Irresistible Lies

by Juliette White

  Irresistible Lies

  Juliette White

  Irresistible Lies

  Juliette White

  Copyright 2013 by Juliette White

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  He had finally found her.

  It had taken Jamie five years to track Grace down, since she had pretty much fallen off the face of the earth. But now he had found her.

  He had the name of the company where she worked, and he had the address. He also had an appointment to meet with her boss. He was so close, so near to her.

  He had never been more anxious in his life.

  There was a very good chance that Grace would still hate him. He harbored no illusions where she was concerned. He remembered the day their relationship ended perfectly, and he remembered the look on her face when he had dropped her off at her college dorm room for the last time. It was a look that said, “I’ll never forgive you, you bastard.”

  It was a look he deserved.

  Grace had always been the one, and it hadn’t taken him long to figure that out. They had met at a bar, of all places, and their attraction toward one another had quickly developed into something more. One evening spent with her rich laughter and big brown eyes, and he was way past smitten. One night with her in his bed, and he was in love.

  Grace was funny, beautiful, smart and stubborn, and she cared about Jamie more than he ever imaged anyone would. It continually amazed him how much love she had to give and how much of it she gave so freely to him. It humbled him. Grounded him.

  They had spent nearly three years together, attached and addicted. They treasured their relationship as the most important aspect of their young lives, promising each other loyalty, honesty and devotion above all else. They talked of the future with certainty—where they would live and how many kids they would have.

  Then graduation came.

  Grace had a job lined up at a public relations agency in New York City, and Jamie had a job offer from an investment firm there. Grace was thrilled. She wanted them to get an apartment together. It was the beginning of the rest of their lives, she said.

  Except Jamie didn’t want to work at an investment firm. He wanted to go into business with his friends, who were starting their own brewery on a tract of land upstate. It was exciting. It was an adventure. It was stupid and risky.

  Jamie knew Grace would have supported him every step of the way, even if she would have been secretly disappointed in his choice. When he told her his decision, she even managed an encouraging smile. But Jamie knew there was a very good chance he and his friends would fail, and he couldn’t stand the thought of bringing Grace down with them.

  He couldn’t take the risks he wanted to take with Grace in the picture. She made him want to be responsible. She made him want to take care of her. He needed to have nothing to lose.

  With Grace, Jamie had everything to lose.

  The level of commitment their relationship required had never bothered him before, but he felt he was at a crossroads in his life and worried that if he didn’t take this chance, he would always regret it.

  So Jamie decided that they would break up, just for a while, so he could focus on starting the brewery. He told himself it was the right thing to do for both of them and blocked out the reality of the situation—that the woman he loved wouldn’t be his anymore. Instead he pictured himself years later, successful and established, standing on her doorstep and sweeping her right off her feet.

  He was doing the right thing for them and their future.

  Or so he thought.

  He remembered perfectly trying to explain his reasoning to Grace and regretting the words even before they came out of his mouth. He tried hard to hold on to the certainty that he was doing right by her even as he forgot how that made any sense.

  “Why are you saying this? You don’t love me anymore?” They were sitting on Jamie’s bed in his small apartment, face to face. Her simple question had hit him like a blow to the stomach.

  “Of course I love you. I just need to do this. I will always regret it if I don’t give this a chance. If I take that job in New York City...”

  “I don’t care about New York City.” Her brown eyes were filled with confusion and hurt, and it nearly killed him. “Go upstate. We can make it work. I’ll come visit you every other weekend, and we’ll talk on the phone every single day.”

  He was holding her hands, willing her to understand. “What if you spend the next five years with me and at the end of it I have nothing to show for myself? What will your parents say? You’ll have wasted all that time with someone who doesn’t deserve you.”

  “You think I care about money?” She was trying not to cry, but he could tell the tears were on their way. “You think that matters to me? I don’t care about any of that stuff. I love you.”

  She kissed him, her lips pleading with his, and he tasted a salty tear when it hit the corner of her mouth.

  He pulled away gently. “This doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you, Grace. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, you know that.”

  “It doesn’t sound that way. Since when is money more important than us being together?”

  “It’s not.” And it wasn’t. She just didn’t understand that he was doing this for her, so he could make her happy in the long run. “I just need a few years to give this a real shot and really dedicate myself to this business. I won’t be able to give you the time and commitment you deserve right now.”

  She tried to pull her hands away but he held onto them. “Sweetheart...”

  “So you’re just letting me go? It’s over? Just like that?”

