by Emma Vikes
I wasn’t sure if I had the courage to read throughout the article but I leaned back from my laptop and shook my head. “It must be just a rumour, Theo. We can put up a statement that none of that is real and…”
Maybe I could let out a statement that Julian and I were dating- after I consult with him, that is- and state that we didn’t want the world to know about us just yet, that it was all a crazy misunderstanding. “Audrey…”
Theo’s voice was soft and held such sympathy that made me cringe as he slowly spun my chair so I was facing him. “Audrey, they have a video of Julian saying that he’s always been weak when it comes to women and you used your body to your advantage.”
I blinked, unsure if I processed the words correctly because I felt as if my brain suddenly lagged to do so. “I don’t…I don’t understand…he wouldn’t…he’s been…I told him not to share anything to the media about the two of us, Theo.”
But even after I said that, I felt as if I was selfishly consoling myself and turning a blind eye on the truth that was written in bold letters, the light from my laptop glaring at me when I turned to look at it. I turned my chair back so I was facing the laptop and scrolled down again to find two separate videos. I played the first video.
“Or maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m weak when it comes to women and Audrey used her body to her advantage because let’s face it, it’s not like you could work the charm with me.”
It felt I was sucker-punched in the gut hearing Julian say that. His words pierced at my heart and whatever sweet things he whispered to me every now and then disappeared completely as the words in the video echoed over and over in my head. I felt insulted to be painted as a woman who would use femininity to lure a man to sign up to our company.
It sparked an anger within me that was brighter than the pain that the statement brought.
I played the second one.
The person filming was probably standing on the side and he only had Julian in frame. “Oh and to get facts straight, Audrey Finch is nowhere near my ideal woman. If you want the truth, know that I’ve never hated anyone with burning passion more.”
“Then why the hell did you sign with us?”
Julian had his signature cocky smile on. “She promised me an even bigger stage. It’s all about the money with me.”
There was a sudden ringing sound in my ear as I felt my heart sink even further. My head was spinning and I was unsure how I was meant to grasp the entirety of this situation. It was only this morning when I thought that maybe things between us could work out, that maybe we could actually work out.
I never truly wanted to acknowledge what I felt for him because as much as I never thought it would happen, I fell in love with Julian Hudson.
Suddenly, I remembered all the girls in college that cried because of him, of how Amber broke down in front of me after he broke her heart. I swore to myself that I would hate him for all the girls that loved him too much and allowed him to break them.
But here I was, five years later, with a broken-heart because of Julian Hudson.
24
Julian
My mother was the main reason I went home to Irving so I could visit her. When the band signed our first record deal, I became so abnormally busy that I couldn’t even call Mom from time to time. Although it seemed weird for a grown man to check in on his mother, she was the only parent I had left. And my grandfather always told me to take care of her.
So I made a promise to her that I would come home from time to time and I always told her when. No matter what happened, I came home to Irving and stayed with her for a while and then with Everett in a townhouse and evidently in the penthouse with Everett and Leo. Mom preferred living by herself in a small bungalow house in the neighbourhood that we used to live in.
Coming home always meant that I was away from the toxic environment I chose to live in. LA was amazing at best but a celebrity can never deny that it’s tough when all eyes were on you. Irving was the place that I could finally breathe, where everyone knew when I was a little boy and not as the Julian Hudson that the world fell in love with.
But at the moment, I felt like the stress from LA followed me home. I heard of the rumour from Carlos, and I couldn’t reign in my anger at the media and worry for Audrey any longer.
“Jules, are you there?” Carlos’ voice through the speaker sounded so distant. It had been four hours since I landed in Irving and I was at Mom’s, helping her out with dinner since Leo was coming over, along with Eleanor and Max. Everett and Alexa still had work so neither of them would be able to join us for dinner.
I was meant to enjoy a meal with my family but I felt like my whole world suddenly stopped spinning and I wanted to jump on the first plane back to LA. “I need to call her, Carlos.”
I was ready to end the call with him when he spoke again, “José and Dylan have been trying to reach her. They even tried to call Amber and Theo but none of them are picking up, Jules. You can try calling her but…”
But she might not answer my call. Especially my call.
“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” I whispered. No matter how many calls I left her, I needed to make sure she knew that none of what was said in the article was true. There may have concrete proof that I said what I did on that video- and it was true that I did say it but I didn’t mean it the way Audrey might think I did- but I still wanted to explain.
I hung up on Carlos and quickly dialled Audrey’s number but all I kept getting was that the number was unreachable and I tried calling Theo and Amber and I keep getting the same response. “Fuck!”
Throwing my phone on the ground, I closed my eyes and squatted, burying my face in my hands. “Julian?”
It was a woman’s voice and I looked up and met Eleanor’s golden eyes. She took a cautious step closer to me. I rubbed my palm against my face and gave her a weak smile. “Is Mom already looking for me?”
She shook her head. “No. I was wondering what was taking you so long.”
