CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Two hours later, she’d pushed thoughts of Michele aside. Clay was with her and only her. Julia might be possessive, but she was not a jealous woman. How could she be jealous when she was closer to her goal? She was almost halfway to the prize, and Liam was making bigger and bigger bets. God bless an actor like him. He was simply flush with cash and didn’t seem to mind parting ways with it.
She revealed her two aces, and Liam laughed, shaking his head. “Got me again,” he said, shoving all the chips to Julia since everyone else was out for this hand.
Another step closer. She felt buoyant, bubbles rising to the surface. She could do this. She could win on her terms. Be free of her debt. The way she wanted to, by clawing her way out of her troubles. The prospect of not having to rely on Clay’s bailout sent a surge of adrenaline through her. She didn’t want a safety net. Her blood pumped faster, turbocharged with anticipation. She could taste freedom on her tongue, like sweet sugary crystals, and that drove her as they played another round, then another, and each time, she added to her totals.
Clay leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “You’re winning, gorgeous. I knew you would.”
“Don’t jinx me,” she said softly.
“No jinxes. Just complete confidence in you.”
A blast of pride raced through her. He was proud of her because she was good, because she’d earned it. Clay was the opposite of her ex. Dillon had taken her for a ride and fooled her. Clay was upfront about everything, and he believed in her. He’d never try to hoodwink her. “I’m glad you feel that way about me,” she said as he knocked back a scotch. “Want me to freshen that up for you?”
“No, bring me a Purple Snow Globe or a Heist. The drink you named for me. Or wait. I have a better idea. Make me a new drink and call it the Long Distance Lover,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
She laughed. “You want me to whip up an impromptu cocktail? You don’t even like mixed drinks.”
“I might if you made me one, but I’d probably just want to lick it off of you,” he said, his dark eyes raking over her.
“You’re drunk.”
“I assure you, I would lick it off you sober, drunk, bone-tired, or sick as a dog,” he whispered in her ear, flicking the tip of his tongue over her earlobe.
“I’m changing your name to Captain PDA.”
“What can I say? I have my woman here with me, and I’m out with my good friends. All is well in the world,” he said, then pulled back to catch Liam’s attention across the table.
“Liam, we have a bartender in the house. Let her show you how much you wish you had her drinks on your menu here at Speakeasy.”
Julia rolled her eyes, and pushed his shoulder. He grabbed her and kissed her on the lips.
“Man, do I need to book you a room at the Plaza?” Cam said, slamming his hand on the table.
“Yeah, ‘cause we know you have connections everywhere,” Clay said.
“Hey, I told you I got out of that racket.”
“Well, you two boys just keep up the chest thumping, and I’ll go a-mixing,” Julia said, heading to the bar. She perused the offerings, considering gin, vodka and rum, then decided to start with a tequila as the base, adding in some fruity mixers, a little lemon soda and then something special—a secret ingredient. She held up a glass when she was done. “Who wants to be my guinea pig for the Long Distance Lover?”
Liam raised a hand, waving broadly. “My place. I go first.” He trotted over to the bar, brought the glass to his lips, and tasted. “Mmm, this is superb,” he said, smacking his lips. “You’re like a mad scientist of the liquorian variety.”
“Call me a chemist. I’m all about new flavors,” she said with a big smile.
“You need to text me the recipe.”
She shook her head. “A good bartender doesn’t give up her recipes for free.”
“Then give me your number and we’ll make a deal for it.”
She pointed her finger at him playfully. “Now you’re talking,” she said, and rattled off her number.
Liam spun around and used his big stage voice to call out to the table. “Everyone needs one of these.”
After whipping up more cocktails, she returned to the table and served drinks to the rest of the players.
“Mmm, I love it,” Clay said to her after he tasted the drink. He was pretty carefree and happy. Maybe it was the alcohol loosening him up. Or maybe it was because she was winning. He pulled her into his lap.
“Since when do you like mixed drinks?”
Julia looked up to see Michele asking Clay the pointed question.
“Every now and then I like to break out of my habits,” he said.
