Chapter 12
Jules
Iwake up with a start, sitting up so fast it makes my head spin.
My alarm didn’t go off. Shit, shit—I have no idea what time it is, and I actually feel well rested, which can’t be good.
Furthermore, I think I might be having a stroke. Especially when I notice the smell of eggs and bacon, sausage and blueberries floating in the air around me like I’m in a diner.
And then, as though my brain is slowly booting up one portion at a time, the events of the night before come back to me. The last thing I remember is falling asleep on the couch. How did I get to my bed? Did Russell carry me here, or did I walk?
Was I really so tired that I wouldn’t remember Russell lifting me up into his arms?
And why—really, why?—am I hoping he’s still here?
We barely know each other. In fact, it was weird that I was so comfortable having him over last night. Pediatrician or not, I would normally never let a man around Gus like that. Would never have felt comfortable falling asleep while he was in the room with my kid.
And yet. There’s something different about Russell. Something about him that just makes me feel relaxed.
Most of the time. When his eyes aren’t dropping to my chest like he wants to eat me whole, igniting parts of me I’d thought I tucked away. There have been a few flings here and there, but nothing brings me as much consistent pleasure as my vibrator, so I eventually stopped even trying to date.
I didn’t realize a man could still make me feel like this. Lighting up from the inside out, fire licking up my belly like it did last night when his gaze darkened, clearly noticing my nipples through my shirt.
I’d needed the shower, yeah, but I also needed cold water over my head.
Scrambling out of my bed, I find relief in the fact that I’m still fully dressed—in my sweats and BU t-shirt—and hurry out to the kitchen, where I find something I was not expecting to see.
Russell Burch, standing at the stove, flipping pancakes. Blueberry pancakes.
Gus sits at the counter with a plate loaded up on small, fluffy pieces of the cakes, sausage, and a glass of what looks like freshly squeezed orange juice.
“Good morning, Mommy,” Gus mumbles around a bite of pancake, smiling loosely at me, so some crumbs fall from his mouth and onto the counter.
“Good…morning,” I mutter back, my gaze traveling back to Russell, and I realize my mouth is open. When did he have time for all this?
As though he can hear my thoughts, he turns to me, and with something like a sparkle in his eye, says, “Ordered a grocery delivery last night, it got here early this morning. Naturally, an early riser. Figured I could make breakfast, and I noticed you were low on a few things.”
My gaze skips to the neat pile of brown paper bags by the garbage can, and I wonder just how much Russell deemed we were low on. Swallowing, I glance at the clock again and realize it’s just about the time that I would normally start the process of peeling myself out of bed.
I have plenty of time, especially since Gus is already up, eating breakfast, his hair combed. He sits shirtless at the counter, and I blink in surprise at the ingenuity of that—the syrup on his chest isn’t staining a shirt.
“Your breakfast will be ready in a few minutes,” Russell says, flipping a pancake expertly, not sloshing the thing over the side of the pan like I would have. It’s perfectly golden brown on the other side, and I stare at it like I’m in a fever dream. Maybe I am.
Dipping his head down to catch my eye, Russell asks, “How do you take your coffee?”
“There’s…creamer in the fridge,” I manage, stunned.
“Great,” Russell says, nodding and pointing at me with his spatula. “Go ahead, we’ve got everything handled in here, right bud?”
“Right!” Gus says through his bite. His fever must have broken last night, and the only sign he was sick is the slightest rasp to his voice. His cheeks are rosy but not flushed, and he looks truly delighted to have a breakfast that deviates from cereal and waffles.
Once again, my logical self is butting in that I still don’t really know Russell Burch that well, and I shouldn’t be leaving him alone with Gus. But apparently, Russell was here all night. There’s a blanket folded on the edge of the couch, and I realize he must have slept there.
Not only did the man risk his back by sleeping on my shitty sofa, but here he is, feeding my kid. Maybe I should be doing a background check on him. Surely, the hospital would have done a background check on him when he was hired? He works with kids for a living.
Maybe I should be embarrassed, or worried, or trying to figure out why, exactly, he’s doing this.
But the only thing I really feel is relief.
Turning, I head back down the hall to my room, step into the bathroom. For the first time in weeks, I have time to blow out my hair. Run through a full skincare routine. Do my makeup without just slapping on mascara.
I emerge from the bathroom unwrinkled, well-rested, and find a veggie omelet waiting for me on the counter, Gus standing in his school clothes. Russell is standing at the door, too, looking like he was waiting for me to come out.
“I have to get to the hospital,” he says, nodding his head toward Gus. “This outfit look right? We were flying a bit blind.”
Gus giggles, “It’s right! I told you it’s right!”
“Yes, that’s right,” I say, cheeks flushing, which hopefully Russell can’t see under my makeup.
Hopefully, he can’t see how much this has helped me.
I glance around the apartment, noticing just how clean it is.
It looks like furniture has been moved, swept under.
The corner of the rug is finally straightened out.
The kitchen is gleaming, smelling nicer than it has in a long time.
I suspect Russell was doing something to clean out the disposal, because it smells like oranges.
“The gala is tonight,” Russell reminds me, and I make a mental note to ask Ettie about a dress to wear. Surely she’ll have something.
“Oh yeah, right,” I say, glancing at Gus, who’s whispering with one of his toy dinosaurs. “I’ll be ready.”
Russell smiles, throws out a great, and is out the door, disappearing just as quickly as he came.
“Juliette, you’re looking very lovely today.”
Peter is the first person I see when I get to the office, and I immediately regret putting in the extra effort.
Peter is an expert at straddling the line between genuine compliments and harassment, leaving you questioning whether or not you’re reading too much into it.
