by Nicole Casey
I had been grateful to step out of the spotlight for a time, the taste of my sell-out personality still leaving an acrid taste in my mouth.
When had I ever made a decision and stuck to it? What was I doing there?
“You’re second-guessing yourself again,” Jude murmured as the din from the club outside swelled. “You’re overthinking.”
My mouth parted to argue but he knew me too well. He could read my distress all over my face.
“You go out first,” I insisted. “Warm them up at least.”
“No.”
The word was flat and firm.
“Please, Jude? I – I think I made a mistake thinking I could do this. I’m a mom now, soccer parent and – ”
“And you’re a sister, a friend, my soulmate and my muse,” he murmured, his emerald eyes boring into mine, dispelling all my fears as we shut the world out. “If it wasn’t for you, no one would even know my name, Gen.”
I felt myself relaxing, losing myself in the warmth of his hypnotic tones. He always knew just what to say, what to do to alleviate my crazy when it crept in on me.
I liked to think I did the same for him.
“You need to focus on me, just like we rehearsed,” he told me, his words even, as if he was singing them to me. “We aren’t here, we’re in the trailer, pouring over sheet music. We’re wrapped up in each other with the guitar. Close your eyes and picture it.”
Inhaling shakily, I did what he suggested and the noise from beyond the stage faded away.
Suddenly, I was in the trailer but not recently. I was there in those early days, before the twins, before the heartbreak. We were laughing and struggling to find the right lyrics, making up silly words that didn’t fit. There was a box of cold pizza and the scent of our lovemaking lingering around us.
In my mind’s eye, the scene shifted and I saw Jude, lifting Cheyenne over his head, spinning her around like a helicopter as Wyatt squealed for his turn and then we were all staring at our new house in Baton Rogue, the four of us huddled beneath the loblolly pines, the scent of gardenias wafting up from the garden to meet my nose.
Slowly, I opened my eyes and smiled at him, realizing that what he said was true. So much had changed since we had first met. My priorities were different now but my heart was still very much the same. There was room enough for my love of family and my love of music.
Jude had given me everything I ever wanted, proven here as the crowd outside waited for us to make our debut.
“There she is,” he chuckled, noting the relief in my eyes. “Crisis averted?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I’m ready.”
He nodded, clasping my hand and tugging me through the wings.
As the curtain cleared my face, we met with the band onstage and a roar of approval greeted us. Instantly, my eyes fell on familiar faces at the front of the packed club and my pulse quickened again to make me lightheaded.
“What are they doing here?” I cried as Jude led me to the mics. He grinned boyishly and waved at Elsa and the others who seemed bursting with pride sandwiched between a mass of adoring fans.
“They’re here for you, obviously,” he whispered back and I was speechless with gratitude. They were all there, Jake, Marybeth and her husband, Charlie, Carrie and her boyfriend. I hadn’t called them. I didn’t want them to see if I failed on our first night before a live audience. This wasn’t YouTube. This wasn’t a series of “likes” and trolls. This was the real deal. We would know if we had what it took as a couple, if I had what it took at Geneva Rousseau, not Juniper Jane.
But I was so glad they had taken the trip to LA, knowing that finding sitters and taking time off work couldn’t be easy for them. I couldn’t believe that Jude had called them, knowing they still had not forgiven him, even after all that time.
“Ladies and gents,” Jude called. “Thank you all for coming to our debut live show.”
Hoots and cheers followed his announcement but Jude held up his hand, peering at me through his peripheral vision.
“Some of you know me,” he continued as the din settled slightly. “Most of you know my beautiful girlfriend and mother of my children, Geneva.”
My heart almost exploded with outpouring of screams which ensued and I blinked quickly, overcome by emotion as I saw that they really were there for both of us.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Jude continued, his voice carrying somehow, despite our fans’ vocal adoration. “A lot of crazy shit, in fact, most of it mine.”
Appreciative laughter.
“So,” Jude said, turning toward me, his eyes gleaming with love. “I wrote this for Geneva because, without her, I’d be nothing but a wasted soul, strumming through life without purpose.”
He reached for his guitar and strapped it over his shoulder, playing lightly as the bassist found his line.
This wasn’t part of the show and I stood, watching him curiously.
“What are you doing?” I mouthed, my brow furrowing in confusion but he was focussed on the song which I had never heard.
“You held me together even when I was gone,” he sang, a sweet, melancholic tune flowing through me. “You gave me the strength to carry on.”
A lump formed in my throat as a few light whoops escaped the patrons.
“I never knew was missing in my life…”
Our eyes met and I couldn’t stop a single tear from sliding down my cheek when he dropped to his knee and beamed up at me, a gasp emanating from my lips.
“But I know now that I need you for my wife…”
I didn’t hear anything else as I knocked him to the stage, smothering his face with kisses, the shock of the moment overwhelming me. I didn’t need to hear anything else.
Jude laughed as I straddled him, his father’s guitar still pressed between us as I finally lifted my head to stare at him. There was no one else there even though I could hear the insanity from somewhere above me.
“Is that a yes?” he asked and I laughed, full streaks of tears streaming my face as I nodded.