I let out a shaky breath and then dejectedly sat on the sidewalk, running my hand through my hair. Eleanor sat beside me without a word. “Apparently, LA followed me here. There’s a rumour that came up and I…”
“Do you need legal help?” Eleanor was quick to ask. She was a lawyer and sometimes, I tend to forget what her profession was.
I smiled slightly but shook my head. “I don’t think it’s that bad that requires a professional help. I’ve been in a handful of scandals and I know that I can always clear my name with a statement and a press conference but…”
I could clear my name with the rest of the world but I wasn’t sure if I could do the same thing with Audrey. She first knew me as this scumbag douche who seemed to have an affinity for breaking women’s heart and she always swore off me. She felt repelled from me automatically before and we’d always had a mutual sense of loathing towards each other.
Until it turned into mutual likeness and now, I could literally feel it spiraling down the rabbit hole and I wanted to hop off the first plane and go to LA and salvage the relationship that we built.
“But what?” Eleanor’s voice was soft and yet she still snapped me out of my trance.
I licked my lips and stared in the distance. “But I don’t think that whatever explanation I give would matter to who I wanted it to understand most.”
When I looked at Eleanor, she had her hair tilted slightly to the side as she stared back at me with soft golden eyes that darkened as the sun lowered its position. “By any chance, can you elaborate what that means?”
My brothers all had a sinking suspicion that I might be seeing Audrey but I never really confirmed it to any of them. Milo had witnessed how Audrey and I interacted and how much he had shared with the two that was something I didn’t know of. But if Eleanor didn’t seem to have the slightest bit of idea of what I was talking about, then maybe none of them really did know the status of my love life.
“You know how we lost the deal with our previous record label?” Eleanor nodded
when I said that so I continued, “so a company approached us right after but the thing was, the owner of that company was someone I was at odds with since college.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed slightly and she slowly nodded. “I think Megan mentioned this to me in a phone call a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, you made the owner your assistant?”
Despite my current predicament, I chuckled and nodded my head. “It was sort of a compromise. The boys appreciated the fact that their company was the first to come up to us after that ugly termination of contract with the previous company. The deal was for her to be my assistant for a month and well, obviously, that one month is over and we’ve signed with them.”
“So what’s the matter?”
I let out another shaky breath as I tried to gather my thoughts. “I…we…”
I couldn’t really finish my sentence because I didn’t know how I was meant to describe the relationship that I had with Audrey. We were sleeping with each other but I knew that there were more feelings involved and it wasn’t just sex for me and I could only hope that it was the same for her. I meant what I said when I told her I wanted her.
I meant it when I said I like her.
“I like her, Eleanor,” I whispered and closed my eyes, feeling the tears prickle my eyes because even when Audrey wasn’t in front of me and blatantly rejecting me, I had the sinking feeling that it would turn out that way when we came face to face, “and right now, I feel like I just lost her.”
I felt a hand on my back, gently patting me. “You don’t know that, Jules. You haven’t even talked to her. Maybe if you go back and see her, maybe you can explain things.”
“I can try,” I said, my voice sounding a little hoarse, “but I’m not sure how I can explain to Mom that I have to leave right away and…”
My phone started ringing and I picked it up from where I threw it and felt my whole world stop when I saw Audrey’s name flashing on the screen. I stared at it, unsure of what I was meant to do and Eleanor gave me a nudge, nodding at me and suddenly I realized that Audrey was calling me.
“Audrey,” I said her name almost breathlessly, “I heard about what happened. I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning and we can do some damage control with the rumor-,”
“Why did you say those things, Julian?” Her voice sounded so quiet, so distant and the way the words rolled off her tongue broke my heart. She sounded so small, nothing like the vibrant Audrey that I’d known for a while, the one with the spunky attitude that always put me in my place.
She sounded so heartbroken and the sound broke me too.
I swallowed and I could feel my hand begin to shake as I held the phone close to my ear. “It’s not what you think. That video…however it was played out, was only one-side of a story. I didn’t mean anything of what I said.”
Suddenly, she sounded different, as if the excuse I gave triggered her anger and it was as if she did a complete 180. “But what if you’re actually just fooling me, Julian? Maybe this is your own twisted idea of amusement against the person that kicked you out of the hospital five years ago because she blamed you for her best friend’s attempt to kill herself. Maybe this is your idea of revenge.”
You’re impossible, Julian Hudson, as cold-hearted and cruel as everyone had painted you to be.
“You know I’m not like that, Audrey.” I stood up and then walked away, wanting privacy for the conversation. I think Eleanor understood because she quietly left me to talk to Audrey on the phone. “You wanted what we had to be kept private and Anthony was prying and…”
“So are you trying to pin this on me? That it’s my fault that I didn’t want to disclose that we have some kind of relationship other than a working one?” I could sense the anger in her tone, as well as the disappointment that I wasn’t the guy she thought I was.
“I’m not blaming you!” I said in exasperation as I ran a hand through my hair again, unsure of how I was meant to handle this kind of conversation. “Anthony egged me on, okay? There was a fine line between me wanting to protect you and keeping my word to you that we weren’t going to disclose anything to the public until you say so.”
