Twenty-eight
The small anteroom where Roscoe and Will waited was blessedly quiet. After running the gauntlet of reporters and video cameras staked out in the rotunda and along the marble halls of the Russell Senate Office Building, Will was glad to be able to have a few minutes to catch his breath before the hearing. He leaned his pounding head back against the wall and closed his eyes, while Roscoe stared out the large window overlooking the garden courtyard below them.
“I could get used to working in a place like this,” Roscoe mused. “The history and the architecture of this building can be a little awe-inspiring.” There was a touch of reverence in his voice.
“You’re starting to sound like Gavin.” Will didn’t bother opening his eyes; they still burned from the assault of the strobe flashes on the video cameras. Or maybe it was the aftereffects of the bourbon. Both, most likely. “He’s always waxing on about cornices and fluting and masonry and porticos. Sounds like a woman half the time.”
The chair next to Will creaked as Roscoe eased into it. “I’ll be sure to tell your best friend you called him a girl.”
Will grunted.
“Are you gonna be able to make it through this thing?” Roscoe asked, his tone equal parts concern and annoyance.
“I only have to repeat one line the entire time. A monkey could do it.”
“Yeah, but most monkeys aren’t fighting a colossal hangover. Stupid move on your part.”
“It felt good at the time.”
Roscoe snorted. “It always does.”
The sounds of Roscoe clicking through his messages stirred the quiet of the room. “Uh-oh.”
Will cracked an eyelid. Roscoe was scanning his iPhone.
“Shit! I cannot believe she did this.”
“Your wife posting compromising videos of you on YouTube again?” Will teased.
“Not my wife. Yours.”
That got both of Will’s eyes open. “What?”
Roscoe was scrolling through his phone. “She just released a statement to the press.”
What remained of the previous night’s bourbon rolled through his stomach, cresting in a wave that threatened to spew out of him. What bombshell had she dropped now? Was there any more damage that woman could do to him?
“About?” Will managed to grind out.
“Huh,” Roscoe said as he continued to scroll. “About her new company. Apparently she’s designing baby clothes now.”
Will had to admit the concept made sense. Julianne’s priorities had shifted, and this way she could focus her talents on something that allowed her to include Owen. He quickly snuffed out the burst of pride he felt knowing she’d begun drawing again, though.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Roscoe mumbled.
“What?”
“She’s manufacturing the clothes in a textile factory located just outside Chances Inlet.”
Will felt his weary muscles tense along his spine. “Great. Now I’ve got another reason to avoid that place.” It was ironic that his fake wife had found more acceptance in his hometown than Will ever had.
“That won’t be so easy.” Roscoe looked up from his phone, his eyes shining with what looked like admiration. “She’s named you as the president of the company.”
What? “Can she do that?” Clearly Will had killed a few too many brain cells last night because nothing Roscoe said was making sense.
“Sure she can. It’s her company. She can do whatever she wants.” Roscoe paused, a bemused look on his face. “Only, now it’s your company, so I guess you can give it back to her.”
Why would Julianne do such a thing? Brody’s words filtered back through the haze of the previous evening.
She didn’t need money that badly. She could have a perfectly logical explanation. Did you ask her why?
“Give me that.” He ripped the phone from his agent’s hands and began scrolling through the screen. The mayor of Chances Inlet was singing Will’s praises for being a visionary, persuading Julianne to locate her company in their town. She’d named both his mother and Patricia McAlister as members of the board of directors. And Mrs. Elderhaus! What did his first-grade teacher know about running a company?
“She’s crazy,” Will muttered. “Bat-shit crazy.”
“Skip down to the part about the profits. You’re gonna love that.” Roscoe was definitely amused now.
According to the press release, the profits earned from the company would be used to establish a sports and activities club for youth in Chances Inlet where kids could hang out after school. The Second Chances Center, as Julianne had dubbed it, would also provide academic assistance and job training to the area’s most needy kids. It was visionary, all right. A freaking brilliant way to get back in Will’s good graces. The problem was, he wasn’t buying it. If this was her way of apologizing, it was too little, too late.
“I seriously underestimated your wife’s manipulative skills, Will. I’ve gotta hand it to her, this move trumps our attempt to get public opinion on your side. Not only that, but she’s just proved that she doesn’t need your money. It’s all over the Internet that stores are clamoring for her designs.”
