by J. S. Scott
Kristin: Don’t let your head get too big while you’re being adored in Hollywood. Good night, Hotshot.
He dropped the phone back on the end table, pissed because he hadn’t been able to get anything more from her except a polite conversation.
He knew Kristin.
He knew she was feeling something.
Nobody cared like she did, but she obviously didn’t want to share anything with him until he returned.
Frustrated, he knew two days was going to seem like a hell of a long wait.
The next night, Kristin was glued to the television along with Mara, Tessa, Emily, Sarah, Randi, and Hope. They’d decided it was ladies’ night, and Mara had kicked Jared out of the house to spend some time with his brothers and Micah so she could have the whole gang of females over to watch Julian’s interview on TV.
The interview was live, mostly to talk about his upcoming movie for publicity.
“I still can’t believe I’m actually related to him,” Hope confessed from her position on one of the living-room chairs.
“I’m only related by marriage, but I’ll claim that connection,” Mara said excitedly.
“Me too.”
“And me.”
“Ditto.”
“Yep.”
All of the women agreed that being related in any way to Julian Sinclair was pretty extraordinary. Kristin wanted to be related by marriage, too. But her desires were slightly different. She wanted to stay married to him, but realistically, she wasn’t sure that was possible.
She had to admit that Julian did look pretty hot, and totally comfortable in a pair of jeans and a button-down blue shirt that matched his eyes. His demeanor was calm as he answered the male interviewer’s questions about his upcoming movie. And he was a master at politely evading anything that involved his personal life.
Funny how other people looked at Julian as the superstar actor he was when all she could see was the guy who had made her happier than she’d ever been in her life. She didn’t see the same persona as most people did when they watched him on TV.
She saw . . . Julian Sinclair, the funny, sometimes obnoxious, highly intelligent man who just happened to—bonus!—be sinfully attractive as well.
“I don’t think I’d want Grady to be that famous,” Emily declared as the TV interview ended. “I’d have to fight off women with a baseball bat.”
Mara snorted. “Like our husbands aren’t already well known? There aren’t many people who don’t know the Sinclair family.”
“Sometimes I forget that Dante is a billionaire Sinclair,” Sarah said quietly.
“Evan never lets me forget,” Randi grumbled good-naturedly. “I’m pretty sure he buys me something outrageous almost every day.”
Tessa spoke up. “But we all know the men underneath all that money.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Kristin confessed. “I know Julian is plenty of women’s idea of the perfect guy. But those women have never had to deal with his stubbornness or seen him try to cook.” Glumly, she acknowledged that he had his quirks, but those things aside, he was pretty damn perfect.
All of the women laughed, and Mara went to refill glasses with a nice white wine as she flipped off the television.
“Is he that bad in real life?” Emily asked Kristin. “You two always look so happy.”
Mara shot Kristin an encouraging look as she filled her glass.
Kristin nodded. Nobody really knew the truth about her relationship with Julian, unless the man himself had decided to share with his brothers or cousins. “Our relationship is kind of . . . crazy. We sort of got married by accident when we were in Vegas for Tessa’s wedding. We were both drunk. When we found out, we decided to give our marriage a trial run.”
“Nobody gets married by accident,” Emily replied suspiciously. “Even if you were drunk, I don’t think you’d do it unless it was what you truly wanted.”
Kristin thought about Julian’s confession that he basically remembered them getting married. He’d been aware enough to know he wouldn’t have married anyone except her. “That’s what Julian said. I can’t remember.”
Kristin filled in all the details that the women asked as Mara reseated herself in a living-room chair. Once everyone had asked their questions, the room was silent for a moment.
Finally, Mara spoke. “So what are you going to do?”
“I love him,” Kristin confided. “He gave me the choice of whether or not I wanted to make this marriage real without any restrictions. He even offered to make sure I was financially set up for life. But I don’t want his money. I want him. But I have to be realistic. Sooner or later, he’s probably going to miss his life in California. I’m not sure what to do right now.” She let out an audible sigh.
The women all gave her a sympathetic look as they talked about her options. Even with everything laid out on the table and her choices clear, Kristin wanted Julian to be happy with her choice. She couldn’t move permanently, because her parents would still need her. She was their only child. What would happen if Julian woke up one day and figured out that he missed his old life, that he wanted his adoring fans and movie contracts? Kristin would be nothing except the one person who was keeping him in Amesport. She never wanted him to resent her that way, and she didn’t want to hold him back from a career he’d busted his ass to establish.
The women were silent for a few moments after they discussed her choices, until one of them, thankfully, changed the subject.
“Beatrice was right again,” Emily said in a solemn voice. “That’s five out of five on the Sinclairs. Hope doesn’t count because Beatrice never had a chance to make her match.”
Hope chuckled. “I think I did a pretty good job on my own. Jason was meant for me long before either one of us knew it.”
“I heard she gave Xander a chain with an Apache tear,” Tessa shared. “Micah told me. She drove out to his house. I’m surprised he answered the door.”
