“I just need you to trust me. That’s all. I need you to. I swear I need you to.”

He ran his fingers gently through her hair, wanting, wishing to be able to do this with her. To go all in. But the moment was far too familiar, and it felt like a flashback to this worst times, especially when she grabbed his arm hard. “Please,” she said.

He’d been here, he’d seen the same routine form Sabrina, begging him to believe her, pleading with him to see that she wasn’t hopped up on pills. Claiming she was getting help, when she was really selling off her purses and jewelry to buy more drugs. He has no idea if Julia was buying drugs, or shaking off a past as a stripper, or hiding some other dark secret. Because she wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t give him the courtesy of the truth. That left him with one cold hard fact – she was lying.

Whether directly or by omission didn’t matter. She wasn’t being honest.

And that both hurt and pissed him off.

His veins felt scrubbed raw with a scouring pad as he gently, but firmly, peeled her hand off his arm. He didn’t need this in his life again. He had business to take care of for his clients, and he couldn’t risk the chance of another fucked-up relationship with a trouble-laden woman distracting him from his job.

Julia was perfect and captivating, clever and sexy, and tattooed head-to-toe with the warning sign trouble ahead. Good thing he’d seen it now before he went in too deep.

“I can’t do this Julia,” he said, grabbing the handle of his suitcase. “I need to go.”

He shut the car door hard behind him, locking it, as if that would keep thoughts of her at bay. He couldn’t risk letting a deal slip through his fingers again, and certainly not over a woman messing with his head, and his heart, so there was one choice for him now.

He’d have to find a way to forget her hard and fast.


Stay tuned for the conclusion of Julia and Clay’s love story in AFTER THIS NIGHT releasing May 12.


Copyright (c) 2014 by Lauren Blakely

LaurenBlakely.com

Cover Design by (c) Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon

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