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“Does that suffice?” I asked Lia when I finished.
“You tell me. I was only asking you to tell me all those stories so you’d remind yourself what a surprisingly good guy he is,” she said, making my cheeks go hot. “Are you still convinced he’ll give you the cold shoulder if you come back?”
I heaved a sigh. “No. I think he’ll at least hear me out. Maybe even over lunch.”
“He’ll probably use that corporate voice you love.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my head back. “Fuck it. Send me the links for the flight. I’ll suck it up if he goes Corporate Julian on me. I just need the answers.”
“You got it, girl,” Lia said.
I heard her fingers clicking away, and once I received her email, we spent the next ten minutes comparing flights to figure out which was best. I wanted to go for the one seven days from now, on Friday.
Of course, Lia preferred one leaving tomorrow morning.
“That doesn’t give me time to mentally prepare,” I protested.
“Mentally preparing leads to you backing out of this,” she argued. “Also, I just booked it.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Happy birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“Happy Fourth of July then, I don’t know! Aren’t you excited to see me as soon as tomorrow?” Lia demanded. “It’s been five weeks since I’ve smelled your hair.”
“Creepy.”
“Girl, you don’t even know how creepy I can get. I’ve missed you too much!”
I laughed – a real one, almost. Of course it wound down to a sigh.
“Oh God. It’s happening,” I murmured, staring at the flight confirmation Lia forwarded me. “Departing tomorrow at seven forty-five in the morning? Are you joking, Lia?”
“Again, not giving you time to think twice about this. Still scared?” she asked.
“More so, actually.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just start winding down for bed now, because you gotta get up early. And no matter what you do, don’t freak out. Whatever happens with that asshole, at least you’ll get closure. And at least I’ll always love you.”
I snorted, and after another few minutes of conversation, I went to brush my teeth. I had my toothbrush dangling out of my mouth as I packed a weekend bag, questioning myself for the hundredth time if this moment was really happening.
When I went to bed around midnight, I forced myself to relive the last day I saw Julian. It was for the sake of thickening my skin. I wanted to be prepared in case I’d see it again, because chances were that I would. Julian had sacrificed his business for me. There was no way in hell that he didn’t resent me, as well as the fact that he had to work even harder now to make up for all the time he lost with the Roths.
Unsurprisingly, I tossed and turned all night, catching barely a wink of sleep between my dreams of Julian sitting at his desk, refusing to say a single word to me.
41
SARA
Like most of the other early morning travelers around me, I was on autopilot as I moved through security, removing my purse and my bag, and watching both items float ahead of me down the conveyer belt.
After a restless night, going through the airport motions practically lulled me to sleep. But I jolted awake every time I remembered why I was even taking this trip.
I needed to know what happened in Biarritz. Even if explaining made Julian hate me all over again, I needed to at least hear it and close that chapter of my life. At this point, I’d do anything to stop dreaming about him already. I wanted so badly to just move on, but I was stuck. So this was my last hope to get Julian forever out of my mind.
“Would you like a seat, miss?” a man offered when I arrived at my packed gate.
