Page 26 of Betrayal of a Billionaire
“No? Didn’t you just say that?”
“You can’t possibly be this dense.”
Sierra jabbed a manicured nail at him. “Take that back, I’m not dense. Just because I’m not a doctor like you…”
“But you totally missed out on why we just lived through the most intense conversation in the history of Harbor Cove.”
“Maybe we should just drop it,” Grant said, the low growl in his voice sounding more agitated than normal.
Julia bobbed her head. “Yes, let’s do that. That’s an excellent idea.”
“Drop what? Why?” Sierra asked.
“Oh my goodness, Sierra,” Kyle said with a shake of his head. “It’s pretty obvious they had a thing.”
Sierra’s eyes went wide as her red lips formed an O. “Julia! Are you serious? How could you?”
“What?” Julia asked as she screwed up her face.
“How could you do that to Daddy?”
“Sierra, I didn’t even know him then.”
“So youdidhave a thing with Captain Luke.” Sierra’s eyes went wide as she clenched a fist and leaned closer. “Was it a big thing or a small thing?”
Julia flicked a hand in the air. “Let’s drop it.”
“Yeah, after you tell us about it,” Sierra said. “Was it like a few dates then you ghosted him or was this like…life-changing?”
“We dated for a while on and off.”
“More on that off or more off than on?”
Julia’s shoulders slumped as Sierra pried deeper into the relationship she wasn’t ready to confront. She rubbed at the back of her neck as she slid her eyes closed. “More on than off.”
Sierra’s eyes went wide. “Seriously? Exactly how on?”
She twisted to eye the man as he hopped aboard. A flood of memories washed over Julia. Each laugh they shared, every whispered promise under the starlit Harbor Cove sky, it all came rising back, tugging at her heartstrings with a bittersweet ache.
“We were engaged,” she admitted, her voice just above a whisper, lost in the echoes of a past that suddenly felt painfully close.
Sierra leapt from her seat, her fingers twisting into fists. “You were engaged to Captain Luke?!”
Luke’s eyebrows raised at her shouted question. “Well, I guess now that you’ve told them, I don’t need to pretend I don’t know you that well. That’ll save us a bit of awkwardness.”
Julia narrowed her eyes at her former fiancé. He seemed to have recovered from his shock fairly well. She ground her teeth together as she wondered if the call he’d placed was to Alicia.
He glanced at her, his eyes no longer clouded with shock but instead filled with the warmth reminiscent of their shared past and something else that resembled a steely determination.
She shifted in her seat wondering if she should abandon ship. Instead, she dug her phone from her purse as Luke started his pre-trip preparations.
“Julia! You’re not supposed to be on your phone,” Sierra said.
“Just sending a text. I promised no writing, not no texting.” Julia’s fingers flew across the keyboard, typing a message to her sister.Did you tell Luke about my marriage?
She drummed her fingers against the phone’s side as she waited for a response.
“No writing? Wow, Julia, I can’t believe you agreed to that.” Luke shot her a grin as he gently guided the boat away from the dock into deeper waters.
