Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
JULIETTE
H e ends the call, and I stare at the phone angrily, wanting to squeeze the life out of him. I call my mother next, hoping she won’t answer. She disappoints me and answers on the third ring.
“Juliette!” she calls me like I’m a child whom she’s caught hand-deep in a cake. “What is this about some billionaire? It is a lie, isn’t it?”
“Ma, listen.”
“Don’t Ma me, alright. Tell me the truth.”
“It’s not a lie.”
“It’s not!” she exclaims. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a man in your life?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise Ma. But these blogs don’t know how to shut their trap. I was going to tell you, Ma.”
I hope she buys that lie.
“When?” she asks.
“When I return from Manhattan. I wanted to come home to tell you.”
“Don’t tell me lies, Juliette!”
“Ma, why would I lie? It was supposed to be a surprise, I promise you.”
“A billionaire. Who is this man anyway? Is he a good man?”
“Yes, Ma, he is a good man,” I tell her and find myself believing it also. I really do think Hudson is a good man. He has his issues, and God knows, sometimes I want to strangle him, but no matter how hard he tries to hide them, I can tell he cherishes those he loves and adores those who are loyal to him.
“So, this billionaire, is he the one you’re working for?”
“There was no work, Ma, it was all a lie,” I find myself sliding comfortably into the lie.
“A lie!” now, the exclamation is back.
“Ma, I’ll explain everything to you when I return, alright. I promise. I have to go.”
I end the call before she can say anything else, and thankfully, that is before she says anything about Benny. Poor Benny. I don’t have the mental fortitude to think about him now. My mother was the one who got his hopes high, so she should be the one to let him back down gently.
I call Sophie next and that goes more smoothly.
“Girl, what is happening? You have me losing my mind here. My Juls is engaged to a billionaire?”
I consider telling Sophie the truth. But then I remembered I signed an NDA, and I am legally bound to keep this ruse a secret. I know Sophie wouldn’t tell, and Hudson won’t be mad if I tell her, yet I decide to keep it to myself. I owe Hudson that much. I know what is riding on this lie and how much he needs it to stand.
“All it took was for me to get dolled up once!” I say, and then I fall on bed, as Sophie screams and chuckles.
“When are you coming back to town? You’ve got a lot to tell me!”
“Soon. In a couple of days. When I get back, we’ll go out for coffee. We’ve got to avoid paparazzi, though. They seem to be everywhere these days,” I say laughing.
I spend the next half hour on a call with Sophie and in the end, all the worries I have disappear. I feel reassured and certain that all will go well. Just like Hudson said, we don’t need to talk to anyone. The basis of our relationship was privacy, maybe secrecy to some extent. We will keep that up. Feeling better, I prepare to join Alejandro in the kitchen and eat the meal I made. But my phone rings again, and there is no caller ID this time. I answer the call, thinking it might be Jenny. Whenever she calls me on her office line, there is no ID.
“Hello, is this Juliette Nightingale,” a male voice asks at the other end of the line, and I almost say yes before it clicks that it’s probably a journalist. I remain quiet and listen. The man must have heard my breathing from the other end because he goes on. “My name is Teddy Wan. I’m with the Times magazine and calling to see if you’ll be available for an interview with me. We’re looking to do a piece about you and your fiancé, Hudson Sinclair. You can text me on this line what time you’ll be available and where you’d like to meet.”
“We’re not giving interviews,” I say.
“Oh,” the man says, sounding a little disappointed. “May I ask why?”
“No, you may not. You might not be aware of this, but not everyone likes every part of their lives printed on paper. So, please stop calling and respect our privacy.”
“Miss Juliette, the people feel like they are owed a story. They are interested in knowing how you came to know a man like Hudson Sinclair, seeing that?—”
“Seeing that what? I ask. “I’ll advise you to keep whatever sentiment you have about my relationship with Hudson to yourself. I now have your name Mr. Teddy Wan. I’ll advise you do not call me again,” I say and just for the fun of it, I add: “For your own good. Respect our privacy.”
“Of course, Miss Juliette. I am nothing if not understanding,” he says, immediately ending the call. I watch the phone for a while, shaking my head. I know it will be a long day of receiving such calls. Absolutely lacking the stress to deal with any of them, I make the decision to turn my phone off.
Cut off from the outside world, I walk out of my room and back to the kitchen, surprised to find Phillipa sitting by the counter, eating the meal I prepared with Alejandro.
“Miss Juliette,” Alejandro says when he sees me. “Are you alright?”
“I’m peachy,” I say, joining Phillipa at the table. “Can you pour me that glass of wine now?”
