Page 54 of Beauty and the Billionaire

“Huh?” he demanded. “There’s got to be something, Dominic. Why else would you want to meet me? So let’s stop beating around the bush, and you tell me what you think you know. We can bargain later.”

The corners of my lips curled into an unpleasant smile. “What IthinkI know?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Julian said. “Nothing a million others hadn’t done as well.”

“I’m sure you believe that.”

He waved his hand off impatiently. “Spill it.”

He almost sounded like a captured general waiting for the sword to fall on his neck.Go on. Do it. Get it over with already.

My heart lurched. Julian’s eyes flicked left and right nervously. The muscles in his face tensed as he gritted his teeth and lifted his chin in a small act of defiance.

I know your dirty little secret, I thought, forming the words in my mouth.I know you have a lover, a sweet guy in Colorado, and I know you fuck him every third weekend.I could see his expression crumbling. I could see him fumbling for explanations and lies to cover it up. I could even see him flinging terrible insults at me in desperate self-defense.

But I couldn’t say it.

Julian’s mouth was pinched in frightened hatred. He stared at me without breaking eye contact, waiting for the blow that would land any moment now. His eyes went from hard to soft, melting in sorrow, and I wondered who the young man was. How had I not sent my investigator to find out more about him? Who was his family? Were they dangerously conservative? Were they a threat?

And Julian himself could be a target if I didn’t think this through.

My fingers trembled, and I threaded them on my stomach, holding my hands as still as I could.

Were there factors I hadn’t considered that made their affair so dangerous that Julian would lower himself so far as to give me a fearful, pleading look like this? Did Julian love him? Did he love Julian more?

I grasped for these questions, unable to find answers, and I squeezed my eyes shut. A minute had passed, silent and vibrating with electricity between us. I was cold despite the fire. When I looked at him again, Julian wore a grotesque expression of expectation and fear.

He couldn’t take my silence anymore. The words ripped from him before I said a thing. “I’m sorry, Dominic,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry. Alright?”

I gritted my teeth and held my breath. It wasn’t alright. It would never be alright. He had stripped my humanity away from me, and he barely knew he had done it. He had made me into a man who would send the one good thing in his life away out of nothing more than spite.

A shudder passed through my chest, and I struggled to remain seated and still.

“I shouldn’t have been that way,” Julian said. “Not to you or anyone. I was a stupid kid. I’m not that person anymore. I grew up and changed. Not all of it is for the better, but some things are, dammit, and I’m still trying.”

I managed to drag a breath of air into my burning lungs.

“And maybe I deserve it…whatever dirt you have on me. Maybe you should go ahead and punish me,” he said, but I could hear the nearly silent crack of his voice. He was afraid of that, but I couldn’t be certain he was afraid for his own skin. “Speak, dammit. This is the moment when you blackmail me. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly. “Nothing at all.”

Julian’s eyes widened. He grasped for something, deciding between relief that was evident on his face and faking offense so he would save some dignity in this. But it was all the same to me. “What was the point of this, Dominic?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You can go, Hale. I doubt we’ll speak again.”

He moved his jaw left and right, thinking. “Maybe it’s better that way for both of us.”

I nodded my agreement.

As Julian slowly got up, part of him still clearly anticipating an attack, he watched me warily. When I didn’t stop him, he turned away from me and began to retreat toward the door.

“Julian,” I said softly, barely louder than a whisper.

He halted immediately, his muscles tensing all over. He looked at me over his shoulder.

I regretted speaking his name. It was none of my business how he lived his life. Whatever I said, he would take as a threat, but it was a piece of advice I had only just understood. I burned with desire to speak the words and hear the truth in them. I considered the best way to say this and decided to be open for once. “The battle’s over. Whatever you do next, I won’t cause trouble. But if the person is right, the price of being true to yourself should never be too high. And in the end, he’ll be worth it.”

The stillness in Julian’s face when I spoke those words told me that he had understood the stakes all along. It was just as I had suspected. Only the direst need would have brought him here to answer my call.

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