The loud and determined knocking startled Juliet at first. She hopped to the foyer and seeing J.T. through the peephole, she stopped to consider her mood. Was she in the mood for more of this? Why not, she opened the door.
“Welcome back.” She turned and left him to close the door behind him.
“What happened, Juliet?”
“What do you mean? she asked.
“We were supposed to follow the plan.”
“I did follow your plan.”
He nodded slowly. “Who’s Randolph?”
“He’s not part of this.”
“Who is he?”
She remained silent then answered, “A friend.”
He smiled, humored that she still refused to divulge that Randolph was her brother. “Why didn’t you tell me that Randolph was your brother?”
She smiled and shrugged. “He’s my half-brother,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What difference does it make? You and I wanted the same thing, and we got it. The problem is J.T. you’ve changed your mind, I haven’t.
“Oh I know what I want. It’s the same thing I’ve wanted for ten months.” His jaw tightened again.
“And I need my freedom so everything worked out for the best.”
“The best for whom,” he challenged.
“Wait a minute. Your deal was very specific.”
“Enough! I can’t take this anymore.” He grabbed her by her arms, pulled her to his chest and kissed her soundly. “I love you Juliet and you love me, and you and I are going to finish what we started,” he promised her breathlessly.
Juliet shook her head no. “Not now, not ever,” she said. J.T. went silent and just looked at her. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because it makes me feel…”
“Wanted, needed, desired, loved…”
“…Uneasy.” He reached out and gently stroked her face. “What do you want now J.T.?”
“To end this.”
“I believe you already did.” She stepped back.
“No, that was only the beginning. I love you Juliet and whatever happened before doesn’t matter. No more deals, no more arrangements and no more agreements. I suggest a simple beginning, you and I in front of a minister and hundreds of invited guests. Will you marry me Juliet?”
Juliet shook her head slowly, seriously. The memory of her father’s wedding was clear. J.T. had just proposed, but she had no choice but to turn him down. “No, I’m sorry J.T.. But I realize that you were right. I think it’s best that we go our separate ways. And since our circles have never crossed in the past, I don’t suppose we’ll have a problem in the future.” She walked over to the front door.
“No.”
“Yes, plus I’ve decided to either go to New York with Lena or to London. Either way it’s for the best.”
“No.”
“Yes. Goodbye J.T.” She opened and held the door for him.
He walked past her without a word. When he got to the gate he turned and said. “To be continued.”
She closed the door softly.
Juliet leaned against the door frame and watched J.T. get into his car and drive away. Wyatt Bridges may have perfected the
walk-away
, but today she was truly her father’s daughter.
“Senator, there’s a gentlemen by the name of J.T. Evans, here to see you. He said that you were expecting him, but I don’t have him in your appointment book or on your calendar. And you have a committee meeting in half an hour.”
Randolph chuckled and shook his head. “Send him in.”
J.T. marched in angrily, slammed down in the nearest chair, stood and walked across the room, turned to Randolph then got right to the point. “She’s killing me.”
Randolph laughed joyfully. “Welcome to my world.”
J.T. looked at Randolph murderously. He had no idea why he had even come to the Senate building. But he had to do something.
When he left Juliet he drove back to the office. But instead of going inside he sat out in the parking lot. Then he drove to the townhouse, to McLean and finally he found himself driving in DC traffic on his way to Capitol Hill.
“I presume you’ve spoken to Juliet.”
“I have.”
“Based on that remark, I presume you two are
not
back together then.”
“You presume correctly.”
“Pity, if you ask me you deserve each other.”
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “Your concern is heartwarming.”
Randolph laughed openly.
“She’s killing me. I proposed and she turned me down. Did you know that she intends to go to New York with Lena or possibly to London?”
Randolph continued laughing. “Yes, she told me.”
“And you’re just going to allow her to leave?”
“I understand your concerns, but I assure you Juliet is a grown woman and capable of making up her own mind. She’ll be fine whatever she chooses.”
“But she loves me.”
“Yes, I believe she does, but again it’s her choice.”
J.T. looked at Randolph as if he’d gone mad. “What about money. In a few days she’ll be without an income. What is she going to do?”
“I’m sure she won’t suffer. In case you haven’t noticed, Juliet is very good at what she does. Besides, she has money,” Randolph assured him. He noticed J.T.’s confused frown. “Apparently she didn’t tell you everything.” Randolph chuckled to himself. “Juliet has a trust fund from our grandfather worth conservatively three and a half million dollars. I assure you, she’ll be fine.”
