Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Three years ago, stepsiblings Julia and Nick found everything they ever wanted—each other. But their dreams of a future together were ripped apart in one violent moment. Nick walked away from the accident without a scratch. Julia didn’t walk for two years.
Separated since that day, Nick and Julia have taken different paths. While Julia struggled to put her life back together, Nick became a brand-new tech billionaire. Each is sure the other has moved on. Now Nick is back in town and he needs to know just one thing:
How much does Julia remember from the day of the accident? He’ll give anything, down to his last dollar, to win her back. But after what he did, how can Julia ever trust Nick again?
This is a standalone novella with no cliffhangers.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
1
Nick
The three of us sat at one end of the long, shiny conference table. I didn’t know why the hospital administrator had chosen this big room for a meeting with only four people. My sister Julia was a little late—perfectly understandable for someone in a wheelchair. The administrator and the Chief of the ICU were both staring at their phones. Very important, busy men, waiting for my sister.
I say sister, she’s my stepsister, actually. I hadn’t seen her for almost three years, and honestly? I was terrified. I kept drinking coffee, like more caffeine was what I needed to calm down. I didn’t know what Julia would do. Would she accuse me, make a big scene? God help me, would she cry? I’d been gone since before she started life in a wheelchair, and I didn’t even know how she was handling it. Dad and Lucy, her mom, wouldn’t tell me anything about her, at her insistence, they both said. Jesus, she must have wanted to kill me. I had to be out of my mind to be setting all this up.
“Does Julia have an aide or a nurse helping her?” I asked.
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” the doctor said. He gave me kind of a weird look. “She hasn’t needed that level of care for quite a while.”
“Well, good,” I said. I mean, what do you say? I’m so glad she can drag her useless legs through life without help?
This meeting was happening because I was donating a new ICU to Greenwood Hospital, the hospital that saved Julia’s life. I wanted to dedicate it to her, name it after her, put her beautiful face on all the publicity for it. It was almost ready to be opened for business and this was the point where Julia’s part would start. It was the least I could do.
“I think your sister’s involvement—” the administrator said.
“Step. She’s my stepsister.”
“Okay. I think she is just what the project needs,” he finished.
“Yes, I’m hoping it will be inspirational for the public,” I said. “To see how well she’s doing, even with the limitations she has, thanks to the care she received here.” I know I sounded like an ass, but I couldn’t help myself. The doctor was giving me that funny look again, so I went on, “It’s so brave of her to be willing to do this.”
A young woman in nurse’s scrubs walked into the room and sat down at the table across from me. I had taken the breath to ask her who she was when she looked into my eyes.
It was Julia.
The other two men, the hospital administrator and the doctor, had risen to their feet to shake Julia’s hand and greet her. I could only sit there and stare.
That face. That thick honey-colored hair. That little mole at the corner of her mouth that I couldn’t look at without wanting to touch. Julia. The last time I saw her face, it was twisted in pain, barely conscious, in this hospital. How could I let years go by without a glimpse of that face?
She had walked into this room. Walked! I felt like I’d fallen asleep in the middle of a movie and woken to realize I didn’t know what was going on. What the hell was going on?
She had politely greeted the other men, now she was looking at me. Not smiling. “Nick?” she finally said.
I couldn’t think. I said the words that were flashing red in my mind: “I thought you were in a wheelchair!”
“I was in a wheelchair,” she said. “Now I’m not. Can we get started?”
The hospital administrator took control of the meeting. The sound of his voice floated around the room. My part—the money part—was really already done. It’s a good thing, too, because I could not concentrate on anything. Except Julia, and she didn’t say much. She didn’t look at me at all, but I could not stop staring at her. Her face had changed a bit. It was thinner, more angular. She was only twenty-one years old, but the soft roundness of her teens was gone. Her eyes seemed larger, the hollows of her cheeks more noticeable. And there was something else. Before the accident, I used to love to watch that little mole dip and dance as emotions crossed her face, as she laughed, even at things that weren’t very funny. Now, the mole was still. Her face was like a mask. A beautiful mask. Had I done this to her, too?