CHAPTER 16
POPPY
My phone hasn’t stopped buzzing since the beach.
I’m in our suite, trying to do my makeup for dinner, but Sage has decided that sleep is for people who aren’t witnessing their best friend’s life become a telenovela in real time.
SAGE: POPPY ROSE GABLE
SAGE: I just watched that video FOURTEEN TIMES
SAGE: FOURTEEN
SAGE: The way he CARRIED you into the water
SAGE: The way he LOOKED at you
SAGE: That was not fake boyfriend behavior
SAGE: That was REAL boyfriend behavior
SAGE: I need you to explain immediately
I set down my mascara and type back.
ME: It’s complicated
SAGE: COMPLICATED
SAGE: That kiss did not look complicated
SAGE: That kiss looked like two people who forgot cameras existed
SAGE: Also your comments are INSANE right now
SAGE: “Preston could never” is trending
SAGE: Someone made a side-by-side of Julian carrying you vs Preston carrying Serenity’s yoga mat
SAGE: Julian is winning
Laughing feels wrong, but I laugh anyway. Something feels oh so good about the whole thing.
Julian is winning. And I love the fact that Preston has a front-row seat to it all.
ME: Okay fine
ME: It’s not fake anymore
ME: Or maybe it was never fake?
ME: I genuinely don’t know when it changed
SAGE: OH MY GOSH
SAGE: I KNEW IT
SAGE: I told you he was looking at you weird that night at your apartment
ME: He’s still hiding something though
ME: Something big
SAGE: Define big
SAGE: Like “secret wife” big or “witness protection” big
I stare at my phone. How do I even begin to explain?
ME: Bigger
SAGE: ...
SAGE: Poppy
SAGE: How big are we talking
ME: Remember when I said he talks like he’s from a different century
SAGE: Yes
ME: And how he never eats
SAGE: Yes
ME: And how his skin is always cold
SAGE: Poppy
SAGE: Are you about to say what I think you’re about to say
ME: I’m not saying anything
ME: I’m just... noticing patterns
SAGE: Patterns that suggest your fake boyfriend might be something like a VAMPIRE or maybe something else UNDEAD?
Seeing it written out like that makes it sound insane. Which it is. It’s insane.
ME: When you say it like that it sounds crazy
SAGE: IT IS CRAZY
SAGE: Well, he didn’t burst out in flames
ME: That was something created by the film Nosferatu
ME: Dracula was only weakened by sunlight
SAGE: He didn’t seem very weak to me
SAGE: But also
SAGE: Have you considered that maybe you’re just falling for a mysterious eccentric guy
SAGE: And your brain is inventing supernatural explanations because you’re scared of getting hurt again
That’s a reasonable interpretation.
ME: Maybe
SAGE: Or maybe he’s a vampire
SAGE: Honestly either option seems equally likely at this point
SAGE: Just promise me you’ll be careful
ME: I promise
SAGE: And keep sending updates
SAGE: This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in MONTHS
SAGE: You’re living a paranormal romance novel and I’m stuck in a world of spreadsheets
ME: I hate you
SAGE: You love me
SAGE: Now go kiss your maybe-vampire boyfriend again
SAGE: And FILM AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! I’M LOVING THIS!
I set down my phone and look at myself in the mirror. Flushed cheeks. Bright eyes. The look of a woman who has either found something real or lost her entire mind.
Possibly both.
Julian emerges from the bathroom, and I watch him in the reflection. He moves with so much grace. I wonder if all rich guys take a course on how to walk with elegance like women do? He’s changed into a linen shirt that looks casual, but I know for darn sure isn’t.
“Sage?” he asks, nodding toward my phone.
“She watched the video. Fourteen times, apparently.”
“Only fourteen?”
“She’s pacing herself.” I turn to face him. “She thinks you’re either part of the undead or a vampire. She hasn’t decided which.”
“First, aren’t vampires undead, too?”
I pause to think about it. “Yeah, but vampires are the sexy undead, so they get their own category.”
Something crosses his face. “Good to know. So what do you think?”
“I think we have dinner reservations in twenty minutes, and I haven’t finished my mascara.”
He crosses to me. Tilts my chin up with cool fingers. “Deflection. Your specialty.”
“I’ve had practice.”
“I’ve noticed.” He studies my face like he’s memorizing it. “You look beautiful.”
“I look half-finished.”
“You look like you.” He kisses my forehead. “That’s always beautiful.”
My heart stutters.
After I finish up, we head down to enjoy a meal with my sister and her soon-to-be-hubby at the resort’s cozy dining spot—the kind of place that is intimate and you can hear yourself think. Not the formal venue reserved for tomorrow’s rehearsal dinner. Just the four of us, the way Chris suggested.
