“It’s not that,” he says.
My chest is heaving with resentment and indignation, but at his words, those feelings slowly begin to dissipate. “What do you mean?” I ask with a frown.
“It’s not that,” he repeats. He takes a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t find you attractive.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re gorgeous, Jules. You’re young, warm, funny, and sexy. Of course I find you attractive.”
I stare at him. It’s the first time he’s ever said anything like that to me. I’m so taken aback I can only stare at him.
His lips slowly curve up. “You look surprised.”
I find my tongue. “Of course I’m surprised. You made it very, very clear you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I know.”
“You said I’m not your type, and I never will be.”
He winces, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back. We study each other for a good thirty seconds.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” I say softly. “That was exceptionally cruel.”
He drops his gaze to his glass.
“I haven’t told Hal what you said,” I inform him. “That’s how hurtful it was.” We both know my brother would have been furious with him if he knew exactly how he’d phrased the put-down.
“I couldn’t afford for there to be any ambiguity,” he states. “I needed to be clear.”
“Well, you were certainly that. Crystal as.”
He has a large mouthful of whisky, then leans forward on the table. He’s not far away from me now. If I were to lean forward too, I’d be able to kiss him.
“The thing is,” he said, “it’s—”
“Jesus, don’t you dare say it’s not me, it’s you.”
He closes his mouth. He was about to say that. He stares at his glass, a look of such sorrow on his face that it makes my heart twist. We were such good friends. How did we end up here?
“Stefan,” I say, then sigh. “I appreciate that maybe you didn’t mean to be as harsh as you were. But it’s done. I got the message, loud and clear. I probably should have guessed anyway, I’m not blonde.”
He glances up at me, and his gaze lingers on my hair. “Whittaker’s,” he says.
I blink. “What?” It’s a Kiwi chocolate manufacturer.
“Not so much the Creamy Milk,” he continues.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your hair,” he says. “I can never make up my mind whether it’s more the color of the sixty-two percent Dark Cacao, or the seventy-two percent Dark Ghana. It’s too rich and dark for the Creamy Milk.”
I stare at him. How does he know that much about chocolate?
Wait. What? He thinks about my hair?
“Melted, obviously,” he states. “Glossy and shiny. It always looks as if you’ve just washed and dried it; it’s always fresh and clean. I bet it looks amazing wet. Especially spread out on a pillow.”
His gaze moves from my hair to my eyes. He’s not smiling.
He thinks about my hair. Wet. On a pillow. In a bed.
Holy fuck!
“Ah…” My brain is being scrambled like eggs in a pan with butter and milk, whisked to that sloppy consistency and poured onto toast. With a sprinkling of parsley on top.
“I thought you should know,” he says. “How I really feel.” He has another mouthful of his Scotch, then lets out a long breath. God, his voice is so deliciously husky and sexy.
“I like you, Juliet,” he continues, sending a shiver through me at the use of my full name. “I always have, and I always will. When you were younger, I waited for the right moment, sure we’d get together eventually. But something happened… something I can’t tell you about. It sounds corny, but it really is nothing to do with you. But it means that I can’t date you. It just can’t happen. And I can’t tell you about it because it’s to do with someone else, and I promised I wouldn’t betray their confidence. That’s why I said what I said at Leon’s wedding. Now, I wish I hadn’t, I wish I’d sat you down and had this conversation with you then. But I thought you’d argue with me, and press me to tell you what it was, and I didn’t want to go through that, because I’m not that strong a person. And I want you too much.”
He finishes off his Scotch. “I thought it would be easier to hurt your feelings so much that it would put you off me for life. And it worked.” He gives a short, harsh laugh. “But it fucking killed me. I know you hate me for what I said, and I deserve it. But I can’t bear it.” His eyes are open, honest. “I know I can’t have you. And that’s okay, I’ve made my peace with that. But I can’t bear us not being friends. It’s all my fault, and I have to put it right. If you don’t want to be friends with me again, if I went too far for you to forgive me, then I understand. But I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
My jaw has dropped. I’m absolutely stunned.
What the hell do I say to that?
Chapter Four
Stefan
I shouldn’t have said that. Fuck. I promised myself I’d never let Jules know how I feel about her. Wasn’t that the reason why I was so cruel to her in the first place?
But I couldn’t help it. I had to wipe away that look of resentment in her eyes. I couldn’t bear her to continue to hate me. I thought I was strong enough to deal with it, and I’m not. I’ve just got to hope that she believes me and understands why I can’t act on my feelings.
She sits back in her seat, and we look at each other for a long, long moment. Is she going to laugh at me? Say I’m being ridiculous, and get up and go back to her seat?
“Want another drink?” she says.
I exhale slowly and nod, so she gets up, goes to the bar, and orders two more drinks.
I watch her until she returns and takes her seat. I sip my whisky, and she has a mouthful of her martini.
“So let me get this right,” she states eventually. “You’re telling me that you are attracted to me, but that you don’t want to take it further because of Reasons, with a capital R. And you can’t reveal what those reasons are, but it’s unlikely they’re going to change.”