“Who has the other stone? Who is he going to love?” Kristin asked cautiously.
Tessa shrugged. “Nobody knows.”
Kristin found it hard to imagine any woman would want to take Xander on like he was now. It was going to have to be somebody pretty damn special. Although she did hurt for Julian’s little brother; he was a train wreck.
After catching up on other news in town, Kristin finally stood. “I’d better go. I have to work tomorrow and my boss is a slave driver,” she teased.
Sarah, her boss, looked over at her and smirked. “You notice I’m still here. I might just be late myself.”
Kristin’s lips formed a genuine smile. Sarah was the smartest, most organized physician she’d ever worked with. If her boss was one minute late, she’d be worried. “I’ll cover for you,” Kristin said with a laugh as she put on her coat, knowing Sarah would be in front of her first patient by nine o’clock sharp.
Shivering as she started up the SUV, she knew she could very easily spend the night at her apartment here in town and save herself the drive out to Julian’s house tonight and again in the morning when she went to work. But for some reason, her heart balked at the idea of not going home, even though she hadn’t yet decided where she’d be when Julian returned.
Home.
It was the house where she’d learned how incredibly happy she could be with a husband she loved. It was a place where she could see her things combined with Julian’s, and his bed was a location where she could fall asleep faintly inhaling his scent.
What if he changes his mind? What if he’s had time to think about us and he wants to be free?
She shook her head, muttering to herself, “That’s all bullshit, Scarlet, and you know it.”
The comment sounded so much like Julian’s that she smiled and then headed for the highway toward his house.
Julian had laid his heart on the line. The ball was in her court.
She just wished she knew exactly which way to run to retrieve it.
There was only one
thing she knew for certain: by this time tomorrow, they were going to resolve this situation once and for all.
CHAPTER 23
“What if she’s not there? What if she decided she wants to leave?” Julian asked Micah, after he’d spilled the whole story about what had happened with Kristin before he’d left for California, when Micah came to pick him up at the small Amesport airport.
He knew he could have gotten a car, but he’d called Micah to come take him home instead. The thought of a ride with a silent driver hadn’t been very appealing.
“I still can’t believe you married her when you were both drunk off your asses,” Micah replied. “That sounds like something I would have done.”
“I knew what I was doing. I wanted to marry her,” Julian grumbled.
“Then why are you worried? She’ll be there. It’s pretty obvious to me that you’re crazy about each other.”
Julian was crazy about Kristin. He just wasn’t sure it went both ways.
“I hope so,” he answered distractedly as Micah maneuvered onto the two-lane highway.
“Although I do think you should have told her that you got married. Why did you go so far to hide it?”
“I didn’t want her to know. I was afraid she’d insist on going to the courthouse that morning to fix it. I needed time, so I bought it by taking everything away, hoping she wouldn’t remember. Or that she’d think it was something that wasn’t true because she’d been so plastered.”
“She might be pissed,” Micah warned.
“Angry I can handle,” Julian answered with a smile. “This is Kristin we’re talking about. I think she’s been pissed off at me since the moment we met.”
Foreplay.
Julian had recognized their friction for exactly what it was almost immediately, some mysterious chemistry that drew them together, but that neither one of them was going to instantly accept.
“You love her.” Micah said it as a statement and not a question.
“Always have. I don’t think it took me long to realize she was the only woman for me. I knew I needed to go after her hard, but I still had obligations to fulfill.”
“How did you know? Even with Tessa, I was hardheaded enough that it took me a while. I thought we were just physically attracted at first. I thought we could screw it out of our systems.”
Julian shrugged. “Because fighting with Kristin was better than having sex with any other woman had ever been.”
“Okay. Then I’m not asking about the sex,” Micah said hastily.
He wouldn’t have told his brother about his sex life with his wife anyway, but Julian laughed before he said more seriously, “Since Mom and Dad died and Xander got so fucked up, I’ve realized just how important it is to seize the moment. Or in this case, seize my woman, I guess. Sometimes there are no second chances.”
Micah was quiet for a moment before he answered, “You know Mom and Dad loved you. They loved all of us.”
“I was a prick, Micah. I pretty much missed the last six years of their life because I never pulled my head out of my ass enough to realize that they didn’t care if I was successful or still struggling. They just wanted to see their son. I can’t get that time back, and I’d do just about anything to see them again just to tell them I loved them. I don’t want to have that kind of regret again.”
“You really want to give up your acting career? You sacrificed a lot to get where you are.”
“It will make my screenplays that much more in demand,” Julian replied. “I always wanted to create, but I just had the task all wrong. I’ve never been happier. Now I can tell the story instead of acting it out.”
“You’re talented at both,” Micah said. “Mom and Dad would have been proud of you. I wish that they’d lived to see your success, but you’re right. They loved you because you were their son. They understood you were busy, Julian. Don’t ever beat yourself up about that.”
“You and Xander both made time to see them,” Julian said remorsefully.
“We both had money and a private jet. That makes going anywhere a hell of a lot easier. We weren’t trying to live off what we made just to prove we could make it on our own. We used our connections to our advantage. You took your own path to success.”
