Twenty-five
Owen had been cranky all morning, jarring Julianne’s already frazzled nerves. She pushed him along the main street in Chances Inlet, one of the wheels of the stroller squeaking as it rolled along. A strong breeze blew off the ocean, the remnants of the previous night’s storm that had kept most of the tourists indoors. The isolated sidewalk perfectly matched her mood.
Most of the town’s residents had already heard about Will’s subpoena. The sports networks quickly connecting the dots had surmised Julianne was the culprit, shredding her brother’s carefully crafted wedding story of her and Will’s reconciled love. Now she was painted as the woman who’d stop at nothing to wrangle out of a marriage of convenience and return to partying in Europe with her son.
The people of Chances Inlet had been giving her the cold shoulder all morning. Mrs. Elderhaus, Will’s first-grade teacher, however, went one step further, haranguing Julianne on her walk through town. “Shame on you!” she railed at her. “That boy is as honest as the day is long and always has been. You’ve done nothing but cause trouble in his life. If he’s smart, and he is, he’ll dump you like a sack of hot potatoes!” Chin high, she’d stormed off to catch up to the rest of her walking club.
It was ironic, actually. Will thought the people of his hometown pitied him, mocked him, or considered him less than they were because he didn’t have a father. She wished he could be here today to see how wrong he was. He was one of them whether he’d grown up in the Seaside Vista Trailer Park or in one of the stately houses on the intercoastal waterway. Too bad he’d never understand that.
As she pushed the stroller into Annabeth’s shop, she nearly ran over Gavin. He blocked her path, his arms crossed over his chest. Gavin wasn’t quite as massive as Will, but he was well muscled and nearly as tall. Whereas Will’s face was chiseled and hard, Gavin’s was more rugged, with laugh lines bracketing his twinkling eyes and a pair of devastating dimples. His wavy hair was always in some disarray from where he’d pulled his fingers through it. Of the two men, Gavin always looked the most approachable.
Except for today. The hard line of his mouth warned Julianne that Patricia’s son was clearly in Will’s camp. Not that it surprised her. Once again, she was relieved that his friends were still loyal to him.
“What is it with you women?” Gavin stood there as if he expected an answer.
“I just don’t get it,” he continued. “You think it’s okay to just sucker punch a guy like that. To ruin his name. His career. The sad part about it is the dumbass would have given you anything. Anything.”
Julianne had to look away because she felt the tears threatening again. Owen whimpered, stretching to try to reach his foot. Gavin crouched down on his haunches as he reached into the stroller to let Owen play with his finger.
“He loved you, you know. I didn’t think it was possible he’d ever find anyone to love, he’s such a stubborn asshole. But he did.” Gavin’s voice was gravelly, as if he were wrestling with his own emotions. “It hurts when you women rip a guy’s heart out and stomp on it. Some guys don’t ever get over it. Unfortunately, I think Will is going to be one of those guys.”
She forced the lump in her throat down as Gavin kissed Owen on the head. He didn’t bother to look at her when he stood and walked out the door. Shoulders slumped, she pushed the stroller deeper into the store. Lynnette, Annabeth’s assistant, swooped from across the room to pull a now-fussy Owen out of the stroller.
“I think he might want a bottle,” Julianne said, handing her one from the diaper bag. “He’s really out of sorts today, so don’t take it personally if he doesn’t drink too much.”
“Likely the boy misses his daddy.” Lynnette gave her the evil eye before disappearing into the back office with the baby.
Annabeth sat at her computer eyeing Julianne over her reading glasses. “Has he called you?” she asked.
There was no point asking who he was. Neither woman had heard from Will in nearly twenty-four hours. Julianne shook her head.
With a resigned sigh, Annabeth removed her reading glasses. “So what’s your plan, Julianne?”
“My plan?”
“Yes, Julianne, your plan. Surely you have one?”
She didn’t, actually. Not a single one. All her life, she’d never needed a plan, simply moving from one thing to the next. She’d started designing on a whim when a wealthy friend from boarding school fell in love with one of Julianne’s sketches and just had to have it as her wedding gown. From there, her business had spread by word of mouth. When Sebastian had come along and taken her under his wing, she’d left all the planning to him, enjoying life as it came.
“Flying by the seat of your pants.” She cringed as Will’s description of her echoed through her mind.
Her pregnancy had altered her lifestyle. Now she was responsible for another human being. But she hadn’t planned that well, either. She skirted around the truth, keeping secrets from those around her. And look where that landed her. She’d acted brashly selling JV Designs, not thinking how she’d support herself in the future. Regrettably, she hadn’t planned, and the results were stupid choices. The one decision she didn’t regret, though, was marrying Will.
“Do you love him, Julianne?” Annabeth’s delicate voice interrupted her thoughts. “Do you love my son?”
Julianne nodded through her tears. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Then you have to have a plan.”
The antique Hepplewhite chair creaked as Julianne sat down on it. “I don’t even know where to begin. Will won’t answer my calls or respond to my texts. He doesn’t care about listening to my side of things. He just assumes the worst.”
“Can you blame him?”
Annabeth’s words stung, but she spoke the truth. Their relationship didn’t have much of a basis in trust. And it was Julianne’s fault.