There’s something suspicious about watching Julian Blackthorne pretend to eat a breadstick.
He’s perfected the art, I’ll give him that.
The casual tear. The thoughtful pause before the not-quite-bite.
The way he moves pieces around his plate like he’s conducting a symphony of carbohydrates without ever letting any of them touch his lips.
I’ve been tracking this since our first dinner in Santa Monica.
Things Julian Doesn’t Do: Eat. Drink coffee while it’s hot. Sweat, even when the tropical humidity has me melting.
Normal boyfriend stuff, right?
Across the table, Violet is recounting a surgical horror story with the kind of enthusiastic hand gestures that suggest she’s forgotten we’re eating. Chris has gone green. Julian looks genuinely fascinated, which is either excellent acting or a bit concerning.
“—and then the resident looks at me,” Violet continues, brandishing her fork like a scalpel, “white as the walls, and says, ‘Dr. Gable, I think I may have left the clamp inside.’”
Chris chokes on his wine. “Inside the patient?”
“Inside the patient.”
“What did you do?”
“I said, very calmly, very professionally, ‘Well, you’d better go get it then.’” Violet grins at Chris’s horror. “Of course, I was screaming inside. Like one of those horror movie screams.”
Julian laughs.
Not the polished chuckle I heard him deploy at the cocktail party. This is different. Genuine and warm. His face transforms into something younger.
I forget how to breathe.
He catches me staring. One eyebrow lifts. “What?”
“Nothing.” I grab my wine. “Just enjoying the show.”
“The show?”
“You. Being a person.” I gesture at his face as his eyebrows raise and his mouth drops. “It’s nice. You should do it more often.”
“Huh, I’m always a person.” He says, and then winks at me.
“Yes. But you’re always performing a person. There’s a difference.” I take a sip, watching him over the rim. “I should know. I do the same thing. I like this new you.”
“It is different,” he says quietly, pitched just for me. “You make me different.”
Under the table, he grabs my hand as he stares at me with that type of stare that means things could be getting R-rated—or at least, PG-13—soon.
Violet clears her throat. “Should Chris and I leave? Get a room, already! Oh, yeah, you already do, so maybe you two could pick this up later?”
“Shut up.” But I’m smiling. Can’t help it.
“I think it’s sweet,” Chris says, watching us with an expression I can’t quite read. “You two. The way you are with each other.”
“How are we with each other?” I ask.
“Like you’ve known each other forever.” He shrugs, reaching for Violet’s hand. “There’s this comfort. This shorthand. It took Vi and me months to get there. Years, maybe.”
“We’re very comfortable,” Julian agrees, gently squeezing my hand. “Poppy makes it easy.”
“Does she?” Violet’s eyes narrow—the look that means she’s about to be insufferable. “Because I remember her having a complete meltdown when Preston didn’t fold his towels correctly.”
“That was about respect, not towels.”
“It was about towels.”
“The towels were a metaphor, Vi.”
“The towels were Egyptian cotton, and you made him refold them three times while providing extensive color commentary on his technique.” She turns to Julian. “Has she done the towel thing with you yet?”
“No; however, I do fold towels correctly,” Julian says, and something about the way he said it made me feel like he has never folded a towel in his life.
I turn to him. “Do you? Really?”
“Well, I have staff who fold towels correctly.” He pauses. “It’s the same thing.”
I snort. Like a person who hasn’t spent five years curating an image of effortless grace for over 800,000 followers. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told by various people over the years.”
Over the years. I file that one away with all the other little slips. The growing collection of evidence I’m choosing not to examine too closely.
The food arrives—grilled fish, fresh vegetables, a pasta dish for Violet that she attacks with the enthusiasm of someone who spent fourteen hours in surgery yesterday and forgot to eat lunch. Julian’s sea bass is arranged on his plate, destined to be rearranged but never consumed.
I watch him navigate the conversation while not-eating.
He asks Chris about his work—something with mergers and acquisitions that I’ve never fully understood—and seems interested in the answers.
He laughs at Violet’s jokes. He touches my shoulder, my hand, my knee, with the casual intimacy of someone who’s been doing it for years.
What can I say? He fits.
Julian Blackthorne. The mysterious billionaire with his too-smooth manners and his suspicious lack of appetite—oh, and let’s not forget, his skin that never warms no matter how long I hold his hand. Yet, he fits in with my family. Like he belongs.
I wonder how many decades of practice that took.
Stop it, I tell myself. He’s just a guy. A normal, human guy who happens to have exceptional skincare and a complicated relationship with carbohydrates.
Except he’s not. I know he’s not.