by Marie Force
I’ve made mistakes. I know I have. We should’ve been married years ago. It’s my fault we aren’t, but I plan to rectify that as soon as we’re together again. Until then, I want you to know I’m thinking about you all the time.
All my love,
Jeremy
[END LTR]
Juliana read the letter again. All the things she had waited years to hear, mixed in with a few things she could have lived forever without knowing. He had longed to be free. Free of her. And it had taken him just two days to go out with someone else—the same day he sent the roses. He sure had been busy that day.
After several minutes spent processing the letter, she got up to flip the chops and pour a glass of wine. When everything was ready, she pushed the food around on her plate without really eating much of it. She made a plate for Michael, wrapped it in foil, and left it in the oven on warm. The doorbell rang just as she finished cleaning up the kitchen.
Looking through the peephole, she swallowed hard and had to think for a second about what she should do. Reluctantly, she opened the door.
“Who are you?” Paige asked, pushing past Juliana. She carried a large shoulder bag and disregarded Juliana the way she would the hired help.
Juliana cleared her throat and extended her hand to the other woman. “I’m Michael’s roommate, Juliana.”
Paige ignored her outstretched hand. “Michael doesn’t have a roommate.”
Juliana dropped her hand. “He does now.”
“Where is he?”
“At work.” Juliana noticed that Paige still wore her enormous diamond engagement ring.
“Fine.” Paige took off her coat and plopped down on the sofa. “I’ll wait.”
“Suit yourself,” Juliana said on her way upstairs.
“Thank you, I will,” Paige said in a bitchy tone.
Juliana closed the bedroom door and reached for her cell phone.
“Hey,” she said when Michael answered. “Where are you?”
“Why? Do you miss me?”
“Really. Where are you?”
“Juliana? What’s wrong?”
“Um, Paige is here.”
He groaned. “Tell me you’re kidding me!”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, God, that’s the last thing I feel like dealing with tonight.”
“I shouldn’t have let her in, but I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s fine. She would’ve waited for me. At least this way I’m warned. Are you okay? Was she nasty to you?”
“She wasn’t thrilled to discover you have a roommate, especially a female roommate.”
He laughed. “I don’t imagine she was. I’ll be home in about fifteen minutes.”
“Should I make popcorn?”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” he joked.
“I’m only kidding. I’m not enjoying it.”
“I know.”
“Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let her hit you again.”
After a long moment of silence, he said, “I won’t.”
Michael parked on the street and rested his head on the steering wheel. He had put in a fourteen-hour day, and all he wanted was to have some dinner, put his feet up, and just be with Juliana. Instead he was steeling himself for yet another showdown with Paige.
After giving himself one last moment to prepare, he stepped into the living room.
Paige jumped up. “Oh God, Michael! What did you do to your hair?” She made a face. “Well, it’ll grow back before the wedding.”
He counted to ten before he allowed himself to speak. “What are you doing here?” Inside the front door, he dropped the bag of work he hoped to get to that night and pulled off his coat.
Paige followed him into the kitchen. “Who’s that girl who says she’s your roommate?”
“My roommate.” Reaching for the phone book, he smelled something mouthwatering coming from the oven, and his stomach let out a hungry growl. In the yellow pages, he found what he was looking for and picked up the phone. “Yes, I need a taxi at 8 South Chester Street. Thirty minutes? Okay. Thanks.”
“Michael, what are you doing? We need to talk.”
“We’re not going to talk, but you are going to listen.” He took a deep breath to summon the calm he needed to get through this. “I’m starting what’ll probably be the biggest trial of my career on Monday. Today’s Thursday. That means the trial starts in three days. I do not need this right now! So you’re leaving in…” He checked his watch. “Twenty-eight minutes. Go home and leave me alone. Am I clear? Is there any part of that you didn’t understand?”
“Where am I supposed to go at nine o’clock at night?”
Michael shrugged. “Not my problem.”
“I’m not leaving. The least you can do is let me spend the night here.”
“You’re not spending the night. Check into a hotel. I don’t care what you do, but you are leaving.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! You’ve got someone else! All this time I’ve been in Florida, you’ve been seeing someone else. She’s living here!”
Michael forced himself to remain calm. “I have not been seeing someone else.”
She ignored him and stormed into the living room. “Get her down here! I want a better look at the woman who’s been fucking my fiancé!”
“That’s enough!” Michael’s control finally snapped. “This is my home, and I don’t want you here!” He opened the front door and tossed her bag onto the sidewalk. “I want you out. Right now!”
“Why? So you can fuck your whore?”
This time Michael saw it coming and grabbed her arm in midair before her hand could make contact with his face. “I don’t think so, Paige. I let you get away with that once but not twice.” While he had her hand he slid the engagement ring off her finger and put it in his pocket. “I’ll take that back, just so you’re absolutely clear on where we stand. Now get out.” He released her arm.
