Chapter 147
Evelyn's POV
The week passed too quickly.
We spent our days in blissful domesticity. Julian cooked while I cleaned. I read while he worked on his laptop for the few hours he allowed himself to check in with Webb. We walked on the beach until our legs ached. We watched the sunset every evening from the porch, Ghost sprawled between us.
On our last night at the cottage, Julian grilled steaks while I made a salad. We ate dinner on the porch, watching the stars come out.
"I don't want to leave," I admitted.
"Then we won't." He reached across the table to take my hand. "Or we will, but we'll come back. This can be our place, Evelyn. Somewhere we go when the world gets too loud. Our sanctuary."
"I'd like that."
"Then it's decided." He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. "This is ours. No one else's. Just ours."
That night, we made love on the porch under the stars. Julian laid out blankets and pillows, creating a nest for us. He undressed me slowly, reverently, his hands and mouth worshiping every inch of my skin.
"You're everything to me," he murmured against my stomach. "Everything."
When he finally entered me, it was with aching slowness. He held my gaze the entire time, his gray eyes dark with emotion. Each thrust was deliberate, measured, like he was trying to memorize the feeling of being inside me.
The orgasm built slowly, spreading through my entire body like fire. When it finally crashed over me, I cried out, my voice carried away by the ocean breeze. Julian followed moments later, my name a prayer on his lips.
We lay there afterward, wrapped in blankets and each other, watching the stars wheel overhead.
On the last day of our month, Julian suggested we spend it at home.
We spent the day in comfortable domesticity at his penthouse. Julian worked in his office while I read on the couch, Ghost sprawled across my lap in feline contentment. We ordered Thai food for dinner and ate it straight from the containers while watching a movie neither of us paid attention to.
As evening fell, Julian stood and stretched. "I need to run out for a bit. Pick up something from the office."
I glanced at the clock. Nearly eight. "Now?"
"Won't take long." He kissed my forehead. "Hour at most. You'll be okay?"
"I'll survive," I said dryly.
But as he grabbed his keys, something made me add, "Julian?"
He turned back. "Yeah?"
"Thank you. For this month. For... everything."
His smile was soft. Knowing. Like he could see right through me to the gratitude and fear and hope tangled in my chest.
"It's not over, Evelyn. This is just the beginning."
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
I sat in the growing darkness, Ghost purring on my lap, and tried to identify the feeling spreading through me.
It took a moment to recognize it.
Anticipation.
That strange sense of synchronicity we'd developed over the month. The kind of intimacy that came from spending every waking hour together, learning each other's rhythms and patterns until they became as familiar as your own heartbeat.
There were moments now when Julian would start a sentence and I'd finish it without thinking. Times when he'd reach for something and I'd already be handing it to him. This morning, he'd walked into the kitchen and I'd poured his coffee before he'd even said good morning—two sugars, no cream, exactly the way he liked it. He'd looked at me with such pleased surprise, like I'd given him something precious instead of just remembering how he took his coffee.
Yesterday at the bookstore, I'd picked up a biography of Caravaggio and turned to find Julian holding the exact same book, both of us reaching for it at the same moment. We'd laughed, and he'd kissed me right there between the shelves, murmuring against my lips, "Great minds."
It was in smaller things too. The way he'd adjust the pillow behind my back before I even realized I was uncomfortable. The way I'd started keeping mints in my purse because I knew he liked them. How he'd reach for my hand at the exact moment I reached for his, our fingers finding each other with unerring accuracy even in darkness.
This—this ability to anticipate each other, to move in harmony without discussion—it felt like the most profound intimacy I'd ever experienced. More intimate, somehow, than sex. Because it meant we were paying attention. Really paying attention to each other in a way that went beyond words or conscious thought.
And right now, Julian was planning something. Something big.
And somehow, I knew exactly what it was.
An hour passed. Then another.
I fed Ghost, changed into comfortable clothes, tried to read. But the anticipation kept building, thrumming through my veins like electricity.
Finally, I heard the elevator. Julian's key in the lock.
But when the door opened, he didn't come inside. Just stood in the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Why are we going to my place?" I asked, even though I thought I knew.
Julian's smile was enigmatic. "Haven't been there in a while. Thought we should check on it. Make sure everything's okay."
It was a flimsy excuse. We both knew it.
But I grabbed my purse and followed him to the car anyway. Because whatever he was planning, I wanted to see it through.