One Weekend with the Billionaire Chapter 86

*Julia*

Braxton’s face has my heart leaping up into my throat. After my initial statement, letting him know that I have to go, I don’t know how to explain myself to him, to tell him that I can’t stay or why.

“What do you mean you have to go?” Braxton asks, taking a few cautious steps toward me but stopping well short of touching me. “Why would you need to go?”

I clear my throat, swallowing hard. “Because… it’s for the best if I do.”

His eyes widen in shock. “For the best? For who?”

“For everyone,” I tell him. “Especially you.”

“No, Julia,” he says as he shakes his head emphatically. “It is most definitely not best for me.”

I disagree with him. “Braxton, I heard what happened today. Jeff didn’t take the settlement, right?”

He doesn’t answer, only continues to stare at me, unblinking. I don’t need him to answer. I already know I am right.

“For him to turn down that sort of money, it tells me he will be relentless, Braxton. He’s never going to stop. Never. He won’t leave us in peace. I need to go back and figure out a way to convince him to let me go. If he thinks it’s his idea, then he’ll be much more likely to throw me out or just walk away. But like this….” I can hardly bear to finish that sentence. The words just don’t want to come out of my mouth. I force them. “This way, it goes on and on forever.”

“Julia… you can’t go,” he says, finally moving over to me. He rests his hands on my arms. His touch is light, as if he’s afraid he might break me if he pushes too hard. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

The look in his eyes tugs at my heartstrings like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I knew this would be difficult, but I know it is for the best, and I need to just do it. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, pulling away. “I really am, Braxton. But… this is how it has to be. Would it be possible for someone to give me a ride?”

He stares at me, his hands still hanging in the air for a few moments from where I had been standing. I see tears glistening in his eyes. “You’re really going to go?”

I nod, looking away. I don’t want to cry too.

“Of course,” he says. “I’ll arrange it.”

I nod but don’t meet his eyes again. I can’t even look him in the face. He sighs, pulling out his phone and sending a text, and then he starts to walk away. He stops a few steps from me and says, “Julia, please… come back whenever you can. I will always want you here. I love you.”

I am staring at a square on the floor near the door, and I do not dare lift my eyes from that place because I know if I look at him, I’ll cry. I must turn myself into a statue the way that I always have when Jeff is on top of me in the bed. I have to put myself somewhere else right now, lock my heart behind an iron box where it can’t be hurt.

Braxton walks away, but I still don’t move. His driver comes in and takes my bags out to the car. I follow, not daring to turn around and look back, not daring to consider all that I am giving up. I pray that I’ll find my way back here someday, but I wouldn’t blame Braxton if he takes back what he’s just said and never wants to see me again either.

With a heavy heart and tears in my eyes, I get in the back seat of the car and wait for the driver to take me back to Jeff, to take me back to my old life, where I probably should’ve never left. I thought Braxton’s house was the place where I was meant to be, but I was wrong, and now the driver is taking me home.