Bespoken: An Opposites-Attract Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 2)

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  My hand shot up to cover my mouth and my heart began to race.

  “Julia won’t say anything. We’ve raised her to do as she’s told. It’s all she knows.”

  A small gasp escaped me and the air shifted like they’d heard me.

  Not wanting to get caught eavesdropping and not understanding what I’d just heard, I bolted for my room, shutting the door quietly behind me. My hands moved slowly, like they’d been outside in the cold for too long, as I reached for my earrings, pulling the pearls out and dropping them in the dish on my vanity. I reached for the clasp on my necklace, my teeth digging into my lower lip.

  They must have been talking about the deed to Roasters. Why did my parents care about Roasters?

  Tears pooled in the corner of my eyes. And how could they say that about me? How could they think to use me to hurt her? That I would be okay with that? They wanted the last piece of my cousin’s past and the beginning of her future, and they were going to use me to do it.

  I wasn’t going to let them use me. Not anymore.

  Tomorrow was too far—too long to wait to talk to Laurel. My parents were impatient people. Whatever it was they had planned would be happening soon.

  “Hello?” Laurel answered.

  “L-Laurel?” My voice was weak and faltered as I spoke. “It’s Jules.”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late,” I began. “I was wondering if you could meet me? To talk…”

  “Is everything okay?”

  My stomach twisted into a tight knot. “No… I mean, I don’t know. I can’t… I can’t talk about it here.” My tone was high and strung tight with fear.

  “Does it have to do with your family? Are you okay?” she demanded worriedly.

  Words stuck like taffy in my throat. “Can you just meet me somewhere? I don’t… have anyone else.”

  “Of course.”

  “I can meet you at Roasters,” I suggested.

  “Sure. Absolutely.”

  I wiped my face again and stood from my chair. “Please, Laurel. Don’t tell anyone. This is… my family. I don’t know what to do… who to trust…”

  “Of course. I’ll be there in ten.”

  I shoved my phone in my purse. I jumped up and made for the door, causing me to almost run into him—the bald man in a fancy black suit whose radioactive smile was almost as poisoning as his voice. I hadn’t locked the door, and I hadn’t heard him enter while I was on the phone.

  My racing heart plummeted into my stomach and trembled with fear.

  “Miss Vandelsen, I have to thank you. I thought I was going to have to wait to handle this until Monday but you’ve moved up my plans perfectly.” His smile spread like cancer over his features.

  “W-Who are you? What are you doing here?” I demanded, my spine pulled taut and straight, but one push and he’d see how brittle my strength was.

  “I’m a friend of your father’s.” He stepped toward me and even though I moved back, I had nowhere to go.

  “Please leave.” I tilted my chin up.

  “Oh, I will, sweetheart.” I cringed at the name. “But not without you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m not going to be a part of this.”

  His chuckle was suffocating as he got closer. My gaze was momentarily distracted by the figure of my father in the doorway, watching with complete calm. My mouth parted to yell to him, to ask why, but in those split seconds—those minute moments, I missed the hand holding a white cloth that rose in front of my face.

  It only took one breath before my world went black. My last memory was of my father’s face—and the approval etched in his eyes.

  Everything that happened to me that night, he’d been okay with.

  He’d been okay with sacrificing me in order to save his business.

  I blinked and realized I was hunched over the trash can in Laurel’s kitchen, vomiting what little remained in my stomach.

  “Jules, what happened? Should I call an ambulance?” Laurel asked, poised at my side, ready to do whatever I needed.

  I shook my head, dragging in long, deep breaths to try to settle my stomach.

  “There’s no point in going to talk to your parents, Jules,” Ace declared with a low voice behind us. “Especially in that condition. There are only two outcomes. One, nothing changes and it only fuels their need to make Mick pay for your freedom with his. Or two, you do something ridiculous like agree to whatever they demand of you in exchange, in which case you lose your future, everything you’ve worked so hard for, and still, probably, Mick.”

  I shook my head harder, pushing back the hair that fell into my face as I stood, steadying myself with a hand on the counter.

  “Jules, I think you should listen to him,” Laurel insisted calmly, giving Ace a silencing eye for his blunt tone. “We’ll come up with something else. Ace will figure something out, right?” She didn’t even wait for an answer. “They can go down to the police station and see what’s going on. They can’t keep him there for long. You haven’t given them a statement. There is no proof. This is all just a scare tactic at this point.”

  “No.” I put up my hand. My head rose up tall, more determined now than ever before. “No, you’re wrong. There’s another option that will end all of this.”

  They all stared at me, afraid to disagree to me and curious at the same time.

  “I’m going to talk to them, and they’re going to drop everything,” I said calmly.

  “I don’t think you can change their mind… their priorities, Jules…” Laurel said softly.

  I let out a sad laugh. “I know I can’t. I’m not going to try.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “The only thing I can,” I replied, resolutely. “Make some noise.”