“Of course,” Alejandro says, glad to serve me. “Will you also have the puttanesca now?”
“Yes, please. I’ve worked up an appetite. Popularity can do that, apparently.”
Phillipa throws me a dirty look but says nothing. She focuses on eating. After Alejandro serves me my food, he excuses himself, stating that he has something to do in his room, so that leaves Phillipa and me alone in the kitchen. This is the first time I’ve been alone with her, and she doesn’t look like the petite girl I saw at the party last night.
“Hudson told me about what transpired between the two of you last night,” I say, biting into my meal while keeping eye contact with her. She looks away, shame clouding her face, but it lasts only a moment. When she faces me again, her face is as stolid as ever, and she shrugs.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying her luck,” she says with a sly grin.
“I don’t understand it,” I say, taking a drink from my glass. “How is it that you’re obsessed with Hudson when he made it clear he doesn’t want you? It’s embarrassing. How did you two meet anyway? You seem like an unlikely pair”
“He hasn’t told you?”
I shake my head. “He doesn’t like talking about you at all,” I lie. But it isn’t an entire lie. Hudson really doesn’t like talking about her, but I never asked him. It never crossed my mind to.
“Why don’t you ask him? Transparency is important in a marriage, isn’t it?”
“I’m asking you now.”
“If you insist, then,” she says, smiling. I guess this is one story she will enjoy telling. “Hudson pursued me.”
I find that hard to believe, and my face must have communicated that because she laughed.
“You think I’m lying?”
“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just listening.”
“Whatever. If you choose to, believe me. But I am telling you the truth. It was around the time he and my father got into this silly clash. He was very doting on me. We went on a couple of dates, he called me the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and we shared a couple of kisses. Very passionate kisses. I know he acts now like I’m some vermin he mustn’t get close to, but he won’t deny that there wasn’t a time when my touch set his skin on fire. He told me that himself.”
“Did you ever think he could be lying?”
She smiled. “A woman knows. Don’t you know? Didn’t you feel the passion in his hands when he touched you the first time? I knew. For all the pretense and lies he parrots now, I knew.”
“What happened then? How did he go from that man who adores you to one who can’t stand you?”
“What? Are you worried it’ll happen to you, too? You got the ring, didn’t you? You’ve won the game,” she laughs hysterically and shakes her head. “I’ll answer your question, not because you deserve an answer. You stole my place. I’ll answer you because I know he’ll do the same thing to you, and I want you to anticipate it. I want you to wake up at night, your eyes opened, wondering if your fiancé, your husband, is slowly hating you, and the mere thought of your skin brushing against him will come to irritate him.”
I watch her as she speaks, brimming with spite.
“What happened was Hudson’s nature taking over. He can’t help it. He finds a new thing and obsesses over it. His obsession feels like love. Maybe to him, it doesn’t, but to the receiver, it could be nothing but true love. But soon, the obsession wanes. Something shifts in him. He can’t understand how he ever thought the world of you, and then he discards you and goes hunting for a new obsession. It is just the way he is. I thought I could make myself his forever; I wanted to be the obsession that lasts forever. But I was a fool. I see it now, there is no changing him. The leopard doesn’t change its spots. He’s like my father. They’re at loggerheads because they are just alike. Two men who get sucked into an obsession and become engrossed until it tires them out. With my father, it’s the companies. With Hudson, it’s women. And don’t you think it is just poetic for me to end up loving a man like my father?”
Poetic? No, I won’t use the word poetic. Expected sounds appropriate.
“What?” She asks when I say nothing. “Cat got your tongue now?” she adds with a laugh. “Poor Juliette. Can’t believe the man she’s to marry.”
It is hard to believe any of what this woman says. She might be lying through her teeth because of all the spite in her, or her spite might be a result of the pain Hudson has caused her. Whichever it is, I don’t care. In five days, I’ll be out of here and put Manhattan behind me forever.
“You don’t believe me, huh?” she asks.
“It’s hard to believe someone filled with so much vitriol,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says. “Why don’t you ask him about this then.”
She stands up and pulls up her gown. She turns around and shows me the back of her thigh. There’s a tattoo there. Half of a butterfly.
“You’ll find the other half on your fiancé’s thigh.”
A tattoo. I tried to imagine if I saw one on Hudson’s thigh last night when we were locked in coital bliss, but I had other things on my mind and wasn’t focused on what ink art he either had or didn’t have on his skin.
“There’s always some other woman, Juliette,” Phillipa says and stands up. She taps me on the shoulder as she walks away. “It’s just your turn for now. The bliss will soon turn to ash in your mouth.”