“Did you know?” I mumble under my breath, not taking my eyes off as Harrison finally approaches our table.
“No. I’ll kill Matteo for you.”
Dear god, his muscles.
“Lucian, move,” Harrison demands to Matteo’s brother, who’s next to me.
“No,” I warn. “You sit over there. Don’t you come closer.”
His eyes twinkle, and he warns Lucian again without taking his eyes off me.
Lucian moves at lightning speed, and Harrison slides into the booth.
Breathe, Juliette.
Harrison leans over, bracing his hand high on my thigh, kissing me right below my ear, on my beauty mark. “Hello, beautiful Juliette.”
He says hello, and I’m melting into a puddle.
8
Juliette
“Jesus,Harrison. You can’t kick someone out of their seat like that,” I snap.
He leans back, uninterested. “I can do whatever I want, especially when I see him staring at you withtheeyes.”
“Eyes? Theyarewhat you normally use to look at people with,” I snark.
“Don’t be smart. He was checking you out, and I wasn’t having it,” he says, then shakes his head as if he wants to forget all about it. “Enough about him.” He lowers his voice while reaching over to tuck my hair behind my ear, letting his fingertips linger in a feather-like touch along my skin. “God, you’re beautiful.”
My body quivers, and I suck in a breath, casting my eyes down so he can’t see the effect he has on me.
“Harrison,” I whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see you.” He matches my whisper and lifts my chin to look me in the eyes. “I don’t like how we left off the other day. I wanted to talk to you…about everything.”
I avert my eyes again and nervously pick at my newly painted red nail polish.
Looking at him this close-up puts me in some weird trance. I lose my mind every single time I’m around him. He completely overwhelms me.
Couldn’t Becks have fallen for anyone but Matteo? I’m worried I won’t be able to handle these run-ins anymore because all I want to do is lean into his touch and bask in this feeling he provokes from my body, but I know I can’t.
He’s the one who told me it can’t be more and freaked out instead of explaining.
So why is he doing this?
“There’s nothing left to say,” I tell him, then think. “Will you let Claud come back to classes?”
“Yes. She’s away for two weeks with her uncles. When she’s back, she’ll be in attendance.”
“Two weeks?” I snap my head up. “That’s so long.”
His jaw clenches. “I don’t even want to talk about it because, trust me, if you think it’s long, it feels like a lifetime to me.”
He looks sad and somewhat vulnerable; it’s a different side of Harrison than I’ve seen before.
“I’ll look forward to having her back. Besides that, there’s nothing left to say. I understand now why you reacted the way you did. Let’s leave it at that.” Harrison’s face softens as he replies, except I can’t hear him over the crowd cursing and groaning over a lousy call in Brazil’s favor. “I couldn’t hear you.” I raise my voice.