Will wanted to howl with frustration, but the door to the large hearing room opened and his attention immediately focused on Senator Marchione. The buzz from the assembled media reached a crescendo before Julianne’s brother closed the door behind him.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen.”
Will didn’t think he looked sorry at all.
“We’ve had a change in plans for today . . .”
Roscoe shot to his feet, his game face firmly back in place. “Wait just a minute! You can’t change things up without consulting with us. My client is not at your beck and call.”
The senator perched one of his hips on a corner of the desk under the window. “I beg to differ. As a subpoenaed witness, he is at the mercy of the committee’s schedule.” He held a hand out, thwarting Roscoe from interjecting. “But that’s neither here nor there. The fact is the hearing has been canceled. We have no need for your testimony.”
A trace of unease traveled down Will’s spine.
“So all this was for what, then?” Roscoe was working himself into indignant fury.
“To get at the truth, Mr. Mathis. And we’ve done that.”
Will nearly snapped off the wooden arms of the chair in which he sat. He was close behind Roscoe in the anger department. And confused. Where did this all leave him?
The senator made a show of adjusting the sleeves of his suit jacket, prolonging the suspense. “It seems Coach Zevalos has decided to clear his conscience in his last days. He made a full confession to the NFL yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Roscoe nearly shouted as he grabbed for his briefcase. “How come we heard nothing about it?”
Will stood to follow his agent out the door.
“Because it doesn’t impact you or your client.”
That stopped both men in their tracks. Will focused a measuring glare at the senator.
“That’s right.” The senator locked eyes with him. “Coach Zevalos named quite a list of names, but yours wasn’t on it. It seems we were in error in subpoenaing you.”
Roscoe didn’t waste a breath. “I want that in writing,” he demanded. “Today.”
The tension crackled in the room as the three men stared at one another for a moment. Finally, the senator gave the briefest of nods. Will squeezed out a breath through lungs he hadn’t realized he was constricting.
“In that case, we’re out of here.” Roscoe headed for the door, Will at his heels.
“Just one minute,” the senator called after them. “Will, can I have a word with you?”
Roscoe stopped, his hand poised on the doorknob. Curious, Will figured it was worth a few minutes of his time to hear the senator’s excuse as to why he and his sister had used him. Hell, yeah, he wanted answers. If for no other reason than so no woman would be able to dupe him again like Julianne had.
They both turned back to face the senator, who was still seated on the corner of the desk.
“Alone, if you don’t mind.” He phrased it as if it were a question, but all three men knew it wasn’t.
Roscoe shot a sideways glance at Will, an eyebrow raised in question. Will nodded.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Roscoe mumbled as he slid past. “We’re almost home free.”
A roar went up in the other room as Roscoe slipped out. Will remained where he was. Propping a shoulder up against the doorjamb, he tucked his arms across his chest. He tried to give the impression that he couldn’t care less about what the senator had to say, when in fact apprehension coursed through his veins.
The senator heaved a sigh. “It seems I owe you an apology.”
“Yeah, I believe that’s what the written statement is for.”
“No, a personal apology. It’s because of me you’re in this mess.”
Will arched an eyebrow at him, wishing somehow one of the hundreds of media piranhas outside could record this. “You and your sister, you mean.”
He brushed Will’s comment aside with a hand through the air. “Julianne was tangential to my reasons for giving the information to the committee. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing.”
“If you consider ruining a man’s career the right thing,” Will said tersely.
“Obviously I misjudged the whole situation. I thought I was doing her a favor.”
“By having her spy on me and seducing my secrets out of me so you could drag me in front of your committee and totally unman me?”
“That wasn’t how it was,” the senator argued. “Julianne wasn’t spying on you. I could barely get her to tell me how the baby was, much less answer questions about you.”
“Really, so I’m supposed to believe those cozy phone calls and texts every day were innocent?”
“Yes!” The senator yelled. He leaped off the desk and began pacing the room. “When I dragged you up here that first day, it was to help the baby. For Julianne. She was sick with worry over the possibility of losing her son. I certainly never intended to force her to marry you.”
Will tried not to cringe. Apparently, even the duplicitous sister of a con-man senator wasn’t good enough for a boy from the Seaside Vista Trailer Park.
“She was out of her mind, selling her business to pay his medical bills. Too proud to ask for help. So yes, I called her every day because I was worried about her and Owen. I was full of guilt for pushing her down a path she might not have otherwise chosen.”
