“Julian?” I squeak again when he only stares at me, his jaw slack. My expression pleads with him to finally say something. But he doesn’t. He simply bows his head, shaking it, silently confirming the awful truth. My eyes burn with the betrayal filling me and I spin from him, running down the hall, searching desperately for the elevator.
“Guinevere! Wait!” he calls out, but I continue, wheezing as my sobs remain trapped in my throat.
With each step I take, the more it makes sense. I often mentally remarked about the parallels between the two men. But I never considered Julian was August Laurent. He would have told me. Wouldn’t he? A voice in the back of my head reminds me he wouldn’t if he were trying to hide the truth. And there’s only one reason he would do that… Because on the nights he wasn’t with me, he was keeping another woman company. The thought turns my stomach.
I somehow find the bank of elevators and send a prayer of thanks to the big man upstairs when there’s already one waiting. Once inside, I repeatedly hit the button for the lobby. Julian’s voice grows closer, calling my name, begging me to stop. I bang the button faster, willing the doors to close. They finally do just as he reaches the elevator, the echo of his fists slamming against the doors filling the car. I release a relieved breath and slink against the wall, needing the support to keep me upright.
When the elevator arrives on the main floor, I dash from it, keeping my head lowered, refusing to look over my shoulder in case Julian…or August…or whoever he is manages to catch up. I barrel past the front desk, ignoring the desk sergeant’s questions about how it all went, and continue through the large glass doors.
The instant I step outside, a coldness hits me like a wall, and not just from the frigid temperatures on this December morning. There’s a strange feeling in the air. The sky is a foreboding shade of gray, one I’ve grown accustomed to over the years.
I inhale a breath, tasting the impending snow in my mouth. Based on the weather report I caught earlier, that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen over the next few hours. The first snowfall of the season. Normally, I’d play hooky from work and enjoy the beauty of snow falling around New York City. But my mood’s been drastically altered.
Tugging my jacket closer, I do my best not to slip on the slick brick as I hurry past the growing number of reporters, evading their shouts asking if I know anything about Sonia Moreno. I ignore everything, until he bellows my name, his voice carrying across the plaza, echoing against the tall skyscrapers.
“Guinevere!”
I glance behind me, watching as Julian frantically runs toward me, panic and desperation covering him. His stare is distressed, neck stiff, jaw tense.
“Leave me alone!” With quick steps, I continue toward the corner, raising my hand to hail a cab. When one pulls up to the curb, I open the door to get in, but come to an abrupt stop when an arm blocks me.
“Guinevere, please. Just hear me out.”
I keep my eyes forward for a moment, my vision obscured with tears. This truth is worse than Trevor walking away after twelve years. He may have had his faults, but he never lied to me, never misled me, never used me.
“Hear you out?” I squeak, biting down at my bottom lip, hoping to transfer the pain from my heart to another part of my body. “Why? So you can make up an excuse about why you lied to me? I’ve heard them all before. I don’t need to listen to you go on about how you wanted to tell me the truth but didn’t know how. That’s a bunch of bullshit. You just wanted a guaranteed piece of ass every goddamn night.” A shiver rolls through me, acid burning my stomach. “Nothing more.”
I go to duck under his arm and into the cab, pausing when I hear his voice again.
“I haven’t taken on a client since the beginning of June.”
I have no reason to believe him, but something in his tone makes me second-guess myself. I still, one foot in the cab, one foot on the ground. So what if he hasn’t taken on a client since June? Does that change anything?
“Lady, are you in or out?” the cabbie asks in a thick Middle Eastern accent, glancing at me. I look at him, then back at Julian, torn.
“Don’t run from me, Guinevere. Not without knowing the truth. Please.”
I close my eyes, squeezing them tightly. Once again, I’m entangled in a battle between my brain and heart. My heart screams at me to stay, but my brain tells me to walk away and never look back.
“Please,” he says once more, this time softer. “‘No matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.’”
The instant Julian utters that quote from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I exhale a protracted breath, shaking my head. I hate that he’s using that movie against me. It’s unfair, but it still makes me stop and think rationally for a moment. And a moment is all it takes for me to realize I’ll never move on unless I have answers.
Blowing out an exasperated sigh, I step away from the cab and close the door, but don’t turn around. If I peer into Julian’s eyes, I fear I’ll crack. “You wanted to explain. Here’s your chance. Explain.”
“Please, look at me.”
“Explain,” I repeat, this time harder.
At first, it’s silent, then he exhales deeply. I picture him running his hands through his hair in resignation. “I never intended things to get this messed up.”
“No? What was your intent then, Julian? Or is it August?” Spinning around, I throw my hands up in frustration, paying no attention to the snow beginning to fall around us. “I don’t even know your real name.”
“Julian Gage is my real name. I was born August 10, 1980, in Jersey City. I never lied to you about that.”
“But you failed to mention you also go by August Laurent, the man I was doing a story on.” With each word, my voice gets more and more agitated. “You called me repeatedly, pretending to be this other person, when all along it was you. Hell, you even used a fake French accent so I would be none the wiser. You had so many opportunities to come clean, yet you deliberately kept the truth from me. Why? Why would you do something like this?”
“I never meant to hurt you, Guinevere.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit, Julian. You did mean to hurt me! The second you made a conscious decision to lie to me, to deceive me, you intended to hurt me. You know what they say about secrets, don’t you?”
He remains silent.
“Two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead. At some point, the truth was bound to come out. Or were you going to wait until we were married to tell me you had to leave on occasion to go screw some other woman?”
He grabs my biceps, his eyes imploring. “I know I fucked up. I knew it the second I walked into the guest room of my beach house and saw you wearing that stunning two-piece. That entire weekend, there were so many times I considered telling you the truth. Because I had started falling for you. Even in those early days. For the first time in my life, I wanted somebody to know every part of me. The good. The bad. The ugly. You know my ugly. The reason I am August Laurent is because of that ugly.”
“Tell me this, Julian…” My voice wavers as my next question remains on the tip of my tongue, my throat closing up at what his response will most likely be. “When you approached me with your proposition, did you only do so because you knew I was on the hunt for August Laurent?”
He briefly closes his eyes, hanging his head as he drops his hold on me. “I wasn’t planning on calling you as August Laurent that Monday after our first dinner. I was just going to let it go. But I found myself forming feelings for you. And I liked the idea that I could help you get promoted. So I picked up the phone and did the one thing I swore I’d never do. I called a journalist who was hoping to do a story about me.”