“You’re always a scotch drinker,” the brunette added pointedly, and there was something protective in Michele’s voice. Almost like a lover, or an ex. An ex who knew things about someone. “You were never like that in college.”
“I was never a lot of things in college.”
College. Julia’s ears pricked at that word. Why on earth did Michele keep hearkening back to college with Clay?
“You were some things,” Michele said.
“C’mon, enough about drinks and college. Time to deal,” Klausman said gruffly, and started doling out the cards.
Julia slid off Clay’s lap and back to her own chair. Focus, she told herself. She was almost there. She had to keep riding this wave of luck and skill to the tune of another few thousand dollars and she’d be free and clear.
She appraised her cards, and soon the betting began. Then the strangest thing happened. Michele won the next hand. And the next. And the next. With each successive win, Julia grew more tense, and she noticed Clay’s light-and-easy mood slip away. He was no longer leaning casually in his chair. He was more focused on the game, his eyes shifting back and forth, and he kept looking at his watch too. The ticking clock, winding down to Charlie.
Michele cleaned up once more with a full house that made Clay sit up straight in his chair and reach into his back pocket. Maybe for his phone. But then he stopped, resting his hands on the table, and checking out Julia’s dwindling stack of chips.
By the time the woman who’d known him since college had sliced Julia’s winnings in half, she was ready to lunge at her and it had nothing to do with her staring at Clay, but everything to do with how jealous Julia was of Michele’s hands all over the money she needed.
She probably didn’t even need it. She’d probably use it for a goddamn spa weekend, not to pay off a mob boss.
“I swear it’s beginner’s luck,” Michele said with the kind of laugh that sparkled. A pure laugh, a happy laugh, but it grated on her to no end because Julia wanted those chips to herself. “I have no clue how to play.”
“What are you going to use your money for, baby?” Liam said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “Take me out someplace nice, will ya? I want to go to the Bahamas again.”
“Yes, and have your picture taken by someone trying to sell you real estate.”
Julia latched onto one word—Bahamas. And it nagged at her brain. “My ex is probably in the Bahamas,” she muttered.
Clay’s eyes snapped up. “Dillon?”
She shrugged. “He always said he wanted to go there,” she said in a low voice.
“He did?” Clay whispered.
“Yeah, but everyone wants to go there. He could be anywhere,” she said, and something inside of Julia coiled tightly, like a viper rising through her chest. Maybe it was her mention of Dillon. Maybe it was Michele’s carefree way with money. Or maybe it was the simple fact that when Liam kissed Michele’s neck, her eyes didn’t flutter closed. She didn’t part her lips to sigh. And she didn’t slide her body closer to his.
Instead, Michele peered out of the corner of her eye at Clay. And the look in her brown eyes was one of such deep longing, and something more. Something much more. In a blinding moment of clarity, Julia no longer sensed that Clay hadn’t been truthful about their relationship. She knew. There was something more to them, and she didn’t care about the game, or the money, or Charlie. She cared about whether she’d been played again.
She pushed back from the table. “Excuse me,” she said, and she tapped his shoulder and cleared her throat. “I need to step outside for a second, and get some fresh air.”
“I’ll join you,” he said, rising and resting his hand on her lower back as she walked to the door, pushed hard on it, and then felt the rush of warm night air on her face. It was close to midnight, and the city was still lively, cars and cabs and people racing by.
“What happened in college between you and Michele?” She crossed her arms.
“What?” he said, blinking his eyes.
“Were you involved with her?”
“No.”
“Did anything happen with her?” she asked once more, and this time she felt like the lawyer, turning over the question again and again until the witness answered.
“What do you mean?”
“Do I need to spell it out?”
“Yeah. You do,” he said firmly.
She pretended to mime sign language as she spoke. “Were you involved with her? Because I’m getting a serious vibe from her that she’s tripping down memory lane from the days of old,” she said, now holding her hands out wide. “College this. College that. Clay in college. It’s like she’s holding on to something in college with you.”
“We kissed once. We weren’t involved.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, but it slammed into her, and she nearly stumbled backwards. He reached for her, but she held him off. She was fine. She didn’t need him.
“Ohhhhh,” she said, long and exaggerated. “Right. Of course. A kiss. That’s not involved what-so-f*cking-ever.”