“And what about the part that you painted me to be the kind of woman who was willing to throw herself to you for the sake of her company?” Audrey’s voice was shaking and I could hear the disgust in her tone. “What kind of sick, twisted game are you trying to play, Julian?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. That statement was a low-blow and I didn’t really think twice before saying it. “I’m sorry, Audrey, I didn’t mean any of it. You’re not that kind of girl. I know that…I shouldn’t have...how it turned out was not how I intended it to be…”
I was at lost for words and I was grappling to find the right ones. Audrey cleared her throat and said, “Whatever your intention was with the whole thing, Julian, one thing remains clear to me. You’re still the same guy that you were five years ago.”
“You know that’s not true.” I whispered.
Audrey sighed on the other line. “I don’t know what the truth is with you anymore, Julian Being with you the way that I was, allowing things to transpire between us that shouldn’t have, it was all a bad call on my end. I shouldn’t have allowed anything to happen because you are Julian Hudson. No matter what you say to me, you will always remain as the guy that broke a hundred hearts and I allowed you to break mine.”
With those words, she ended the call and I stared at my phone and tried to dial her number again but the receiver kept telling me that she was now unreachable. I tried multiple times and to no avail, I couldn’t reach her anymore and I groaned in exasperation, my own anger erupting within me as I threw my phone against the post and watched as it caught sparks before it clattered on the ground.
Closing my eyes for a moment and trying to control my breathing, it took me a moment before I felt slightly calm. As much as I wanted to run to the airport and hop on a plane and fly back to Los Angeles to explain to Audrey everything that transpired at that moment and how everything was taken completely out of context, I knew that the effort would be in vain.
Audrey made up her mind. I felt like there was nothing I could do to change it.
Dejectedly, I went back inside the house and spent the rest of dinner acting like I was totally fine, even when Eleanor kept throwing me looks. Leo volunteered to wash the dishes and Max helped him dry them. Mom was busy with the book she was reading and Eleanor was re-checking the case she was handling and I was just in the living room, desperate for a bottle of beer to ease the pain that I was suddenly trapped in.
“Mom?” I felt like a tiny boy when I called my mother and she looked up at me, reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “Can I head to the penthouse? I’d really like to rest now.”
Mom looked at me for a moment and stood up, sitting next to me and placing a hand on my forehead. “You must be tired from the flight. Sure, sweetie, you can head home now.”
I smiled at her slightly and kissed her on the cheek and then turned to Eleanor who was looking at me curiously as I approached her. “How did it go?”
Shaking my head lightly, I didn’t bother to give her a full response as I simply kissed her on the cheek and patted her back before heading to the kitchen to tell Leo and Max that I was leaving. I brought my motorcycle with me and I stopped by a convenience store to buy a pack of beer before heading home.
When I arrived at the penthouse, the first thing I noticed was how the kitchen was in complete disarray, the same way it looked when I first arrived this morning and I knew that Alexa must’ve tried to practice cooking again. A part of me wanted to shout their names in annoyance, knowing that they must’ve been in Everett’s room, but I was too tired to be angry at anything else so I decided to clean the kitchen by myself.
I finished cleaning up and then began putting everything back to where they belonged but stopped for a moment and sighed, zoning out for a moment, too out of it to do anything or think of a solution for my cur
rent situation. As I’d thought a hundred times since I’d found out about the article, I could fly to Los Angeles right now.
But Audrey would never want to hear your explanation. It wouldn’t mean anything to her.
I heard someone coming down the stairs and then heard Everett’s voice. “I’m sorry, Jules.”
Looking up at him, he looked sheepish as he nodded at the kitchen that I just cleaned. I walked in on the same situation earlier and was annoyed at how dirty it was but right now, I didn’t really have enough energy to give such a fuck. “I wish you’d tell her to stop but who am I to do that when I used to be the same as her when I was learning how to?”
I placed a pan back to the proper cupboard it belonged to as Everett approached me and then I added, “I just wish you didn’t have to ruin my kitchen as she learns.”
Everett merely chuckled and then helped me with the dishes and then started a pot of coffee while I moved to the counter and sat down, running a hand through my curls and closing my eyes for a moment. Maybe if I closed my eyes, when I opened them, everything would fall into place again and Audrey wouldn’t hate me as much.
My brother handed me a cup as he sat across from me. “Something bothering you?”
Everett and I were close because we were close in age yet we were so different when it came to personalities. Still, it was never too hard for me to open up to him but the situation I was in at the moment wasn’t something that I would like to disclose to one more person. Eleanor was already enough for tonight.
“Will you ever ask her to move in here? This house is too big for just you since I’m barely here. Besides, hers is small.” I was purposely changing the subject because I didn’t really want to be put in the hot seat so I put Everett in it.
“Sometimes you make me think that you look down on her apartment,” Everett commented, snorting as he shook his head and sipped his coffee for a moment. I’d been to Alexa’s apartment once and it was honestly too small. It made more sense if she lived here since I was rarely home.
