Isabelle #3
"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to prove!
Because you keep telling me you don't want me, and then you look at me like—like—" My voice breaks.
"I don't know what you want from me, Julian.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do. You save my life and then treat me like an obligation.
You touch me like you're starving for it and then tell me it was a mistake. You—"
"I'm trying to keep you alive!" His control finally snaps, his voice rising to match mine.
"That's what I'm trying to do! I'm trying to keep you alive in a situation where every single person who gets close to you becomes a target!
Do you have any idea what they can do to someone I care about?
Do you have any concept of the kind of torture they're capable of? "
My eyes go wide. "You—" I stop, my breath catching. "You care about me?"
Something flickers across his face before the walls slam back into place. "That's not the point."
"That's exactly the point!" I take a step toward him, my hands still shaking. "You care about me. You just admitted it. So why do you keep pushing me away? Why do you keep telling me I mean nothing when clearly I mean something?"
"Because caring about you makes this a thousand times more dangerous!
" The words explode out of him. "Because if they find out, they'll torture you.
They'll break you. They'll make me watch while they—" He stops himself, his jaw clenching so hard I can see the muscle jump.
"I can't let that happen. And you are a fucking distraction.
All I need to think about is how to get you out of this before they… before I…"
He breaks off, as the confession steals the breath from my lungs. I stare at him, seeing past the anger and the coldness to the fear beneath. "So that's what this is about." My voice is quieter now. "You're trying to protect me by making them think I don't matter to you."
"I'm just trying to protect you. But yes. It's hard enough keeping you alive until I can untangle this mess, if I even can… I can't deal with the fear that they'll do to you what they did to Katya."
I blink at him. "Who's Katya?"
Julian's jaw clenches, and he looks as if he wishes he hadn't said it, but he blows out a sharp breath and explains anyway.
"Someone I used to know. Someone who I had a fling with, once.
" He shakes his head. "They sent me a video of her being tortured and killed.
To prove a point. To show me what happens to people I care about.
And I didn't even really care that much about her.
She was a hook-up. A way to pass some time while I was on a business trip, and it was the same for her.
We weren't… anything to each other. But we fucked, and shared a bed for a little while, and that was enough to damn her.
" He looks at me. "What we did on that balcony…
someone could have seen. Do you understand that? "
For a moment, all I feel is a stupid, hot jealousy at the thought of him tangled up in some other woman's arms. The name Katya makes me think of some gorgeous Russian blonde, willowy and graceful, probably great in bed if he stuck around longer than one night.
But I feel almost instant guilt for that, because she's dead.
Tortured to death, according to Julian, and the horror of it crashes over me.
I think about the video he must have watched, the woman he knew being hurt, being killed, all to send him a message.
And I understand, suddenly, why he's been so desperate to push me away.
"Julian—" I take another step toward him, but he moves back.
"Don't." His voice is rough and tight. "Don't try to make this into something it's not. I'm keeping you alive because it's the right thing to do. That's all."
"That's bullshit, and you know it." The anger is back now, mixing with the hurt and the fear. "You care about me. You just said so. And I—" I stop myself, the words catching in my throat.
"You what?" His eyes lock on mine. I see the muscle in his jaw leap, see his hands flex. He wants to know what I'm going to say. He can lie and deflect and fight this all he wants, but he cares about me, he wants me, and he wants to know, deep down, that I feel the same way.
And I could say it. I could tell him that I care about him too, that somewhere between Ibiza and here, I started falling for him. I could say that his rejection hurts so much because he matters to me in a way no one else ever has, and it would be the absolute truth.
But the words won't come. There's a body on the floor, blood soaking into the carpet, and the reality of what just almost happened is smothering me.
I almost died tonight. I walked into a bar and picked up a man who was sent to kill me, and if Julian hadn't burst through that door when he did, I would be dead right now.
My legs give out, and I sink back down onto the bed, my hands shaking, my breath coming in short gasps. "I almost—" I can't finish the sentence. I could have died. I almost died.
And it would have been my own fault.