She snatched her coat off the sofa. “You’ll be sorry, Michael! You’re going to regret this!”
“No, I won’t.”
“Everything all right, Mr. Maguire?” Officer Tanner asked from the sidewalk.
“It is now. Ms. Simpson was just leaving. A taxi will be coming to get her in a few minutes.”
Paige brushed by him.
The moment she was outside Michael slammed the door closed and leaned his head against it for a minute. He turned around to find Juliana coming down the stairs.
She held out her arms to him.
Like a man who had found water after forty days in the desert, he went to her.
Standing on the second stair from the bottom, she held him close to her.
When he pulled back after several minutes, he was able to look directly into her eyes. His hand curled around the back of her neck, and this time when he kissed her he held nothing back. If kissing Paige had been about fire and heat, kissing Juliana felt like coming home. The heat was there, too, but it was almost secondary to everything else he felt when she responded with equal ardor. Coaxing her mouth open, his heart almost burst as her tongue tangled with his. He only ended the kiss when he remembered what she had said about him looking for a rebound. That was the last thing he wanted her to think.
“I’m sorry.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
She caressed his face. “She was so horrible to you.”
“To both of us.”
“I know. I heard.”
He winced. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. I never saw how truly awful she can be until this last week.”
“She hid it from you.” Juliana kept her arms around him.
“Either that or maybe I just chose not to see it.”
“She’ll get the message after tonight. Are you all right?”
“I was all right the moment I turned around and saw you coming down to me.” He tightened his hold on her and buried his face in her hair.
&n
bsp; “Michael,” Juliana said breathlessly. “I made you some dinner.”
“I know. It smells good.” But he didn’t release her. Five minutes passed or maybe ten before he was ready to let go. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here, for offering comfort.” He kept an arm around her as they walked into the kitchen.
She retrieved his dinner and shut off the oven.
“What’s this?” He picked up Jeremy’s letter from the counter.
“Oh. A letter. From Jeremy.”
Michael handed it to her without looking at it and sat down to eat. “He’s not giving up either, huh?”
Juliana shook her head. “He feels really bad about what happened last weekend.”
“It’ll seem self-serving for me to say he should feel bad about it. This is fabulous, by the way. Thanks.”
“I’m glad you like it.” She brought two glasses of wine to the table and sat with him. “He went out with someone else.”
Michael’s fork froze in midair. “He told you that?”
“I figured out from when the letter was written that he went on a date the same day he sent me the roses. He said the date was awful because it wasn’t with me.”
Michael took a long sip of his wine. “I can’t be a good friend to you in this situation. I can’t say what I really want to.”
“It’s all right. There’s nothing you could say that I’m not already telling myself.”
He took her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” she asked as she laced her fingers through his and flipped her soft brown eyes up to meet his.
Michael tugged on her hand and brought her to sit on his lap. He wrapped his arms around her. “Not really. He’s a fool. I already told you that.”
Juliana rested her head on his shoulder. “He said he wants to fix this before I meet someone else.”
Michael kissed the top of her head. “Too late.”
Chapter 14
“Tell me more about your family,” Juliana said. They had folded the laundry she’d done earlier and were finishing the bottle of wine from dinner.
Michael stretched and rested his head against the back of the sofa. He had changed into a Red Sox T-shirt and sweats. “I told you I have three sisters, right?”
“Uh huh. Where are they now?”
“They all still live within blocks of my parents’ house in Newport, and they married guys we grew up with. Let’s see, Mary Frances is the oldest. She married John Doncaster. They have five kids—Connor, Colm, Cormac, Catherine, and Clara,” he said, ticking off the names on five fingers.
“I love the Irish names.”
“There’re more coming. Maggie married Luke O’Shea, and they have three kids, Patrick, Sean, and Emma. Then my sister Shannon married Hughie Sullivan, but we’re not supposed to call him Hughie anymore. They have Lauren, Ailish, Hannah, and Grace.”
“Wow, four girls!”
Michael laughed. “I know. Hughie—I mean Hugh—is totally overwhelmed by them. He was the roughest kid. It’s so funny to see him with all those women.”
“What are your parents like?”
“My mother, Maureen, loves being a grandmother. She has at least three kids trailing behind her whenever she’s not working as a housekeeper for the Preservation Society. They take care of Newport’s famous mansions. My dad, Sean, is the city’s deputy fire chief.”
“They must be so proud of you.”
He shrugged. “They are, but I think they wish I’d married a girl from the neighborhood and stayed close by like the others did.”
“And had six Irish kids?” Juliana asked with a teasing smile.
Michael cringed. “I’m more than happy to let my sisters produce the grandchildren. My dad was disappointed that I didn’t follow him into the fire department. His father, his brothers, and their sons are all firefighters, but it just wasn’t for me. I wanted to go to school.”
“Where did you go?”
