Accidental Fiancé (Unintentionally Yours #5)

29. Maggie

Chapter 29

Maggie

E verybody knows.

While I dressed, that was all I could think about. Everyone knew what I had done, what we had done. I had never been a liar. Not really. Not before the reunion. But I was backed into a corner.

No. I made a choice. I could have taken Chloe’s bullshit for a night and been done with it. Instead, I blew up an entire family’s yearly reunion. I ruined everything. For Julian, for Piper. For fifty or so members of his family downstairs. It was all my fault.

Except for the things that were Julian’s fault.

Why in the hell didn’t he tell me about Chloe blackmailing him?

The door handle jiggled but I had locked it. Two knocks came before Julian’s voice asked, “Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Maggie, we need to talk.”

“You need to talk. I don’t.” That wasn’t exactly true but it was close enough. When it came to Julian Black, every time I went with my gut, I bombed horribly. My instincts sucked around him, so I had to do the opposite of what my gut was telling me. Talking was out. Opening the door was out. As long as he stayed in the hallway, I couldn’t fuck this up.

Not exactly a long-term solution but it was all I had for now.

Metal clinked against metal, and the next thing I knew, the door opened. Julian walked in, key in hand. “I’m sorry to barge into my own room, but we have to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” I couldn’t look at him. If I looked, I’d say something stupid like telling him I loved him and we could work through this. Clearly, the universe didn’t want us to be together. Otherwise, this would be easier.

That was how love was supposed to go, right?

“Fine. You don’t have to talk. Just listen.”

I shook my head and snatched my luggage from the closet. I laid it out on the bed and got to work. “I’m not listening.”

His brow furrowed. “Then I will talk to hear myself speak.”

I shrugged. My clothes had been carefully hung in the closet or folded into drawers by the invisible staff that made things happen in this place. It would have unnerved me if it wasn’t so convenient. I gathered my things and started laying them carefully into the suitcase.

“Maggie, what are you doing?”

“I told you. I’m not talking.”

He groaned in frustration. “Fine but I don’t want you going anywhere. We need to work this out.”

“There’s nothing to work out.”

“That’s not true.”

I didn’t speak. Packing was the only way out of this conversation so I kept at it.

“You want to know why I didn’t tell you about Chloe blackmailing me?”

I glanced up at him.

“Because of this. Because I knew you would overreact. You were already worried she would rat us out, and if you knew she knew, you would have freaked.

“So, you kept it from me for my own good?”

“Yes!”

My nostrils flared, and I could not keep my thoughts inside, no matter how hard I bit my tongue. “It’s a good thing we’re not actually engaged then, Jules, because you don’t want a partner. You want another servant.”

“What?”

“Hot tip—if you ever want a woman to be a real partner to you, then you tell her when someone is blackmailing you! You do not keep it inside to protect her. You let her help you get through it and you come up with a plan together so neither of you is blindsided in front of your entire family!”

I had never seen a man shrink before. Not the way Jules did right then. He stuttered, “You?you’re right. About the blackmail thing. Not the servant thing.”

“Bullshit.” I resumed packing. “Why else have the contract written up?”

“Because…” He growled under his breath. “Because I was trying to do right by you. I explained this.”

“Treating me like another servant was doing right by me?” I have to stop engaging. Stop talking.

“I have never treated you like a servant, Maggie.”

“Paying me for my companionship sounds like a servant to me. Or is escort the right word?” I couldn’t shut up.

He pressed his palms to his temples, groaning again. “Maggitha Eileen Bryant, I swear to God?—"

“What did you just call me?” I interrupted him.

He chuckled. “You always told me Maggie wasn’t short for anything, so I made up names for you in my head.”

“Maggitha?”

He shrugged. “It’s better than Margaret.”

I took a breath and shook my head, trying not to laugh when I really wanted to bark at him for making a joke during another serious discussion, and went back to packing. This time, I shoved things into my luggage. I had to speed this along. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Julian pulled my luggage across the bed out of my reach. “We are not having this conversation again. You know why I did it. I did it to protect you.”