  Eli swore under his breath. “I can’t let you do that, Jules. They won’t listen, and I don’t want to even think about what they might do to keep you there.” He shook his head. “I can’t let you go. Mick would kill me. Even if whatever you say works, Mick would kill me as soon as they let him out of the cell for letting you go back there after everything.”

  I looked him squarely in the eye, unwilling to admit to what I’d remembered out loud until I laid the truth at my parents’ feet. In my pain, I’d been given the truth that would finally make me free.

  “I know I can get them to undo this. And I know I’ll be able to make it out of there okay.” My voice became slightly softer. “You can’t stop me, Eli. So, I’m asking you—all of you—to trust me… please…”

  He stood speechless, his gaze sliding over to Ace who grunted at me. “You have something on them, don’t you?”

  I nodded resolutely.

  He swore under his breath. “I don’t like it, but it might be the only thing that stops them for good.”

  Eli stood, fuming, until Laurel put a hand on his arm, at which point his whole demeanor relaxed.

  “It’ll be okay, Eli,” she promised him. “If anyone can stop them, it’s the person they’ve never seen as a threat.”

  I let out a long breath. Laurel was right. My parents had used me, stepped on and over me for so long, I was the only place they never expected their steadiness to falter.

  It took a moment, but Eli finally replied reluctantly, “Fine.” He turned to Ace. “But you’re the one who has to tell Mick you were cool with this.”

  “Just because I said she could go doesn’t mean I’m going to let her go alone,” Ace declared with a low, resolute tone.

  I turned back, startled when the door didn’t shut immediately behind me, and saw Laurel following me outside.

  “We’re coming with you,” is what she said. “You’re not alone” is what I heard.

  Even though I was about to end any connection I had with my parents, I realized I wasn’t losing my family. In fact, I was doing it for my family. For Mick. And Laurel and Eli. And for myself.

  “Okay.”


  “I’m going to have Dex head over to the station to check on Mick,” Ace said, pulling out his cell as he climbed back in his truck.

  “You remembered everything in there, didn’t you?” she asked softly as we climbed into Mick’s truck.

  I nodded. “And that they can either call off the police or otherwise, I will testify to the truth of what happened that night.”

  “That they were involved…” She trailed off, her pain for me written all over her face.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  Her lip quivered for just a moment—a moment of grief as the last shred of familial love and duty left in my heart disintegrated into ash.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to do this?”

  I turned the key in the ignition and threw the truck into drive.

  “This is the last time they try to take something I love from me. It’s time they realize their daughter has a voice, and it’s much louder than theirs.”

  Jules

  Today, as I pulled into Rock Beach, I saw nothing of the place that I’d called home my entire life. Instead, I saw lies—lies layered over a gilded cage.

  “How did I not know? How could I not remember?” I mumbled to myself as I pulled around and parked out front.

  The doctor said I might never regain all of my memory, possibly because of the concussion, but also because the brain will choose to suppress traumatic events in order to allow itself to heal and move forward. Perhaps that was what mine had been doing all along—right up until I was faced with the thought of losing Mick.

  And no matter how much it hurt to remember, I’d always choose to save him.

  I guessed in my fairy tale, it was the princess who was going to save herself and her gorgeous Goliath.

  Mick’s truck looked like a giant white horse against the army of black luxury cars that hugged the ground like venomous snakes.

  “You can’t blame yourself. Not only were you injured, but why would you want to remember that your parents, the ones who were supposed to protect you, were the ones who threw you to the wolves? Why would anyone want to remember that?”

  With Laurel by my side and Ace following a few steps behind us, we walked through the front door.

  I met the gazes of several familiar sunglass-clad security guards staring at me before murmuring into their earpieces to inform my parents I was back.

  “Should we just wait?” Laurel wondered, noticing the way the security staff all move about, adjusting to our arrival.

  “No. I’m not waiting on them any longer.”

  I knew they were following us, but I didn’t stop. Weaving through the lobby, we turned down the hall and took the stairs up to the second floor with what sounded like an army of footsteps following behind us.

  The carpet in the hall that always felt so soft, now felt swampy—thick and oozing with dirty secrets and illegal deals.

  I didn’t bother to knock on my father’s office door. I had no love for a man who’d been willing to sacrifice me time and time again to make up for his mistakes.

  My father stood in front of the desk, his hand next to the phone where I assumed someone had just called to let him know I was here. My mother was planted in front of him, her head the first one that whipped in my direction.

  “Julia!” she hissed my name. “Where have you been? Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? What your disappearance has done to the business?”

  It only took one second—a single moment in time for me to realize I didn’t recognize the people standing in front of me. Instead, I only saw the well-dressed, well-spoken, poor excuses for the people they were.

  “Where have I been? I’ve been watching the man I love arrested for saving my life,” I clipped.

  “Oh, Julia,” my mom scoffed and waved me off. “Everything would be better if you just let that carpenter go. Your place is here, your future is here. With us and Mr. Couronne.”

  It was strange to not feel the anger like I did the night of the ball. It was strange to only feel pity for a woman who couldn’t see outside the blinders she’d built for herself and the ones she’d tried to build around me.