“Boston College. Then I worked in Boston for a few years to save some money before I went to law school.”
“Did you always want to be a lawyer?”
“For as long as I can remember. And I always wanted to go to Georgetown. A recruiter came to my high school when I was a junior, and from then on I was just hooked on Georgetown and the idea of living in the District. I didn’t get in as an undergraduate, which was bitterly disappointing. But I kicked ass on the LSATs—the test you have to take for law school—and got in.”
“Did it live up to your expectations?”
“Totally. I loved every minute of it. Well, except for the nonstop studying. That got old fast, especially since I’d had a few years off from school by then and had lost all my discipline.”
“I always wanted to go to college,” she said wistfully.
“Why didn’t you?”
“No money,” she said with a shrug. “My dad was a bus driver for the city, so we barely had enough to make ends meet. It also didn’t help that my brother Vincent flunked out of Towson, which made my father crazy. He would go on and on about the money he wasted. After that, I knew he’d never pay for me to go.”
“You can still go, you know. It’s never too late.”
“There’s still no money,” she said with a sad smile.
“There’re lots of options—financial aid, scholarships. You could do it.”
“I think that ship has sailed for me. Besides, I like my job, and I feel lucky to have it. Panache is one of the best salons in the city. I’ve built up a pretty decent following and hardly ever have an open appointment anymore.”
“You’re good at it. I’ve seen your work, remember?” He ran a hand through his hair to make his point.
She winced. “I’d hate to think of you as one of my few unsatisfied customers.”
“I’m a very satisfied customer. The women in my office went crazy over it today.”
Juliana raised an eyebrow. “Did they?”
He grinned. “Uh huh. And Paige hated it, so good job.”
Juliana threw a sofa pillow at him. “Glad I could help.” She reached for her wineglass. “You’re lucky, you know?”
He covered her free hand with both of his. “Because I’m here with you?”
She gave him a withering look. “No. Because you have such a nice family. Mine’s a disaster area. Yours sounds so normal.”
His handsome face grew somber. “We’ve had our challenges.” After a long pause, he said, “I had a brother.”
“You did?”
“Patrick. He died when he was twelve and I was seven.”
Juliana squeezed his hand. “Oh, Michael. I’m sorry.”
“He had leukemia. He got sick in the middle of the summer and was dead by October.”
“It must’ve been so shocking.”
“Yeah, my parents were never quite the same after.”
“Of course they weren’t.”
“The worst part was after he died, we never talked about him. It was like we were all afraid to mention his name because we didn’t want to upset my mother, so we just stopped talking about him.”
Juliana’s eyes filled with tears.
“He was the most important person in the world to me and then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone, and I had to act like he never existed.”
Juliana rested her head on Michael’s shoulder and held his hand. “What was he like?”
“He was a great athlete—an all-star baseball and football player. The coaches used to tell my dad he was going to be a pro. It was just a matter of which sport. But I think he would’ve been a firefighter. He used to take me with him everywhere he went, and he never complained about having me around. He called me Mikey.”
“That’s cute.”
“I’ve never let anyone else call me that. He’s been gone twenty-five years, and I still miss him.” Michael raised his arm and put it around her. “Can I be self-serving again for a minute?”
She smiled up at him. “
If you must.”
“In all the years I was with Paige, I never told her about Pat. There was just never a time when I felt comfortable telling her.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Juliana said, touched by his confession.
“It’s not just me, is it?”
“What?”
He held her eyes with his. “You feel it, too, don’t you? Even just a little bit?”
She couldn’t look away. After a long moment of silence, she bit her lip and nodded.
He leaned in to kiss her.
Under the hand she had on his chest she felt his heart begin to pound and told herself she should stop, that kissing him like this was wrong because she was still involved with Jeremy. But then she remembered that she wasn’t with Jeremy now, so technically this wasn’t wrong. And, damn, it felt so good to be in Michael’s arms, to feel the weight of him resting against her as he kissed her with wild abandon.
“Juliana,” he whispered against her ear. “God, you smell so good. I can’t get enough of you.” He kissed her again and groaned when her arms closed tight around him. As his tongue teased hers, he caressed her back under the black T-shirt she had worn to work.
“Michael, wait,” she said, tearing her lips free of his. “This is happening too fast for me.”
He took her hand and put it over his pounding heart. “Feel that? You did that.”
“Please.” Her own heart skipped an unsteady beat. “I can’t do this. I can’t jump from one guy to another. It’s just not who I am.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He helped her sit up next to him and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t push you.”
“You haven’t.” She rested her arm on his back. “It’s just that things are so complicated right now—for both of us. If we let this get out of hand, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m not going to deny there’s something between us,” she said, smiling when he brightened at her admission. “But we need some time. You’ve just ended an engagement, and I’m still involved with Jeremy. We’re having some problems right now, but it’s far from over between us.”
