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Hell, he had been tottering on that edge since the moment he laid eyes on one Juliet Kilroy. Making love to her was the most real thing he had experienced since his parents had died. So real he sometimes felt he might die if he didn’t hold her in his arms one more time.
But he needed to be her friend. And as much as he hated the fact she was dating, he hated even more how she was going about it.
“Speaking of dating below our level, Lili said you wanted certain types of guys. Guys who didn’t seem too well endowed”—he arched an eyebrow—“in the brain department.”
She blinked rapidly and her swallow was pronounced. “I promised Cara that Cinders would be home by 11 p.m. She’s probably got a search party out already.”
Arresting her move to the exit, he reached out and gentled her back against the glass. The shimmer from the low-lit bar candles reflected off the transparent wall, giving her a halo effect.
“Why are you shooting so low, Jules?”
“I’m not.”
He crowded her, interrogated her with his body. It felt good to wrap himself around her. To own the space between them for these brief moments.
“Boring, unimaginative guys. Guys who can’t possibly appreciate you.”
Discomfort darkened her pale beauty. “I’m not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Just ask Monica Grayson.”
“Oh, but you are.” He cupped her chin, surprised even now at how the softness of her skin electrified and soothed him at once. Touching her was his drug, wanting her was his addiction.
“You’re so sharp, it hurts to be around you sometimes. You have the quickest wit of anyone I know and I come from a family of smart mouths. Don’t ever think you’re not good enough, honey.”
What he saw in her eyes devastated him and suddenly he got it. How could he have been so stupid?
“Maybe you’ll find this boring paragon you can walk all over, who bores you to tears, and makes sure you never feel what you must have felt for Evan’s father. Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Whoever this guy was, he hurt you so badly that you’d rather hook up with a corpse than feel again.”
“You don’t know a thing about it,” she said through trembling lips.
“I know you and believe it or not, I know me. I’ve been there, Jules. Loving someone and losing them. Hurting so much that it’s easier to block out the possibilities that are staring you right in the face.”
This wasn’t the time to indulge in a pity party wankfest, but he needed her to know she was not alone.
Her eyes shone like glossy green buttons. She splayed a hand over his heart, which jumped in acknowledgment of the imminent threat.
“Is that what you’ve been doing since they died, Tad? Every year, adding another row of bricks around your heart? Looking for solace in sex?”
See? Smart as a whip. He was supposed to be making her feel better about this lousy ex situation and here she was cutting to the heart of him with her razor-sharp insight.
“We were talking about you.”
“You were. This sharing business works both ways. Tell me why it still hurts so much, Tad. Why you haven’t cooked since they died. Why the mention of your parents sends you to a place I can’t reach you.”
She rubbed his chest, comforting him like he imagined she did with Evan when he was cranky. Those hands of hers were lethal and healing at once.
He sucked air through his lips, making a hissing sound. “I had a fight with my father the night they died. One of those fights where you say things you can’t take back, even if he was around to hear it.”
Her eyes flew wide. “What was it about?”
“What it was always about. School, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It was the end of freshman year and I told him I wouldn’t be going back in the fall. I wanted to go to Italy and apprentice with a butcher in Fiesole. That’s where the DeLucas came from. He was furious. He told me I wouldn’t be welcome in his house if I gave up that scholarship and—” He held her gaze with more boldness than he felt, challenging her to judge him. “I told him to go to hell.”
She cupped his jaw and he resisted the urge to fold into her hand. “That was the last time you spoke to him?”
He nodded the head that felt too heavy for his neck. His father’s rage still felt like a tangible thing and Tad had internalized it and made it his own. A messed up way of honoring his memory.
“The accident happened later that night and I never got to fix it. You don’t know what I’d do to have one more minute with them. One more moment to tell them how much I love them.”
This was just the original sin, the foundation brick in the wall. Telling her the rest might break him and he would rather die than face the disappointment in her eyes should the entire sorry tale come out.
