Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Eight Days Awake

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His arm had already locked across the back of her neck and pinned her there, and everything she had was not enough to shift him.

“Julian Weston, let go of me.”

The room stayed quiet.

Julian neither released her nor said a word.

What reached her ear was slow, even breathing. Her cheek still lay against his chest, the two of them rising and falling together, and under it his heartbeat came steady.

“Julian?” Nora lifted her head and found nothing but the hard, carved line of his jaw. “So you’re out already.”

I wasted that compliment. Thought his willpower was terrifying, and one round of needles put him under like everybody else.

She tried again to push the arm off her, worked at it a while, got nowhere, and half killed herself doing it. “God, that arm is made of iron. He’s asleep and he still won’t let go. He’s going

to crush me.”

With no way out of it, Nora stayed where she was against his chest.

After a while, his grip loosened as he dropped fully under, and she lifted the arm off her fast.

She had barely sat up and started rubbing her arm when she met his eyes, wide open and staring, and her own brows pulled together.

That wasn’t even five minutes. What’s the difference between that and not sleeping at all?

A whole sequence wasted.

“Julian?”

He said nothing and looked straight at her.

His expression sat somewhere between asleep and awake.

Nora thought about it, then quietly tucked herself back against his chest and laid his arm across her back herself.

She glanced up, found his eyes still open, and covered them with her hand again.

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Chapter 18 Eight Days Awake

The even breathing came back beside her ear almost immediately.

He was under.

Finished

Lying folded against him was not comfortable, and every time she tried to lift his arm away, his breathing went short and he looked ready to surface.

He could not settle the moment she moved.

Nora gave up in the end, stayed exactly where she was, listened to his heartbeat, and went under herself without noticing it happen.

At 10 that night, the Weston house was still awake.

Constance kept checking the time and craning toward the front door with worry all over her face.

Beside her sat Cordelia Blithe, the famous doctor herself, in a beautifully tailored dress and glasses, carrying the kind of learning and polish that showed without being announced.

Standing next to Cordelia was a lovely young woman dressed much the same way, gentle and refined in every line of her.

Cordelia frowned, and the impatience came through. “How much longer until Julian gets home?”

Constance hurried to smooth it over. “Cordelia, give him a few more minutes. He’ll be here soon. Something must have come up at the office to hold him back.”

Olivia Blithe spoke gently. “Don’t worry, Grandma Weston. My grandmother is only anxious because she’s worried about Julian.”

Cordelia took Olivia’s hand and turned back to Constance. “Olivia has studied Julian’s condition alongside me until she learned a needle sequence for it. She puts her odds at 90 percent for controlling it. That’s why the two of us have been sitting here waiting.

“She stuck herself full of needles like a pincushion learning it, and watching her do it nearly broke my heart.”

Olivia colored prettily. “Grandma, I went into medicine to save people. That’s what it costs and I should pay it. Please don’t tell people. They’ll laugh at me.”

Constance answered her. “I understand. Let me call again.”

As a rule she did not call Julian while he was working, because she trusted him to know his own

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Chapter 18 Eight Days Awake

limits.

She called his driver first, and what came back left her stunned. “Julian’s at a hotel?”

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Once she was sure of it, she glanced at Olivia and dropped her voice. “With whom? Doing what? Tell him to come home.

“With Nora Sinclair?”

The answer floored her a second time, and she could not begin to picture what the two of them were doing in a hotel.

Constance ended the call and looked at Olivia again.

Olivia gave her a soft, graceful smile. “Grandma Weston, Julian is getting worse. The needles need to start right away. Could you push him a little harder?”

Constance knew her grandson’s condition well enough to know that nothing of that kind was physically possible for him, and if it had been, she would have pushed him into a marriage and children years ago.

That reasoning settled it, and she called Julian directly.

Nothing else mattered next to getting his condition under control.

Over at the hotel, Nora was still asleep against his chest, and she had never slept that soundly in her life.

The phone rang and she never fully surfaced, just groped for it and answered. “Hello.”

It came out badly, carrying all the temper of someone dragged out of sleep.

A young woman’s voice on the line stopped Constance short. “Nora?”

Julian letting anyone else touch his phone was startling enough on its own.

“It’s me.”

Constance’s voice warmed right up. “Nora, sweetheart, put Julian on. There’s something I need

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