Maybe it’s the additional sleep and time this morning, or the fact that I’m not blinking back exhaustion, or how these heels actually bring me about flush with his height, but I manage to catch Peter off guard with my response.
“Thank you, Peter,” I say, brushing past him. “You are looking very lovely, too.”
Walking past him, I nearly run head-on into Quinn, the other team lead for our department. She’s a tall woman with curly black hair and deep brown skin, and she laughs, raising her eyebrows at me and jerking her head toward Peter like, good going.
I smile back at her, grateful to feel like someone is even slightly on my side in this, but Quinn’s been dodging my requests to join her team for ages now. So, in a way, she’s part of the reason I’m still stuck working with Peter every day.
When I get to my desk, I’m awash in emails like always, but now I feel energized by the task, sipping on my coffee—which was left for me in my travel mug on the counter—and quickly working through tasks.
Finalizing communications guidelines. Reviewing content to go out to the press. Bouncing back and forth between different contacts, trying to get a spot in the upcoming publication for a new client.
My favorite client right now is a young woman who started her own bakery with nothing but a dream and her grandmother’s croissant recipe, which has those pastries selling like hotcakes.
I’ve been working hard to get her an interview with Food Network Magazine, but the guy I usually talk to—Scott—is out on paternity leave, and that’s made things a touch more difficult.
I’m brainstorming other opportunities—maybe a local Chicago foodie page?—and so immersed in what I’m doing that I don’t notice Peter standing at the edge of my desk until he clears his throat.
This time, because I’m not so sleep deprived and wired, instead of startling at the noise, I just finish the email I’m working on then turn and look up at him, raising an eyebrow.
“Can I help you?”
Peter stares at me for a moment, then sighs and says, “We just got a call from Burch Hospitals and Clinics. They’re considering our agency and specifically requested that you be the one to come over for the consultation. And they requested that you come for the meeting now.”
I blink at him. BHC would be a huge account, so it makes sense that he’s capitulating to them about having a meeting right away, even on a Friday. But it’s too much of a coincidence, right?
Maybe Russell is sweetening the deal by pulling strings for me.
Getting me a large account here. If I got BHC under my belt, maybe I’d have enough weight to swing a change over to Quinn’s team.
Peter watches me as I pack up my things, and I can’t shake the sense that maybe I don’t want a large account here, even if it meant I could move teams.
Sure, it would be nice to be treated a bit better, but something inside me is itching to go somewhere else. Maybe even to make my own way in the PR space. Put my marketing degree to work, too.
When I get down to the street, I almost walk to the parking garage through muscle memory, then remember my car is in a junkyard somewhere. Sighing, I shift my bag to my other shoulder and pull out my phone, getting ready to call a ride share.
“Juliette Harper?”
I look up from my phone to find a car in front of me.
Instead of rolling down the passenger side window, like an Uber driver might, this man gets out, and this is when I realize that it’s not just a car, but a Mercedes, and he’s not just a guy, but is wearing a full suit, circling the vehicle, opening a door to the backseat for me.
“Dr. Burch sent me,” he says, moving his hand in a come-on gesture. “I’m to take you over to Gold Coast to find a gown for this evening. And there’s an appointment for your hair and nails.”
This has to be the most elaborate kidnapping scheme I’ve ever witnessed. I take a step back from the car, shaking my head. “Yeah, no, I’m not just—”
But it’s at that moment that someone in the backseat dips their head down, looking up at me with wide hazel eyes. I smell her simple lilac perfume before I fully realize who it is.
“Bitch, you’d better get in this car,” Ettie says, a giddy grin on her face. “No way am I letting you ruin this for us.”
Shocked—not for the first time today—I numbly stumble over to the car, sliding in beside her, eyes adjusting to the dark when the man shuts the door for me.
“For us?” I repeat, turning to her.
“Uh, yeah,” she says, her smile wide. “Your sugar daddy didn’t want you shopping or getting your hair done alone. So, he paid me to come along with you before the stall opens tonight. Let me repeat that—he paid me to come hang out with you.”
“I…”
It takes a moment for the information to sink in, for me to realize that Russell coordinated all this. An evening off work. Getting my hair and nails done. Wordlessly, the driver slides back into the front and picks something up off the passenger side seat, turning around and handing it to me.
Mob style, it’s an envelope with a stack of crisp, hundred-dollar bills, and a note scrawled in Russell’s surprisingly legible handwriting.
My card is on file at the boutiques, and for hair and nails. Use the cash for lunch, anything else you need. Meant to tell you the other night—my fiancée will need to look the part.
I swallow down my surprise. Of course—Russell doesn’t want to bring me to a charity gala with his rich friends if I’m wearing a borrowed dress from Ettie or Sienna that will pull too tight in all the wrong places. He wants me to look like I would if I was with him.
It dawns on me that Russell is rich, rich. Maybe not rich enough to single-handedly fund that clinic downtown, but obviously this little stunt is within his means. It makes my blood feel fizzy, like I’ve woken up the morning of a field trip.
What would it be like to have money like that? To never puzzle out which bills to pay and which to put off for the month? To not worry over what the cost of a surgery might do to your savings?
“Buckle up,” Ettie says, reaching over me and pulling my seatbelt on, winking at me when she pulls back. “I’m pretty sure Dr. Burch considers you to be precious cargo.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I say, still too stunned to form any longer of a sentence.
“You want my advice?” Ettie says, gleefully pouring me a glass of champagne from the bottle in the back of the car. Taking her own, she clinks it against mine and takes a long sip, before catching my eye again, “This is fucking crazy, Jules. So, you’d better sit back and enjoy it.”