“Xander basically called me a selfish prick,” Julian muttered.
“Yeah. Now it’s Xander’s turn to be a selfish prick,” Micah answered drily.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Micah. When you needed help with Xander, I should have known.”
“You didn’t and it’s over. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to know. Maybe you had the right, but you had worked so damn hard for your success that I thought you deserved your time.”
Julian’s chest ached at the responsibility Micah had willingly taken on to save him the worry during the pinnacle of his career. “Well, I’m here now. We’ll deal with Xander together.”
“I’m good with that,” Micah agreed as he pulled into the driveway of Julian’s mansion.
The house was dark, but the yard light was on. If Kristin was going to be here, it was long past time for her to be home. “I’m not sure she’s here.”
“You want me to come in with you?” Micah offered.
“No,” he told his brother. “I’m good. Whatever happens, this is where I want to be.”
“Don’t let go,” Micah advised. “Even if she isn’t here, keep trying to make it work if you know she’s the one.”
Julian was fairly certain he wouldn’t be trying anything else. He’d given her the choice, and she’d made a decision.
He nodded anyway as he opened the car door and the vehicle flooded with light, not trusting himself to say anything else at the moment.
Pulling the keys out of his pocket, he watched as Micah drove away, not sure he wanted to enter the house at all.
“I need to just fucking get it over with,” he grumbled, heading for the front door.
It was locked and he put the key in and shoved the door open, listening for any sounds of movement in the house.
Flipping on the lights, he forced himself not to call out for Kristin like the desperate man he knew he was.
He headed straight for the garage, flipping on lights as he went. He took a deep breath as he strode by the kitchen, everything clean and perfectly in place. When he yanked open the door to the garage, it illuminated automatically, and his heart sank.
Her car was gone, and his SUV sat exactly where it belonged.
“Fucking hell!” he cursed, slamming the garage door closed and pulling off his jacket. He tossed it on the counter, not giving a shit about whether he hung it up.
It wasn’t like Kristin was going to be on his ass about being tidier. In fact, she wasn’t going to get on his case about anything ever again.
Bypassing the refrigerator, he went straight to the bar in the family room and poured himself a glass of Scotch—minus the water or the ice. He downed it in a couple of gulps, slamming the glass down when he was finished and refilling the glass.
“She’s gone. She fucking left,” he growled. “I was the idiot who gave her the choice. What did I expect?”
What he wanted, what he really needed, was for her to pick him. Not because they’d accidentally gotten married and were trying each other out. But because she chose to stay with him because that’s what she wanted.
“She didn’t pick me,” he said huskily, taking another gulp of his whiskey before setting it down on the coffee table and wandering back into the kitchen.
Before he knew what was happening, his sorrow turned into anger and he punched the French doors that led out to the patio, venting his frustration on the glass and small trims of white wood. It felt so good that he did it again.
And again.
And again.
His knuckles were bleeding and throbbing before he finally stopped because he’d shattered most of the small, separated plates of glass, and beating up the door wasn’t helping his rage much. And it sure as hell w
asn’t mending the huge gaping hole in his heart.
He went back to the family room and picked up his drink painfully and took the last gulp of his Scotch, setting it down again to flex his bloody hands. Glancing at the damage to the door from a distance, he rasped, “Fucking idiot!”
His outburst of fury wasn’t really with Kristin. He’d asked her to make a choice, and she had. She just hadn’t picked him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d pretty much lied to her, and he hadn’t exactly picked the best ways to show her how much he cared. From the very beginning, he hadn’t handled his intense attraction to her very well. Neither of them had. But he’d known what was happening. She probably hadn’t.
His gut was aching as he went and got another drink, uncertain what to do with himself.
The house was too quiet.
He’d gotten way too accustomed to spending his evenings with Kristin, arguing, laughing . . . or both.
Either way, it always ended the same: with his cock inside her and both of them finding the kind of ecstasy that they never knew existed.
Now, there was only silence and the knowledge that the joy that he’d found in this house was never going to be present here again.
He flopped on the couch and tried not to think of all the things he could have done differently, but it came down to just one thing.
She didn’t choose me.
Julian’s only consolation was that Kristin had made a decision that would obviously make her happy.
It was like déjà vu of another relationship in his life. Why was it that women wanted to fuck him, but they didn’t want to be with him? Except, his other relationship hadn’t hurt nearly as much as this did. In so many ways, he’d made a lucky escape from the female who had rejected him so long ago. But Kristin was different. The only thing he felt was totally annihilated.
Knowing that at least one of them would be happy was the sole reprieve for a guy who’d just had his heart and soul completely destroyed.
He downed his drink, wondering if he should just get the damn bottle as he put the tumbler on the table.
Running a hand through his hair in despair, he realized that he was probably streaking his face with blood. He wiped his throbbing hands on his jeans, then let them rest on the top of his thighs, allowing his head to drop back to rest on the sofa and closing his eyes.