“What the hell, Julia? I was never involved with her. She’s a friend. Not an ex-girlfriend.”
“You kissed her,” she said, jutting her chin out at him. “That makes her kind of an ex, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t think that constitutes an ex.” The low-key way he answered her pissed her off, because he truly seemed to believe his own line of bullshit.
“Okay, let’s get technical and legal about it then, if you’re going to be like that. So I’ll walk you through what constitutes being involved. When you’ve kissed someone, and I ask ‘Were you involved with her?’ that’s the moment when you say ‘Yes, I kissed her once, Julia, and it meant nothing to me, and we’ve been great friends ever since then, and I have drinks with her every Thursday night and talk about you, but don’t worry that I had my tongue down her throat because we’re just friends.’ It’s not at the f*cking poker game I’m losing that you tell me,” she said, practically spitting out the words through her anger.
“Are you pissed because you’re losing, or are you pissed that I kissed her?” he asked her through narrowed eyes.
Anger flared deep inside her. Anger over that woman. Over Charlie. Over the three thousand miles between her and Clay. Anger, annoyance and frustration all fused into a cocktail of heat and rage as she grabbed his shirt collar. “Thanks for pointing that out, because it’s kind of both. I have a shitstorm of trouble waiting for me back home if I don’t win,” she said.
“That’s not true. I told you I’d help you,” he said, and his hand moved briefly towards his pocket, but then he stopped.
“Why do you keep reaching for your phone? That’s not your style.”
“Flynn is out with the Pinkertons. Just wanted to make sure it’s all going well,” he said, then shifted quickly back to the matter at hand. “But I wish you’d stop worrying about the game. You’re going to be fine.”
“I don’t want you to help me, though. I want to win on my own,” she said, and she was damn near close to digging her heels into the sidewalk. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he understand how important this was to her? But everything had collided right now. The game; Michele; the possibility of truth and lies.
“And you will.”
She pushed her hands through her hair. “I just wish you’d told me when I asked you in San Francisco if you’d been involved with her. I asked you if Michele was your ex and you said she was just a friend, and always had been. But now it turns out you kissed her,” Julia said, but she knew deep down it wasn’t the kiss that bothered her. That wasn’t why she was upset about Michele.
“It just wasn’t important, but it’s not as if you’ve been totally honest with me.”
“I didn’t lie, though. I told you there were things I couldn’t tell you.”
“I feel like we’re parsing words here. I don’t understand why it matters that I kissed her. Hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you, but I’ve kissed other women before.”
“I know,” she hissed.
“So why does it matter so much that I kissed Michele once? I don’t even think about her like that.”
“Because. Because she is here, all the time. Because she sees you. Because I don’t get to.”
“We can change that,” he said, his voice suddenly soft, all the harshness banished from his tone.
“How? I live far away and she lives a block away,” she said, dropping her face in her hands, hating the sound of her own voice. “Ugh. Look what you’ve done to me. I’ve become this whiny woman pining away, and she’s lovely and smart and funny, and it pisses me off that she can see you any time she wants.”
He gently peeled her hands away from her face, tucking his finger under her chin and lifting her gaze to his. “I don’t feel a thing for her. I didn’t tell you when you asked if she was an ex because I don’t even think about her like that. I don’t think of her as an ex. It was one kiss, one time, one drunken night. Nothing more. I don’t think about her because you’re all I think about. To the point that I’m sure no man has ever felt this way for a woman. You shouldn’t be jealous of her. She should be jealous of you.”
She stared at him, narrowing her eyes. “Seriously, Clay? Cocky much?”
“It has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with how I feel for you,” he said, moving his hands down to her arms, holding her tight. “Every woman should be jealous of you because of how I feel for you. Because no man has ever wanted a woman like I want you. No man has ever craved a woman as deeply as I crave you. And no man has ever fallen this hard and this fast for a woman.”
Her heart stopped, then thundered furiously against her chest, wanting to leap into his hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, all her anger draining away. “I’m a jealous witch. It’s just hard for me to see her and know you’re so friendly, and that she’s so in love with you.”
