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But she wouldn’t, because she had finally accepted the truth. This wasn’t about her or her happiness. It was about the bottom line, and it always had been.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“That bitch Wendy was no help,” Brian said.
Julie shook her head in disbelief. Had she really ever felt anything even approaching affection for this spoiled dickhead?
“A woman, Kara something or other, was more than happy to call us shortly after she alerted the media.”
“And yet no one seems to care that you were humping your assistant and then took her to Fiji on what was supposed to be our honeymoon,” Julie said snidely.
Brian at least had the grace to blush.
“Both of you acted with incredible stupidity,” Grant said. “But there is only one solution. The fact is, this catastrophe of a marriage has our investors worried about a potential rift between me and David. In this kind of market, we have to do everything we can to make sure investors know that our company won’t fall apart.”
“You mean,
I
have to do everything,” Julie spat. It was unbelievable. It was ludicrous. D&D’s rapidly expanding revenues would more than make up for any scandal she might have helped cause. The stock would rebound in no time.
This was all about her father’s ego. He hated to lose, despised any setback of any kind. This was his way of forcing a situation so that he wouldn’t have to admit that he was wrong in encouraging Julie and Brian’s marriage.
“I’m sorry, Dad, but this is impossible.” Julie was proud of her delivery. Her voice was steady and strong, without the barest hint of a quaver.
“What?” Brian and Grant burst in unison, their eyes practically bulging in shock.
“I’m not doing it. I’ll come home, but only long enough to get the annulment finalized. Then I’m getting out of San Francisco for a while.” Back to Holley Cay, in fact, and hopefully for the rest of her life.
Grant’s mouth opened and closed like a carp hurled onto dry land. “You will do as I say, or you can consider yourself disowned and disinherited,” he boomed.
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Julie felt a sharp, stabbing pain somewhere in the region of her chest. So this was it. This is what it came down to. What she had always feared, but never wanted to fully acknowledge. At the end of the day, business was the most important thing to her father. Not her happiness. Julie only mattered to Grant insomuch as she could help maintain the squeaky-clean, upper-class image of the D&D empire.
“I can’t believe you would do this.”
“Believe it, missy,” Grant said, pointing a finger at her nose for emphasis. “You’re reserved on a flight out of St. Thomas tonight. You better be on it.”
Chris was swarmed with upset guests and concerned employees as soon as Julie walked away with her father and her—it made him a little sick even to think it—husband. He did his best to address his guests who were pissed—deservedly so—at having their privacy breached. Most of the press had been chased off by the resort’s security and the island police, but, really, what could he do but allow them to check out early and refund a portion of their stay? Though paparazzi had come specifically in search of Julie, he couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t distribute other pictures.
So much for Holley Cay’s reputation as one of the few resorts that could offer complete privacy. Sure, Kara’s leak to the press was an anomaly, but potential guests wouldn’t see it as such. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and started down the dock, back to his place. He’d been on such a high after the success of Jane Bowden’s wedding, and now he was facing the worst setback of his career.
But that wasn’t what made him feel as though he was being eaten from the inside out. No, as upset as he was about the future prospects of Holley Cay, it was Julie who was twisting his gut in knots.
This is for
the best.
Five little words, delivered in her low, sweet voice, were enough to bring him to his knees.
She’d turned away from him, run back to Daddy as soon as he quirked his finger. Chris wasn’t surprised.
He’d known all along that’s what would happen.
But he
was
pissed. Mostly at himself, for being the world’s biggest fucking idiot and actually believing it was different this time, for thinking for one second Julie would stay here with him and live happily ever after. And pissed at Julie, for being exactly the girl he’d always known her to be.
He got back to his villa, relieved to see she wasn’t there yet. Grabbing a beer, he went out on the deck and toyed with the idea of taking off before she came back to pack. No. He wasn’t a coward. He’d known what he was getting into from the very beginning, and if he didn’t want to get hurt, he should have stayed the hell away from Julie Driscoll. Now it was time to face her like a man when she told him good-bye. It
was
all for the best, just like she said. The sooner she left, the sooner he could get to work salvaging what was left of Holley Cay’s reputation.
