We were starting to gel as a family.” Back and forth she walked, her heels tapping. “But suddenly, during our Rocky marathon break, he came back in the room and acted funny. He’s withdrawn completely. I’m worried about him, Carina.”
“I love those Rocky movies.”
“Focus.”
“Sorry. Have you tried to talk to him about it?”
“Several times. He completely shut down. Wolfe is worried, too. They used to work out together every day, but he’s missed all their sessions.”
“Did you try sex?”
“yeah, he’s been avoiding me.”
“This is serious.” Carina nibbled on her lip. “Maybe Max can talk to him? They’re close. Maybe it’s a guy thing.”
Julietta adjusted the photos of her nieces and nephews so they were lined up perfectly straight. Why couldn’t the cleaning person put them back in their proper place when she was done? She held back an impatient sigh and refo-cused. “When do you guys leave?”
“Two more days. I’ll talk to Max tonight. Try to get Sawyer to come to the house. Mama wants to have a big farewell dinner, and we want both of you there.”
Julietta stopped. The doubts assailed her; the sheer raw-ness of her emotions screamed something was wrong but she didn’t know how to fix it. “What if it’s me? What if he doesn’t love me the way I need?”
Her sister got up and pulled her in for a tight hug.
“He does. Give him some time. I don’t think he ever had anyone believe in him the way you do. And I think it’s the opposite. I truly believe he doesn’t think he’s worthy of you.”
Juliettta hugged her back. “Thanks. I have a meeting in a minute. Meet you at Mama’s tonight?”
“yes.” Carina got her coat. “Trust your gut, and do what you think is right.”
After her sister left, Julietta pulled herself together and headed toward the conference room. She needed to be calm. Cool. Allow him to work it out on his own and be patient. She clicked off her earpiece, grabbed her files, and took her place at the table. The department heads trickled in, laughing and joking. She fell into her role without hesitation, automatically bringing business back to being the main focus, challenging her directors on various questions, pushing for more efficiency, better production, bigger sales, always more.
Her fingers gripped her pen, eyes unfocused on the screen. The PowerPoint slides flashed with fury in an endless rhythm.
She needed to talk to her husband.
The little voice inside whispered, growing louder as the meeting droned on. Julietta stood in front of her team and knew in that moment nothing else mattered except pre-serving the precious gift she had found in a simple business merger.
Love.
The pen rolled from her fingers. She pulled off her headset and threw it on the table. Her employees stared at her, startled at her sudden jerky motions. “I have to go.”
Her assistant, elena, raised her voice. “We’ll wait if you need to take a call. Marcus can pass out the new marketing statistics.”
She shook her head hard. “No. I need to leave. I have to go talk to someone. Meeting dismissed.”
She fled the building without a glance back.
…
The door slid open soundlessly and she entered the office.
He stood with his back toward her. Dressed in a custom designed black suit, the cut of his pants and tight jacket showed off the hard lines of his body. His hair was loose, and blond waves hit the tops of his shoulders. His stillness reminded her of someone separate from civilization, as if he drew in the world’s energy and locked it up inside himself. Her heart lurched in pain and a wanting that would never go away.
“you need to talk to me. Tell me. I deserve that.”
He turned. Those piercing tiger eyes met her gaze and shredded past the surface to her soul. Slowly, he inclined his head. “of course. you’re right. I apologize for avoiding you.
I just don’t think this is working out.”
She swallowed past the fear and remained still. “Care to explain?”
He spoke as if he wasn’t in the room with her. A wall surrounded him, reminding her of a pod who spoke human and acted human but owned no soul. “I told you from the beginning I wasn’t good at this. I think spending so much time together, and being married, blurred the lines. I don’t think you’re in love with me, Julietta. If we take a step back and concentrate on why we did this in the first place, we can go back to the way things were. I can’t risk Purity because of emotions that aren’t even real.”
Her temper snapped. She closed the distance, moved past the wall, and made bodily contact. He jerked as she grabbed his biceps and dug her fingernails into his jacket.
“Don’t you dare patronize me about my own emotions,”
she hissed. “Do you think I throw words like that around? I love you. It’s not going away, and it’s not neat and tidy. Now, cut the bullshit and tell me what happened. Did something from the past come up?” She paused. “or someone?”
The surprised gleam in his eye confirmed her suspicions.
“exactly what I thought. If it was that bastard who put those marks on you, I’ll kill him myself. What happened? Did he or she dredge up the past? remind you of all the reasons you don’t deserve to be happy?”
She struck a nerve. rage and grief battled for domi-nance, and he grabbed her arms, shaking her slightly. “Why are you doing this? I’m not good for you, never was. Don’t ruin this between us. Let’s step back, get our footing, and try to focus on why we did this in the first place. To settle a debt. To make your mama happy. To solidify La Dolce Famiglia.”
“Fuck that,” she growled. He was in front of her but hovered on the edge of nothingness. Julietta was afraid if she let him slip over, she’d never get him back. “I don’t care about work or La Dolce Famiglia or anything I once believed in. right now, all I want is you. Now tell me the truth.”
“My foster father contacted me. From prison.”
The words were ripped out of his mouth in a snarl. He let go of her and stepped back, as if he couldn’t stand the thought of touching her. He shook his head and rubbed his forehead. “Tell me,” she said softly. “I deserve to know, don’t you think?”
“The bastard’s up for parole, and he wants me to write a recommendation on his behalf. If I don’t, he said he’d leak out to the press what happened, who I once was.”
The air pulsed with electricity as if a tornado hovered, ready to strike. In the quiet of the center of the storm, she took a deep breath. “And who were you?”
“I lost my parents when I was nine. Went into the sys-tem. Got picked up by him and his alcoholic wife. They liked to take the older ones since no one wanted them. Always had a few kids going in and out, but I became his favorite.
He liked to beat the pride out of me, as he used to say. I learned early not to tell, or the others got hurt. It’s funny when you hear stories like that: The first reaction from people is always the same. Just tell the social worker. But a lot of them aren’t like in the movies, where they want to help.
Many of them just need to get their placements done and turn a blind eye to a bruise now and then.
“Anyway, there was a little boy named Danny. Looked up to me. As I grew older, Dickhead liked to use the younger ones as bait. you know, if I didn’t do what he asked, he’d beat the shit out of them instead of me. I could take being beaten, but they couldn’t. I counted the days till I was eighteen and legally free. By that time, I’d promised Danny I’d take him away. But I needed to get myself fixed up with a job and a place first. I told him to wait for me.”