Chapter 24 #2
That does weird things to my stomach, so I ignore it and push on, picking up his cologne in the bathroom and smelling it, realizing I was never going to find it at Ulta. He probably imports it directly from Sweden or something like that.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think you a little freaky,” he says, raising an eyebrow when I put the cologne down.”
“You propositioned me with a fake marriage,” I say, pointing my finger at him. “We passed freaky a long time ago.”
When I leave the bathroom, he smacks my ass, and I laugh, turning and trying to get him back.
Here I am, with Russell, my fake fiancé, acting silly.
Joking together and walking through this cavernous condo not like it’s a museum but instead like it’s a place I could actually spend time in.
I take note of the little touches of him—a stethoscope thrown on an end table so comically I actually point it out.
“Is this a bit?” I ask, picking it up and putting it around my neck. “Is this how you pick up girls? Oh, did I not mention? I’m a doctor.”
“There are no girls, Jules,” he says, watching me with a suddenly serious expression. I swallow against the heady feeling between us. His eyes darken at the sight of me with the stethoscope around my neck, and he says, “And that was my grandfather’s.”
I pale, instantly grabbing it to put it back where I found it, feeling like an ass. “Oh, shit, sorry—”
“No.” He steps closer to me and stops me from taking it off, his voice low. “I like seeing you with it on. It’s like—a family heirloom. My dad gave it to me when I was a kid to remind me of who I was.”
“So, I’m committing blasphemy right now,” I mutter, face hot as Russell looks down at me. “Because I’m not a doctor. Not a Burch.”
Jaw working, Russell says, “Not yet.”
And with that, I’m lifted up off the ground and carried to his ridiculously lavish bedroom, with a ridiculously excessive view of the city surrounding us on three sides. Russell lays me down and strips my clothes off, and I don’t feel like a fake fiancée.
I feel like the real thing, and for the moment, with his mouth on me, his hot breath fanning against the insides of my thighs and the demands that I say his name, I forget all about the question I really, really should be asking him.
What feels like hours together, I’m sexed-out and hazy with endorphins, my head on Russell’s chest as he breaths steadily.
The food came after my first orgasm. Russell retrieved it from the elevator, came back to the bedroom, insisted on feeding me without me getting dressed, then made me come twice more before carrying me to the bathroom and fucking me against the shower’s glass wall.
Now, I breathe in the scent of him and am just about to drift off to sleep when my phone buzzes.
“Sorry,” I whisper, my voice thick.
“Don’t be sorry,” Russell says back, his voice surprisingly clear. “Could be Gus.”
I hate how considerate he is, how he’s thought of that as instantly as I have.
It would be so, so easy to love him.
The bright feeling behind that thought fizzles out when I turn on the phone, and after being blinded for a moment by the light, realize the text is not from Ettie.
But it is about Gus.
Mom: What were you thinking, Juliette?
Mom: Darlene saw Augustus on that show.
Mom: Begging for a dad.
Mom: Trashy, Juliette
I’m thirty-two years old, managing life as a single parent, juggling two jobs, and paying for my own dental care, and yet here I am, lighting up with the same kind of humiliation I carried as a teenager.
The smallest comment from her was always enough to tip me over the edge, to send me down a spiral of not feeling like enough. That pressure—the expectation to be perfect—was part of the reason I was at that stupid charity ball in the first place.
“What is it?” Russell asks, and when I look up at him, I see the hard line of his mouth, realize whatever I’m feeling must be written all over my face, because he looks murderous.
For me. On my behalf.
“It’s—” I start to say it’s nothing, but I can’t get the words out, and then the next text is coming through.
Mom: Do you realize how ashamed your father and I are of you?
I do, actually. They both made it pretty clear when I announced I would be having Gus on my own. From the way they reacted, you’d think we were living a hundred years in the past.
My dad said my child would be a bastard, and he’d have nothing to do with something like that.
It gutted me. But I’d already decided I’d be having my baby, whether I had their support or not. Over the years, I’ve received the occasional text from my mom—never about birthdays or holidays, but drunken messages about me causing problems for the family. People asking after me.
