Chapter Thirteen Julia #2
“Actually,” she heard Harry say behind her, “would you mind holding the plane for a few minutes?”
“Of course, Mr. Ellene,” the gate agent murmured.
Julia quickened her steps, but Harry jogged to catch up and reached for her bag. “Please, let me take that,” he offered.
She tugged it away from his grip, whirling on him. “You’re seriously holding the plane? What was that card you showed her, anyway?”
“An Aegean Airlines black card. The airline only issues ten of them; that gate agent had probably never seen one in person before. I only got it out because I’m desperate.” Harry’s words had all come out in a single breath. “Please, Julia, talk to me. Why did you run off without telling me?”
“I needed to get off that island, okay?”
They had reached the end of the jet bridge, where a few strollers and a wheelchair were lined up with pink gate-check tags.
Harry ran in front of Julia and spun around, putting his hands on her shoulders.
His broad, muscled body seemed to draw all the air from the space, or perhaps all the light, because Julia had the disorienting sensation that he was glowing in the dimness.
He was as golden and beautiful as the sun and had just as much gravity.
“What happened?” he pressed.
All the fight drained out of her, and she turned her face up, tears pricking at her eyes. “Is it true? You slept with Valentine?”
Harry’s breath hitched. “Who told you?”
Well, he wasn’t denying it. Julia wasn’t sure what she would have done if, on top of everything else, Harry had lied to her. Again.
“Does it matter?” she asked wearily. “I just care that it’s true.”
“Please, Julia. What happened between me and Valentine was a one-time thing, and it was a terrible mistake.”
She hitched her bag higher up on her shoulder. “So you didn’t bring me to your family reunion to make her jealous?”
“What?” Harry asked, startled. “Of course I didn’t bring you to make her jealous. I didn’t even want to come to Greece at all! You’re the one who insisted upon it after we ran into Dylan.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault?”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he pleaded.
A few other passengers got onto the jet bridge, casting Harry and Julia curious looks before weaving around them onto the plane. Julia ignored them all. She kept staring at her boyfriend, trying to make sense of the past twenty-four hours.
“I don’t get it, Harry. What were you thinking, having an affair with her when she was married to your brother?”
“Like I said, it happened one time. I was so angry, and confused, and all of a sudden she was right there—”
“You were angry,” Julia repeated. “So you and your brother fought, and then you slept with his wife to get back at him?”
“No, of course not!” Harry ran a hand over his face, then looked back up at her. “My relationship with Hector is complicated. We have never been especially close.”
“That doesn’t excuse your behavior!”
“I know it doesn’t. Sleeping with Valentine was a mistake, one that nearly cost me my family. Some of them still haven’t forgiven me, as you probably noticed this weekend,” Harry added heavily. “They’re right to blame me.”
Julia heard the rumble of the PA system as the pilot made an announcement, probably informing everyone that their flight was delayed. The plane was only a few yards away, yet it felt very far off, as if she and Harry were in a temporary bubble on the jet bridge.
She let out a breath. “You’ve kept so much from me. The fact that you’re an Ellene, this huge secret from your past…”
“I’m sorry,” Harry said again. “I didn’t tell you my real name because I needed a fresh start, away from all of this.
I was so lost when I came to New Zealand, Julia.
And then I met you, and I started to feel like a new, different person.
As for this thing with Valentine…” He held out his hands, palm-up, in a gesture of helplessness.
“I didn’t even know how to begin to tell you.
How was I supposed to bring up something like that?
I worried that you would judge me for it and leave me forever.
Just like you’re trying to do now,” he added, eyes darting toward the plane.
A plane that he was forcibly keeping from taking off. Manipulating the world through his network of privilege, just like Preston had done.
Julia knew she should stop thinking of Preston. But looking at Harry, she felt the same sensation of whiplash, of bewildered hurt—the same realization that the man she loved wasn’t who she’d thought he was. That he thought the ordinary rules of right and wrong didn’t apply to him.
“Julia, I hate thinking about the person I was back then,” Harry insisted, a new urgency to his voice. “I’ve changed. You helped change me. You make me a better version of myself. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”
I love you, too, Julia thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She was still too raw, too wounded.
She did love Harry, so much. And she knew how it felt to have parts of your past that you didn’t want to share, that were simply too painful to think about.
But the things she’d kept from Harry were so much smaller than what he’d concealed from her. She’d never lied about her identity. She’d never put Harry in a position where he would feel betrayed.
“I don’t see how we move forward from this,” she said mournfully, before boarding the plane.
Harry followed her into the central aisle. “Then we don’t move forward. We move back. Let’s go home to Queenstown, forget this week ever happened.”
A few of the other passengers shot them curious looks, but most were busy on their phones or already dozing off.
“Queenstown isn’t really home to me,” Julia pointed out.