  A big, heavy tear rolled down her cheek, and he released her hand to brush it away with his thumb. “Grace, listen to me. When my crazy, big ideas finally work out, I’m going to be somebody. And I will come and find you, wherever you are, and I promise I will give you everything you ever wanted. A big house, two kids, and we can travel the world. All the things we’ve talked about.”

  “Why do we have to wait to be together? Why can’t we be together now?”

  “Because I’m not ready for all of that yet.”

  She yanked her hands away. “What are you talking about?”

  What was he talking about? He couldn’t find the right words, and they were all coming out wrong. “I need to take these kind of risks while I’m young. I need to take this time to figure things out, figure out who I am and what I want. I know that I want to be with you, and that I want to marry you, someday. But not yet. Not right now.”

  He knew he had hurt her when her voice went cold. “I never asked you to marry me.”

  “I know. What I mean is, our relationship is very serious. At this point in my life, I...” He drifted off, at a loss for words that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete asshole.

  He watched realization dawn in her eyes. “You’re not ready for this. For me.”

  His voice was so small that it was almost a whisper. “Just... not yet.”

  It was like a switch had flipped in her. His crying girl turned into an angry one, and she pulled away from him, looking at him like she had never known him at all.

  “Do you really think I’m going to sit around and wait for you, Jamie? I won’t.”

  He felt hot fear sprea
d though him. “Grace, please don’t say that.”

  “If you’re not ready for me now, you never will be. I would have given you everything. I have given you everything. And I deserve so much better than this.”

  The ice in her voice was unlike he had ever heard from her, and it scared the hell out of him.

  She wasn’t going to wait for him. He had been so sure of her devotion that he hadn’t even considered the possibility. It was always going to be him and Grace at the end, all he wanted was a little time.

  But maybe she wasn’t going to give it to him. Maybe this was going to be the day he lost her forever.

  He had never felt more like a jerk in his life.

  Grace stood up, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” Another tear fell, and she swiped at it with an angry hand. “I’ll never forgive you for this. You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You told me you would never hurt me. You told me you would always love me.”

  Their eyes met, and he wanted so badly for her to understand what was in his heart like she always did. But it was like the cord between them had snapped.

  “I still love you,” he said.

  “Just not enough.”

  She waited for him to deny it, but he didn’t say a word. He was frozen in time, outside of his body, wonde

  ring if this were going to turn out to be the biggest regret of his life, or if it were just one of those real-world decisions everyone was always talking about that just had to be made.

  “I have to go.” She started packing up her things, pulling clothes out of the dresser drawer that he had given her when he had moved into the apartment.

  “Hey. It doesn’t have to be like this. Don’t just cut me out of your life.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more.” She turned away from him. “Take me home. Take me home now.”

  “No. Wait-”

  “Now, Jamie. I can’t be around you anymore.”

  “I don’t want you to leave. Stay.” He reached for her and winced when she took a step back. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “You’ve made it perfectly clear what you want.” She looked away from him as though disgusted. “Take me home or I’m calling a cab.”

  What choice did he have? Even if he told her he changed his mind, it wouldn’t matter. She would never trust him again.

  Grace cried silent tears during the ten-minute ride from his apartment to her dorm, and he didn’t say a word. Almost as soon as he pulled out of the driveway, he was in full panic mode. His heart was beating out of his chest, and all could think was that this was all wrong.

  He parked the car and turned to say something to Grace, but she had already pulled open the door. She gave him a scathing look, but he could see the pain behind it. She was tough, but no matter how she wiped at her cheeks she couldn’t hide the tears that stained them.

  Tears he had put there. The man who had swore to never hurt her.

  “You’ve broken my heart,” she told Jamie, her expressive eyes dead. She slammed the door before he could say a word.

  As he drove away, he decided that he was going to do whatever it took to get Grace back and make things right. He realized, too late, that life without her wasn’t life at all.

  There was only one problem. Grace was gone. She didn’t come to graduation that weekend, and none of her friends would tell him where she was. When he called her cell phone, it was out of service. Her parents and sister wouldn’t answer their phones when he called, and when he showed up to their house and knocked on the door her father gently asked him to leave, telling him Grace didn’t live there anymore.

  In desperation, Jamie finally showed up at the agency in New York City that had hired her. He was told that Grace had quit before her first day.

  He did everything he could think of to find Grace. He couldn’t stand the idea that he had hurt her so badly that she had quit her job and moved away. Or maybe he was giving himself too much credit. Maybe she was happier without him. Maybe she had found someone else. He drove himself crazy thinking about it.

  He hadn’t stopped searching for her for five years. He checked phone books in every town he visited, called their old friends to find out if they had heard from her, entered her name in a search engine almost every single day and attended every alumni event their university had, hoping that just one time she would make an appearance. None of these tactics had worked until last week, when her name had come up in a press release when he searched her name online. Grace Jones had been promoted to an account manager at Bradden Media, a public relations and marketing agency in Charlottesville, Virginia.

