Despite the night chill, her cheeks flooded with warmth. She no longer needed the coat, but she kept it on anyway. As much as she craved his touch, she wasn’t in a hurry to end this night. The sky was clear and sparkling with a sprinkle of stars. The moon hung high and full overhead. After the emotionally trying few weeks they’d had, they were sharing a night together in Paris. She wouldn’t rush that even to make love to Heath.
They stopped on the bridge and looked out at the moon reflecting on the water. It was such a calm, clear night, the water was like glass. In the distance, she could hear street performers playing jazz music. Heath was beside her. For the first time in a long time, Julianne felt a sense of peace. Here, there were no detectives asking questions, no family to accommodate, no unfinished art projects haunting her and no dead men chasing her in her dreams. It was just the two of them in the most romantic city in the world.
“Do you remember when we put the lock on the Pont des Arts bridge?”
Heath nodded. The bridge was farther down the Seine near the Louvre. It was covered in padlocks that had couples’ names and dates written on them. Some couples came on their wedding day with special engraved locks. Others bought them from street vendors on the spur of the moment, like they had. The man had loaned them a marker to write “Heath and Julianne Forever.” They’d put the lock on the bridge and threw the key into the river before heading to the train station and leaving Paris for Spain. The idea was that you were sealing your relationship forever. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t fully let go of him.
“I wonder if it’s still there.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “I read that they cut locks off or remove entire panels of the fence at night. It’s been eleven years. I’m sure our lock is long gone.”
Julianne frowned at the water. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. A part of her was thinking they would be able to walk down to the bridge and find it. That they might be overcome with emotions at seeing it firmly clasped to the fence, never to be unlocked, and they would finally be able to triumph over the obstacles that were keeping them apart.
Yes, because that’s exactly what she needed to do when her divorce was virtually finalized. But if she were honest with herself, if she let her tightly clamped down emotions free like she did that night in Paris all those years ago, she had to admit nothing had changed. She still loved Heath. She had always loved him. It was her love for him that had forced her to push him away so he could have a real chance at happiness. And it was her love for him that wouldn’t let her cut the cord that tied them together. She didn’t need a lock to do that.
Heath had accused her of commitment-phobia, of using their marriage to keep men away. But that wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was that she could never love any of those men. How could she? Her heart belonged to Heath and had since elementary school.
“That makes me sad,” she admitted to the dark silence around them. “I was hoping that somehow our lock would last even though we didn’t. Our love should still be alive here in Paris, just like it was then.”
Heath reached for her hand and held it tight. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The warm comfort of his touch was enough. She didn’t expect him to feel the same way. She’d thrown his feelings back in his face and never told him why. He’d asked for a divorce, so despite their mutual attraction and physical indulgence over the last few weeks, that was all he felt for her. He’d carried the torch for her far longer than he should have, so she couldn’t begrudge him finally putting it down. Telling Heath she had feelings for him now, after all this time, would be like rubbing salt in the wound.
Instead of focusing on that thought, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of Heath’s touch. In a few weeks, even that would be gone. Carrying on their physical relationship after the divorce wasn’t a good idea. They were divorcing so Heath could move on with his life. Find a woman who could love him the way he deserved to be loved. Maybe take his mystery woman to the Caribbean. For that to happen, she couldn’t keep stringing him along. She had to let him go.
She needed to make the most of the time they had left and indulge her heart’s desires. And tonight, she intended to indulge in the fancy, king-sized bed of their hotel suite. She wanted the passionate, romantic night in Paris that she couldn’t have when they were young and in love.
Julianne opened her eyes and turned to look at Heath. His gaze met hers, a similar sadness there although he hadn’t voiced it. He probably thought they were mourning their marriage together in the place where it started. That was the smart thing for her to do. To appreciate what they had and to let it go once and for all.
She pressed her body to his side and with the help of her stilettos, easily tilted her head up to whisper into his ear. “Take me home.”
Ten
Heath opened the door to their suite and Julianne stepped inside ahead of him. In a bucket by the seating area was a bottle of Champagne with a note. Julianne plucked the white card from the bottle and scanned the neat script.
“Madame Badeau has sent us a bottle of Champagne. She’s not quite the cougar you warned me about, Heath.”
Heath was slipping out of his coat jacket and tugging at his tie when he turned to look at her. “She told me earlier tonight that she could see we had a rare and precious love.”
Julianne’s eyes widened at him, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy chuckling and shaking his head.
“Boy, did we have her fooled. I think she’s finally given up on me.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and cast the card onto the table. A woman she’d known less than a day could see what Heath refused to see. “Spoils to the victor,” she replied, trying to keep the bitter tone from her voice. “Open it while I change.”
He walked over to take the bottle from her. When she heard the loud pop of the cork, she moved the two crystal flutes closer to him and took a few steps away to watch as he poured.
