Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(34)
Natalie ran her finger down the horse’s muzzle. Out of her periphery, Julian had frozen and was watching her intently.
Natalie looked beyond the figurine to the books behind it. “Exactly like the one Karina…”
She cocked her head and peered at the items on this particular shelf. There were no regular novels but sets of black and white composition books, bound together with rubber bands. Seven sets in all. Each collection of notebooks had a label taped across the spines. The Common Thief, read the label on the group of six books Natalie stared at now.
“What…?”
She read the other labels. Red Water. Lira and Jamie. Starshine: Collected Poems. Her heart clanged in her chest until she got to Coronation—that one made her heart stand still. And the oldest, most worn collection of books with a faded label…
“Above.”
Natalie set her wine glass down on a different shelf and carefully drew forth the collection of five composition books. With trembling hands, she slipped the old rubber band off the set, and opened the first notebook. Tiny, typeset-sized script filled the page in blue ballpoint pen, its neatness marred by alterations. The second sentence crossed out and redone. Notes in the margins. Messy scribbles that canceled one word in favor of another. And in between these corrections, the words she knew by heart, words that began the journey she had taken so many times to escape her own static, grief-stricken life. She spoke them aloud, reverently and with awe, for here was their birth.
“‘He’s gone, Javier.’ Her voice was old. She sounded like Abuela. And Abuela’s abuela. Layers of voices; generations echoing down to him from the place where dead weeping wives still sew and cook and mend, gnarled fingers flying because hunger and illness run faster than idle hands, and they curse their inconstant men but never loud enough for the children to hear. ‘He’s gone, and if you are a man and not a boy, you will find him and bring him back.’”
Natalie closed the notebook and held them all to her chest for long moments. A peculiar sensation gestated deep within her, unfurling at a rapid, eye-blink pace; an amalgam of shock, exhilaration, and something akin to panic. Her heart pounded so loudly, she could hardly hear her own thoughts. One word resounded again and again. Impossible.
She turned her head, intending to ask Julian…something. Why he would pull such a terrible prank. Why…?
Julian studied the counter before him, rubbing it aimlessly with a cloth. He didn’t meet her eyes, couldn’t look at her, and Natalie’s body began to tremble. She looked back at the composition books in her hands and returned them to their place on the shelf. The sweet smell of the soup wafted to her. A Colombian dish, he’d said. Natalie almost laughed but she was too close to tears.
“Oh my god,” she breathed. She turned to him, imploring.
Julian raised his head with a sheepish, half-smile. “Dinner’s ready.”
Chapter Fifteen
Natalie took several halting steps from the bookshelf. In her mind’s eye, the days and weeks of her time with Julian at the café returned to her: bits of conversations, strange comments, questions unanswered and topics diverted. A pointillism painting she’d been standing too close to; none of it made sense. Now, if she stepped back…
“No,” Natalie whispered as Julian came from the kitchen to stand before her. “It’s impossible. You’re...him?”
“Yes.” Julian eased a sigh—a long exhalation—and shook his head, incredulous. “Maldita. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for ten years.”
She marveled that he could look so relieved. Her own heart churned with a turmoil that left her certain she’d never feel something as simple as relief ever again. She moved on shaking legs to the couch and sat down hard.
“You expect me to believe…No.” She shook her head. “Mendón is in his forties. You’re twenty-eight years old. It’s not possible…”
He sat down beside her on the immense couch, but far enough away to give her space. “Most of what you’ve read about me is false. A diversion—”
“Above came out ten years ago. You would’ve been eighteen when you wrote it.”
“Seventeen. I turned eighteen the summer it was published.”
She stared, open-mouthed. If he was lying he had zero compunction about it. His expression was open, his eyes met hers unflinching. You saw the notebooks…Her gaze strayed to the library where the handwritten Above sat on a shelf with handwritten versions of every other Mendón novel she’d read a hundred times. Not versions. Rough drafts.
A thrill shot up her spine and then morphed into panic. She trembled, shell-shocked by duel emotions: euphoria and fear, hope and humiliation. She clapped her hand over her mouth, not sure if she were going to laugh or burst into tears “You…you should have told me. Right away. You should have told me the first time I mentioned him.”
“I couldn’t. I haven’t. Not in ten years. Only David and my editor, Len, know the truth.”
“But…why?”
He sighed. “I made a vow to my dying mother and kept it, long after its usefulness had expired. By then, so much time had passed…” He shrugged. “Call it habit or cowardice…fear of breaking out—”
“Fear?” She rose to her feet, carried on a tide of something that felt close to hysteria. “What could you possibly be afraid of? You’re wealthy, talented—a genius…”