CHAPTER 20
Roxanne
The café sat tucked between two narrow streets, the kind of place you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it.
Muted noise, ambient light, the smell of coffee strong enough to ground you.
Conversations stayed low, unhurried. The air held a faint sweetness beneath the bitterness of roasted beans.It felt contained. Predictable. That was why I chose it.
I almost turned back twice before walking in. Not because I didn’t want to see him—but because I wasn’t sure I wanted to be seen. There was a difference.
Julian was already there, seated by the window, a cup of tea untouched in front of him. He looked the same as always—composed without trying. Like the world didn’t rush him, and he didn’t rush with it.
His eyes lifted the moment I stepped inside.
And just like that, I knew. He had already noticed.
“You look tired,” he said as I approached. Not critically. Just… accurately.
“I didn’t sleep well,” I replied, sliding into the chair across from him.
Julian Hale looked nothing like the kind of man people trusted with their minds. His gold-brown hair was always just a little too neat, like he didn’t believe in chaos—not externally, at least. Wire-rim glasses softened his face, but not enough to dull the sharpness behind his eyes.
Those eyes were the problem. They didn’t linger where they were supposed to.
Not on your face. Not on what you said. They sat somewhere deeper—like he was listening to things you hadn’t decided to admit yet.
And people trusted him too easily. Or maybe they didn’t realise when they started telling him the truth.
“You’ve evaded me for months,” he said evenly. “And now you’ve agreed to meet.”
I let out a small breath, lifting my hand in a vague gesture, as if that alone could dismiss the weight of it. “You were the one who said you were in town. That I could reach out.”
The waiter appeared before I could respond, and I ordered the first thing I saw on the menu just to break the moment. Just to give myself a second to think.
Julian didn’t speak again until we were alone.
“So,” he said, leaning back slightly, his attention never leaving me, “to what do I owe this meeting?”
“Can’t I meet you as a friend?” I asked.
“Not when you’ve been dodging me like clockwork.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, my fingers found the ring—the one given by Marcello. It had never been called an engagement ring. There had been no grand proposal, no expectation, no demand. Just a promise.
I turned it slowly, once, then again, until the edge pressed into my skin. A quiet reminder. A physical anchor. Proof of safety.
“You always do that.”
I stilled. “Do what?”
“Reach for something when you’re evading an answer.”
It was more of a statement than a question.
My hand dropped from the ring too quickly to pretend it hadn’t mattered.
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
I flinched slightly, but the word stayed.
Avoiding.
It settled somewhere deeper inside me than it should have.
Avoiding—it was what I’d always done. And I was doing it again. My gaze dropped to my hands, to the faint mark the ring had left behind.
Avoiding conversations that didn’t have clean endings. Ones that forced me to sit with uglier parts of myself. Anything that threatened to shift the ground beneath me.
Anything that might crack the version of myself I’d learned to hold together.
Maybe that’s why I avoided marrying Marcello too. The thought barged in uninvited, not as a question, but recognition.
I loved him. That had never been the problem.
Maybe that was what made this feel worse. I loved the way he said my name like it mattered. The way his presence steadied me. The way he never asked for more than I could give—and somehow gave me more than I knew how to hold.
But certainty never lasted long with me. And the shadows in my mind didn’t care. They whispered anyway.
What if? What if? What if?
A silent shiver ran down my spine.
My scars resisted permanence. As if I might lose myself all over again. And needing him might become a habit I couldn’t undo.
Why did love feel safe…
…but permanence felt dangerous?
I was certain Marcello wouldn’t walk away again, but some part of me, the part of me always bracing for impact, wouldn’t let me believe that. And if he did, I knew this time around, I wouldn’t survive it.
“Roxanne.”
Julian’s voice pulled me back. I blinked once, realising I had gone quiet longer than I meant to.
“I’m right here,” I said.
“You’re not.”
I held his gaze then, steadying myself in the way I always did when I felt exposed. His gaze lingered, like he was listening to the thoughts I hadn’t said aloud.
Julian always did that. Made me crawl out of my skin by just looking. He had the knack for it.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you can see everything.”
“I don’t need to see everything,” he replied calmly. “Just enough. You know Marcello worries about you.”
“He always does.”
“Yes,” he replied. “But not like this.”
My chest tightened at that. Marcello had brought me to Julian a few months after Romano was born, when I had insisted I was fine. That I was just tired. That new mothers didn’t sleep.
That nightmares were normal. He hadn’t believed me. He had seen what I refused to admit.
“How have you been sleeping?” Julian asked.
“Fine.” The lie slipped out easily. Polished. Practiced.
I took a sip of my coffee and grimaced. It was too bitter, too sharp. Julian slid two sugar packets across the table without a word.
“Why do you want to torture yourself?”
I simply shrugged.
“Did something happen?” he asked without looking at me.
My fingers tightened slightly around the cup. My mind was suddenly invaded with thoughts of last night.
Mint. Smoke. Calloused hands. Teeth at my neck.
His arousal—
I shook the thought away.