As many times as they had been together over the last few weeks, there hadn’t been much fanfare to their lovemaking. No seduction. No temptation. It hadn’t been as frantic as that first night in the shower, but they wanted each other too badly to delay their desires. But tonight she wanted to offer him a night in Europe they’d never forget, this time, for all the right reasons.
Heath set down the bottle and picked up the flutes filled with golden bubbly liquid. His gaze met hers, but instead of approaching him, she smiled softly and let her gold wrap fall to the floor. She reached for the zipper at her side, drawing it down the curve of her waist and swell of her hip. His gaze immediately went to the intimate flash of her skin now exposed and the conspicuous absence of lingerie beneath it.
Julianne knew the exact moment he realized she hadn’t been wearing panties all evening. He swallowed hard and his fingers tightened around the delicate crystal stems of the glasses. His chest swelled with a deep breath before his gaze met hers again. There was a hard glint of desire there. He might not love her any longer, but there was no question that he wanted her. The intensity of his gaze stole the breath from her lungs.
Drawing in a much-needed lungful of cool air, she turned her back to Heath and strolled into the bedroom. Her fingertips curled around the hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head. Her hair spilled back down around her shoulders, tickling her bare shoulder blades. She tossed the dress across the plush chaise and turned around.
Heath had followed her into the bedroom. He stood just inside the doorway, clutching the glasses in an attempt to keep control. She was surprised he hadn’t snapped the delicate stems in half. Julianne stalked across the room toward him, naked except for her gold jewelry and the five-inch heels she was still wearing. She stopped just in front of him. She reached past the glasses to the button of his collar. Her nimble fingers made quick work of his shirt, moving down the front until she could part the linen and place her palms on the hard, bare muscles of his chest.
He stood stone still as she worked,
his eyes partly closed when she touched him. He reopened them at last when she took one of the glasses from him and held it up for a toast.
“To Paris,” she said.
“To Paris,” Heath repeated, his voice low and strained. He didn’t drink; he just watched Julianne as she put the Champagne to her lips and took a healthy sip.
“Mmm...” she said, her eyes focused only on him. “This is good. I know what would make it better, though.”
Leaning into Heath, she held up her flute and poured a stream of the Champagne down his neck. Moving quickly, she lapped at the drops that ran down his throat and pooled in the hollow of his collarbone. She let her tongue drag along his neck, meeting the rough stubble of his five o’clock shadow and feeling the low growl rumbling in his throat.
“You like that?” she asked.
Heath’s arm shot out to wrap around her bare waist and tug her body close. Startled, Julianne smacked hard against the wall of his chest, pressing her breasts into him. She could feel the cool moisture of the Champagne on his skin as it molded to hers. When she looked up, he had a wicked grin across his face.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. He took a sip of Champagne and then brought his lips to hers. The bubbly liquid filled her own mouth and danced around her tongue before she swallowed it.
Their mouths were still locked onto one another as Heath walked her slowly back toward the bed. With his arm still hooked around the small of her back, he eased Julianne’s body down slowly until she met with the cool silky fabric of the duvet.
He pulled away long enough to look longingly at her body and whip off his shirt. Then he poured the rest of the Champagne into the valley between her breasts. He cast the empty flute onto the soft carpet with a thud and dipped his head to clean up the mess he’d made. His tongue slid along her sternum, teasing at the inner curves of her breasts and down to her ribcage. He used his fingertip to dip into her navel and then rub the Champagne he found there over the hardened peaks of her nipples. He bathed them in the expensive alcohol, then took his time removing every drop from her skin.
Julianne arched into his mouth and his hands, urging him on and gasping aloud as he sucked hard at her breast. Her own empty Champagne flute rolled from her hand across the mattress. She brought her hands to his head, burying her fingers in his thick hair and tugging him closer. He resisted her pull, moving lower down her stomach to the dripping golden liquid that waited for him there. His searing lips were like fire across her Champagne-chilled skin. She ached for him to caress every part of her and he happily complied.
Heath’s hands pressed against her inner thighs, easing them apart and slipping between them and out of her reach. She had to clutch handfuls of the luxurious linens beneath them to ground herself to the earth as his mouth found her heated core. His tongue worked over her sensitive skin, drawing a chorus of strangled cries from her throat. He was relentless, slipping a finger inside of her until she came undone.
“Heath!” she gasped, her body undulating and pulsing with the pleasure surging through her. She hadn’t wanted to find her release without him, not tonight, but he didn’t give her the option. She collapsed back against the mattress, her muscles tired and her lungs burning.
She pried open her eyes when she felt the heat of Heath’s body moving up over her again. He had shed the last of his clothing, his skin gliding bare along hers.
A moment later, his hazel eyes were staring down into her own. She could feel the firm heat of his desire pressing against her thigh. Eleven years ago this moment had sent her scrambling. The need and nerves in Heath’s loving gaze had twisted horribly in her mind to the vicious leer of her attacker. Now there were only the familiar green and gold starbursts of the eyes she fantasized about.
