Van reached for my hand, moving it away from his mouth as a smile came to his lips. “Technically, I think I was the one who broke...” He let the sentence end as his eyebrows moved up and down.

“I didn’t come to Ashland looking for sex, to give away my virginity, or for another marriage proposal. I came here because of your job listing. All the coincidences...” I took a step back and away from his magnetic pull. “They seem...” I wasn’t sure how to describe them.

“That listing has been open for three months,” Van said. “You’re the first candidate to show for an interview. The rest have all been frightened off by the unknown.”

“Should I be frightened?”

Van nodded with a striking grin. “Very, but not in a bad way. You, Julia, should be exhilarated, excited, and filled with anticipation about the unknown. You said you were looking for a new life. Here it is. All you have to do is jump in with both feet. I’m not going to deny that the chain of events has occurred quickly. Call it fate, destiny, or cosmic irony. Whatever the greater power is that brought you to me and me to you was beyond either of our control. I believe my grandmother called it red sin.”

My head tilted. “Red sin?”

“She said it was an old legend. Red is the color of blood, sacrifice, danger, and courage. It’s also associated with heat, passion, and sexuality. When two people meet unexpectedly with an unexplainable attraction that defies common understanding, it’s called red sin.”

“Does that make it bad?” I asked, intrigued.

“My grandmother would say that bad is what you make out of what you’re given. So is good. I never believed in red sin before you. Now, I can’t deny that it’s real. What we do with it is what will eventually define its goodness or badness. Am I alone, Julia? Do you not feel the same thing?”

“I do.” I took a deep breath. “I’m attracted. I don’t love you.”

“Is that instrumental in marriage? Do you love Butler?”

I took another step back and spun in a slow circle. “That’s not a fair question. Skylar and I have known one another our entire lives.”

“Yet you were going to marry him, a man you’ve known your whole life, were never intimate with, and can’t admit to loving.”

“We were intimate. We just never—”

Van stepped closer, reaching for my waist and holding my hips against his hard, muscular body. “Any man who has spent his life near you, Julia, and hasn’t wanted or pursued the divine pleasure of being inside you isn’t a man who’s honest with you or with himself.”

“We had an agreement.”

“An agreement. We could have one of those too.”

8. Julia

Julia