J.T. shook his head. This day just kept getting better and better. “I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”
“Do you want the list alphabetically or chronologically?”
“Alright so my grand scheme, even though it worked and got Mamma Lou and her matchmaking off of my back, wasn’t exactly the best idea. And in the process I lost the only women in the world for me.”
“You do learn quickly,” Randolph said. “I give you that.”
“Apparently it’s too late. I told her that I wanted to start over. I asked her to marry me. She shot me down cold.”
“One thing about love,” Randolph noted,” it’s never too late. Be patient give her time, she’ll come around.”
“She doesn’t want to marry me. Why?”
“Our father, Wyatt Bridges, got married last weekend, it was his eighth. He’s the only man I know who falls in love, marries and divorces in the span of twelve months. Not much of a role model, granted, but that’s how he’s chosen to lead his life. The reason I’m telling you this is because Wyatt is Juliet’s only role model for relationships,” Randolph explained.
“She knows what it feels like to be hurt by love. Her mother never really got over Wyatt, and I guess that transferred to Juliet. She doesn’t want to wind up like that—bitter and heartbroken for twenty years.”
“So Juliet sees that as being typical of relationships and marriage,” J.T. interrupted.
“Correct, also she’s been on stage dancing as a principal ballerina all of her adult life. Dance is her passion, her love and her escape. In two days, all of that’s going to come to an end. She’ll have to walk off into the sunset to…” He didn’t finish.
“What?”
“…Her future. Change isn’t easy for any of us.”
“And she’s anxious about it.”
“An understatement, but accurate. Then you show up, and apparently complicate matters. I think time and patience are in order.”
J.T. shook his head and stood to leave. “She’s killing me.”
J.T. returned to his office and worked the rest of the evening. He’d taken too much time away from his job already. But he was sure that nothing was over.
Later that evening, J.T. sat at his desk in quiet darkness listening to the buzz of his computer program filtering through his latest innovation. In reality, he felt nothing. The utter elation he should have felt at the success of his latest designs was chilled by his heartache.
The software problem he’d been struggling with for the last two years had been solved in the past two days.
He looked back at his desk then turned his head away from the screens. Saying it out loud was futile. But there was no other explanation for it. She was right, he needed balance.
In the short time he and Juliet had been together, he’d begun to see the problem from a completely different perspective. Then something she had said that night here in his office had completely changed his perception. He’d been looking at the software design problem from the wrong direction.
He looked down on the coffee table and picked up the familiar playbill. Juliet had been his inspiration without even knowing it. The clear and exacting way she saw the solution had eluded him. For two years he’d been blind to the obvious, because his unyielding way of looking at things.
For the past two days he’d kept his distance. He’d done his job, he went to meetings, he ran the company almost on autopilot, but emotionally he was a disaster.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door. He looked at his watch. It was late, too late for anyone else to be working. Then it occurred to him that it had to be the cleaning crew. “The office is fine, come back later,” he called out as he plopped down on the new sofa his mother had bought. The door opened anyway. “I said come back later.”
Trey stopped by and stuck his head in the office. “I tried calling you last night and again this afternoon,” he said as he walked into the dimly lit office and looked around.
The office looked completely different from what he’d expected. It was comfortable and warm. Trey, expecting to see J.T. sitting at his desk with his terminals blaring their eerie blue light, instead he found him sitting on the cushioned sofa with the playbill in his hands. He walked over and sat down in the chair across from him.
“Nice job.” He began as he continued to look around the comfortable room. “Warm cozy, very nice. I’m surprised. I expected something a bit more…” he procrastinated searching for the right word, “…sterile.”
J.T. absently looked around the room. Trey was right. The room was nice and cozy and a far cry from where it had begun just a few weeks earlier. He smiled and shook his head as he thought about where his life was a few weeks earlier. He was happily on his way to corporate bliss.
Now look at him, he was frustrated, disheartened and miserable. He had proposed to a woman who was as opposite from himself as possible and finally he was so in love he couldn’t see straight.
“As I said, I called earlier, but your very efficient secretary told me that you were unavailable until further notice.”
“I am.”
“You don’t look unavailable to me.”
“Look closer,” J.T. grumbled, “Better yet, I have work to do, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Not so fast, rumor has it that you could us a little cheering up.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”