Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
JULIETTE
Ilay in bed next to Griffin, wide awake. We were flying back to Phoenix in the morning. It was the last thing I wanted to think about, and the only thing that had occupied my mind all day.
I rolled on my side and stared out the window overlooking the back of the farm. Moonlight pooled across the floor. An owl called somewhere in the dark.
Seddledowne was magical. This farm most of all. But the family that loved and worked this land? They were the family I’d always longed for.
How was I supposed to leave them?
Figure out a way to convince Griffin to stay. Phoenix is too close to DayGlow. At least here you’re surrounded by family. Family who would die before letting anything happen to you.
The Duprees had a shooting range, and the guys practiced for fun. Peyton had told me how Ford shot Tally’s rapist, and Griffin, his brothers, and cousins had caught Charlie’s attackers and her terrible ex.
I’ll be fine in Phoenix. Griffin will protect me.
While he’s off fighting wildfires for months at a time? You go back there, and you’re a sitting duck.
But what choice did I have? Griffin was restless here, like he couldn’t leave fast enough.
You always have choices, Mom’s voice whispered.
I wasn’t going to argue with the voice of a dead woman whose choices had destroyed both our lives. Not on this.
I gazed out the window, trying to focus on something different.
But the stars only reminded me I couldn’t see them back in the city. We wouldn’t be back until Christmas—and only then if Griffin wasn’t fighting a fire. So I rolled the other way.
Griffin was awake, watching me. “You okay?” He curled an arm around my back, tucking me against his chest.
I’d held the tears in all day. But I was too tired to keep fighting. I buried my face in his shoulder, letting my emotions come.
“Hey,” he said in a hush. “What’s wrong?”
Tell him. Tell him why you can’t go back. If he knew the truth, if he knew what they’d done to you, he wouldn’t want you anywhere near DayGlow. You said you’d tell him when the funeral was over. It’s over. Time’s up.
A fought back as sob as I finally admitted the truth to myself.
You’re not going to tell him. You never were. Griffin saved it all for his wife, and you saved nothing. If he knew who you really were, the love in his eyes would drain away like someone pulled the plug. And his ‘I don’t believe in divorce’ vow would go with it.
So get it together and head back to Phoenix.
Griffin can’t quit his job and stay out here just because you’re afraid.
Besides, you’re going to need his income now that you’re jobless and broke.
Broker than Theo even. And you need a story for when he eventually asks where all your money went and why you don’t work for DayGlow anymore.
It was all I’d thought about since I saw Weston in Starbucks and knew it was my sign to leave DayGlow.
I still didn’t know what to tell my husband.
How do you explain being a supermodel who lived in a penthouse suite, had your own driver, and has nothing in the bank when you should have millions?
There was no good way to explain it other than the truth. And that would cost me my marriage.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I whispered, my tears wet against his bare chest. “How could it be? I’m here with you.”
“Then why are you crying?” he murmured.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s been a hard couple of days,” he whispered, his thumb tracing slow lines across my back. “James will be okay. Willow, too. And Maggie.” We’d found out today that Maggie might have to repeat her family medicine rotation. She was crushed.
“I know,” I said, pulling myself together. “I’m fine.” I made my voice lighter. “I just… I think my period’s about to start. Hormones be hormoning.”
“She gets weepy right before her period. Noted.” He tapped his temple and then brushed a tear from my cheek. “You know what would make you feel better?”
“What?”
He shimmied his chest. “A little lovin’ from your firefighting man.”
I laughed through my tears. “Are you going to do a pole dance for me?”
He snorted. “I can’t believe you think I would do something that smutty.”
I froze. Had I offended him? “Sorry,” I whispered.
But then he let out a growl that probably woke half the house and flipped me over, pinning me on my back. Which made me scream and wake the other half.
With my hands trapped above my head, he gazed into my eyes. “We are not erotic romance, Jules. We are the greatest love story of all time.”
At those words, everything softened in him and me.
His lips found mine. “We’ve got all the best tropes,” he murmured. “A gorgeous teenage girl crushing on a homely boy from across the country.”
“Homely?” I laughed. “Please. And technically, I was crushing on your voice.”
“Shhhhh,” he ordered. “I was homely, but then I had a glow-up. That’s the makeover trope. Then there’s the celebrity crush trope—me crushing on you. And when we met in that restaurant and—”
“I think you mean that bar.”
He shushed me again. “It was love at first sight.”
I tilted my head to the side. “It wasn’t love at first sight for me.”
“Ouch.”
“It was love at first ‘I’m saving myself for my wife.’”
He went still for a few seconds.
“Really?” A slow grin spread across his face.
“Really,” I said, not smiling at all. “I mean, I thought you were the best-looking man I’d ever seen, plus the voice. But those words are what did it.”
“Nice,” he said, puffing up a little. “I do have a pretty great voice.”
“The greatest,” I said. “You’d put the best smut narrators to shame.”
“Hmm. New career options.”
I pulled his forehead to mine. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Why not?” he murmured.
“Because.” I nuzzled his nose. “Those sweet nothings are reserved for me. Got it?” I pulled his mouth to mine.
“Got it,” he said against my lips. “Would you like me to practice some of those sweet nothings right now?”
“Could you just hold me instead?” I asked quietly.
His expression softened. “I’d love to.”
An hour later, as Griffin slept, I stared out at the stars again, dread pooling in my stomach at the thought of Phoenix. If I got on that plane, DayGlow would be there waiting. And the minute Griffin took off for Yosemite, I would disappear.
Please save me. Please save me. Please save me, I prayed.
All night long.