Page 127 of Full Throttle

I want you more than anything.

“There’s something that I—” Dominic began.

Juliette lowered the coffee. “I don’t think—”

They paused.

“You first,” Dominic offered.

Juliette drew a breath. Her dark hair fell in soft, vanilla-scented waves down her back, and Dominic had the sudden urge to wind it around his palm and never let go. “Last night, I was thinking about the first time that we met. That day at the academy. Do you remember?”

“I do.”

“All the boys worshipped you.”

Dominic gave a wry smile. “They had a funny way of showing it.” Nate had shaken his hand like he’d wanted to crush his fingers. And that was before the trying-to-out-bench-him-at-the-gym incident.

“And me,” Juliette said softly. “I worshipped you too.”

His smile faded. “I didn’t realize.”

“No. You wouldn’t.” She swirled her coffee. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer honestly. What you said at that art gallery, all those years ago…” She met his gaze. “Did you mean it?”

Dominic’s heart rate doubled. “Why are you asking me now?”

“Just answer the question.”

Dominic’s mouth was dry. Tell her. This was what he’d come to do, wasn’t it? To unburden himself. His phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. Vance’s name popped up on the screen, and his blood ran cold. “I…”

Juliette waited. When he didn’t speak, her mouth tightened. “Ah.”

“What?”

Her laugh was humorless. “For so long, I hated you for what you said in Paris. Hated you. And then you came back into my life, and I wondered…stupidly, I thought that you might…” She drew a ragged breath. “I convinced myself that you had a good reason for saying what you did, because I couldn’t imagine you meant it. But I also never thought Cap would say those things about me. So maybe my judgment is skewed.”

Dominic gripped the chair. Juliette’s eyes were the blue of winter lakes, the sort of loveliness that only came as the consequence of pain.

“I need to hear you say the words, Hastings. No more bullshit.”

“What words?” Dominic said, like a coward. Like holding an umbrella against an oncoming hurricane.

“An apology. An explanation.”

Dominic drew a breath. The phone was motionless, but he felt like he was holding a loaded grenade. No more, he thought fiercely. She deserved to know. “Okay. Right before I spoke to you in Paris, I went to see my father. He knew about us. He had photographs.” He braced himself. “He told me to end it, and I thought about what it would cost to go against him, in terms of a career—”

She reeled back. “Vance was going to sack you? For being with me?”

Dominic blinked. Wait. What? Too late, understanding struck, and he could have kicked himself. “Marchmont, I meant your—”

Someone rapped on the door.

Dominic bit back a growl of frustration. Honestly. Did the nurse doing the discharge paperwork have to pick right now? But it was Cap who slipped into the room, sporting a baseball cap and sunglasses, and Juliette must have been equally surprised to see her brother because she inhaled sharply.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Giving you a lift,” Cap said. “To the paddock.”

It was only through years of being teammates that Dominic could tell he was nervous. Cap reached up, as if to pull at his hair, and then settled for taking off his baseball cap. Juliette’s eyes narrowed.