She’d said she loved him a thousand times in her life. He knew she did. As a friend. As a “brother.” But did she love him? Julian had been inside her, knew every secret of her body, knew where to press her, how to make her moan, what she ate, what she feared, where to tickle her. Would she rather have spent that night with Garrett?
Garrett.
His blood boiled at the thought of his brother. Even though he knew Molly’s feelings for Garrett had been based on a kiss that Julian himself had given her, he continued to feel so jealous he couldn’t even see straight. He couldn’t believe that she would betray him to his brother like she had. So why had she?
Had two decades of pure, raw friendship meant nothing to her?
He desperately tried fishing his memories for clues of her and his brother together. Looks he could’ve missed. Touches that had more weight to them than they should have. But he came up with nothing. Every memory of Molly was tied to one man, and that man was him. Maybe he had not always been a man. But when he had been a boy, he had been her boy.
Jules, Jules, gimme a piggyback ride.
And when Kate had tried to patch her up after a good scrape and would coo down at Molly in a maternal way, “I’m going to kiss your boo-boo better,” little Molly would point at Julian across the room and grin. “No, I want him to do it.”
And later, as teens: Teach me to surf, Jules. Will you drive me over to art class, Jules?
And as an adult: Coffee? Tea? Call me! I’m still alive, you know, just been painting!
But now he was alone.
So damned alone.
Yeah, that was him.
The careless playboy with a broken heart.
* * *
The sun shone overhead so bright, Molly was surprised she didn’t disintegrate like a vampire under its glare. After being locked in her studio for weeks, it was almost a miracle her skin did not instantly peel off from sunlight exposure. She might even deserve such a fate.
At least if you asked Julian, who, she assumed, wanted her dead.
Eyes narrowed to shield herself from some of the sun’s brightness, she gazed down at the envelope she gripped in her clammy hands, recognizing the handwriting as that of Julian’s assistant, Ms. Watts.
So. This is what their friendship and one-night stand—because truly, that was all they’d managed to have together—had come to.
Communicating through the post office.
She closed her mailbox and had to sit down on the grass next to the sidewalk and just stare down at that white envelope.
Her texts had not been answered.
Her calls went straight to voice mail.
She wanted to kill the jerk for being so silly and dramatic, and at the same time she wanted to slap herself for opening her big mouth to Garrett without thinking.
Julian was, and had always been, an extremely private man. He showed his cool and aloof side to everyone but only showed his true self to a select few. Molly knew, deep down, that no one knew Julian better than she did.
He couldn’t stand to talk about politics but oh, he sure loved to steal her Lucky Charms marshmallows. He was a sports and sports-memorabilia fanatic, and if he was not a businessman, he’d probably spend all day doing water sports at the lake surfer, with his suntan and lazy charm and a wakeboard under him. He’d never felt as if he belonged in his family—never really felt as if he belonged anywhere.
And that was why she couldn’t stand to remember what she’d unwittingly done to him.
He’d longed for freedom in his life, and instead she’d blown the whistle on him to his family so they could tie him back up and keep him from flying. She had done that. To the man she had constantly, throughout her life, loved in every way a woman could love a man.
The worst part of it was that Julian never let anyone in.
But Molly had always come in through the back door.
And he’d let her. Enjoyed it, even. Cared for her, protected her, coddled her.
And she’d accidentally betrayed him to a man whom he’d believed she wanted over him.
How could she ever make things right if he didn’t even want to talk to her?
It had been fifteen days since she’d seen him now, and each day she’d tried to make amends. Her last attempt had been returning every penny of the money he’d wired to her for her unfinished mural. With a note that read, I’ve never left a work unfinished until now. Please give me a chance—I’d like to finish this.
She’d written a thousand notes before settling on that one. Some had said, I love you and please and forgive me. But she’d been too much of a chicken to send any of those, and so she’d settled on the most businesslike one, thinking it was probably her best chance of getting an entry with him.
She drew a deep breath and peeled the envelope open with shaky fingers. The check she had written to him for the $150,000 fell into her open palm, shredded to pieces. There was no note. Except her own note. Shredded to pieces, as well.
She thought she heard her heart crack.
Her eyes welled with tears and she ducked her face when a car approached. Tires screeched, a motor shut down and doors opened.
Kate and Beth stepped out of the Catering, Canapés and Curry van. “Molly?” Kate said, alarmed.
Molly used her hair to shield her profile from view and jammed the pieces of the check and note back into the envelope, rising to her feet and quickly wiping at her cheeks. “Hey. I’ll help you.” She didn’t look at them as she went to the back of the van and began unloading their empty trays, but she could feel their eyes on her as she headed inside the house.
Beth caught up with her in the kitchen. “Molly?”
Molly prayed to God her eyes weren’t red, and even smiled as she set the trays down on the kitchen counter. “Hey, Beth.”
She could see the concern in Beth’s expression, and she feared that there was even a little pity there, too. “You know, Julian came by the house the other day. To speak to Landon. He resigned from the Daily.”