“One thing is for certain, you’re not going to get to talk to him by hiding down here in Chances Inlet.” Annabeth stood and walked out from behind the counter. “I, for one, am done with hiding.”
“You think I should go to Baltimore?”
“Well, the mountain isn’t going to come to you, Muhammad. Believe me when I say no one does stubborn martyr better than my son. He’d just as soon think the whole world is against him than admit he might have made a mistake. And believe me, he shares in the blame for this mess. A lot of people do,” she said with quiet certainty.
Julianne ran her hand along the smooth mahogany arm of the refurbished chair. “How do I get him to listen to me? To really trust me?”
“It’s too bad your Slytherin brother can’t be persuaded to tell the truth to Will,” Annabeth mused.
“Not unless there’s something in it for him.”
Julianne had left a caustic voice mail on Stephen’s phone the previous evening, Annabeth and Patricia cheering her on. She’d told her brother to take the money from their grandmother’s trust fund and shove it. She wanted no part of the Marchione money. And, she’d added for good measure, she wanted no part of their family anymore. After all, had her grandmother loved her enough, she would have left her the money outright. She’d told Stephen she’d never forgive him for what he’d done to Will and subsequently to their marriage. He’d tried to call her repeatedly since then, but she’d let the calls go unanswered.
It had been liberating to tell her brother off, but the pain of his deception still cut deeply. It hurt to know her family loved and respected her so little. Her father had essentially written her out of his life shortly after her mother died, leaving her brother as her guardian. The two were never close, but she enjoyed being an aunt to his children. She’d miss that. Annabeth had stayed by her side during last night’s storm, reassuring Julianne that she and Owen were her family regardless of what happened with Will. The thought was both comforting and tragic.
“You should have let me invest the money when I offered it.” Annabeth interrupted her thoughts. “If I give it to you now, Will would certainly misinterpret both of our intentions. It’s too bad because that company was just what this town needed. And I think Will would have been proud of what you were going to do with the profits in his name.”
Julianne contemplated her mother-in-law as her inner Scarlett O’Hara took control. “Who says we have to shelve the idea?” A germ of a plan was formulating in her mind.
Annabeth chuckled. “I guess we don’t. You know what? Who cares if Will gets mad if I invest with you? It’s my money.”
“That might not be necessary.” Julianne paced the small store. “The last thing I want to do is drive a wedge between you two. But I may have another strategy for financing that I hadn’t considered before.”
“Like I said a few minutes ago, it’s always good to have a plan, girl.”
Julianne hugged her mother-in-law. She still wasn’t sure if she had a plan to get Will back, but at least she was going ahead with cementing his legacy in this town, whether he wanted it or not.
“It’s settled then,” Annabeth said as she pulled out of their embrace. “We’re going to Baltimore. But first, I have to look up some old neighbors from Seaside Vista.”
“And I have to call a priest.”
• • •
For a second night, Will couldn’t sleep. His body was sluggish and tired, but his brain wouldn’t give in to the numbness that slumber would provide. He couldn’t stop thinking of her. Julianne had never been in his loft or in this bed, but he swore he could smell her on the sheets. Everywhere he turned in the bed, her scent was there.
He was going mad. Bat-shit crazy like his wife. His fake wife. Make that soon-to-be-ex-fake wife. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten about the fake part. And that was how he’d gotten screwed.
Yanking off the tangle of sheets, Will jumped out of the bed in frustration. The sounds from the city blared beyond the windows. It was just the noise. Will always had trouble adjusting to the traffic sounds when he returned to Baltimore. He turned on the white noise machine and set it to play ocean sounds. Soon the room was filled with the sound of Chances Inlet and the sea lapping at the beach.
But when he turned back to the bed, he was once again reminded of Julianne. The tousled sheets brought back memories of rolling around on the mattress with his wife beneath him. She was a whirling dervish, leaving chaos in her wake. He was glad to be rid of her. Except his body was hard just thinking about what she could do to him.
Damn it!
Will gave up on the idea of sleep and trudged down to the kitchen. A half-eaten pizza sat in its box on the counter, surrounded by three empty beer bottles and two dirty plates. Hell, even his kitchen looked like Julianne had been in it. He grabbed a slice of cold pizza out of the box, not bothering with a plate this time. Padding over to the refrigerator to get a beer, he heard his cell phone beep. He’d purposely left it downstairs to avoid the incoming calls, mostly from his mother and Julianne.
Settling on the sofa, Will took a bite of the pizza before tossing it onto the coffee table as the phone beeped again. He ripped the phone out of the docking station and glanced at the screen. Just as he suspected, a voice mail from Julianne. Hadn’t she gotten the message? He didn’t want to talk to her. He couldn’t bear to talk to her.
The voice mail had been left just after midnight. Good, she couldn’t sleep, either, Will thought with satisfaction. But then he immediately considered Owen. What if the baby was sick? Or worse? Panic clenched at his gut as he put the phone on speaker and clicked on the message before thinking better of it. Julianne’s husky voice filled the loft.
“Hi.” Just that one word was enough to rip the breath from Will’s lungs, his body heating up instantly. He hated how much power she had over him. Even in disgust, he still craved her, ached for her.
