not that that wasn’t enough. It was just that he was also an incredible songwriter and singer, and he played so many instruments that I’d lost count. I wanted to ask him about the rumors that I’d heard about him going solo, but I thought that would be getting personal and I was trying to avoid personal.
Says the girl that’s about to tell the only man that she’s ever loved that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. “No. I’m too busy. Work takes up all my time.”
“If it were the right person, you’d make time.” His response was so pointed and personal that it caught me off guard.
A guard that I desperately needed to keep up if I had any hope of making it through this weekend with even a sliver of my heart. “You’re right. I guess I never met the right person.”
I made sure that my response was just as pointed and personal as his had been. And I did my best to ignore the sharp stab of pain in my heart when I saw the hurt that filled his eyes. This weekend was not going to turn into me making him feel better about the past. If he wanted absolution for his sins, he should go to a priest.
I needed to worry about myself, because after Monday, he’d be gone. Again.
CHAPTER 12
Romeo
We’d ridden back in silence, but it was a different sort of silence than the one on the way to the desert picnic. This time, the tension was more personal, more palpable.
We arrived back at the stables to find a note from Mr. Owens stating that he’d gone to town to the feed store. So Jules and I worked together to get the horses settled back in their stalls.
Once inside, Jules leaned against the gate that separated them and patted the side of Lady’s muzzle as they pressed their foreheads together. “Good girl, Lady.”
Lady neighed in response and stomped her front hoof.
“What do you want to do tomorrow?” I hadn’t brought up it being her birthday yet, because I knew it was a sensitive subject.
As a kid, she’d never wanted to celebrate it because she said it reminded her that her mom wasn’t there. And then her first birthday as an adult I’d ruined. I wasn’t sure how she’d celebrated the twelve that she’d had since she ran out of my hotel room crying, but I hoped that they’d gone better than that.
Her back stiffened and her hand dropped. She straightened away from the horse and her response was clipped. “Nothing. I’m working.”
“Jules.” I reached out to grab her hand as she started to walk away.
“Don’t call me that.” She jerked her arm out of my reach.
“I’m sorry.” I apologized.
“It’s fine.” She smoothed her hands over h
er shirt. “But it’s Juliette.”
“No, not about calling you Jules.” I shook my head. My dad had taught me to never apologize for something that you planned on doing again, and I was definitely going to be calling her Jules again. “I’m sorry for…” I was suddenly unsure of how to refer to the night that I’d destroyed our relationship. “…that night.”
“What night?” I knew that she knew exactly what night I was referring to.
Fine. If she wanted me to spell it out for her, I would. “Your eighteenth birthday. The night you left a letter in my bag and waited for me in my hotel room. The night that you told me you wanted me to be your first and that you’d always love—”
“Stop,” her command was spoken in a whisper and I could see that she was still as deeply affected by that night as I was.
“I’m sorry, Jules. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Really?” A forced laugh fell from her lips. “You seemed pretty damn sure of yourself when you told me that you didn’t want me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes. You did.”
Shit. Had I said that? I’d tried to replay the exact conversation in my head thousands of times but I could never recall it clearly. All that I’d been able to remember was that I stumbled in drunk and was surprised to see her. I’d thought that she’d left the note for me before I’d left Dallas when I was visiting her brother. I had no idea she was in my hotel room in Baton Rouge.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be there and I’d been drinking. I wasn’t thinking straight.” When I’d found her letter, I’d gone to the bar at the hotel and drank. I’d known that there was no way I could act on it. I’d known that she was too young, and that the way things were going with the band, I’d never be able to be the man that she deserved.
Hell, I still wasn’t the man that she deserved, but at least now I had the balls to tell her that. I hadn’t expected her to be waiting in my hotel room, wearing next to nothing, looking like my deepest, darkest fantasies come to life. I’d panicked.
“Nice try. But the fact that you were drinking just means you were more likely to tell the truth.”
“It wasn’t the truth. I wanted you then and I still want you now.” I took a step toward her.
“Bullshit!” she yelled.
I stepped back on my heel, stunned. In all the years that I’d known Juliette, she’d never screamed at me. I’d never heard her scream at anyone.
“You didn’t want me then!” she continued shouting several decibels louder than I’d ever heard her speak before. “And I don’t have a clue what this weekend is about but if you think that you’re going to be my first after all this time, then you’re sadly, sadly mistaken.”
There was a short beat before the color drained from her face and her amber eyes widened in horror. I replayed the words she’d just shouted at me.
And I don’t have a clue what this weekend is about, but if you think you’re going to be my first after all this time then you are sadly, sadly mistaken.
Why would she say that I would think I could still be her first? Unless…
“What do you mean your first? You’re not a virgin.” It was a statement, not a question.
“What? No…I mean yes…I know I’m not,” she stammered as she turned and started marching back to the villa.
I followed behind her, my mind trying to process the thoughts that I was having. Juliette didn’t really lie, but when she did she stammered. The look on her face and her response to my statement were telling me that she was, in fact, a virgin. But that was impossible. She was going to be thirty tomorrow.
Besides her age, she was a smart, talented, funny, ambitious, drop-dead gorgeous woman who I was sure had men lining up to be with her. There was no way that she hadn’t been with anyone over the past twelve years.