“Yes,” I reply.
“But it’s not to do with me.”
“No.”
“Is it Hal?”
I tip my head from side to side. “Partly, but not in the way you think.”
“Is it because I’m the little sis of your best mate?”
“Again, partly.” I give her a helpless look. “I honestly can’t say, Jules. I would if I could, but I promised I wouldn’t, and I have to stick to that.”
“This promise is important to you.” It’s a statement, not a question. She’s not complaining, she’s trying to figure it out.
“Yes,” I reply. I wait for her to push me, to try to guess who’s involved.
But instead, she just nods. “Okay.” She sips her drink.
My eyebrows rise. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not going to press me for details? Demand to know what’s so important that it’s keeping me from having a relationship with you, if I like you so much?”
“I’ve known you a long time,” she replies. “You’re fiercely loyal to your friends and family, and you don’t make decisions lightly. If you’ve promised a person close to you—whether it’s Hal or someone else—that you won’t date me, for whatever reason, I know you wouldn’t have said that on the spur of the moment. Your reasoning will be sound. And I wouldn’t feel about you the way I do if you turned your back on the people you love.”
I wouldn’t feel about you the way I do. A tingle runs down my spine. I wish I could confide in her. I wish things were different. But they’re not, and the most I can hope for is that my confession brings the barrier down between us.
“So we can be friends again?” I ask her hopefully.
She smiles slowly. “Yes, Stefan. We can be friends again.”
I hold out my hand, palm up.
She looks at it for a moment, then slides hers into it, and I curl my fingers around hers.
“I’m so relieved,” I murmur. “I thought I’d lost you, and that nearly killed me.”
“You should have just told me the truth.”
“I know. I wish I had. I thought I was doing the right thing. I knew I couldn’t hide how I feel about you, and I thought you’d hang on to that and keep hoping it would work out. I had to make it clear that’s never going to happen.”
She looks at our fingers for a moment, then withdraws her hand. But she smiles at me, which gives me hope. “I get it,” she says. “And don’t worry. I won’t be crazy, stalking woman. It’ll just be nice to know that I didn’t make a complete fool of myself for no reason.”
“Not at all,” I tell her. “I was the one who made a fool of myself. I’m such an idiot.”
“You are a bit.”
“I know.”
She clears her throat. “So… we’re accepting that we’re both attracted to each other, but that nothing’s going to happen between us.”
I nod slowly.
She sips her drink. At that moment, the plane shudders, and her fingers tighten on her glass.
“I’m so sorry to hear you don’t like flying,” I say. “It’s brave of you to go all the way across the other side of the world.”
“I did think about telling Noah I’d stay behind,” she admits. “But I couldn’t face his disappointment. You know what he’s like. He likes to think everyone’s joining in and having a marvelous time.”
“Oh yeah, I get it. I offered to stay behind and man the fort, but he refused.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Really? Why? Because of me?”
“No, no. Well, partly, yes. I thought it would be easier for you if I wasn’t there this week. But also because I’m not a member of the family, and I didn’t want him to feel as if he had to invite me.”
“Like he’d ever think that,” she scoffs. “You’re practically a King in Noah’s eyes. You and Hal are like brothers.”
“That’s true. We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we?”
She nods, her eyes growing distant. Her lips curve up, and then her gaze comes back to me, mischievous and hot. “Do you remember the weekend my team won the Netball Under 19 Champs?”
My smile grows to match hers. “I do.”
Brock and Erin King had a huge party at their house to celebrate the team’s success and invited all their friends and family, as well as all the members of the team and their families. The place was filled with young women in netball dresses. All the guys thought they’d died and gone to heaven.
Jules had been on a high after the win, exuberant and showing off to her friends. They’d all been sitting by the pool, and when Hal and I had walked by with a drink, a couple of them had grabbed us and insisted we dance with them. Hal, being Hal, had put his arms around three of them and declared he’d dance with them all. I’d been drinking most of the evening and seeing Jules in a netball dress with legs that seemed to go on forever had tipped me over the edge. I’d pulled her into my arms and spun her around a few times, then decided what the hell and kissed her. Shocked, she’d stumbled back, not realized she was on the edge of the pool, and promptly fallen in. Hal had just laughed and tipped backward into the water, still holding the three girls, and then everyone else had jumped in.
“I thought you might ask me out after that,” she admits. “But you never did.”
“I went back to veterinary college a few days later,” I remind her. “I was halfway through the course and it occupied my every waking moment. There was no room in my life for love.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What are you implying?”
She snorts. “Oh come on. I’ve heard the stories. They say between you and Hal, you made your way through the entire town of Palmerston North.”
I scratch my cheek. “We did have a good time, it’s true. And yet you’ve been such a saint.”
She pokes her tongue out at me. “I don’t see why guys should have all the fun. I like sex.”
I have a big mouthful of whisky. “I bet you do.”
She smirks, and I smile. It’s nice to be friends again. But I have to be careful. I can’t start talking about sex with her or I’m going to get into real trouble.