Molly nodded as her airway constricted. “Good for him.”
Beth studied her. Molly knew she was a good woman. She had known heartache and a horrid divorce before she had found true love in her life, and suddenly Molly wanted to wail her heart out to her. Because surely this woman would understand how it felt when you were ripped apart, shredded like your notes and broken. But then Kate’s heart would break for Molly if she saw her like this, and Molly didn’t want to break her sister’s heart.
It was her own fault that all this had happened. Kate had warned her so many times, so, so many times, about Julian. Maybe Molly had even had it coming.
“You know—” Beth grasped her hand and gave her an encouraging squeeze “—if it makes you feel any better, he’s not doing too good, either.”
Molly looked down at her bare toes, her chest heavy as if it were carrying the weight of a whole country. “It doesn’t,” she admitted, feeling like a bug as she remembered Julian’s anger, his disappointment. The last thing she’d wanted was to make him suffer. “But thanks anyway, Beth.”
That afternoon she went back to finishing the two canvases she had left for her exhibit at the Blackstone Gallery in New York. They ended up awful, tenebrous and depressing, reflecting her mood. But she still owed the gallery these two works, and because she had no time to start anew, they would have to do.
At night she lay in bed, her eyes dry as she heard Kate on the phone: “Not doing well… What are we going to do?”
Molly wanted to make a humble suggestion and tell her, and whomever she was talking to, to stay the hell away from her life, but then she just put her pillow over her face and groaned.
“Molly,” Kate said from the door, a shaft of light entering with her.
“I heard you, Kate. I have ears, you know
, and we don’t live in a mansion,” she grumbled angrily, flinging the pillow aside.
The mattress squeaked as her sister sat by her side and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Moo. I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. With you and Julian, I mean.”
“No. You were right all along.” Molly rolled to her side and pulled her hand free to stick it under her cheek, suddenly rejecting any physical contact that didn’t come from where she most craved it.
“Molly, we’re planning something. Garrett, Landon, Beth and I. If I tell you what it is, will you go with it?”
“If it involves me lying again to anyone or pretending to be something I’m not, count me out.”
“No, Moo, this is actually a good plan,” Kate said, a smile in her voice. “All you’d really need to do is follow some instructions in a note that I’m going to give you this weekend. The note will lead you to Julian.”
“I hate him.”
“You do?”
“I’ve never met such a frustrating bastard in my life!”
“All right, then.” The bed squeaked again as Kate got up to leave.
Molly sprang back up on the bed, her heart picking up speed as she switched on the lamp, and frantically blurted, “I was never really with him, Kate. It was all a lie. I was confused and thought that Garrett was the one who kissed me that night at the masquerade. I foolishly thought Julian could help me make Garrett jealous so he’d come around, but then I realized all along…”
Kate cocked her head from the doorway, her eyes brimming with understanding. “I know,” she said. Coming back, she sat down and ran her hand down the length of Molly’s hair. “Do you really think I believed that little act? You two were so obviously not lovers I could’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so very worried.”
“But it was actually Julian who kissed me at the masquerade and I…I got mixed up. It was like my soul recognized him, but my brain couldn’t or maybe didn’t want to. All I know is that I needed to find this man and I needed to be with Julian while I did… It’s his fault I can never look at other men, never want to be with anyone else. I even think I was pretending to want to make Garrett jealous but really wanted to make Julian jealous instead.”
“I know, I know. Relax. That man is your rock, Molly. And you’re his soil. You have to be with him. We made a grave mistake keeping you two apart for so long. Garrett is worried sick about him. He’s been running himself to death. Not eating. Not opening up to anyone. His family feels responsible for this, even his mother is trying to apologize for all her earlier threats, and he won’t hear anything from anyone. He’s really hurting, Molly. You want him, don’t you?”
“You have no idea,” she gasped brokenly, nodding so fast she was almost dizzy. The mere idea of being able to see him again was electrifying. Of talking to him. Touching him, even if only with the merest tip of her littlest finger. Oh, God, it hurt so much to love him from afar, reminding her of all the misery of growing up without him.
She had always dreamed of having a family, because hers had been broken before she’d even gotten to know her own parents. She’d just never tried for one of her own because she’d believed Julian would never be a part of it. Now a little kernel of hope sprang in her center, and she opened her eyes.
But she feared to hope too much and end up wretched. “Why?” she asked Kate. “Why is everyone going to help us, after all this time?”
“Because I love you, Molly. And you love him. And he loves you. And we all love you both.”
Molly coiled her arms around Kate’s waist and squeezed her sister as tight as possible, sighing when Kate squeezed her back just as hard. “I miss him so much, Kate.”
“I know, Moo. I know you do.”
Ten
It was a good day to be at the lake house. Sunny and breezy days on the cusp of summer were hard to come by in Texas. But that was just what the Gage family got when they visited their Canyon Lake home on the last Saturday of the month.
