Chapter 27
Russell
Alena shoots me a look that says, what the hell? And also, are you good?
Instead of shooting her a look back, I take Jules by the elbow and pull her to the side, away from my sister and her kids. Rory is still asleep in the stroller, but Ray is in Alena’s arms, twisting around, wobbling, and trying to get a look at Jules and me.
“Jules,” I whisper, scanning her, seeing a lot that bothers me. First—when I left her at my apartment, she was still in her pajamas, fresh faced. Now, she’s wearing a blouse and slacks, mascara running down her cheeks. “What happened?”
She yanks her arm back away from me and glares defiantly as she crosses her arms over her chest. “What happened is you fucking ran away, and I find you here with—”
“My sister,” I say, gesturing toward Alena, who is watching this interaction with a hawk-like gaze. “And my niece and nephew.”
Jules looks at the woman, then back at me, then does it again, apparently seeing the resemblance between us. And the fact that Alena is reacting the way she is—surely if that woman was my wife, she wouldn’t be so chill about a woman claiming I had another son.
Jules’ cheeks go pink, and she swallows, taking a step back. I don’t let her retreat. I was wrong to leave like that this morning—I should have just been up-front about why I needed to leave.
But I’m not going to let her run away now, especially when it’s clear that something else is going on with her.
“Why are you dressed up?” I ask, lowering my voice. “Where are you coming from?”
“It’s none of your business,” she cuts back, apparently still angry, and I shake my head, frustration rising up in me again. Today has been a shit-show, and Alena needed me. As much as I wanted to get back to Jules, I couldn’t let my sister go through this alone.
Stepping closer to Jules, looking down at her, holding those whiskey eyes with my own, I ask her, “Really, Jules? You think I would cheat on you? Even in a fake relationship?”
Jules flinches at the word fake, and I go on, trying to soften my tone, “And you know that’s not—about Gus. You know that can’t be true. I told you.”
Unbidden, the hope of that wish—that Gus could be mine—blows through my body like a blizzard, lodging itself in my ribs and wafting up around my heart in a flurry. It’s stupid and emotional and the exact kind of feeling I’ve been trying to avoid when it comes to that kid.
Strangers commenting on how alike we look. The way he looks at me. How easy it is to talk to him, and the deeper sense of connection I’ve felt with him. Like I can see myself there, in his face and in his head.
Jules crosses her arms, “Well, I’m also telling you that it’s possible. The only other person I was with around that time was Dax, and he had a vasectomy.”
I remember mentions of this man—the one she dated who turned out to have a whole other family.
Biting my tongue, I glance back at Alena, who’s sitting on the bench now, rocking the stroller back and forth.
It makes sense that Jules might jump to the worst possible explanation for what she saw, even if it fucking hurts that she would think that of me.
Considering what Alena has gone through today, I think she might even be willing to forgive Jules for the outburst in front of Ray and Rory, too.
But all that doesn’t change the fact that it’s impossible. I saw the results with my own two eyes. Although Margot and I were careful, it’s not like we were perfect. Sometimes, we were stupid and didn’t use protection. And every single time, we got lucky.
At least, at the time, that’s what we thought. Then, even when we were trying, nothing happened. Even if I hadn’t seen those labs proving my sperm aren’t viable, I’d have been able to draw some pretty accurate conclusions if it was something I’d paid attention to.
Maybe every man just assumes there will be no problems on his end of the thing.
And I was one of them. Now, I know the truth. And I know that means there’s no way I’m Gus’s—or anyone else’s, for that matter—father.
“Jules,” I say, softly, reaching for her shoulder, trying to find a way to get through to her.
More than anything, I want to get past this conversation so I can find out what else happened to her today.
Why she left my apartment at all, why she didn’t wait for me to come back.
“Dax lied to you about being single. I think it’s possible that he lied about the vasectomy. ”
She’s shaking her head, “No. I—I insisted on him doing a DNA test. Just to make sure. He did. Gus doesn’t belong to him. That’s how I knew it was—” she cuts off for a moment, her already pink face flushing further, and I realize why.