“Um,” she continued. “Since it looks like you plan on being in Baltimore for the next few days, I’ve decided to bring Owen up there so you can spend time with him.”
No! Seeing Owen meant seeing the boy’s mother, and Will wasn’t ready for that yet.
“The whole point of this . . . marriage was so you could bond with him, and that’s not going to happen if you’re seven hours away. He misses you,” she added tenderly.
Her words nearly ripped Will’s heart out of his chest.
“We’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. I guess I’ll just text you when we arrive. Unless you want to be a grown-up and talk directly.” There was an exasperated pause. “Good night, Will.”
He chucked the phone onto the coffee table, barely missing the slice of pizza. She wasn’t just crazy, she was the queen of manipulation. Julianne would definitely use their son to get back into Will’s life. Fortunately, he saw right through her. He didn’t need the distraction of her in Baltimore this week, but the fact of the matter was, he did miss Owen. Something would have to be worked out. Something that didn’t involve him having to interact with Julianne.
Grabbing his phone again, Will scrolled through the photos of Owen he had taken. His throat constricted as he perused the pictures. He missed the feel of Owen sleeping against his chest and the sweet smell of clean baby after his bath. Will hadn’t realized how much of his life revolved around the little guy. After the hearing, the two of them would probably be spending a lot more of the season together than Will had originally imagined. It was the one consolation of the decision he’d made.
He laid the phone back on the table, which was littered with documents. The subpoena sat next to the custody agreement Roscoe had drafted up earlier. His agent had not been happy with either of the decisions Will had made over pizza and beer a few hours before.
“I know if I look hard enough,” Roscoe had advised him. “I can find something on her that will ensure you full custody.”
“No,” Will had replied. “That would only hurt Owen. Besides, you’re going to need to spend your time trying to get my suspension lifted so I can play football this fall.”
Roscoe had heaved a sigh. “Or you could just tell the committee and the league what they want to know, thus avoiding suspension altogether.”
“I’m not snitching.”
“The man is guilty, Will,” Roscoe had argued.
“Probably. But it’s not my story to tell, Roscoe. I have no proof where that money came from. Neither does the committee. It’s all conjecture. There are likely dozens of guilty players who know a hell of a lot more than I do. Let the committee target them.”
“The whole world will presume you’re guilty if you don’t talk.”
That part wasn’t as easy to swallow, but Will figured it was the price he had to pay for keeping quiet these past eight years. Back then, he’d been a fledgling player without a home in the league, his only evidence coming from his gut. Now he would play the waiting game, hoping Coach Zevalos developed a conscience before he died. Hoping the man wasn’t as diabolical as the media made him out to be. That would mean Will’s loyalty those early years was totally misguided.
“And your son? What will you tell him when he’s old enough to ask?”
Will had taken a long swallow of beer before he was able to answer Roscoe. “Let’s hope it’s cleared up before then.”
Roscoe had muttered a few choice words about not getting paid enough, but then he’d let it go. “At least you were smart enough to have Julianne sign all the separation papers before the marriage. It will move the process along that much more quickly. I want to file right away, so people will know she sold you out. We don’t want her to have any sympathy with the public. You’ll need it all on your side.”
Will wished he’d felt a little more comfortable with Roscoe’s plan than he actually did. But he couldn’t overlook the fact that Julianne had shared his secret with her brother. She was guilty and she deserved what was coming. It was her fault their separation would be linked to his testimony.
“You have to wait a full year for the divorce, so that’s another key reason to get the papers filed as soon as possible,” Roscoe had added.
“Great, now I really feel like a famous celebrity. My separation is going to last longer than the marriage,” Will had said wryly, before taking another sip of his beer.
“Don’t feel bad, you’ve still got Britney Spears beat.”
Will had scrubbed his hand down his face. “Hell, I’m not sure I want to ever hear my name and Britney Spears’s in the same sentence.”
That had made Roscoe chuckle. “Seriously, we’re not done talking about Owen’s custody.” He held his hands up. “After the hearing. For now, I’m just glad I have the kid’s birth certificate in my safe. She can’t get him out of the country without it.”
“She won’t take Owen out of the country.”
“Yeah? This is the same woman who sold you out to a Senate committee, dumbass. Stop thinking with your dick and use your brain. She’s capable of anything.”
Will’s temple had begun to throb. He let out an explosive sigh. The Julianne he’d spent the last month with wouldn’t take Owen back to Italy. Not without asking. But apparently, the woman with whom he’d shared his body and his soul these past few weeks didn’t exist.
He and Roscoe had agreed to meet again tomorrow to discuss the strategy for the hearing. As far as Will was concerned, the plan was simple; he’d plead the fifth. End of story. Everyone would have to leave him alone because he had nothing to say.
The lights of the Inner Harbor shimmered through the tall windows in the loft. Will lay down on the sofa, pulling the cashmere blanket that the decorator insisted he buy with it over his body. He’d just sleep here tonight. As he stared up at the high ceilings of his loft, listening to the city rumble on outside, Will realized just how alone he was. It was a feeling that used to never bother him. Until now.