Page 151 of Scandalous Contract

“Why would you invite them over while you were alone, Stefanie?”

I pulled the dagger out of my pocket to show it to him. “I had backup.”

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Don’t do anything like that again.”

“I had to do it. They were like parasites that had been feeding on me for far too long. I needed them out of me and India’s lives.”

“They’re gone now. And if they don’t heed my warning, I really will make them disappear.”

I chuckled. “Violent, much?” I asked.

“In love,” he corrected me. “I’m in love. And I protect the people I love. If they come near you again, if they eventhinkabout bothering you, I’ll take care of it. And you’ll never have to lay eyes on them again. I promise you that.”

The way he said it, the threat, the promise, the love in his eyes, it made something inside me break wide open. I stared up at him, my vision blurring with tears I didn’t even try to hide. Because nobody, other than my parents and Ronnie, had ever had my back like this.

Nobody but Julian. He wasn’t just my lover. He wasn’t just my friend. He was my safe place.I was head over heels in love with Julian Cattaneo. My protector. My partner. My future. I never wanted to let him go.Wait!My eyes widened.

“You...” I started. “You heard what she said about India?”

He didn’t reply right away, and it was pointless for me to have asked the question in the first place. Of course, he heard.

“My mother isn’t my biological mother,” he told me.

That floored the hell out of me. And for a second, all I could do was stand there staring at him with my mouth wide open. He smiled and traced his thumb over my lip.

“Blood is thicker than water. But it’s water that nourishes the earth and makes flowers grow,” he told me. “My birth mom’s blood flows through my veins. But the mother who raised me is the one who watered me. One gave me life. The other made sure I lived. I’m thankful for them both. But the mother who raised me is the one I consider my family.”

“I didn’t... I didn’t know.”

I thought Aubrey was the child his mother had talked to me about all those years ago. I thought when she told me she had two kids, a son and a one-year-old daughter, I thought it was the daughter who she was saying wasn’t hers.

She’d comforted me at the hospital on the day India was born, telling me not to blame myself for the things my husband and his mistress did. And that if I decided to raise India as my own, then I had to let the hatred I had for her birth parents go.

She told me she had to do the same thing for one of her kids. In order for her to truly be a mother to the child, she had to let her hatred for the birth parents go. If she didn’t, she would’ve taken that hatred out on the child, and that was never the right thing to do. But she hadn’t been talking about her daughter. She’d been speaking of her son.

“My mother doesn’t know that I know she’s not my birth mom. And I don’t want her to know,” he told me. “I don’t want her to wonder whether my love for her has changed.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Has your love for her changed at all?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not at all. I love her more because I know how hard it must’ve been on her.”

“Do you think India would feel the same way?” I asked, hating how my voice shook.

He placed his hands against my face and cupped my cheeks. “I’ll help you make sure she never finds out if that’s what you want. But, if she does find out, I’m sure she’ll love you even more because you loved her when you didn’t have to. That means something. I promise you it does.”

I swallowed back tears.

“I don’t want to lose her. Is that selfish of me?”

“No. I’m sure my mother feels the same way. What she doesn’t know is that I fear losing her, too.” He paused for a moment before saying, “Do you want to talk about it? About what happened back then?”

Did I? I didn’t know. There was no point in talking about it if I wasn’t going to tell him the truth. But if I told him the truth, would he think less of me? Would he think I did it out of spite and jealousy?

Honestly, that had something to do with it. But it was more out of anger and rage. Embarrassment too. I was mad at them for lying to me. And I was mad at myself for being so fucking foolish and naïve. For being weak.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he told me.

“It’s not that. I just...” I paused. “I don’t want you to think less of me.”