Page 107 of Beautiful When He Breaks

He pulls back again, cupping my face and watching me with soft eyes. There’s no mockery in his gaze, only love and heat and a little bit of smugness because he’s still Julian and apparently blowing my mind has done nothing to humble him. His mouth is swollen, his hair is a disaster from my hands, and the sight of him like this sends another flicker of heat through me.

“You look pleased with yourself,” I mutter.

“I’m extremely pleased with you.”

That shuts me up instantly. My face burns again, worse because I understand now that praise is dangerous and Julian has absolutely noticed. His thumb brushes over my cheekbone, his smile turning softer.

“You did so good,” he says quietly.

I groan and drop my forehead to his chest again. “Stop.”

“No.”

“Jules—”

“No,” he repeats, more gentle than teasing now. “I want you to hear it. You were brave and told me what you wanted. You stayed with me and let yourself feel good. That matters, Liefling; it matters so fucking much.”

I look at him: at his ruined hair and smug mouth and the wet shine of his eyes. My best friend is looking at me like I’m something he prayed for and never expected to survive receiving.

I realize vaguely that I’m still leaning against the wall and that I have probably just made sounds in a nursery that should condemn me morally, but I can’t bring myself to care yet. My body feels loose and stunned and strangely quiet. The panic never came. The wrongness never swallowed me. There is no nausea, no cold, no crawling need to leave my skin. There is just Julian.

I wrap my arms around his waist and hold on just as we hear Mila making a tiny sleepy noise through the baby monitor. Julian looks over his shoulder toward the dresser while I hold my breath, every part of me snapping back into father mode so fast it almost gives me whiplash. The noise stops, and a second later, there’s only soft static and the quiet rhythm of her breathing.

Julian’s mouth twitches, and I press my lips together to stop a laugh from bursting out too loudly. “Cockblocked by our daughter,” he mutters, then catches himself half a second too late and his smile drops immediately. His eyes cut to mine, alarm flashing across his face. “Eli, I’m—”

I grab the front of his shirt and pull him back to me before he can apologize. “Don’t take it back.”

His lips part as if to apologize again, and I shake my head.

“Don’t,” I say again, softer.

He exhales, shaky and relieved, and rests his forehead against mine. “Okay.”

I close my eyes for a second, letting the words settle. Our daughter. Mine by blood, his by choice, those two words held between us in a room full of things I never expected to want and now can’t imagine surviving without.

33

Julian

The statement takes longer than I expected and somehow less time than it should for something that feels like cutting myself open on a polished conference table.

Blackthorne’s legal offices are all glass walls, dark wood, expensive coffee, and the kind of silence built by people who get paid too much to react visibly. For some reason, three Blackthorne board members are present, two school attorneys, Mara because Killian apparently decided no one was breathing near me without King-approved counsel in the room, and one representative from the athletics department.

Killian sits beside me through the whole thing. Luca waits outside because I asked him to. Eli offered to come, and I almost said yes, but I knew if he sat there and heard me say all of it in that flat, official language, I’d end up watching his face instead of getting through the statement.

So, I do it without him.

Mara told me there is power in putting everything on record, and I want Blakely buried under every word he thought I’d be too ashamed to say.

Nobody interrupts much. Mara does once, gently, to clarify dates. One of the school attorneys asks about whether any communications happened on campus devices, and Killian’s head turns so slowly toward him that the man clears his throat and rephrases in a much less shitty way.

One of the owners, an older woman with steel-gray hair and a face like she’s signed checks that have ruined men, takes notes without looking away from me. Another owner, a broad-shouldered man with gold-rimmed glasses, asks only two questions, both careful. The third owner leaves fifteen minutes before the end after checking his phone and murmuring something to the woman beside him. I notice him because he’s hard not to notice.

Sharp Italian features. Tattooed fingers resting briefly on the table before he stands, ink showing above his collar, not fully hidden by the expensive cut of his shirt. Older, maybe early thirties, and stupidly attractive in a way I have no interest in unpacking because the last older, powerful man who took up space in my life just became the subject of a formal investigation.

Mara called him Matteo Vieri during introductions. I file the name away because that’s what my brain does now with men who hold power. Trauma is a shitty operating system, but it’s thorough.

By the time the statement ends, my mouth tastes of old pennies, and my hands are numb. Mara slides a glass of water toward me without making a big deal out of it, and I take it because refusing would be pointless.