“Of course it’s a yes,” I whispered, leaning forward to kiss his lips. “Are you sure this is what you want? I mean – ”
“Am I sure that I want to grow old with you, the mother of my children, my inspiration and the best thing that ever happened to me? Yes, I’m sure.”
“We’ve – we’ve just never talked about it,” I murmured. “Why now?”
“Because, Gen, the thought of ever being without you makes me sick inside. I was away from you and our babies long enough and whatever ride we’re about to embark upon, here, tonight, I want to do it unified.”
“Would you say yes already and get the show started?” Marybeth yelled onto the stage, breaking the bubble around us.
I turned to glare at her playfully.
“I already did!” I called back.
“Whoo hoo!”
“Come on,” I laughed, reluctantly climbing off him. “We better start the show before they start throwing tomatoes.”
We stood but I couldn’t resist sneaking in one last kiss before claiming my mic. Our time had come finally and no matter what happened that night or any other, we wouldn’t be apart again.
“Let’s do this!” Jude cried and the drummer kicked off our first song together with a smash of the cymbals.
Yes, I thought happily. Let’s do this thing called life. Together.
- The End -
Accidental Soulmates
Baby Fever Book 2
Prologue
THE DREAM
From somewhere behind him, a blast of raucous laughter caused him to start, distracting him from the blazing machines inside the casino.
Julian turned his head slightly to the side, toward the noise and eyed the overweight, bleached blonde who couldn’t have been from anywhere other than Texas. The machine screeched and winnings poured out the lip in a waterfall of coins.
“Lookie, Patrick! I dun won four hundred smackeroos!” she chortled in a voice wh
ich fit her obnoxious appearance perfectly. Naturally, it was wrought with a deep Texan drawl.
Patrick, who apparently stood at her side, nodded approvingly and grinned a toothless smile.
“Ya sure did, Colleen! I knew you’d make our rent this time!”
Even as he thought it, a voice echoed his sentiments perfectly.
“Charming,” someone muttered from his left, her low, sultry tone laced with contempt. Julian’s eyes traveled toward the woman at his side who watched the scene with a full mouth twisted in a fusion of disdain and something he couldn’t quite decipher.
Wistfulness?
Longing?
It was difficult to read, especially since she had such a classically beautiful face, almost as if she had descended from royalty with high cheekbones and large, guarded eyes. It wasn’t as if she was suspicious per se but shadowed by the woes of life. It was hard to say what she might see in the scene which made her sad—the fact that they had won or that they were a couple.
“You’re not a fan of the machines?” he asked and she cast him a look of surprise. For a moment, Julian felt that he was invisible and she was staring directly through him with her golden-brown eyes.
Am I here? He asked himself and he idly wondered if he had spoken the question aloud. The ecstasy he had taken in his suite was causing his body to tingle in a peculiar way and if he looked at the girl a certain way, he saw her split in two.
I’d like to split her in two, he thought, a wide grin forming on his generous mouth, the abrasive woman at the slots all but forgotten.
Taking drugs was not really his scene but the impromptu vacation to Vegas had brought back some old college boy in him and he reasoned that without supervision, he was entitled to let loose once in a while.
“I really haven’t had much experience in casinos,” the raven-haired girl replied and Julian’s eyes moved along the slender lines of her neck toward the swelling breasts threatening to spill out of her too-small t-shirt.
He wondered if she had done that by design or if she just desperately needed a new wardrobe.
Julian suddenly had the irresistible urge to take her shopping.
“Casinos are overrated,” he told her, extending his hand toward her. “I know a much better way to see Vegas.”
She eyed his extended hand and for a moment, Julian thought she was going to slap him. The heady feeling of the drug made him laugh at the image and he almost welcomed the feel of her palm on his cheek. He was feeling much more brazen, not to say he was ever shy. But at the same time, he felt as if he might shatter into a million pieces if she didn’t accept his hand. In the end, she took it, raising her head back slightly to look up at him with an almost childlike wonder.
“Show me,” she told him.
He didn’t catch her name—or perhaps he never asked. It didn’t seem important as the hours flew past, her throaty laughter bringing him higher. Every second he spent with her brought him closer to the need to possess her.
Julian found himself calling her “Kitten” because she reminded him so much as a sexy little beast but there was something inherently wicked about her, a mischievous undertone beneath those serious eyes which he was dying to unleash. He knew she would be a wildcat in bed…if they got that far.
Something primitive inside him told Julian they would.
He fulfilled his desire to take her shopping, insisting that the extravagant wardrobe be sent to his suite and the afternoon flittered into night, Julian losing himself inside her golden eyes.
“Are you real?” he asked her at one point and she cocked her head to the side, a long strand of hair dripping over the luscious curve of her breasts. It was a pressing question, one which echoed over and over in his mind like a chant. Julian licked his lips, the desire to taste the cream of her skin overwhelming him.
“Are you?” she replied, spinning to fan him in a strand of black tresses.
There were champagne and lobster at the Chart House and drinks at Caesar’s. Slowly, his memory began to fade and all that remained was the haunting glow of her strange eyes which tantalized him lured him back to his rooms at the Palazzo.