“Chris?” Every fiber went taut at the sound of her voice. After a few moments, she found him on the PrivateParty
deck. With her hair a tousled mop, her eyes puffy and nose red from crying, she looked like a sad, lost little girl. He gripped the arms of his teak lounger to keep from going to her and wrapping her in his arms.
She came and sat on the edge of his chaise, placing a tentative hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I’ll do whatever I can to—”
He stopped her mid-sentence. “Why didn’t you tell me he wasn’t signing the annulment papers?” She jerked back as though startled. “It didn’t matter—it was just a technicality.”
“Just a technicality?” The bitterness searing his throat erupted like bile. “You didn’t think I would care that I was fucking my brother’s wife?”
“You didn’t seem to care on our wedding night,” she snapped.
Okay, she had him there. “Let me guess—he won’t be giving you an annulment any time soon.”
“Can you believe that? Daddy wants me to stay married to Brian for a year or two.” She stood and paced angrily across the deck. “As though that’s nothing.”
“And you’ll do it, won’t you?” he all but sneered.
She stopped pacing and looked at Chris, her shoulders slumping. “Dad says if I don’t, he’ll disinherit me. Take away my trust fund, my allowance, everything.” Well, that sealed it then. Julie was too used to a life of comfort and luxury to risk losing her inheritance.
Even more importantly, money was the defining symbol of her father’s approval. If Grant Driscoll took that from her, he took everything. Chris didn’t stand a chance, not that he ever had.
“You’re leaving soon then?”
“Tonight,” she sighed. “But only for a little while, just until I get everything straightened out and pack up my apartment. Then I’ll come back.”
His heart skipped, and for about a nanosecond he let himself hope, let himself believe that she’d actually endure being disowned by her family just to be with him. Loved her so much he
wanted
to believe it more than he’d ever wanted anything. But he knew better than most that
wanting
someone to love you enough to make sacrifices wasn’t enough. Her willingness to go running home at her father’s bidding was a sharp dose of reality, reminding him that in their eyes—in Julie’s eyes—he would always be the
“bad” brother. Always on the outside looking in on their perfect little world. Even if she did come back PrivateParty
to him and kept the charade going for a while longer, eventually she’d realize her mistake. He’d be doing them both a favor by making a clean cut now, and not dragging this thing on to its inevitably messy end.
“Why would you bother coming back?” Chris’s mild, almost emotionless question froze her heart in her chest. It started beating again, thudding hard in apprehension.
“What do you mean? Earlier we talked about me staying on here, with you. Just because I have to go back to San Francisco for a little while doesn’t mean that can’t happen.” She tried to tone down the hysteria creeping into her voice. Had she completely misunderstood him in those few minutes before they’d been sidetracked by the pandemonium here at Holley Cay? He had asked her to stay, hadn’t he?
He had said he wanted to be with her?
“It was a stupid idea,” he said dismissively.
Her voice pushed past the icy fist that gripped her throat. “But what about us?” A noncommittal shrug was his only answer. Desperate, she tried a different tack. “You said yourself you needed help. After this week, you know how good I am—”
“And how long do you think you could live on the salary I could afford to pay you?” he snapped. “How long before you’re running back to Daddy, begging for your trust fund back and leaving me in the lurch?”
“I wouldn’t do that!” She would do fine on what he could pay her—whatever that was.
“Come on, Julie, it’s one thing to play at working girl for a week, but an entirely different thing to have to actually work to pay your bills. And frankly, right now all my money is in this place, and I don’t have any extra lying around to take care of you.”
“What about us?” she asked again, knowing the answer with every beat of her bruised heart, but needing to hear the words. Needing to hear him say it, so there was no ambiguity. She was afraid she might vomit when she saw the pitying expression on Chris’s face.