If what she’s saying is true, that means it was her that day at the masquerade ball. The woman I’ve thought of nearly every day since. Who I’ve been chasing through dark hair and curves that couldn’t quite keep up in other women.
And if that was her, that means she and I have a shared memory of that balcony.
Her head tipped back against the wall. That ruby mask, the dress bunched up around her waist and the brick wall behind her back. One of my hands splayed astride her head, the other hooked around her leg, holding her where I wanted her.
My fingers in the meat of her thigh, her purrs at being told what to do, the whimper sliding out of her at the climax of her orgasm.
“It’s you,” Jules says, holding my gaze with her own. “There’s no other option, Russell.”
“It’s impossible, I told you.” I’m trying to stay calm, but her insistence is making me feel a kernel of hope, and I know that’s not a good idea. “It might have been me on that balcony with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m Gus’s father.”
I know what it’s like to let yourself dream of something.
For years, I dreamed about having kids with Margot.
We’d live in New York City and raise our kids far from the Burch dynasty.
I’d let Calvin have it, the whole heavy mantle of medicine, let him raise his kids the way I grew up.
With the expectations and weight of the family name.
Margot and I would pay too much for a brownstone and too much for our kids’ tuition and eventually, I might even become chief of medicine at a hospital in NYC.
I’d come up with new treatments for kids with heart conditions, we’d rise in our careers, and even with the stress of the city, we’d say it was worth it.
But none of that happened. Instead, I learned that I could never have biological children. After she left, I realized it was never really that much about Margot—which was, maybe, part of the problem. Without the promise of kids in our future, we realized we didn’t really have that much in common.
So, I lost that future, my fiancée, and found out my father would be dying of cancer, all in the same decade. And now I’m back in Chicago, once again facing a choice: allow myself to hope, to wish for the chance that I might get something I want.
Gus. A son. A family, right here for the taking. A miracle.
Or, I could make the logical choice. I could take my lessons from the past and move forward sensibly.
In my apartment this morning, when Jules asked me what this was, I found myself leaning toward hope.
Toward thinking I could have her and Gus, despite the fact that this started as a fake thing.
Despite the fact that she’s so much younger than me, seeming to be in a completely different part of her life altogether.
But hope has only ever resulted in pain.
“It’s not possible,” I say again, more to convince myself than to convince her.
“Fine,” she says, looking off to the side for a moment before returning her gaze to mine. “Then take a DNA test.”
“I told you—”
“Just—” she cuts me off, shaking her head. “Humor me, okay? Do it for me.”
But I can’t do the DNA test and just humor her. It would be humoring me, too. And when I think of the pain of a negative test, of getting the answer I know has to be true, to hold that evidence in my hands—it’s too much.
“There’s no point.”
“So, you won’t do it.” Jules bites the words off like they’re poisonous.
“I don’t think there’s a point,” I argue, but her face is already closing off, and she’s taking a step back from me, shaking her head, more mascara-tinged tears running down her face. “Jules—”
“Don’t,” she whispers, the word coming out in a plume of hot breath in the increasingly frigid air. The sun is completely set now, the park coming to life with the massive displays by the ice rink and the lights from nearby buildings and streetlamps. “Don’t, Russell.”
With that, she turns to walk away.
This time, I’m not going to let her. Not when she’s upset.
Not when she’s obviously gone through something else today.
I take a step forward, determined to follow her, to at least call her a car and make sure she gets home okay, but then I turn to the side and see the last person I would have expected—or wanted—to see, standing just behind the hot chocolate stand.
She’s tall and thin and wearing a shining white coat that’s bedazzled up the sides, her long skinny fingers clutching a pink phone with charms hanging from the top.
“Russell,” Evony says, tilting her head at me and giving me a sly look. Before I can even think of something to say, she’s turned on her heel and started in the other direction, furiously texting.
After a second of standing there like an idiot in the cold, I say the only thing that comes to mind.
“Fuck.”