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Do you know why I don’t tell her that her three strikes are up? Because this is it. The make it or break it moment of our relationship. She said those words.I love you.Did she mean them? Or did she say that in a last-ditch effort to get me back?

I’m about to find out.

Chapter 49

Julianna

Did I expect Alessa to combust when I said that? No. Did I expect her to run?No!

This is how I know I love her. Because she’s the only woman in the world I’ll chase after like some lovesick teenager in an ‘80s movie. I half expect Alessa to hop into a cab and break for the airport. In true romancing fashion, I’ll bypass security and show up at the gate right when she’s about to board. Sweep her up in my arms, twirl her around, and kiss her until she knows that I’m the one she’s staying in America for.

That’s not happening today. Alessa isn’t going to hop into a car and drive away from me. She’ll run, but she won’t flee.

I’ll catch her before that has a chance of happening.

I don’t call out her name. I don’t even ask her to wait for me. She knows what game we’re playing right now, and my role demands that I simply catch her.

Come to me, Alessa.

I let you run away from me once. It’s never happening again. Especially when you’re gorgeous enough in that dress to make this grown woman weep.

Even in those ridiculous heels of hers, she manages to stay quite a few paces ahead of me. It’s not until she encounters a dead end in one of the hallways that I finally catch up to her, although I make sure to keep a respectable distance from her. I don’t want to overwhelm or frighten her. Yet all I want is to wrap her up in my arms and hold her.

It’s been too long. I’m wasting away without Alessa Penrose by my side.

She looks like a lost angel standing at the end of this hallway, where a bay window overlooks the vineyard and brings in the early evening sunlight. A golden glow illuminates the lavender and crystals of her handstitched dress. She’s so ethereal that I’m afraid to breathe around her, lest she disappear in a wisp of smoke.

“Alessa.” My voice is as soft and delicate as that smoke.

Slowly, she turns. Her eyes flash a heavenly mixture of desperation and disbelief, while her feisty countenance dares me to come any closer.

I’m not afraid to take up that dare.

I step closer. I’ll corner her if I must. Anything that tells her I’m not ever,evergiving her up. She’ll have to shove me away with her two delicate hands for me to get the hint.

“Please, Alessa. Let me tell you how much I love you.”

She shivers. “I know, precious, you’re cold without your shawl on those bare shoulders of yours. Here. Let me give you my jacket.”

…That’s what I want to say. But I’m too gobsmacked by what she says first.

“No, Jules. I don’t want to hear anything that you have to say to me.” She shakes her head so slowly that I almost miss thoseslight movements. “Your words don’t mean anything now that I know what you’re willing to lie about.”

I wish I could say that I don’t agree with her. But she’s right, isn’t she? About all of it. I’m a shill. A woman who seduced her under false pretenses. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have seduced her the moment I met her. But how was I to know that an intern like her was meant to change my life? I only knew her from the work I corrected. Now I find those memories charming. A story to tell our kids one day.“Your mother and I met at my office. She couldn’t get her charts and figures sorted to save her life, but I fell in love with that beautiful smile and her willingness to get the job done.”

No. I fell in love with her after Presley set it up. She chose her for me. As if she opened our employee roster and pointed at the first name she saw. Nothing special. No one special. How can I blame Alessa for what she feels after learning that? After all, there’s a reason I had never told her the truth.

I wanted her to keep the fantasy that I had always wanted her until I couldn’t take it anymore. That I was willing to slap HR and risk my reputation to be with her, even if for one night.

Before, I never cared if my womanizing reputation came back to haunt me. Because here I am now, wishing that I could take all of that back so she and I could be together with not a lick of shame between us.

I don’t feel any shame. Why should she?

“Then let me show you what you mean to me.”

She hesitates before making eye contact with me again. There’s desire in those eyes. Not necessarily sexual desire, although I certainly wish to see it. But a desire to believe me.

Please believe me, Alessa.