Free Sudden Legacy by Kristy Phillips

He scooped me into his lap and tucked my head under his chin, rocking me gently as I sobbed against his chest. I was still half wrapped in the sheets, which I was grateful for because these days I tended to sleep in the nude.
    After a while my crying ceased and my breathing returned to almost normal. When I had reached the last stage of calming recognizable by the occasional shuddering of the diaphragm, Julien shifted my weight in his arms and kissed the top of my head. “Are we feeling better, Chérie ?” he asked.
    I covered my face with my hands and nodded. I must have looked a mess. He set me on the bed and went into the en-suite. I could hear the water running for a minute, and then he returned with a damp face cloth, which I expected him to hand to me, but he didn’t. Instead he sat beside me on the bed, the weight of him causing the mattress to sag and my body to lean toward him. He folded the cloth in half and dabbed gently at my eyes before pushing me to a lying position and draping the cloth over my eyes and forehead.
    I could hear his shoes drop to the floor, and the bed bounced around a bit as he crawled over me to drape himself along the length of my body. I shivered at his warmth through the sheet. I could feel his breath on my neck as he dropped a kiss on my shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    I was ever so grateful my face was mostly covered with the cloth. At least he couldn’t see me cringe, even if I couldn’t keep the disdain from my voice. “No. It’s nothing.”
    His warm arm wrapped around me, rolling me to my side and pulling me up against his chest so we were spooning, his front to my back, the sheet slightly bunching between us. The damp cloth fell from my face and lay crumpled beside me on my pillow. “Surely it was something, Lara, to make you so upset.” Suddenly he stiffened. “Was it Marla? Has she done something?”
    “No!” I gasped, then within the same breath my face crumpled. “Yes. No... I don’t know.” I started crying again.
    “Oh, shhh shhh shhh...” He rose up on his elbow so he could look down at me, mumbling sweet nonsense in French. I was much quicker to stop crying this time. I stared up at him with watery eyes and gave him an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m an idiot.”
    He returned my weak smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No, you’re not.”
    “I don’t belong here.”
    He blanched at this. “Don’t be silly. Of course you belong here. What do you mean?”
    I sat up and leaned against the headboard, careful to keep the sheet wrapped around my torso. “I mean,” I said, “that I’m not cut out for this kind of lifestyle.”
    His brows furrowed. “‘Lifestyle’ Chérie ?”
    “This...” I waived my hand around in an effort to convey my meaning. “...party yacht lifestyle. The whole free-love and life’s-an-orgy mindset. It’s not my thing.” I could tell he wanted to say something but I cut him off, speeding up my speech like an auctioneer. “And I know the way we met would lead you to believe differently, but I can’t do this. I can’t have this type of physical relationship with someone and not have it mean something. I can’t welcome you into my bed at night knowing you’ll be in someone else’s bed come morning. My heart can’t take it. This isn’t ‘fun’ for me. Maybe it was in the beginning, but it’s not anymore.”
    He stared at me, waiting to be sure I was finished before trying to answer me. Before he could draw a breath to speak, and before I lost my nerve, I blurted out the crux of my problem. “I’ve fallen in love with you Julien.”
    His eyes grew large and his perfect bow lips parted in surprise. I had caught him off guard and he was at a loss for words. I immediately regretted my confession. “Oh, God.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Please just forget I said that.” I dropped my face into my hands in mortification. I could feel my cheeks burning in humiliation.
    He