Or was there?
“Juliette,” I called her name but she continued to walk at a pace that even my long legs were having a difficult time keeping up with.
“Juliette!” I called louder. She ignored me.
“Jules!” I tried using the name that had gotten a reaction earlier, but she didn’t miss a step or acknowledge me at all.
With each step we took closer to the house, my urgency grew. I had a sinking feeling that if she went inside and went to her room, she’d be able to distance herself from me and I’d never get a straight answer.
With determined strides, I caught up to Juliette and managed to step in front of her.
She stopped up short and wobbled backwards. My hands wrapped around her upper arms, steadying her. It was a completely involuntary and innocent touch but no one told my dick that. It began to swell at the skin-to-skin contact.
“Jules, are you a virgin?”
Her eyes were trained directly on my chest and her breaths were shallow. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking but this wasn’t the first time that I wished my superpower was mind reading. I’d always wanted to know what Juliette was thinking, long before I realized my feelings for her were more than just platonic.
I kept my hands in place, even though I was sure that she was in no danger of losing her balance. I wanted to touch her as long as she’d let me.
Her eyes slowly lifted to mine and I noticed the stubborn set of her jaw.
I prepared myself to be told exactly where I could shove the question that I’d just asked her. I braced myself for a lecture about how her life was none of my business and to let go of her and get out of her way.
My fingers instinctively released the hold they had and I was lowering my hands from her when she finally answered, “Yes.”
It hit me like Tim Young tackled me from behind and knocked the wind out of me. I stared at her and I honestly had no idea that my mouth was open until she pointed it out.
“You can pick your jaw up off the ground. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Yes. It was. But I closed my mouth.
“How is that—?” I started to ask how that was possible when a loud horn sounded.
We both turned and saw a black SUV driving up.
“Are you expecting someone?” She asked, in a not-so-friendly tone.
“No. Are you?”
“I’m working.”
We both stared at the vehicle approaching us. The sun was setting behind it, making it difficult to see the driver. It wasn’t until the person stepped out that we saw who it was.
“Jared?!” Juliette rushed away from me to hug her brother.
I followed behind, not quite as enthusiastic to see my best friend. I loved Jared, and had never been disappointed to see him before, but this time he was interrupting something that was so important it felt like my life depended on it.
As I watched Jared lift Juliette up, so her feet lifted off the ground and saw the huge smile that appeared on her face, I knew that I wasn’t being dramatic.
That girl was my life.
CHAPTER 13
Juliette
I stood beneath the spray of the shower, buying time before I had to go out and face my brother and Romeo. I was trying not to think about the fact that I’d just admitted to Romeo—Freakin’—Whitehall that I was still a virgin.
What the hell had I been thinking? That was not information he needed to know. I hadn’t planned on saying it, it just…slipped out. The more time I spent with him, the more that kept happening.
Damn it. Why did he have the same effect on me as alcohol?
Being in his presence was the equivalent of me taking two tequila shots. I’d confess anything. I found that out after I’d gone out to celebrate getting the job with Sullivan Holdings and ended up telling the bartender that I was grossly unqualified for the position. After detailing all the reasons I shouldn’t have been hired, I found out that Liam knew the bartender.
Two shots or twenty-four hours with Romeo. That was all it took for me to turn into Chatty Cathy.
I closed my eyes as the water poured over my head and all I saw was the expression on Romeo’s face w
hen I’d confessed my virginal status. He looked shocked. Horrified.
Okay, maybe horrified was a little bit of projection, but he’d definitely been shocked.
And it’s not like I got the chance to explain. Although, in all fairness, I had no idea what I would’ve said even if I had.
“Why am I a virgin?” I asked myself. “Well, I’m a bit of a germaphobe and, I don’t know, I had this crazy idea of my first time being with someone I actually wanted to be with. Or more accurately, I wanted my first time to be with you.”
Saying it out loud, even if no one else could hear it, or maybe especially since no one else could hear it, was freeing. That was the truth. I’d never wanted anyone but Romeo. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with that one.
I wanted someone who abandoned me.
I loved someone who was totally unavailable.
I created a relationship in my head that obviously never existed.
So yeah, needless to say, I still had some lingering effects from my childhood.
I shut off the shower and stepped out onto the Italian marble floor. The previous owner certainly had spared no expense. This place was a little piece of heaven and I adored the villa.
Sometimes, I daydreamed about owning it and living at Oasis. And in those dreams, Romeo always played the role of my husband. Playing house this weekend was seriously messing with my head.
I was so relieved that Jared was here. I needed a buffer. I feared there was no way I’d make it out of this weekend with any semblance of sanity or dignity if I was left alone with Romeo until his checkout on Monday.
Jared showing up was a godsend.
I still didn’t quite believe that he was just here for my birthday. He knew how I felt about celebrating it and he’d always respected that. He’d never done more than send me a text as a form of wishing me a happy day. Always making some sort of comical point that he was sending it not because it was a special day, but just because he wanted me to have a good day.
Even turning the big 3-0 didn’t seem like enough of a catalyst for Jared to fly halfway across the country. Something wasn’t right, but I was in no place to question it considering how desperate I was for a buffer.
Resisting Romeo (Steamy Weekends Book 3) Page 7