When he finally gathered her in his arms, it was everything he had envisioned from the moment he had heard her voice.
“Kiss me,” she ordered him. “Hard.”
He didn’t need to be told a second time and when their lips crushed together, it was as if she had cast a spell on him. The bulge in his pants poked dangerously through the material of his crotch. He could feel her heat through the worn material of her denim jeans.
She tasted sweet and liquored but when their tongues met and Julian’s hands cupped the breasts which had been taunting him all night, the feeling that he was floating consumed him entirely and he was spun toward the ceiling, watching their clothes falling to the floor, among the packages he had purchased for her.
Why didn’t she change into one of the dresses I bought her? He wondered irrelevantly but there was no time to consider her reasoning, not when her mouth moved along his ripped, naked pecs and toward the belt of his pants. She paused to tease his taut nipples with a lashing tongue.
Julian’s palms reluctantly fell away from the full Cs and atop her silken crown of hair, sighing heavily as her hot breath touched the skin of his waistline. His organ was rigid, ready and waiting for her to take.
A warm, soft hand cupped his sack, moving his shaft into her mouth and down her throat with a fluid, easy motion. She was hot and wet, her mouth hoovering around him in a vortex of desire.
Julian groaned, closing his eyes, meaning to relish the sensation but suddenly, it was over.
When he opened his eyes, the black-haired vixen was gone and he lay sprawled against the still-made king bed of his hotel room.
He was fully dressed in a tuxedo he had not been wearing the previous night. Sitting up, he gazed about, blinking gritty eyes. The ecstasy had depleted the water supply to his body and he desperately needed hydration.
Did I dream that woman in a drug-induced haze? He asked himself, half-crawling, half-stumbling toward the bar. But when he arrived in the sunken living room, he saw the thousands of dollars in women’s clothing sitting untouched in piles.
“Kitten?” he called out weakly but as he said the word, he felt foolish and clamped his mouth together.
Warily, he searched for his wallet to see if he had been robbed but neither his watch nor almost two thousand dollars in cash he carried had been touched.
Confused, Julian sat on the sofa and tried to piece together what had happened but the more he prodded his memory, the more fleeting it became.
It was not until Eloise began to call his phone an hour later that Julian was forced to accept that he had probably made up the black-haired girl in some ecstasy-induced illusion. Even so, Julian couldn’t help but feel a bizarre sense of loss as if he had let someone get away even though he had no real way of knowing if she existed.
1
Julian
Open.
Closed.
Open.
I waited.
Closed.
Yep, Terry was on a tear that morning although what he had set his sights on, I couldn’t say. No one knew what went through that man’s mind half the time.
I sighed deeply and turned my attention back to the computer screen, trying to block out my lawyer’s obsessive opening and closing of drawers in the next room. It was the downfall of working at the home office—the soundproofing was awful.
Of course, I hadn’t expected to have company on the days when I worked from home.
Certainly not my OCD attorney, I thought wryly. It was probably time to remodel the house and add extra insulation. My, how things had changed since my father ran Bryant Land Holdings. His vision of the company had been three high-rise condos on the east coast before the housing market had exploded. It was sad he hadn’t lived long enough to see what I had done with his baby.
Now, I was running a multi-billion-dollar empire from the s
prawling estate off the coast of Biscayne Bay on my private island. It was supposed to have been a sanctuary, an escape from the skyscrapers and bustle of city life but Terry was making it very difficult to forget the woes which waited for me in the city with all his thumping around in the neighboring office.
Such motion was indicative that something was truly bothering him. I was biding my time because I knew in a matter of minutes, he would be knocking on my door, demanding some piece of paper or another and I would be forced to talk him down. I would need the couple extra minutes to hone my inner Zen for that.
To make matters worse, Eloise was calling—again. I had set my cell ringer to silent but that didn’t stop my insane step-sister from continuously phoning as if her persistence was going to break me down and not make me force her to wait longer. How little she knew me.
She hadn’t broken me in the twenty years we’d been related and I wasn’t losing my edge, no matter how much she wished for it.
No sooner did Eloise give up calling did Terry knock on the door, trading the present mishap with the original.
“Julian? Can I come in?”
It wasn’t like he gave me much of a choice and the door flew open, displaying the disheveled lawyer at the threshold.
It truly never ceased to amaze me that a man who made eight figures could perpetually carry the resemblance of a homeless person in Hialeah. In fact, I think I’d seen better put together hobos than Terry. We lived in Florida. The world was our oyster. Even if he wanted to wear khakis and Hawaiian shirts, he could have done it with a modicum of style.
But that was Terry.
“If I say no, will you leave?” I asked hopefully and as always, he ignored me, making his way toward the massive desk which I sat behind. It had belonged to my father and while I personally saw it as an eyesore, it also made me feel closer to the old man. We hadn’t been all that tight in my youth. His priorities were as follows: Bryant Land Holdings, Madeline, Bryant Land Holdings, us kids. But I still missed the bastard. He had done his best for me and his wretched wife and step-daughter while he was alive.