Everything had blurred too quickly after yesterday.
My heart was doing the stupid thing again—thudding the same way it had when he kissed me.
“What makes you think that?” I didn’t intend to sound snappy. I tried to keep a calm face, but internally I was spiralling.
“The fact you’re here.”
I looked out the window. The clouds had finally broken, sunlight spilling across the street, sharpening edges, turning everything more vivid.
My reflection flickered in the glass—tired face with careful eyes, a woman trying too hard to hold herself together while quietly coming apart anyway.
A version of myself I had spent years learning how to be.
“You’re analysing,” I said.
“That is my job.”
Silence stretched again. Not uncomfortable. Just aware. I exhaled slowly, my fingers tracing the rim of the cup without purpose.
“Have you ever felt like…” I began, then stopped, the words catching somewhere between thought and voice.
They felt too big the moment they formed. I tried again.
“Like you’re being pulled in two directions at the same time?”
Julian didn’t interrupt.
“And both feel…” I hesitated, searching for the right word. A word that didn’t sound as fractured as it felt. “Real.”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. He spoke before I could ask.
“When things become overwhelming,” he said instead, “the mind adapts. It suppresses what it can’t process. Redirects it. Keeps you anchored to the present so you don’t drown in everything else.”
I listened, despite myself.
“But sometimes,” he continued, “that same mechanism creates conflict. It splits what feels incompatible—even when it isn’t. It just divides it.”
I frowned slightly. “Divides what?”
“What you feel,” he said. “What you think you should feel.”
He leaned back slightly, his gaze steady.
“Sometimes both directions are valid.”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
“And sometimes both are true.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “You’re sounding less like a therapist and more like a harbinger of bad decisions.”
A faint smile touched his lips.
“They aren’t mutually exclusive. I’m just stating the truth, which is usually uncomfortable.”
He took a sip of his tea.
“People like to believe there’s always a right direction. A correct choice. An easy answer.”
“And there isn’t?”
“Not always.”
Silence stretched again.
“In rare cases,” he added, “both directions lead somewhere new. Somewhere you don’t expect. A reality that doesn’t fit into what we’ve been conditioned to accept.”
I let out a deep breath. “That sounds complicated.”
“It is,” he said. “Which is why most people avoid it.”
The word hit again.
Avoid.
I shook my head slightly, my gaze dropping to my hands.
“You’re talking like it’s simple.”
“It isn’t. You can’t let the shadows take over, Roxanne,” he said, softer now. “And you can’t keep deciding who you are based on what you think someone else might not accept.”
My jaw tightened slightly. “I’m not—”
“You think you’re too much,” he continued. “That if people see everything, they’ll leave.”
I didn’t respond. Because that was a truth I couldn’t deny without lying. That’s why I never let one person know all of me.I knew I was broken. No one ever got all of me. Just pieces of whatever version they could hold.
“But it’s not that,” he added. “It’s what you don’t let them see that fractures things. Not who you are.”
I looked away. Because that felt closer to the truth than I wanted it to.
The sky had turned again—grey swallowing the brief sunlight like it had never been there.
“Why do you feel the need to have everything figured out?” he asked.
Maybe I’d built a version of myself that people could accept. Controlled. Clean. Easy. And stayed inside it too long, even when it stopped feeling real. It’s what I’d convinced myself was true so I could keep everything from falling apart.
I didn’t say that. Instead, I let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh but without the warmth.
“Don’t we all?”
My fingers traced the rim of the cup again, slower this time.Silence followed. Thick. Unavoidable. This was enough introspection for now.
“I know you’re British and all, but what are you doing in Ireland anyway?”
His expression shifted. If I hadn’t been looking at him, I would’ve missed it. As much as I may have been spiralling in my head, I tried to be observant of people around me.
Good to know he wasn’t as untouchable as he looked.
“Work,” he answered nonchalantly.
“That’s a vague answer. Now who’s trying to evade answering?”
“Are you trying to shrink the shrink?” he asked with a smile tugging at his lips.
“Maybe,” I smirked with a raised eyebrow.
He let out a breath, took off his glasses and rubbed his face.
“Patient transfer.”
“And how is that going?”
He shifted in his seat.
“Complicated.”
I just tilted my head and looked at him.
“You’re being dramatic. How bad can it be?”
“I’m British,” he replied. “It’s one of our national hobbies.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
His gaze dropped briefly to the untouched tea in front of him. For a second, a weariness flickered across his face. Something closer to fatigue.
“The patient walked out,” he said.
He said it lightly, but his fingers tightened around the teacup. I blinked. That wasn’t what I expected.
“Were you close?”
He pressed his lips, jaw tightening slightly. His calm composure slipping just a fraction.
Before he could answer, my phone buzzed. Ritu.
“As much as this intrigues me, I have to go,” I said, reaching for my bag.
But Julian spoke again, gentler this time.
“Whatever you’re running from,” he said, “it won’t stay quiet just because you ignore it.”
I didn’t respond.
Because the worst part? I already knew he was right.