Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 271

1:55 pm

Please Come Doek, My Love

+hapter 271

`You-` I started forward, panic and fry warring in my chest, but Julian turned to face me and I saw it then-the fierce, almost desperate tenderness in his

eyes as he looked down at Lila.

She was playing with his collar now, chattering about something I couldn’t hear over the blood rushing in my ears, and he was listening like every word

mattered.

“I know where you’re going,’ he said quietly, his voice pitched low enough that only I could hear over Lila’s happy babbling. His thumb brushed absently against Lila’s back in soothing circles, the gesture so automatic it looked like muscle memory. “I can take you there.”

‘I don’t need you to take me anywhere,” I said, but my voice came out weaker than I wanted. ‘I don’t need anything from you.”

He said, and the single word hit me like a punch to the gut. “Josephine’s grave. That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?”

How did he-

But of course he knew. Of course he’d figured it out. Julian Sterling didn’t do anything halfway, and if he’d decided to insert himself back into my life, he’d have made damn sure he knew every move I was planning to make.

“That’s none of your business,” I said, reaching for Lila again. “Give her back. We have a connecting flight to catch.”

“To Richmond,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, and there was something in his voice now-something that sounded almost like pleading. And then what? You’re going to rent a car and drive to some cemetery in the middle of nowhere with a four-year-old? Stay in a motel? Elena, it’s not safe.”

*Safer than being anywhere near you,” I shot back, and watched him flinch like I’d slapped him.

But Lila was watching us now, her smile fading as she picked up on the tension crackling between us. Her little hand reached up to touch Julian’s jaw, and I watched his expression crumble at the contact.

‘Mommy sounds mad,” she said in that too-observant way children have. “Are you fighting?”

“No, baby,” I said automatically, forcing my voice to gentle even as my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “We’re just talking.”

‘It sounds like fighting,” she insisted, and then, to Julian: “Did you make Mommy sad? You ook sad a lot. Are you always sad?”

I watched Julian’s throat work as he swallowed hard, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “Sometimes, sweetheart. But not right now. Right now I’m just happy to see you.”

“Then why does Mommy look like she is mad?”

‘I need to board,” I said, proud of how steady my voice came out. “So if you’ll just—’

‘Let me come with you.”

The words hung in the air between us, and I stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Absolutely not.

“Elena-”

3:55 pm

Chapter 271

repped forward, teaching for Lila again. This time he let me be her, though I could see it cost him, ‘You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to show un and insert yourself into my life like you have any right to be here. I don’t know you. I don’t remember you. And even if i did

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