“Probably.” I shrugged. “What’ll happen to the guy?”
“My security will deliver him to the police station, and he’ll be charged.”
“Do you need me to do anything?” Hannah dabbed some dry blood from her face that I’d missed.
“There were a lot of witnesses. If they need to talk to you, they’ll have to come to you. Don’t worry.”
I squeezed Julian’s thigh. “Thank you for taking care of all this.” I wasn’t about to tell him how scary it had been to see him restrain the man. He’d done it out of concern, and it honestly was no different than what Mark would have done.
“Of course.”
Hannah rested her head during the drive. Julian was texting someone and glaring at his phone, so I just looked out thewindow and wondered why I’d even consider this kind of life. It was chaotic and maybe too much so. I glanced back at Julian, and his gray eyes met mine. But he was a force to be reckoned with…was that enough, though?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Julian
The manin the café was Corey Walker. He wasn’t as tough as he’d claimed to be because as soon as he’d been questioned by police he’d explained that someone had paid him a thousand bucks to go into the café and cause a scene with either Wynn or his friend Hannah. It was such an odd thing to do.
A Detective Henderson, who was good friends with my father, was keeping me in the loop. Corey wouldn’t divulge who’d paid him, kept saying he didn’t know the guy’s name but that it was a man. I was sure he’d make bail and once he did, I would absolutely find out who’d paid him to attack Hannah.
Hannah was right; Mark freaked out, then proceeded to dote on his wife. The two of them went up to their room, Mark asking if dinner could be brought up to them. That left me alone with Wynn, who was currently staring out the window and looking at the garden.
“Did you know the man that hurt Hannah?” He didn’t turn to face me.
“No.”
“Why would he say something like that about you? A fanatic?”
I moved up behind him, relieved that he didn’t flinch or stiffen when I wrapped my arms around him.
“Likely political, but the police will figure it out.”
He released a heavy breath. “Julian, I came here for a vacation and it’s been beautiful, and meeting you has been amazing, but I’m not cut out for this life.”
“It hasn’t been forty-eight hours.”
He turned and lifted his head to meet my eyes. “I think this thing between you and me is over, Julian, and you can’t honestly say you love me or that you’d be lost without me. Me staying here, with you, this need to ‘keep’ me, is likely just because I’m new. A foreigner—oh, how neat. And I don’t think your father should risk anything for me. I’m innocent. Let the evidence, or lack thereof, speak for itself.”
I wanted to scoop him up and lock him away until he changed his mind. Or hell, just to keep him from running. But that would hurt him and I couldn’t do that, but I had to make it clear that he simply couldn’t leave.
“You can’t go, Wynn.”
His smile was small. “I can’t stay, Julian.”
“You can. Wynn, I won’t let you leave.”
There was that flicker of fear again. “You say things like that and it’s not endearing, Julian.”
I cupped his face in my hands and lowered my head, stopping a hairbreadth away from his lips that I wanted to kiss so badly.
“You don’t know me, not truly, and I get that. There are things about me that I fear you’ll not like—dare I say, want to run from. But you have to know that since I met you, there are more calm moments, everything is quieter in my head, my skin doesn’t feel like it’ll tear apart if I don’t…” I pressed my forehead to his.
“Don’t what, Julian?”
“You have to want me as much as I want you.”
“I do want you, Julian, and maybe we would marry after some time, but this hasn’t even been a whirlwind so much as a frantic tornado. The sex, yeah, that’s out of this world. Our conversations are amazing. This thing you speak of that if I saw I’d run away from…I need to see and know that part of you too.”