“Are you looking forward to Christmas in the snow?” I ask her.
“No.” She pulls a face. “I don’t like Christmas.”
“Me neither,” I admit. “Thank God I’m not the only one.”
“I thought everyone else liked Christmas.”
“Yeah, me too. I always have this massive sense of relief when it’s over.”
She laughs. “Yeah. I love the second of January! When all the fuss is done.” She studies me curiously. “So why do you dislike it so much?”
“Once Dad started working for the We Three Kings Foundation, he could never bring himself to enjoy Christmas when he knew there were kids out there who were sick and parents who were worried. So he and my mom took turns to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day helping out at the hospital. When we were old enough, they took me and Maia with them. We’d play with the kids while Mom and Dad spoke to the parents. I know they were trying to help us understand the real meaning of Christmas, but all it did was make me sad and angry that everyone else was opening presents and eating and drinking, and those kids were having operations and lying there in pain. I’ve never gotten over that. Mom and Dad still help out, but I can’t do it anymore, not over Christmas. It sounds pathetic, but it’s too hard, and it brings me down too much. I spend the day at the Ark instead, with the animals.”
“I’ve noticed that you often cover the shift on Christmas Day,” she says.
I nod. “It makes me feel less guilty, that at least I’m doing something. I’m not dreading this vacation, but things like this always make me think about those who are less fortunate than ourselves, all those kids who don’t get presents, or who are sick. Plus, of course, I miss Fred.” He smiles.
Fred the Red, as he’s known, is Stefan’s Irish Setter. Usually, the two of them are inseparable, and Fred spends most of his days in the corner of Stefan’s veterinary clinic, hobnobbing with his clients.
“It is a shame we couldn’t bring all the dogs,” I reply. I know Hal will pine for Miss Daisy and vice versa, Albie will miss Belle, his new pointer, Fitz will yearn for Jack, his Jack Russell, and Leon will no doubt be sad without all his four dogs causing havoc around him.
“Yeah,” Stefan says. “We’re not apart much. Did you hear that when we went to Dunedin, Fred got out of the kennels and went home?”
“To your house?” I ask, astonished. Stefan lives on the edge of Waitangi forest, a few miles from the Ark.
“Yeah. Bastard ran all the way. Nearly gave Rawiri a heart attack.” Rawiri runs the new kennels at the Ark. “Luckily, he had the sense to drive out to my house and found Fred sitting outside.” He tips his head at me. “So why don’t you like Christmas?”
She shrugs. “Various things have happened over the festive period, including breaking up with Connor.”
I nod slowly. “I know what happened,” I advise. “I know you kept it quiet at the time, and I presume that’s because you didn’t want Hal and Ryan and the rest of us making things difficult for you. But I know he hit you.”
I’ve been wanting to ask her about it since Albie let it slip the night we went out with Noah. But how do you bring up a subject like that in conversation? The timing never seemed right. But now, in the semi-quiet, the only sound the background roar of the engines, and the two of us secreted away in the corner, I finally feel I can ask her.
She studies her glass, inhales, and blows out a long breath.
“What happened?” I ask softly.
“He was jealous. Without reason, I hasten to add. I’ve never been unfaithful. But he thought I was spending too much time at the Ark.” Her gaze rises to meet mine. “With you.”
My eyes widen. “He was jealous of me?”
“He was convinced I was having an affair with you.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, so you know how much fact there is in that. Every time I was out of the house for more than thirty minutes, I got the third degree when I returned. I had to stop working late because I just couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. It was getting out of hand, and I knew it was coming to a head. And so one evening when I got home and he accused me of being with you, I lost my temper and we had a huge argument.”
“Was he drunk?”
“As a skunk. I should have backed away at that point, I know. But I was angry. It didn’t matter if I told the truth because he didn’t believe me anyway, so I made it up. Told him I’d been seeing you at work, having sex in the stationery cupboard. Went into great detail. I pushed him. Taunted him. And eventually he lashed out.”
I stare at her for a long moment, shocked. She lowers her gaze to her drink, then looks away, across the cabin. She’s ashamed that she goaded him.
“You blame yourself,” I comment.
She shrugs. “Yes and no. Obviously, there’s no justification for what he did. If he was angry, he should have just walked away. But I knew what I was doing. Deep down.”
“You knew he’d hit you?”
“No, but I knew he’d blow a fuse. I expected him to smash up the house, put a golf club through the TV, something like that. I’d be able to use that as an excuse then to leave him, because I wasn’t strong enough to walk out.”
“That’s not true,” I tell her. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
She rubs her nose. “I’m heading toward thirty, Stef. At a rate of knots. I’ve had several relationships that have fallen apart, and even though they would never say so, I know my parents are disappointed in me.”
“I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“Well, you would say that because you worship the ground Brock King walks on, as does everyone else. And I know he only wants the best for me. But he and Mom were starting to talk about the wedding, and grandchildren… And to admit to them that I’d walked away from another relationship would have been too hard. I want them to be proud of me.”
My Christmas Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 7) Page 3