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JULIAN
Itold myself not to go to her place. My friends told me not to go. Dana said she’d slash my tires if I tried. The thing was, none of it mattered. I had to go to her place. I had to see Willow James for myself. Maybe I needed to prove to myself that she was a different person than Willow Laurier. I didn’t know. I found myself on the freeway heading to her place before Dana could pull out her switchblade and stop me.
I half expected her not to answer when I knocked. Maybe I expected her to have been a mirage all along. I’d get to her apartment and a person I’d never seen before would answer the door. Quizzically askhello?Then explain that no one by the name of Willow lived here.
But life wasn’t a movie. The door opened slowly, and Willow appeared in the crack, inch by inch. She didn’t look like her old self. Her hair was disheveled, her skin two shades paler than normal, the whites of her eyes crackled with red lines, and there was a thick bandage over the left side of her forehead. Old blood had seeped through the center, and I could see the shadow of the dark stain beneath the gauze.
Habit made my heart slam faster. “What the hell happened?” I asked, my hand reaching forward of its own accord. But before my fingers could brush over her forehead, Willow pulled back sharply. Her eyes narrowed with hate.
“Like you care.” The sentence began on a snarl and ended on a whimper.
“I shouldn’t fucking care,” I said grimly, wishing the sight of her red-rimmed eyes didn’t go right to my heart.
“You sure as hell shouldn’t,” she agreed. She tried to shut the door in my face, but I caught it with the side of my fist and forced it open. Something was wrong here. I was missing something.
“I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked,” I said as calmly as I could. I let myself in, crowding her back down the small hallway. I shut the door behind myself and turned to see her glaring at me, arms crossed over her chest.
She looked like hell, and I still ached at the sight of her. I backed her into the living room. She sat on the arm of the sofa, back straight as a poker. I leaned against the wall, unable to take my eyes off her.
“What happened?” I asked quietly, brushing my hand across my own forehead so she knew specifically what I was asking about.
Her own hand rose, flinched as she brushed the bandage. “Car accident.”
“God, Laurier–” I cut myself off. “Or should I sayJames.”
Her face went slack for a moment, then her face tightened. Red dots appeared in her cheeks. “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all,” she snapped. “Why are you even here?”
Anger was starting to chase out some of the disbelief that had numbed my brain. Where the hell did she get off being mad atme? She had lied to me, spied on me, fucked me, and fucked me over.
“I’m here to make sure you’re alive,” I snapped back. “Because whether you’re a duplicitous, lyingtraitor or not, I still fucking cared about you.”
She didn’t miss the past tense, and I could tell it stabbed through her tough girl armor. Weakened her for just a moment, but not for long. She recrossed her arms and lifted her chin, her eyes blazing. “Cared about me?” she repeated with a sneer. “That’s rich.”
“Hell yes I cared about you.” I had to ball my hands into fists to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. Probably not the best move for someone who had just had a head injury. “I fucking–”
I almost said it. I almost told her I loved her, but I knew those words would go from my lips to Fletcher’s ears. And I’d sooner submit to thumb screws. I’d let someone yank my fingernails off with pliers before I let Fletcher know that his plan had worked better than he ever could have imagined. He might not have won the rights to the book off me, but he’d shredded my fucking heart.
He was still shredding it. Willow’s hateful stare was rubbing salt in the open, puss-filled wound.
“You fucking used me, and you know it,” she finished my sentence for me. “So don’t act like you’re the victim here, Lewis.”
She hadn’t called me by my last name in months. Maybe she’d been trying to forget it so that it was easier to act like she felt something for me. Her invocation of it now was nails in the coffin. She was reminding me once and for all that I was a Lewis, and she was a James, and there was no love lost between a Lewis and a James.
No matter what I might have thought.
Suddenly, I had to get out of there. I couldn’t look at her another damn second without killing her or kissing her, and both would be a disaster. “I’ll send someone over with Camper,” I said tightly. “Assuming that’shisreal name.”
She tossed her hair back–winced from the motion–and didn’t say anything.
I shook my head, unable to believe that just twenty-four hours ago, I’d thought I loved her. I hadn’t even known her. The woman I thought I’d fallen in love with could never be this cold. But then, that woman didn’t exist.
Willow James did.
* * *
Iwent through the next couple of weeks on autopilot. We got the rights toAll the Dying Light. Dana wanted to throw a party, but my heart wasn’t in it. She and Shelly dragged me out anyway. My friends even showed up, and everyone tried to act like everything was normal. Great, even. Lewis Productions was accelerating pre-production onAll the Dying Light.Miller would wrap up his project with Michio and go straight into Callum’s. We were finalizing a deal with the most in-demand screenwriter in town and already talking to leads. It was going to be great.
But I still felt like shit.