“You’ve made the point quite clear that I’m not the first choice either of you would have made.”
The senator snorted. “Yeah, well, I was wrong. Very wrong.”
The breath in Will’s lungs began to seize up again.
The senator pinched the bridge of his nose. “Apparently, she was blissfully happy being married to you. Until I screwed it up.”
Will’s body went rigid, his heart slowing to a near-stop as he contemplated the senator’s words.
“I should have guessed that she was in love with you by the way she so vehemently defended you that day on the phone. She never intended to tell me your secret, but it was out before she could stop it. You have to know she had no inkling of anyone in the Senate investigating you. It would never be on Julianne’s radar.”
He let the senator’s words sink in. Julianne had been telling the truth. She hadn’t told her brother on purpose. And Will hadn’t believed her.
“She’s let me know in no uncertain terms how she feels about you since then, though.” He sat down lethargically in the chair Roscoe had occupied earlier. “Not to mention how she feels about me. Definitely not the same feelings, in case you were wondering.” His smile was rueful. “So please, don’t blame her for my actions. I was simply playing big brother. I saw an opportunity to get her out of the marriage before the agreed-upon time frame, and I exercised it. She would never believe this, but I would use anything at my disposal to make her happy. Even if it meant making an enemy out of you.”
Will was stunned. He was afraid to move a muscle in case this was all some sort of dream. First he’d been exonerated from Bountygate. Now he was hit with the truth about Julianne: She did love him. And she hadn’t sold him out. His heartbeat was more rapid now and his body burned to take action. He only hoped it wasn’t too late. Unfortunately, the senator was in a mood to commiserate.
“The truth is I don’t know my sister as well as a brother should. Julianne’s mother, Daria, was my father’s second wife. My dad never really loved my own mother. Theirs was one of those society marriages, the kind good for a diplomat’s career.” He looked at Will as if he expected him to agree. “Dad worshipped Daria, though. When she died, he was devastated. He couldn’t bear to look at Julianne anymore because every time he did, he saw Daria. Our father didn’t care that the poor girl had just lost her mother; he sent her off to boarding school almost immediately. I was in the States, in law school with a life of my own by then.”
The senator dragged his fingers through his hair. “She grew up without anyone to protect and guide her. I’m a father myself now and I now know how lonely Julianne’s life must have been. I let her down. I guess I just thought . . .” He shook his head in disgust, not bothering to finish his thought, before standing to face Will. “Anyway, for what’s it’s worth, I apologize. To both of you, for all the trouble this has caused. Please, tell her I was only doing what I thought was best for her and Owen. It may have been misguided, but it was out of love.”
Will shifted to his full height, amazed his body could still move. He felt like he’d taken a pounding from an entire offensive line.
“I’m sure she’d rather hear it from you.” Will had his own groveling to do.
“She hasn’t returned a text or phone call.” The senator shoved his hands into his pockets, a melancholy expression on his face. “The only message she left was to tell me she never wanted to see me or anyone with the last name Marchione again. She even refused the money from our grandmother’s trust she’d asked me to secure for her.”
“Then what did she use to finance her new company?”
“You knew about that? She gave me the impression that was supposed to be a surprise.”
Chagrined, Will shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Her plan hadn’t been a preemptive strike, after all, but a well-thought-out business proposal. “It was a surprise,” he admitted. “Julianne released the details to the public today.”
Her brother was caught off guard also. “Did she, now? I must have missed it with all the hullabaloo in there,” he said, gesturing to the hearing room. He rubbed the back of his neck contemplatively. “Julianne has a lot of wealthy friends whom she could have asked for financing, but she’s careful about combining her business with her friendships. There are only two other people she trusts, who she’d turn to in order to help her out of a jam: Carly or Nicky. Your guess is as good as mine as to which one.”
The senator held out his hand to Will. “I understand if you can’t forgive me, but I do appreciate you listening.”
Will was still for a moment, staring at the outstretched hand of the man who’d tried to ruin not only his career, but his one chance at happiness with the woman he knew he couldn’t live without. He hesitated before finally shaking the senator’s hand. Trust was a perilous thing, Will was learning. Something he needed to give as well as receive.
• • •
“Nicky,” Julianne crooned as she buried her face in the priest’s neck. His arms wrapped around her in a familiar embrace she always found to be comforting. She’d been on pins and needles all morning, worried about how the hearing was going for Will. ESPN was televising it live, but she and Carly had decided against watching it. Nicky’s arrival provided a welcome diversion.