“Jules, we knew this had to end eventually. This just forces our hand.” Something cracked at the sight of his condescending smile.
She couldn’t believe this was the same man who had worked beside her, made love to her with such passion and tenderness for the past weeks. That man had looked at her with admiration and respect. That man had made her feel cared for.
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The gorgeous man staring at her, unblinking, was a stranger. The world fell away, and suddenly Julie saw everything in keen, cold, clarity. She was a fool. She’d let herself be swept away by the fantasy, the fairy tale where Chris was the Prince Charming who finally saw her for the smart, capable woman she really was. But he was just like everyone else. He looked at her, and he saw the spoiled little princess. A shallow piece of fluff, incapable of taking care of herself. She’d thought she’d shown him this past week, but even that hadn’t been enough.
“Fine,” she said, her voice sounding old and weary even to her own ears. “I’m so tired of trying to prove myself to everybody. I know what I can do, I know what I’m capable of, but I’m not going to kill myself trying to change your mind.” Her eyes ran over him, memorizing every line of his gorgeous face, every muscular curve of his tightly hewn body.
“Just remember this,” she said, surprised at how calm and steady her voice was. “When you look back and you miss what we could have had, remember that you did this. This was your call. I was ready to take the risk and go all in, and you’re the one who gave up.” Five hours later, she sat at the gate in St. Thomas waiting for the departure of flight 95, service to Miami. There she would hop her connecting flight back to San Francisco. She didn’t want to go home, but her brain was so numb she couldn’t think of any other options. For now she was focused on getting Wendy’s help to end this sham of a marriage. Then she’d tackle bigger things, like what the hell she was going to do with her life.
Her father and Brian had left earlier in the day, thank God. Evidently they were so convinced of her obedience that they didn’t see the need to escort her home personally.
Despite herself, she glanced up every five minutes, part of her fully expecting Chris to appear and whisk her back to Holley Cay.
Chris hadn’t paid any attention to her “you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone” tirade. Still, she was glad she’d said it. She needed him to know where she stood, needed him to know what she was willing to give up, regardless of what he’d thought of her.
He either hadn’t believed her or hadn’t cared, because he’d barely waved to her as she boarded the ferry, not even waiting for it to leave the dock before walking away.
Surprisingly, she didn’t feel like crying. A blanket of numbness had mercifully settled over her as she’d packed, and she was clutching it to her for all she was worth. She’d grieve later, she knew, but for now it was nice to give intense emotions that had been her constant companions of late a well deserved rest.
Her flight was called. Her lungs seized and her heart began to race. Was she having a heart attack? She gasped for air as a wave of panic washed over her, dark and unrelenting. She didn’t know what was PrivateParty
happening, but something inside her, a voice emanating from her very bones, screamed at her not to get on that plane. If she did, she was ruined. Her entire future flashed before her eyes. An image of herself smiling politely at Brian at a social gathering, forced to endure his company in the name of “keeping up appearances” for the sake of the company. Working her butt off for her father, knowing all the while that he was willing to sacrifice his only daughter on the altar of public image.
She grabbed her carry-on bag and made a beeline for the main terminal. No way in hell was she getting on that plane. As she made the decision, her heart rate slowed, her breathing eased, and she felt, if not calm, at least not like she was about to have a coronary.
I don’t have any extra lying around to take care of you.
Chris’s words echoed in her brain, offensive for all their truth. He was right. He had no reason to expect she could take care of herself financially or otherwise—she had been taken care of by others for most of her life. But as far as she could tell, they hadn’t done a very good job of it. She might as well give it a try—she doubted she could treat herself any worse.
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17
C
hris stared blankly out the window of his office. The afternoon sun reflected off the water of the bay, obscuring his vision so that he couldn’t see the ferry arriving with the latest round of guests.
He didn’t need to see it to know it was approaching. He glanced at his watch. Three twenty-four. Max, the ferry captain, had said they would be there at three twenty-five, and Max was always on time.