She reached out to him, her palms making contact with the rough stubble of his cheeks. She pulled his mouth to hers and lost herself in him. Instead of fear, there was a peace and comfort in Heath’s arms. When he surged forward and filled her aching body with his, she gasped against his mouth but refused to let go. She needed this, needed him.
Julianne drew her legs up, cradling his hips and drawing him deeper inside. She wanted to get as close to him as she could. To take in Heath and keep a part of him there inside her forever. The clock was ticking on their time together, but she could have this.
As the pace increased, Heath finally had to tear away from her lips. He buried his face in her neck, his breath hot and ragged as he thrust hard and fast. Her body, which had been exhausted mere moments ago, was alive and tingling with sensation once again. Her release built inside, her muscles tightening and straining like a taut rubber band as she got closer and closer. Heath’s body was equally tense beneath her fingertips, a sheen of perspiration forming on his skin.
“I’ve never...wanted a woman...as much as I want you, Julianne.”
His words were barely a whisper in her ear amongst the rough gasps and rustling sheets, but she heard them and felt them to her innermost core. Her heart stuttered in her chest. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was serious. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d used her full name when he spoke to her. And then it hit her and she knew why his words impacted her so greatly. When he’d said their wedding vows.
I take thee, Julianne Renee Eden, to be my lawfully wedded wife from this day forward.
The words from the past echoed in her mind, the image of the boy he was back then looking at her with so much love and devotion in his eyes. No one had ever looked at her like that again. Because no one had ever loved her the way he did. She might have ruined it, but she had his love once and she would cherish that forever.
“Only you,” she whispered. “I’ve only ever wanted you.”
There was the slightest hesitation in his movement, and then he thrust inside of her like never before. For a moment, she wondered what that meant, but before she could get very far with her thoughts, her body tugged her out of her own head. The band snapped inside and the rush of pleasure exploded through her. She gasped and cried into his shoulder, clutching him tightly even as he kept surging forward again and again.
“Julianne,” he groaned as his whole body shuddered with his own release.
With Heath’s face buried in her neck and their hearts beating a rapid tattoo together, she wanted to say the words. It was the right moment to tell him that she loved him. That she wanted to throw their divorce papers out the window and be with him. To confess the truth about what had happened on their wedding night and explain that it wasn’t a lack of loving him, but that she was too damaged to give herself to anyone. It had taken years of therapy to get where she was now. She couldn’t have expected him to wait for her.
But she knew telling him the whole truth would hurt him more than his imagined insults. All the boys carried a burden of being unable to protect her, but Heath most of all. If Heath knew that the end for Tommy had come too late...that he had already pillaged her thirteen-year-old innocence before he arrived, he would be devastated. Their marriage would no longer be his biggest regret; that moment would replace it and he would be reminded of it every time he looked at her.
Julianne wanted Heath to look at her with desire and passion. She didn’t dare ask for love. But if he knew the truth, he would see her as a victim. He would know the full extent of the damage Tommy had caused and that would be all he would see. Could he make love to her without thinking about it?
Julianne squeezed her eyes shut and her mouth with them. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. No matter how much she loved Heath and how badly he deserved to know the truth, the price of voicing the words was too high. She’d rather he believe she was a flighty, spoiled little girl who couldn’t decide what she wanted and stomped on his heart like a ripe tomato.
Heath rolled onto his side and wrapped his arm around her waist. He tugged her body against his, curling her into the protective cocoon to keep her warm. Even now, without realizing it, he was trying to protect her. Just like he always had.
<
br /> Heath could never ever know that he’d failed that day.
* * *
The drive back to Cornwall from Hartford was long and quiet. Heath wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with Julianne, but she’d barely spoken a word since they’d departed Paris earlier that morning. How was it that their relationship didn’t seem to work on U.S. soil?
They pulled up at the bunkhouse and stumbled inside with their bags. It had been a long day, even traveling by private jet. The sun was still up but it was late into the night on Parisian time.
Heath was pulling the door shut behind him when he nearly slammed into Julianne’s back. She had stopped short, her bags still in her arms, her gaze fixed firmly on the kitchen table.
“What is it?” he asked, leaning to one side to look around her. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. Molly had brought in an overnighted package and left it on the table for them. The same type of packaging the divorce papers had originally arrived in. That only brought one option to mind. The thirty-day waiting period was up. A judge had signed the papers and her lawyer had mailed them.
They were divorced.
Just like that. After eleven years, their relationship was possibly better than it had ever been and they were divorced. Heath took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wanted this. He had asked for this. He’d harassed her and demanded his freedom. And now he had what he wanted and he’d never felt so frustrated in his life.
He unceremoniously dropped his bags to the floor and walked around Julianne to pick up the envelope. It had her name on it, but he opened it anyway. There was probably a similar envelope being held at the front desk of his building, waiting for him to return to Manhattan.
A quick glance inside confirmed his suspicions. With a sad nod, he dropped the papers back to the table. “Welcome home,” he said with a dry tone.
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