Julian (Beautiful Mine #1) Read Online Free PDF

kiss me. I quickly snapped out of it, telling myself I was imagining things.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “I’m not tired anymore,” he said. “Want to stay up and talk?”
    He patted the spot on his bed next to him.
    “Or we can stay up and watch a little T.V., or something,” he suggested.
    “Sure, okay,” I said, sliding in next to him and leaning back against the headboard.
    Julian flipped the T.V. to a boring cable news show where two pundits were discussing the economy, debating whether or not we were truly out of the recession. I glanced over at him through the corner of my eye. In the glow of the T.V., he looked normal. I didn’t see his sunken cheeks or under eye circles. He didn’t look sick. He was actually quite handsome with his square jaw, full lips, penetrating champagne eyes, and perfectly straight nose.
    I yawned and instinctively scooted my back down the headboard until my head hit the pillow.
    “Stay awake,” Julian said as he nudged me.
    “I know. I’m trying. I’m so tired.”
    “I want to show you something.” He turned off the T.V. and sent the room into pitch darkness, which sent me into a state of instant alertness. I heard him clicking a few buttons, and in an instant, the ceiling lit up with stars. “It’s my own little planetarium.”
    “Julian,” I said, sitting up. “This is beautiful.”
    “I turn it on every night before bed. I have it on a timer. It helps me fall asleep sometimes.”
    “I love this. Does my room have one?”
    I sunk back into his soft bed and slipped my hands behind my head as I took in the simplistic, starry sky above us. Lying there in the dark, I felt the warmth of his breath close to my face and the soft caress of his hand upon my cheek, gently pulling my lips toward his. I thought about pushing him away, but confusion paralyzed me, and it felt so good to be wanted again. His lips pressed against mine, softly and tenderly. Perfectly sweet.
    I pushed him away the second I remembered how much I loved working there and how much I needed that job. “I should go to bed.”
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
    JULIAN
    She left my room in a hurry, and I thanked God she couldn’t see how red-hot my cheeks were burning. Why’d I have to go and kiss her? I clicked off the planetarium and threw my remote across the room.
    The taste of her lips lingered on mine. A mix of cherry lip balm and cinnamon gum—that was what Evie Cawthorn tasted like. She was my first kiss. At twenty-fucking-four years old, she was my first kiss.
    Rolling around town with her, listening to music and talking about whatever happened to come to mind, I just felt different around her. The Julian Garner-Willoughby who had returned to the mansion earlier that night was not the same one who’d walked out of there that morning.
    I pulled the covers over my head, desperate to forget what had just happened, and closed my eyes.
    I awoke the next morning to the sound of Evie’s voice and the creaking of the floorboards beneath her feet as she carried my breakfast over to the table by my window.
    “I made you an awesome breakfast,” she said proudly. Much to my relief, she was pretending like the kiss hadn’t happened.
    I wasn’t half the person Evie was, though, and I couldn’t pretend. “I’m not hungry.”
    “I just spent an hour downstairs making this for you,” Evie pouted. “I’ll be really disappointed if you don’t touch it.”
    “You eat it, then.”
    “I want you to have it. I made it for you.”
    I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to see her baby blue eyes pleading with me or the pout of her full lips, the very same ones I’d claimed the night before in a fit of I-don’t-know-what. I didn’t want to see the way her t-shirt hugged the slight curve of her hips or the way her black yoga pants left very little to the imagination.
    “I said, I’m not hungry,” I repeated, not mincing my words.
    “You know,” she said with a frustrated sigh,