“That was fantastic.” I link my arm through Natalie’s as we leave the spa and take a deep breath of early-summer air. “Tell Luke thanks for me. It’s so nice having an obscenely rich brother-in-law who loves nothing more than spoiling his gorgeous wife, and therefore, his gorgeous wife’s bff gets spoiled too.”
“I will tell him,” Natalie laughs and leads me down the street to our favorite café for lunch. I look over at my friend and smile. She’s is beautiful, with her freshly polished face and chestnut hair back in a loose pony tail.
We order our usual of soup and sandwiches and find a table.
“So, I think you should turn your phone on, friend.” Natalie says with a raised eyebrow. She pulls off her thin green scarf and drapes it on the back of the chair next to her.
“No.” I sip my diet Coke.
“I dare you.” Her lips turn up in a soft smile and I glare at her.
“Don’t be a bitch, Nat.”
“Don’t be a *, Jules.”
Fuck.
I hate how well she knows me. She knows I can’t resist a dare. I have four older brothers who got me into all kinds of shit with my mom growing up because of their dares.
“Goddamn it, Natalie,” I mutter and pull my iPhone out of my Gucci handbag. “You turn it on.”
I pass her the phone and she fires it up, watching the screen and twirling a strand of her hair with her fingers.
“Does it seriously take this long for that piece of shit to fire up?” I ask.
“Yes.” She laughs up at me and keeps watching the screen. “Looks like ten voice mails and twenty two texts.”
“Holy fuck. I don’t know that many people.”
“Here.” She tries to hand the phone back to me but I wave it away.
“No. You check them.”
“No, Jules. Jesus, grow a pair and check your phone.”
I take a deep breath and continue to glare at my best friend. God, I hate her right now.
“Okay, give it to me.”
She hands it to me and I check the voice mail first. The first six messages are from my family, wanting to know if I’m okay. The seventh and eighth are Natalie wanting to meet up for a spa day and threatening to call Will.
The ninth is Mrs. Glover telling me that I forgot a personal item in my office and she’ll mail it to me.
The tenth is Nate. It was left this morning.
“Julianne,” he sighs and pauses and I grip the phone tighter, pressing it harder against my ear as if I’ll be able to hear his voice more clearly this way. “I hope that four days is long enough. I can’t go another day without hearing your voice. Please, baby, call me. Talk to me. I love you.” There is another long pause and then the message ends.
I’m staring at Natalie with tears rolling down my face. I’m not sobbing or making a scene, but the tears began to fall when he said my name. I press replay and pass the phone to Natalie so she can hear.
She listens avidly, her beautiful green eyes on mine. Her eyes also well with tears as she passes the phone back to me.
“Wow, Jules.”
“Damn it,” I mutter.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Write you out of my will.” I reply and wipe my cheeks.
“Seriously,” she smirks.
“Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll probably call him later today.” The waitress sets our lunches in front of us and we dig in.
“He’s been calling me, you know.”
“Jesus, he’s been calling everyone. Will said he called him, and mom told me last night that he’d called her.”
“He hasn’t been able to find you, Jules. It’s making him crazy.”
“Good.”
“My best friend once gave me good advice when I was mad at my husband. She said, ‘don’t play games with him.’” Natalie frowns at me and I squirm.
“I’m not playing games.”
“Yeah, you are.” She shrugs and sips her soup. “I get it, though. He was an idiot on Monday. But I get why he was.”
“You do?” I ask incredulously.
“Yeah, we all do. We’re all talking to him, bonehead.”
I sit back in my chair and stare at her, my mouth open and eyes wide. “You’ve all been talking to him?”
She nods and takes my hand in hers. “Just talk to him, Jules. I hate to see you hurting when you don’t need to be.”
“You weren’t there…”
“Nope, I wasn’t. And you have every right to be angry. But doesn’t he have the right to explain?”
“I just…” I shake my head and look down, blinking tears from my eyes. “I just keep seeing myself sitting in that chair, with those people looking at me impassively while they took away my job. A job that I was so good at, and dedicated so much of myself to. And Nate knew, Natalie. He knew how much I loved my job, and how good I was at it.”
“You’ll find another job, Jules.”
“I know, but while they so flippantly took my job away, the man I love so much, and professed to loving me so much in return, sat in his chair and looked at me like he didn’t even know me. There was no emotion in his face. In his eyes. He was just… blank. And that’s what tore me up the most.”
I pull my hand out of hers and lean back again, shaking my head. “You were there Friday night, Nat. You saw how he kicked DJ’s ass. You know how protective he is of me, yet I’m telling you, that man was not sitting in the conference room on Monday. And it tore my heart out.”
Natalie frowns and looks down at her plate and then looks back up at me. She looks like she wants to say something, but stops herself.
“What?” I ask.
“Jules, maybe he didn’t have a choice.”
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head slowly and looks out the window to watch the cars pass.
“Nat, what do you know?” I hear the desperation in my voice, but I don’t care.
“Honestly, I don’t know anything about that meeting. Nate didn’t say anything about it. But what you’re describing… It just…” She frowns again and looks back at me. “Honey, I don’t think he had a choice.”
What? We stare at each other for a long minute, our brains churning with what-ifs.
“Do you think…?” I stammer.
“I don’t know. Just do what he’s asking, sweetie. Call him.”
Chapter Thirty Two