  Ignoring her, I faced my father and charged, “I know what you did.”

  “What I did?” he scoffed and pointed a finger at me. “It’s what you did, young lady. You lied to the police. You lied to your family. That man deserves to be in jail for breaking the law. I did nothing but bring unlawful actions to light.”

  My shoulders shook with a small, pitiful laugh.

  “No…” I began softly, stepping away from Laurel to stand on my own, a small but meaningful shift for me. “I know you had Mick arrested but that’s not what I’m talking about. I know what you did that night. I remember.”

  Silence descended. The tic of my father’s jaw the only slight indication that he might be culpable for something he’d never admit to.

  “I know you agreed to let Blackman kidnap me to get the deed from Laurel,” I told them with a low, steady voice. “I remember seeing you there, in my room, watching as he drugged me.”

  My mother’s eyes shot wide. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Julia. Clearly, this must be your head acting up again—”

  “No, I remember perfectly. In fact, I remember the conversation I overheard between the three of you in this very room, discussing how he was to do whatever was necessary and how I would go along with it and do what I was told.” My voice rose as I spoke. “And I know it’s all for Mr. Couronne… and his cartel.”

  My father seethed, his face turning bright red as he spun on me. His finger waving like a furious flag at me, threatening, “How dare you talk to me like this? This is my house and you are my daughter. You will do as I say.”

  Instead of backing away, I stepped closer.

  “No, you listen to me this time.” The steadiness in my tone grew exponentially, like the last weights of a lifestyle I’d been born into were finally shaking off. “There are so many things I could choose to do right now. So many things I could say that would ruin you and everything you’ve built. But I’m not that person. I’m not like you. Instead, I’m going to bestow on you the same consideration you’ve given me.”

  They still looked at me disbelieving, like I’d shown them a caterpillar and told them in a few minutes, it would transform into a creature that could fly.

  Sometimes, change is gradual, and sometimes, everything shifts in the blink of an eye. To them, I was trapped here by a genetic gravity, held to their world by the rules they thought contained me. They didn’t see that over the past several months, from the moment I first approached my grandfather, I’d been building my cocoon—my shelter from their fallacies. And now, I was going to find my wings and break free from that gravity to soar.

  “For my entire life, you have made decisions for me and told me it was for the best. So now, I give you the same voiceless and powerless choice.” Mick’s face flashed in my mind. His care and concern. His strength. “I remember everything about the kidnapping and the part you played. When I leave here, you are going to get in touch with Officer Peters and tell him you made a mistake—that you misheard me—and that Mick is entirely innocent. Otherwise, when they ask me for the truth, I will give them the whole of it—that the entire kidnapping was orchestrated by you. That you let a criminal kidnap and hurt your own daughter.”

  My eyes shifted over at my mother’s horrified gasp. Their anger felt like a brewing storm but it was one that could no longer touch me.

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Wouldn’t what?” I broke in, shocking them again with my assertiveness. “You either get my whole truth or you get to continue to live your lies. You can’t have both.”

  “They would never believe—”

  “Believe what?” I laughed. “Believe that I incorrectly remember what happened before I was drugged and attacked, but correctly remembered seeing Mick after being struck in the head?”

  I moved from the interrogation spot in the center of the
room and walked right up to his desk, resting my hands on the edge and breaking the invisible barrier that had been present my entire life.

  “And I think the whole truth will clear up so many lingering questions for how Mr. Blackman was able to completely avoid all resort security to get in here and kidnap me without anyone noticing,” I told him, holding his gaze that bristled with unfettered rage. “And I think that investigation will reveal enough unfortunate business dealings to outstrip whatever sway you have over the police.”

  “Julia, how could you even think of doing this to us… your parents… after everything—” my mother broke off with a hand over her mouth theatrically as her eyes began to water.

  I knew how quickly that would all disappear once she got what she wanted. The problem with keeping me in this cage for so long was I was too familiar with my jailor to be fooled by her false show of emotion.

  “Tell me why. Tell me the truth,” I demanded, giving in to the only thing I wanted from them: an explanation.

  They looked between each other before my mother blurted out, thinking it might change my decision, “Your father borrowed some money from Mr. Couronne a few years ago, but the return wasn’t what we anticipated and the interest was too much. First, they told us they wanted that coffee shop.” She glared at Laurel, who stood as a silent witness in the doorway. “But then my father left it to her—the girl who hadn’t been back in a decade. And when she wouldn’t sell and go back to the city where she belongs, this was our only option.”

  I felt Laurel behind me, itching to speak.

  “What happened next?” I ground out.

  “When that failed” —she swallowed hard—“he called us down to LA and said the only way to repay our debt was with a stake in the resort and a joint business venture, cemented with his marriage to you.”

  “And you just went along with it all? Deciding it was okay for me to pay the price for your poor decisions?”

  “It was for Rock Beach!” my father roared, speaking for the first time. “I built this business from the ground up. The power, the privilege you’ve enjoyed your entire life has been because of me. Marrying you to a rich and powerful man is a small price to pay to secure the future.”