Page 42 of Forbidden Forget-Me-Not

Kaylani’s gaze remained cold. “And if your decisions are wrong?”

Julian’s mouth twitched. “Then she would be wise enough to tell me…in private.”

“And if you still choose wrong?”

Julian leaned back, studying her like she was an exam question. “Then she would be wise enough to stand beside me anyway.”

Kaylani set her glass down carefully. “So, your wife doesn’t get power or a voice.”

“My wife gets influence.”

Kaylani’s tone sharpened slightly. “That’s not the same.”

Julian’s gaze held hers. “A voice is loud. Influence is effective.”

My teeth ground together, and I made the mistake of shifting my position. Not much, but enough. Julian’s eyes lifted to me. That same lazy, confident glance. A reminder that I wasn’t part of this conversation because I wasn’t part of their world.

But I was part of Kaylani’s world, and Julian could sense it.

He leaned forward again, voice deep and sultry, the kind that had left a trail of women in his wake. “I’m not asking you to shrink, Kaylani. I’m asking you to direct your fire somewhere that benefits you.”

Kaylani’s gaze didn’t soften. “And you?”

Julian smiled. “Yes…and me.”

There it was. The truth slipped in as smoothly as a heated butter knife.

Kaylani’s expression remained unreadable. “You keep acting like this would be a partnership.”

“Because that’s what it would be.”

Kaylani’s voice was almost gentle. “Then why does it feel like you’re recruiting me?”

Julian paused. A crack in his mask. He recovered quickly, and his smile returned.

“Because, in a way, I am.”

She was studying him like she said she would. Listening to what he said, noticing what he didn’t, and reading the subtext he left behind.

When the food arrived, Julian switched gears to harmless topics. Ballet season. Charity boards. Business expansions. The importance of optics. But every anecdote circled back to one point.

Image.

How Kaylani would make him look in the public eye. But it wasn’t the public eye that worried me. It was what he would do behind closed doors. He was not a man who could be trusted. He was a man who took what he wanted, and for men like him, violence was second nature.

And Kaylani…my Lani, was forced to sit here with blood in her name and bruises beneath her makeup because of a man just like Julian. She was being offered a gilded cage under the guise of choice.

Julian lifted his fork. “You handled yourself well last night.”

Kaylani didn’t look impressed. “Others would not see it that way.”

Julian’s eyes stayed smooth. “Maybe. But you didn’t break.”

“Another compliment?”

“An observation. Most women in your position would have apologized. Sat down and resumed the meal.”

Kaylani’s gaze sharpened. “Most women in my position were bred to apologize. I didn’t receive those genes.”