Free After The One (The One Series Duet) by Danielle Allen Page A

calendar. There was no reason for you to bypass her.” He was quiet for a minute, listening. “We can discuss this at another time.”
    I eyed him and could feel the tension rolling off him. He didn’t raise his voice, but the rough tone indicated that he was not pleased with the caller. He clenched his jaw and that worried me, but the fact that he hadn’t made eye contact with me worried me even more.
    “I’ll give you one hour. Yeah. Friday night. I’ll have Beverly get back to you with my availability.”
    Julian hung up the phone, tossing it on the couch cushion. He let his head drop back.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “That was Robert Brady.”
    My stomach lurched. “What did he want?”
    Julian lifted his head and looked at me. “He said he wanted to congratulate us on our engagement and it felt too impersonal to have his assistant call mine and he didn’t want to go through Beverly when he could just call me directly.” He shook his head hard once. “Arrogant asshole.”
    I moved my laptop and then moved his off of his lap. He wrapped his arm around me as I curled into his side. “I’m sorry, baby.”
    “No, I’m sorry. We should be celebrating on Friday, but instead, I need to meet with him and deal with this.” He rubbed his hand against my skin. “I’m going to make it up to you though.”
    “No need. I’m coming with you.”
    Julian laughed. “I didn’t think you’d want to.”
    “Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but we are going to settle this thing once and for all. Maybe seeing us together will change his mind and his heart. Maybe he’ll let you out of the contract once he sees that this is real and doesn’t need to be exploited.”
    A ghost of a smile graced Julian’s lips as his eyes explored mine.
    I felt myself beaming at him. “I love the way you look at me.”
    “And how is that?” His quiet question pulled at my heart.
    I never answered him earlier, I remembered, the familiar rattle in my chest present.
    “You look at me like you’re promising me the world,” I answered faintly.
    His chest rose and fell twice as my words hung in the air. “Zoe…” He brought his forehead to mine. “I look at you like you are my world,” he uttered so quietly, I felt the words more than I heard them.
    My heart stopped and my breath caught in my chest.
    I kissed him my ‘I love you’ and as his lips enveloped mine, I felt his ‘I love you’ in return.
    Even though there were case files I needed to review for work, I spent the rest of the night on the couch with Julian. He alternated between building wedding playlists and writing lyrics for potential wedding songs. I jotted down boutiques I wanted to check out for wedding dresses and then I found the bridesmaid dress for my bridesmaids.
    I need to call Keisha and Lenny tomorrow. I have to tell them I’m engaged before they read it somewhere. And I need to ask them to be bridesmaids.
    Keisha Hall was a close friend from college and we also went through law school together. She’d taken the bar exam when I originally was supposed to take it and landed an awesome job in San Diego.
    Lennon Oliver, better known as Lenny, was a close friend who worked at Breakers Bar with me. She moved to L.A. to be an actress at eighteen and then by twenty-one she’d changed her entire life plan. At the time I met her, her life goal was to be a bartender in a cool bar and give unsolicited advice.
    I didn’t see either of the women as often as I used to due to our schedules and the distance, but whenever we talked, it was like no time or distance or life change had occurred. We always picked up right where we’d left off because our friendship stood the test of time.
    I sighed.
    Hearing the news of my engagement from anyone but me would hurt them.
    I’m just going to send them a text telling them and then I’ll talk to them on the phone tomorrow.
    Julian laughed as I finished up my second text message.
    Putting my phone down, I looked over at him and smiled.