He froze like a statue. Then seconds later, though it felt like a minute, he looked at her as if she’d just spoken Russian. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know that?” she asked, shocked.
“No.”
“It’s patently obvious to anyone who spends ten minutes with her. She’s madly in love with you, Clay.”
He swallowed, and shook his head, as if he were shaking the strange notion away. “How can you tell?” he asked, the words coming out all choppy.
“Because of how she looks at you,” she said, as if it were obvious, because to her it was.
“And that’s enough for you to conclude she’s in love with me?” For the first time ever she’d truly surprised him. She hadn’t intended to drop a bomb, but he so clearly didn’t see it at all.
“Yes.”
“Why? How? How can you tell she looks at me like she’s in love with me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I recognize the look.”
The look on his face was no longer shock. It was hope, and the dawn of something so much more. “You do?”
Then she realized she’d practically said it. “Yes.”
“How?”
“Because it’s how I look at you,” she said, the words falling from her lips in a tumble. Time slowed, and the moment became heady, rich with possibility. The air between them was charged, electric, like a storm. They were magnets, needing their opposite.
He reached for her, cupping her cheeks, brushing his thumb over her jaw then her bottom lip, watching her shiver. She looked up at him, and his eyes were fixed on her. Waiting for her. His lips parted, and she was wound tight with anticipation of what he’d say. “I love the way you look at me.”
Tingles ran down her spine, spreading to her arms, her fingers, all the way to her toes. “You do?
“I do. I love the way you touch me,” he said, taking her hand, and spreading her palm open on his chest. “I love the way you talk to me. I love everything about you. And I recognize the look in your eyes, too. Do you know why?”
She shook her head, and her entire body was trembling with want, with hope. “Why?”
“Because it’s the same as in mine. Because I love you, Julia. I am completely in love with you, and I love you, and I want you to love me,” he said, never breaking his gaze from hers, his beautiful brown eyes flooded with love.
“I do. I do. I do,” she said quickly, the tension in her chest disappearing, and relief washing over her in waves. “Clay, I love you so much.”
He ran his hands through her hair, burying his fingers deep. She felt him trembling. He returned a hand to her face, brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek, and she leaned into him, savoring the gentleness of his touch. Feeling the reverence that he treated her with, like she was precious to him. He ran his hand down her neck to her throat. “Julia,” he said, his voice low but so intense as he spoke. “I have never fallen in love like this.”
His words bathed her in some kind of bliss, as if her veins flowed with liquid gold. “How have you fallen?” she asked, overwhelmed with all she felt for him, with the way her body seemed to reach for him, to need him.
“With everything I have. There is no part of me that isn’t in love with you. There is no part of me that holds back,” he said, his voice steady, certain.
Allness. That’s what it was for her, too. An utter allness. A love so deep and consuming it filled her organs, it rode roughshod over her skin. It was a mark on the timeline of her life. Before. After. She raised her hand, and touched his face, stroking his jawline, watching with wonder as she made him gasp after a simple touch. He grasped her hand, linked his fingers through hers, and brought her palm to his mouth, kissing her there. “I love you.” He bent his head to her neck, brushing his lips ever so softly against her skin, then up to her ear. “I am so in love with you,” he said, as if he couldn’t stop telling her. “I love you so much.”
“I am so in love with you.” She stretched her neck so he could kiss her freely as he wanted to as she ran her hand through his hair. “So in love.”
He stopped kissing her, pulling back to look her in the eyes once more. His gaze melted her from the inside out. “I can’t wait to take you home with me tonight. To spread you out on the bed. To make love to you all night long.”
“I want that. I want that again and again. And over and over.”
“Now go back in there,” he said, gesturing to the restaurant. “Even though you look like you’ve just had sex.”
Her cheeks felt rosy. She was sure there was a glow in her eyes. “I feel like I’ve just had sex. Sex with the man I love,” she said, playing with his hair, not wanting to let go of him, but needing to.
“You will have that. I will give you everything, Julia.”
* * *
He’d join her shortly. He would. He just needed to take care of this matter. The text on his phone was loud and clear. Business came first right now, and later, he’d find a way to explain.