Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(73)

Natalie let Julian up with a shaking hand. He burst through the door a moment later, and she screeched, backing herself up against the curtain behind which David lurked.

“Where is he?” Julian demanded, storming into her living space. He dumped his messenger bag on the floor by the couch.

Natalie’s heart plummeted and blood turned to ice in veins. “Wh-who?”

“Your friend. Marshall. Or what’s her name…Liberty. There were here, weren’t they? Giving you bad advice? Telling you to get rid of me? They had to have been, since I cannot fathom what could have changed between yesterday and tonight.”

He spun around, his gaze searching, and Natalie was sure he’d go to her bedroom alcove and find David there, crouched like a villain in a bad movie.

“No,” Natalie said quickly. “It’s not them. I-I told you why—”

He whirled on her, his blue eyes blazing. “You told me the most inexplicable, atrocious bunch of bullshit!”

“It’s not bullshit!” she countered, even as her heart screamed the opposite. “It’s the truth and you need to get out. Now. I don’t want to see you again.”

“Why?” Julian’s face was a mask of fury. “Why now? What happened? I need to see the words come out of your mouth. Tell me!”

Natalie recoiled, her numbed mind scrabbling for the reasons she’d come up with waiting for him to arrive. “Y-You’re planning on revealing yourself. That means press, publicity, travel. You’ll be gone for long stretches and you’ll meet many new people…Other women! Women who are more interesting and…and more exotic than I am. You’ll be tempted to live it up and I can’t handle losing you like that, piece by piece.”

“Live it up?” Julian spat. “You think the moment you’re out of sight, I’ll cheat on you? For what? To make up for lost time? That’s what you think of me?”

No! I know you never would. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” he repeated, mocking. “But you’re quite certain of my inability to be faithful to you. That you’ve seen written in the stars.”

“I don’t…I’m not saying that would happen, I’m saying it’s possible that things could go wrong between us and—”

“This!” Julian cried. “This is something going wrong between us!”

“I’m sorry,” she heard herself say, and the words sounded so small and weak. “But you need to leave now.”

Julian struggled to calm himself and took a step toward her. His voice was softer now, pleading. “No, Natalie. I don’t…Something’s not right. This isn’t like you. Please. Tell me the truth. Why are you wrecking us?”

The only thing preventing her from breaking down was the fact that David was not ten feet away, waiting for it to happen.

“I told you,” she said. “If I stay with you, I am putting my heart and soul into your hands. I can’t. I have to have my refuge, something that just belongs to me. To keep me safe.”

“Safe,” Julian said, tears outstanding in his eyes. “You want to be safe. But let me tell you something, no one is safe. You think that you’re the only one putting your heart and soul into another’s hands? You think I haven’t risked everything for you?”

Natalie, with a wail of anguish in her throat she couldn’t unleash, felt that no matter the danger, no matter that this was ‘pretend’, she was making a terrible, terrible mistake.

“Please don’t hate me,” she whimpered. “Please.”

His stony expression crumbled as he really looked at her. “What is happening, Natalie? You’re saying these horrible words, but your eyes…Your eyes are screaming something different.” He took a step closer, she took a step back. “You don’t seem sad or even angry…you’re terrified. Why?”

A sudden, vague suspicion crossed his face, and he turned to glance around her apartment. His gaze landed on the bedroom alcove, around the corner from the living area, hidden from view. “Is there—?”

“Yes!” Natalie burst out before Julian could move or say another word. “I am terrified. Of you. That’s why I did it over the phone. I didn’t want to suffer that terrible temper of yours. I was afraid…” She swallowed hard, the words stuck in her throat like knives. Do it. Or he’ll find David and David will kill him… “I was afraid you’d hit me.”

Julian staggered backwards, his suspicion forgotten. His face paled and she watched his heart shatter right before her eyes. “We…we talked about... I would never…”

“I’m not taking any chances.” Natalie squared her shoulders. “Now go.”

His eyes widened at the cold, callous tone of her voice.

“I can see I was horribly mistaken about you,” he choked. “I was a fool, blinded by a poor imitation of love, for how could you have ever loved me? Me, who is inconstant and…and violent.”

He shuddered and staggered to his bag.

Natalie felt tears scorch her eyes, and she clutched herself to keep from flying at him, holding him, screaming that it was all a lie…

“I am not the man you accuse me of being, and I’m not going to be. I will not live in that ugly, suspicious perception.”