And yet things were so different now. For most of her life, she’d had a crush on the man holding her close. But in a moment of absolute clarity, she realized that what she thought had been love was nothing more than genuine affection and admiration. Not the deep soul-wrenching love she felt for Will. No man in Julianne’s life had ever measured up to Nicky. Until Will. In a way, her epiphany was freeing, but it also made her sad. If Nicky were to be suddenly gone from her life, she’d miss him, but she’d survive. Julianne wasn’t sure how she’d survive if Will refused to forgive her.
“I told you that you didn’t have to come,” she said. “You could have just wired the money after you found a buyer.”
“The Vatican has diplomatic business here in Washington. I was able to combine business and pleasure this trip.” He pulled away from her, holding her at arm’s length. “You look marginally better. Still not as happy as I would like to see you.”
Julianne forced a bright smile onto her face. It was the least she could do for her oldest friend. He was doing her a huge favor, after all.
Carly entered the spacious screen porch of the house Sebastian had rented. “Owen is sound asleep.” She placed the monitor on the rattan table and took a seat. “I want to go on the record as saying that I think it’s a terrible idea to sell your mother’s paintings, Julianne. They are all you have left of her. If you don’t want me to invest, than at least let me loan the money to you.”
“Actually, the paintings have already been sold.” Nicky wrung his hands as he looked between both women.
“They have?” Julianne had trouble controlling her emotions. She needed the money their sale would generate, but she thought she’d have a little more time to adjust to the loss of her mother’s heirlooms. Carly was right, the paintings were the last link to her mother, and Julianne suddenly felt a little sick to her stomach at the thought of never admiring them again, and of Owen never seeing them. “Will they go to a private collector?” she managed to choke out.
“Yes, but he’s allowed for them to be displayed indefinitely at a small gallery in Milan.”
Hope burned in her chest once more. “So Owen might be able to see them when he grows up?”
Nicky looked sheepish. “Actually, he’ll be able to do more than that. The paintings now belong to Owen.”
“What?” Julianne leaned forward in her chair. “Owen doesn’t have any money, Nicky. Who bought those paintings?” She glanced sharply at Carly, figuring it would be just like her friend to find a covert way to lend her the money, but Carly’s face showed as much bewilderment as Julianne felt. She shrugged her shoulders at Julianne’s questioning glare.
“They were bought by the person who gifted you the paintings in the first place.” Nicky reached out to take her hands between his. “Your father.”
Shock reverberated through Julianne’s body as Carly released a surprised gasp.
“I don’t understand.” And really, she didn’t. Her father had barely been able to look at her much less speak to her since the accident that took her mother from them so many years ago. He’d washed his hands of any reminders of her mother—both her artwork and Julianne—immediately after the funeral and moved on with his life. The scars left from his rejection still stung. Will’s rebuff had stirred up all the insecurities her father’s banishment had caused, and Nicky’s words weren’t helping. Julianne was suddenly light-headed and unable to manage coherent speech.
Nicky gently squeezed her hands as Carly left her chair to kneel at Julianne’s feet.
“Breathe,” Carly prodded. Julianne’s chest squeezed and tears pooled in her eyes as her body ached for the feel of Will’s big hand comforting her, admonishing her to breathe. How could this be happening?
“Why? My father doesn’t care about my mother’s paintings,” she managed to sputter out. “Or me.”
“That’s not true,” Nicky said.
Anger pulsed through Julianne, rapid and hot. She yanked her hands out of Nicky’s as if her skin was burned by his betrayal. “Don’t you dare take his side!”
“I’m not taking his side.” Nicky reached for her hands again, but Carly had gathered them up in her own, throwing a menacing glare at the priest. He pressed on anyway. “You know I disagree with how your father treated you. But grief is a weighty emotion. It does things to people. Changes them. Believe me, in my profession you see what type of damage grief can do, how it can destroy a person. Or, worse, a relationship.”
Julianne choked back a sob. Her father had rejected her. Now Will had, too. Was she destined to be rejected by everyone she loved?
“I’m not defending his behavior, Julianne. Just explaining it. He was wrong to push you away. But I refuse to believe he did it out of hatred. At least not hatred toward you.”
“Of course he did,” Julianne cried. “He blames me for the accident and he hates me for it!”