Julian had not planned to set foot here, but Landon had insisted, and he’d grudgingly agreed merely because he would be able to water-ski, swim and do the WaveRunner thing. After a day of that, the only thing that would be aching would be his goddamned muscles rather than his heart.
Now the wind slapped him as he roared across the lake on the WaveRunner, racing Garrett on his right and Landon on his left. He squinted in the direction of the mansion, which stood white and regal by the lake, with a small dock and bright pink bougainvillea hanging from the terrace columns. He could see his mother already seated at the long terrace table, calmly pouring glasses of lemonade for the two figures seated with her—Landon’s wife, Beth, and his stepson, David.
Julian swerved and spewed water behind him as he jolted the machine to a stop right beside the dock. He tied up the WaveRunner and jumped out, wet suit soaked, dripping a path up the wood planks as he ambled toward the terrace. When he arrived, he plopped down on a chair and took a glass of lemonade from his mother.
“Landon tells me you’re not coming back to the Daily,” his mother said without preamble. “Are you certain about that?”
Julian nodded, not up to explaining the deal he’d made with Landon and his reasons for it. The point was, he would continue to support the Daily with JJG Enterprises’ services, personally making sure the Daily’s client base thrived. But he was riding solo now.
Eleanor patted her bun absently with one hand, making a puppy-dog plea with her eyes until he groaned. “I’ve got 1,210 businesses already signed up for the services of JJG Enterprises. No, Mother. The Daily is my past. I’m a free agent from now on.”
She relented quickly, and Julian knew it was due to the guilt that gnawed at her over the way she’d attempted to separate him from Molly over the years, and the pain it had ended up causing him now. In fact, she’d even relented about her threat of cutting off his trust fund because he’d quit the family business, though she was still trying to convince him to come back.
Now his brothers strolled over, wet suits soaked, and plopped down just as a redhead emerged from within the house, carrying a salad bowl.
Julian stiffened at the same time Garrett did.
It must have been the red hair, shining in the sun, flowing behind her in the wind. For a blind second, Julian thought it was Molly. He didn’t even know how he felt about that, but his heart kicked in his chest like a wild thing. He was relieved when he realized that it was Kate.
He calmed back down while Garrett went over to take the bowl from her hands and whisper something in her ear.
“Hi, Julian,” Kate said, spotting him. “You’ve been so busy all morning I haven’t been able to say hi.”
“You just did, so now you can sleep soundly,” he said.
Then he realized how grumpy he sounded. Well, hell, he could still tackle some kayaks and hike this afternoon to let out some of his frustration. His every muscle ached, but there was still some juice in them, and he didn’t want to have a drop left by the time he was finished. It wasn’t enough; he needed to push harder. Push every single muscle to failure.
Servants brought out trays of canapés and wine. While the family chatted, Julian sat in silence, brooding when no second redhead came out of the house. Kate had been invited. So where the hell was Molly?
He wanted to ask, his tongue itching in his mouth. He wanted to ask where she was and how she’d been doing and why in the world she had betrayed him. He’d never gone twenty-three days, four hours, thirty-two minutes and about thirty seconds without talking to her. The time had dragged on so hellishly that it felt like years as far as he was concerned. However he measured it, this was proving to be the crappiest period of his life so far.
Kate kept her attention on him, and he could feel her gaze on his profile as she asked, “You’re not going to eat anything?”
Julian stared at the sal
ad bowl. Molly used to get all of his croutons and he’d eat all of her raisins.
He shook his head, not even hungry anymore.
Beth and Landon kept squeezing each other’s hands tenderly as they nibbled salad and drank their lemonades, and the grenade inside Julian’s stomach seemed to be ready to detonate. His oldest brother had a truly doting wife and a great kid, and he doted on them both in return. The family had been thrilled that Landon had been able to find love again after his first wife and their son had died. They thought he’d closed himself off for good, yet Beth had opened him up like a Christmas present and found gold.
Usually, the sight of them brought Julian immense cheer, but today he found it was…difficult. To see that connection.
Because the only person he’d ever had it with was not with him here.
“So how is dear Molly, Kate?” his mother asked, very politically bringing her up, damn her. “I’m so disappointed she couldn’t come.”
Lips compressed into a thin line, Julian stared at his empty glass of lemonade, wishing he’d gone for vodka.
“She was disappointed, too,” Kate said, “but she had that exhibit in New York and had to fly over for the opening.”
Julian refused to think about Molly flying all alone to her solo exhibit. Getting chatted up by someone next to her in first class. By her fans and collectors at the gallery. It was an important time in her career. And Molly had celebrated…alone.
He refused to think about how he should’ve been there, always had been there.
He restlessly shifted in his seat, trying to console himself with the thought that at least Josh Blackstone, her gallerist, would be there with her. Julian’s old acquaintance was as ruthless as a hellhound, but fair with his artists and especially with Molly, whom he’d taken under his wing a long time ago when Julian urged her to submit her works for his consideration.
Blackstone had flipped, called it feisty and fresh, and the rest had been history.