“That’s all you’ve ever done, isn’t it? Protect me.” Not love me .

Worry etched across his face. “Why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. If he didn’t understand it instinctually, how could I explain it to him? Did I even owe him an explanation? Not technically. But I wanted to tell him.

And where did following your instincts get you with Jules so far? Fucked.

“It doesn’t matter why I said it like that. Just give me my luggage.”

“Tell me why protecting you is a bad thing, and I will.”

A hard knot formed in my throat. I couldn’t look him in the eyes so I just stared at my clothes. My voice came out in a whisper. “Jules, don’t do this to me.”

He slid the suitcase next to my pile of clothes. His voice went cold. “Fine. Take it.”

Despair dug its way through me. I couldn’t keep my thoughts inside, no matter what lines they crossed. Tears trickled down my face. “You always protected me, Jules. When the football team picked on me, you were there. When Chloe and her idiot friends talked shit about me, you were there. Always defending me. Didn’t you think I could defend myself?”

He blinked at me, confused. “But you never did.”

“No, I didn’t.” I wiped my face, willing my tears to stop. But they didn’t listen and continued to spill down my cheeks. “But maybe I would have learned to stand up for myself if I didn’t always have you and Nora to do it for me. Maybe I wouldn’t have made up this huge lie about us when we were at the reunion and told Chloe to go fuck herself instead. I lied, and now… now your family hates me.”

He rushed around the end of the bed and took me in his arms. I let him. “It’s not your fault.”

His words choked me, and I shoved him off. “It is my fault, Julian! Don’t you get that? I fucked up. Me . I chose to lie about things to Chloe and I pulled you into it. I made that choice. Now I have to live with the consequences, and you have to stop protecting me from them. I will never be able to stand on my own against people like Chloe if I have people like you always there to swoop in and save me. That’s why protecting me all the time is a bad thing.”

He cleared his throat. “I won’t apologize for protecting you, Maggie.”

“I’m not asking for an apology. You thought you were doing the right thing. That’s all you’ve ever done. That’s all this ever was.” I finished packing and closed the suitcase. “You’re a good man, Jules. That’s why this hurts so much.”

“What do you mean that’s all this ever was?”

A sickening feeling struck my heart. More ugly words came rushing out. “I think you and Nora have it wrong. Our history, I mean.”

“What’s Nora got to do with us?”

“She said she thought you had a crush on me back then.”

“I did. I told you that.”

“I know.” The pancakes in my stomach turned to lead. “I know you think you had a crush on me. But?—"

“Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

I closed my eyes, noticing my tears had dried up. I felt empty inside. “Julian, you didn’t have a crush. You never saw me as an equal, so how could you have a real crush on me?”

He muttered, “What are you saying?”

“I was little more than a project to you. Someone to protect. Someone weaker, not an equal.”

“You’ve never been more wrong, Maggie.”

“I think you liked me well enough, but I also think you confused that with love, probably because of teenage hormones and the fact your dad just died.” I took a deep breath before I lied to him. “It’s fine, Jules. It’s in the past. And whatever this was, it’s in the past, too.” When I stepped to move around him he blocked me. “Don’t.”

He took my face in his hands and slanted his mouth over mine. His fingertips turned my head toward him. I wanted this so badly to be real. My toes curled in my ballet flats, and a thrill wound through me hard enough to get me wet.

But not hard enough to shake me from reality.

His green eyes peered into my soul. “This isn’t in the past. We are not the past, Maggie. We are not over before we begin. We are just getting started.”

I wanted all of it—everything that his eyes and his kiss and his touch promised. But it was tinged with something awful. Something I couldn’t live with in a thousand lifetimes. “Julian, do you realize that every time you helped me or protected me, you did it out of pity?”

His face twisted like I had punched him in the gut. “What?”

I sighed, trying to fill my lungs with enough air to allow my broken heart room to breathe. “When you think about it—really think about it—you’ll understand.” I wheeled my bag toward the door. “I deserve more than pity from a partner. We both deserve to be loved the way we need to be. Goodbye, Julian.”