Even though she must have known that, at that point, I couldn’t reverse my decision even if I wanted to. And I never did.
With a firm but relenting hand, Russell reaches for my phone, giving me the chance to stop him if I want. But I don’t—instead, I hand it to him, shame climbing up my spine and flushing my face deep and hot.
Just ten minutes ago, I was floating on the glow of what he and I did together. And now that’s gone, replaced with the sinking dread of not being good enough.
“Come here.” Russell commands. Slowly, gently, he sits up, opening his arms and ushering me into them. At first, I resist, not wanting to break down on him for a second time, but it’s never been easy for me to tell him no.
And then I’m against his chest, drowning in his scent, and crying. Telling him about everything—my mom and dad essentially disowning me when I said I’d be keeping Gus.
My father was the mayor of our medium-sized city, and they saw any deviation from perfection as a direct transgression from me. Like the only reason I did anything outside the plan was to spite them.
It was bad enough that I moved to New York City to look for work, and didn’t stay in my hometown, working in my mother’s bakery and settling down with one of the milk toast men in their circle of friends. After that, a child out of wedlock, apparently, was the last straw.
Growing up, I was always independent. Knew that if I wasn’t careful, my parents would swallow up my life into their own. But after that day, I’d come to the realization that the only person I could ever count on was myself.
Russell listens quietly, smoothing his hand over my hair and leaning down once to kiss my forehead.
“I think me and you have more in common than we thought,” he says, when I finish the story and we sit in silence for a moment.
That makes me laugh, “Oh, really? Did you get pregnant at twenty-seven? Are you the sire to a bastard?”
“Jules, you have to stop saying that,” he says, pulling me closer and jutting his chin toward my phone.
“Don’t let those fuckers cast a shadow on what you have with your son.
You’re a superwoman, and he’s already something amazing.
Just imagine what it’s going to be like at his high school graduation, when he gets married—you made your choice, and it’s an investment that will return.
Your parents chose themselves, and that’s what they’ll have as they age. ”
I bite my lip to keep from crying, but tears well up in my eyes anyway.
“Speaking of investments,” I say, sitting up and clearing my throat slightly.
I know I’m changing course, but there are three words hovering at the back of my throat, and I’m worried that if Russell keeps talking to me like this, they might come through my lips. “I’ve been thinking about the clinic.”
Russell raises an eyebrow at me. “You have?”
“Yes,” I nod. “And I was thinking…what if you presented the clinic—and used the clinic—more as a PR opportunity? I drove by it the other day and couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t a lot of signage.”
Russell looks at me steadily, “Yeah?”
Feelings of dread and shame are replaced with a sort of excitement, a reminder of why I chose PR in the first place.
I shift on his bed, dragging the sheet with me to cover my chest as I sit back, sinking into the mattress.
Russell frowns at how I’m covering up, and I ignore the way it makes me feel a flutter, focusing on the matter at hand.
“So, as a public relations specialist, I think rather than viewing the clinic as something you just operate without any benefit, you could use it as a PR opportunity. First, use the location for more advertisement—make it clear to anyone driving past that BHC is giving back to the community. Slap the hospital’s label on it—just seeing it can improve trust and recognition.
Think of the clinic as a chance to save some money on advertisements. ”
The corners of his lips lift, and he reaches for me, pulling me back onto his lap, “See, I knew the hospital should have brought you on for consultation.”
Flipping me over so I’m beneath him, Russell drags his lips down my neck and scrapes his teeth over my collarbone, his cock already hard and pressing into my thigh. When I turn my head, I catch sight of that mark again, and shove the suspicion deep down where I won’t have to think about it.
It’s not possible. I need to let it go.
“That was a lie, though,” I laugh when his hands find my sides, revisiting a ticklish spot he found a few days ago that I wish he hadn’t. “But this could be real.”
“Yeah,” Russell says, voice thick as he catches my wrists and holds them up above my head, his words vibrating through my skin and bones and ligaments. “It could be.”