Carly wrapped an arm around Julianne’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “Shh, it’s all right.”
“The accident wasn’t your fault, Julianne. If anything, your father blames himself for it, for demanding that your mother return home before she wanted to and for using you to make sure she did.”
Julianne’s head was swimming. Her memories of that night and the days preceding it had always been a jumble. The doctors and counselors told her it was better that way; it was the brain’s way of protecting her. The little snippets she did recall never made sense. But Nicky had been with them. It was time he filled in the blanks.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
Nicky sighed. “There really isn’t much to tell. Nothing sordid or dramatic. Your mother wanted to stay at the villa a few days longer than she’d planned so she could finish a painting. My parents weren’t returning to Rome for another week, so I didn’t mind. Plus, there were some teenagers in the villa next door who’d I’d been hanging out with. You were a little annoyed that I wasn’t paying attention to you and your father used that to his advantage. He never could stand to be apart from Daria for too long. I think he bribed you with a kitten if you’d beg your mother to go back to Rome.”
Julianne almost smiled at the memory. Once, her father had been a doting parent, but he’d slipped away just as quickly as her mother had slid into the Mediterranean Sea.
“Daria finally gave in. Neither of your parents could refuse you anything.” Nicky pierced her with his gaze but Julianne refused to feel guilty for being loved by her parents at one point in her life.
“The weather wasn’t cooperating, though, and I tried to persuade your mom to pull over and wait out the storm, but by that time, she was just as eager to see your father. When she wasn’t wrapped up creating her art, she was just as lovesick as he was.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a slow grin.
Julianne wrapped her arms around herself. She wanted that kind of relationship. And she wanted it with Will.
“The rest of that night was fate, Julianne. It was nobody’s fault. Not yours. Not your mother’s. Not your father’s.” Nicky’s tone was unyielding. “You can’t continue to blame yourself. Your father doesn’t blame you.”
“I still don’t know how you can be so certain. Or why you involved my father in the first place.”
“Because as Carly said, the paintings are all you have left of your mother. They should remain in the family. For you and for Owen.” Nicky’s voice softened. “It’s not that your father doesn’t want them—or you. He just didn’t know how to get past his grief. Perhaps this is his way of making amends.”
A tear slipped from Julianne’s eyes. She didn’t dare hope that her father would ever be a part of her life again. That ship had sailed long ago. But she would do anything for her son’s sake. Hadn’t that had been her mantra since discovering she was pregnant? She could take her father’s guilt money and rebuild her company. Then she would figure out how to get Will back because that was one ship she wasn’t going to let sail away.
“My mother would be delighted that her grandson owned her paintings,” she said through her tears.
“That settles it,” Carly said as she wiped her eyes. “You’re taking your father’s money whether you like it or not. The paintings stay in the family for Owen.”
“What happened to the reserved, well-mannered girl who used to be your best friend?” Nicky asked Julianne, a teasing glint in his eye.
“She married the devil of the NFL and now he’s gotten her with child. You might want to stick around in case we need an exorcism.”
• • •
Will sat in his car, his hands firmly gripping the wheel. He was sawing ragged breaths in and out in hopes of getting some control over his bruised heart. The senator said Julianne hadn’t snitched on Will. That she loved him. He’d raced over to the house she was staying in to have the talk they should have had weeks ago. Before the sex messed things up. To work on cultivating that seed of trust before everything was ruined for good. To salvage a marriage that she’d only agreed to for the sake of their son.
When no one had answered the door, he’d walked around the back of the house. Staring into the screened porch, he’d seen her with her friends, locked in an embrace. There are only two people she trusts, the senator had said.
These past months, Julianne had been forced down a path not of her own choosing. Starting with the night in Sea Island when he’d taken her to his bed. The consequences of that night were just as much his fault as they were hers. He could no longer blame her for trying to shield him from those consequences by keeping Owen a secret.
Julianne didn’t need a bastard from the Seaside Vista Trailer Park to complete her. She had her talent and her friends—who she’d turn to in a jam. Friends she obviously trusted more than him, not that he could blame her. If Will loved her, and he did, he couldn’t stand in her way any longer. She wouldn’t keep Owen from him. And Will wouldn’t trap her in a marriage she never wanted. Sure, she’d said she loved him, but he knew she’d say and do anything to protect her son.
He forced his hand to turn the key in the ignition and drove away.