He cupped her face in both hands. “Julianne, your mere presence comforts me. But I was exhausted, and I’d been drinking…a recipe for disaster.” He shook his head and looked ashamed. “I didn’t want our first time together to have so much baggage, with all the ghosts of my past swirling in the air. I want us to go to a place that is ours alone and make some new memories. Some happy ones.”
