Julian (Beautiful Mine #1) by Gia DeLuca Page A

don’t think my dad would allow it. I’d probably be disowned. Cut off.”
    “Do you even want to be a doctor, Spencer?” I asked. “Biology was your worst subject. I did all your homework, remember?”
    “Yes,” he replied. “I do.”
    “Whatever daddy tells you to do, right?”
    “It’s not like that.”
    “Okay.” I didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
    “Hey, now,” Spencer said, pulling me into his arms and wrapping them around me. He leaned down and planted small kisses on my forehead.
    “I’ve missed you,” I blurted. The words came so natural when I was in his arms. “I never stopped loving you.”
    I silently kicked myself for laying my cards on the table like that. Carys would’ve killed me for admitting that to him. It gave him the power I’d been trying to take back for so long.
    Spencer stopped kissing my forehead, took me by the hand, and led me back to my car. My heart sunk. Our little meeting was coming to an end just when it was starting to get good.
    “I love you too,” he said. “Always have. Always will.”
    “Where do we go from here?”
    He shrugged. “Let’s just play things by ear and see what happens. I still have a year left at Vanderbilt, anyway. Then four years of med school after that. Then my residency…”
    “So, you wouldn’t come back home to be with me?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You can’t go to school around here?”
    “I would if I could,” he said, his blue eyes earnest. I believed him. “My dad would never let me in a million years. You know that.”
    “So what do I do, just wait for you? That’s not fair to me.” I tried to stifle the emotional vomit that was about to happen. “Would you want me to move to be near you?”
    “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” he said with a chuckle, his words slicing my heart like a knife.
    “Maybe this was a mistake,” I said. “Us talking again.”
    I crossed my arms and stared down at the greening spring grass. The faint rumble of thunder filled the thick, humid air and tiny raindrops began to fall.
    “Hey,” he said, cupping my cheek in his hand. “Don’t be like that.”
    “But it is like that, Spencer,” I said, stifling sobs. “You were the love of my life. You were my first love. When you broke up with me, it destroyed me. I’d never felt so worthless. I was depressed for a year. I never thought I’d be happy again. I almost had a nervous fucking breakdown because of you.”
    Spencer winced, as if he hadn’t known. I was sure he did, though. People talked in Halverford.
    “You told me we were going to be together forever,” I continued, “and I believed you. I was a naïve little teenager who believed everything that came out of your stupid, lying mouth.”
    “Evie,” he said, bracing his hands on my shoulders and looking me squarely in the eyes. “You need to calm down.”
    “Can you blame me, Spencer? What are you doing to me right now?”
    “I’m telling you, it’ll be okay this time. Everything’s going to work out.” His words were convincing but his expression not so much.
    “Easy for you to say,” I huffed as I wriggled out of his hold. “I’m over this.”
    “What are you talking about?” Spencer asked. “Over what?”
    “You. Me. Us. This entire conversation.”
    “All I’m saying,” he said with a frustrated sigh, his voice low, “is that we should keep in touch and see what happens. I don’t like not having you in my life, Evie.”
    “You choose to not have me in your life,” I reminded him.
    “Look, if you meet someone else and fall in love, I’ll bow out gracefully and you and your new guy can live happily ever after,” he said with sort of casualness that broke my heart, as if I wasn’t worth fighting for. He rubbed my arm in a failed attempt to comfort me as he stared at my tear-filled eyes.
    “You really know how to make a girl feel good,” I said, looking away. I reached down, clicking the car door open.