  So, he did what any lovesick man would do. He called the agency and made an appointment to meet with the owner, Mr. Charles Bradden, and discuss what the company could offer his growing business, Four Brothers Brewery.

  He stopped himself just in time from making an appointment with Grace, worried that if he tipped her off she would find a way to avoid him.

  And he couldn’t have that.

  He had spent the past five years looking for her after all, and when he found her again, he intended to keep her.

  Chapter 2

  “Mommy.”

  The little voice that had at some point in time become her alarm clock pulled Grace out of her dream, but she didn’t want to leave it. It was a good one. She was on the beach, margarita in hand, not a care in the world.

  “Mommy, wake up. It’s time for school.”

  Time to face reality. Grace opened her eyes to look into the bright blue ones of her son, his hair flying in all different directions from sleep.

  “Are you sure you have school today, Jake? Are you sure it wasn’t canceled?” She was teasing him, of course, and tried to hide a smile when he frowned at her in an adorable mix of confusion and frustration. Jake had just started a new year of preschool a few weeks ago, and he loved it.

  “I have school today, Mommy. Don’t lie.” He grabbed onto her hand and pulled it as hard as he could, which wasn’t very hard. “Get up now. I have to brush my teeth.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m getting up.”

  She followed him to the bathroom dutifully, watching while he brushed his teeth with his tiny toothbrush. He grinned up at her with pride when his teeth were clean, and it suddenly hit her how quickly he was growing up.

  And how much he was starting to look like someone she used to know.

  Grace pushed the thought right out of her mind like she had trained herself to do years ago and followed her son to his bedroom, where she helped him choose what he wanted to wear. She tried to get him in a plain tee shirt and jeans, but he argued with her until she let him wear the football jersey his grandpa had bought for him the week before. The jersey was fine, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep him from wearing it every day.

  “I have to support my team,” he told her, his serious little expression too much for her. She gave in every time, telling herself it was worth doing an extra load of laundry.

  When they made it to the kitchen for breakfast, Grace still wearing her pajamas, her sister Caroline was all ready for work and whipping up some scrambled eggs.

  “Wow, you’re up early,” Grace said.

  “Good morning, Aunt Caroline.”

  “Good morning, sweetie.” Caroline smiled down at Jake before frowning at Grace. “I couldn’t sleep. I had this weird feeling.”

  “What, like a stomachache? Take something.”

  She shook her head. “No. I just have a feeling that something bad is about to happen. It kept me up all night.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me that, Cara. I’m looking forward to a quiet work week after last week’s craziness.”

  “Last week was crazy,” Jake said seriously, nodding his head. “Craziness.”

  Grace laughed and kissed him on the cheek. For the past few weeks, Jake had been repeating everything he heard. For the most part it
was cute, except Caroline had a bad mouth when she was angry. The two of them were trying to be extra careful with their language, but it was difficult.

  “I just have a bad feeling,” Caroline said, sighing loudly.

  “It’s probably indigestion.”

  “Indigestion,” Jake mumbled to himself. “Mommy, what’s indigestion?”

  “When your tummy hurts after you eat food.”

  “Oh. I’ve had indigestion before.”

  Her little boy was going to have quite a vocabulary if he kept this up.

  “It’s not indigestion, Grace,” Caroline said, exasperated. “It’s just a feeling.”

  Caroline’s feelings were not something Grace had ever worried about. Her sister had always been very superstitious. It was just one of the many things that was different about them—they didn’t even look like sisters. Grace was short with dark hair and brown eyes. Caroline was tall, blonde and blue eyed. Strangers always assumed Jake was Caroline’s son.

  Despite their obvious physical differences, they did have the important things in common. Both women were smart and had the good values their parents had instilled in them, and they were loyal to one another above all else.

  “You’re right. It’s probably nothing. Maybe I’m just nervous about the wedding.” Caroline shrugged halfheartedly and plated the eggs. “Jake, honey, you want some breakfast?”

  “Yes please. A growing boy needs his food.”

  Jake patted his stomach and Caroline laughed. “Someone has been spending too much time with Grandpa, I think.”

  “Tell me about it. I can’t get him to wear anything else but that jersey.”

  “He looks so handsome in it, though.”

  “He does.” Grace glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Since you’re so ahead of schedule, would you mind taking Jake to school today? I’ve got a meeting this morning that I can’t be late for.”

  “Of course I can. Jake and I have a lot to catch up on anyway, don’t we?”