Chapter 13

Ring! Ring! Rin—
“Yes?” Julian snapped without looking at his phone. It was nearly ten in the morning and he had already found Sia working in her home office, so he’d left her to work in peace while he went through his daily routine.
“Whoa! What crawled up your ass and died?”
“Abhay,” Julian greeted his best friend with a laugh. “When did you get back?”
“Been ages man!” Abhay joked. “I came back this morning and saw you were gone. Christian seemed worried though. Heard you got shot yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Julian sighed. He’d managed to send in his report last night via email, directly to his brother, before he’d gone to Sia’s room. However, he’d left his phone in his room after that and when he’d gone back to take a quick shower a few minutes ago, he’d discovered nearly fifteen missed calls from his brother. Christian was tough as a nail when it came to work, but one thing Julian was sure of was that his brother loved him dearly.
“Tell him not to worry. The bullet just grazed the skin.” Julian told his friend now. “Anyway, did you get assigned any duties yet?”
“Yes.” Abhay sighed. “Selena just dumped all the files related to your case on my desk. Guess I’m your new tour guide now.”
Abhay Campbell was the master hacker of the company, as well as Julian’s partner in crime. If Julian was Lucifer, then Abhay was Beelzebub. Being half-Indian, he was blessed with that awesome sun-kissed skin that Julian could never rival against, no matter how many tans he got. He had ruggedly handsome features. Just like Julian, he had the same square jaw, straight nose, jet black hair, and light blue eyes. Everyone called them the Devil Twins because of their similar features.
“Oh no! I’m not letting you off that easy. I’m calling you in for field duty. Don’t think you can get away with sitting in front of the computer, chewing hamburgers while I get shot,” Julian joked and heard the dramatic sigh of the man he called his brotherfor more reasons than one.
“And here I thought I was finally gonna get lucky. Damn! How perfect was my plan . . . Oh well!” He gave another theatrical sigh and Julian snorted.
“All right buddy, jokes aside, I need a favor,” he said seriously.
“Don’t you always?” Abhay joked then turned serious. “Tell me.”
“I need you to find every detail you can about Arthur Stone. Friends, enemies, mistresses, anything you can get your hands on . . . even confidential ones.” He added the last bit because he knew how good Abhay was at digging up dirt. “And also,check security cameras for a white Volvo outside of Paradiso around three in the afternoon yesterday. It must be one of Arthur’s because Sia recognized the car. I want to know which gutter that pig’s been hiding.”
“Ah! I’ve been dying of that itch!” Abhay replied.
True, Julian thought. Abhay loved trouble as much as he did and was always “itching” for mischief. Ever since they entered together in the company, they had been the head troublemakers and the biggest pranksters after all.
“Then go satisfy it. And also . . . there’s something that has been bugging me. Why did Stone take over the Milton factory? As far as I have found out, he had a law firm. Why take over a business from the textile industry, much less one that was on the edge of bankruptcy? Get as much as you can.” Julian finished, still thinking about the things he had just said.
“On it. Call you back in an hour or two,” Abhay said.
“Okay.” Julian hung up and put his phone back in his pocket as he leaned his back against the closest wall and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t tired but weary. He couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss he’d shared with Sia last night which was bothering him. Julian was no virgin but kissing Sia was making him feel like a hormonal teenager who had no control over his urges. He had always wanted to taste her, kiss her, and feel her soft body against his muscled one. He had thought that once he had at least kissed her, the desire he felt for her would fade, if only by a fraction.
How wrong he had been. Now that he had felt her, kissed those amazingly soft, plump lips which had tasted of strawberries last night, and ran his hands through the liquid silk of her hair, it was impossible to get her out of his system. He wanted more. And he was very sure that once he had her, he would never be able to get enough.
Shit!
He was never the desperate type. Women threw themselves at his feet, and it was a fact no one could deny. But this one woman had him eating out of her palm already and worst of all, she had no idea what she was doing to him.
He had hoped that the fact that she was older than him by three years would dull the attraction, but instead, he had been blown off his feet from the very first time she had looked at him with those big innocent green eyes. In fact, he didn’t even think of her as an older woman. He just thought of her as . . . his.
Double shit!
“Damn you! Get your head in the bloody game!” He hissed at himself. “You’re here to work for her, not screw her! If I lose this chance, I’ll lose the company.”
Julian ran his hands through his hair a few times, getting his focus straight before he straightened himself and went in search of Sia. Thankfully, he ran into Martha on his way downstairs who told him that Sia was having another one of her creative sprees and that she’d been in her home office for the past four hours, right after she’d had tea.
Julian wanted to be patient and give her some space, considering the fact that she had survived another near-death experience yesterday, but something didn’t quite feel right. Julian had this sinking feeling in his gut that told him that maybe, Sia was pulling away.
Sia was an independent woman who had built her reputation and career from scratch. Something told him that what he had thought was something special might just have been a moment of vulnerability for her. It was done—a thing of the past and never to be spoken of again. Funny how karma was coming to bite him back in the ass.
When Julian found Sia in her home office, carrying a plate of snacks from Martha as his excuse, she was busily working on a fabric draped around a mannequin with a few pins in her mouth, held between her teeth. A box containing a similar set of pins was placed nearby on a stool next to her for when she ran out of them as she now worked on creating pleats and frills while pinning the fabric together to form running stitches.
With dark blue skinny jeans and a black long-sleeved top with a white tank underneath, she looked every ounce the professional designer she was yet managing to look younger and more vibrant at the same time. Her hair was pulled back into the messy bun she always seemed to sport when she was working, and her brows were furrowed in concentration. She was so beautiful that Julian was as startled as he’d been the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
Julian decided not to disturb her as he placed the plate down on a nearby table and watched silently as she took parts of a fabric, folded them in different ways until they looked to her liking, and held them in place with the pins. Sometimes, she’d cut pieces of another fabric and placed them on the main fabric. Within a few minutes, Julian watched in awe as the plain piece of fabric had now transformed into a beautiful floor-length gown with crisscross patterns of green and blue silk. Scattered all over the bodice were tiny flowers shaped from white lace.
Sia went over to her desk and took a sheet of paper and compared her drawing to the nearly finished product. She would have to call her secretary, Millan, later tonight to get her samples into the truck and get it stitched by her tailor, Megan.
She went on doing a few more adjustments to the dress and thought about adding a sash. She was debating the idea, looking at the paper in her hand while a pencil was tucked between her lips, when she heard his voice.
“It’s perfect,” he said, coming to stand next to her.
“Thanks,” she answered softly, trying not to appear startled. She hadn’t heard him enter; she’d been too lost in her work, although she did have a feeling he’d been watching her silently for some time now, but she tried not to let her nervousness show.
But when Julian reached out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, she knew she had to stop. She had to think about her son first, no matter how good it felt to be with him—how right this felt.
“Julian . . .” she began and he must have felt the distress in her tone as his eyes snapped to hers instantly. “We can’t . . .” she tried to say but faltered a little. After reminding herself of Leo, she mustered her strength and finally told him, “I can’t do this” followed by a few seconds of deafening silence.