Chapter 20
JULES
“What are you doing locked away in here?” my lawyer, Louis, asked. I could hear the slur in his words, so I wasn’t surprised when he placed a glass of champagne on my desk. It joined the other two still-full glasses that Louis had brought me in the last half hour.
“Just finishing up a few things,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on whatever document was on the computer screen in front of me.
Louis lumbered around the desk and gave me a gentle slap on the back. “Your uncle would be proud, kid,” the older man said.
“Thank you, Louis. For everything,” I responded. “Tell everyone out there to go home and be with their families. We can celebrate our win on Monday.”
“Good plan,” he responded. “You coming?”
“Um, in a few. I’ve got to finish some stuff up here.”
Louis sent me a thumbs-up, but before he could leave my office, common sense hit me. “Louis, hold up. I’ll walk you down and make sure you get a cab.”
I sighed because my plan had been to cry like a baby as soon as Louis shut the door behind him, but that wasn’t an option at the moment. I was responsible for making sure that everyone, including Louis, made it safely home. The impromptu celebration my legal team had decided to throw themselves in one of my conference rooms hadn’t been my idea. Thankfully, the majority of my employees who’d decided to work on the day before Christmas hadn’t stuck around past noon, so I’d only had a handful of people I’d needed to pour into cabs or confirm they were safe to drive themselves home.
At least an empty office building would mean I could cry my eyes out in any room and not be discovered. Hell, I could lie down on the floor of my office and do nothing else for the next several days and no one would know. As I got up to follow Louis, my cell phone rang. The sight of Brooks’s name on the screen made it all the harder to tamp down my emotions. I hadn’t spoken to my friend since I’d left the ranch in the middle of the night other than to send him a text to apologize for taking the Range Rover and that I’d paid the rental company to return it to him as soon as possible. After that, I’d mostly kept my phone powered off, and I’d bought a second phone to communicate with my staff and legal team. I’d only turned my regular phone on when I’d been disgustingly desperate to see if the one person I wanted to call me ever did.
He didn’t.
I didn’t really pay attention as Louis regaled me with all the trial’s biggest moments over the past couple of months because I’d been there through all of them. I hummed whenever he took a breath so he’d think I was listening as we made our way to the conference room. I was surprised to find it empty.
“Oh yeah, they went home,” Louis said.
“When?” I asked as I took in the empty bottles of champagne and half dozen glasses on the table.
Louis simply shrugged and then swallowed the rest of the champagne in his glass. “Guess I gotta go home and face the music,” he said with a goofy smile. The sight of one of the most powerful, talented, and very expensive corporate attorneys in the city blabbering like a toddler would have been amusing if I were capable of feeling that particular emotion.
“Okay then, let’s get you a cab,” I said as I led Louis to an elevator.
“The missus is comin’ to get me,” he responded. “Think she’s been out front for a couple minutes. She’s gonna be maaaaad .” Louis let out an ungodly belch and then whispered, “Got the in-laws staying over. ’Least they won’t be expectin’ me to go to mass like this. Wait, don’t they have wine in church?”
Thankfully, the elevators in the building moved fast and with everyone else gone, there were no stops between the top floor and the lobby.
“Hey look, it’s Santa,” Louis said with a hearty laugh as we walked through the sliding doors that led outside. I looked up to see a helicopter hovering over a spot a couple blocks down the street.
“Yes, it is. Go home and tell your kids,” I said. Since the man’s wife was a no-show, I gave Louis a slap on the back as I got him settled in a cab and paid the driver after giving him Louis’s address.
The sound of sirens wailing in the distance was just another reminder of how much I hated New York. I’d been back for five months and every day of it had been hell. All the noise and chaos that I’d once lived for only served to pull me deeper into the pit of despair that I’d dug for myself. Even on a snowy Christmas Eve, terrible things were still happening all over the city. The sirens and news chopper could be for anything from a murder to an accident to a drunken brawl. The list of possibilities was endless.
An image of lying in a soft bed of snow next to Flynn as we stared at the stars that lit up the sky while silent snowflakes fell all around us hit me hard. Hard enough to make me lose my shit the second the elevator doors closed. I didn’t care that there were cameras in the elevator. I didn’t care if someone got a still shot of me from the video as I slid down the smooth wall, tucked my knees against my chest and cried an entire day’s worth of tears. It'd been like that every day since I’d fled the ranch. Work responsibilities would often distract me enough to get through the day, but the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was to sob like a child.
I’d always gone through the ritual of dialing Flynn’s number each day, but I’d never hit the send button. I hadn’t texted him either. I’d cut off all contact with Brooks too. Since he had no idea what my real name was, once he’d found out that I hadn’t returned to his office, he wouldn’t have known how to find me. Not easily, anyway.
Once the elevator reached the top floor, I pulled myself together enough that I’d be able to make it back to my office. I had a couch with a body pillow that I pretended was Flynn whenever I felt the need to hang on to him.
Which was all the time.
I had the same in my bed at my apartment.
They were the only times I let myself remember the time I’d spent on Black Hills Ranch. I’d relived the experience of being rescued by a hot cowboy from a bunch of ignorant thugs all the way to the last time he’d made love to me. I’d asked him to make it last, which he had, but not to drive my body to the edge before pulling it back again. No, he’d cherished every part of me with his mouth and touch—like he’d been trying to memorize me. I hadn’t been wearing any makeup or sexy outfit. I hadn’t wanted to. I’d wanted to be naked in every way as he loved me. And loved me he had.
By the time he’d gently pushed himself inside of me, I’d experienced two soul-wrenching orgasms while Flynn hadn’t taken any pleasure for himself. He’d proceeded to fuck me slow and deep, making it so my next orgasm started as a slow burn. I’d felt him everywhere. By the time I’d orgasmed for the third time, that time without his mouth or hand on me, I’d been certain it’d been the last time. Except Flynn had still been hot and hard inside of me. That was when he’d rolled us so that I was on top. He’d given me the final control of how and when he climaxed. I’d taken my time since my own dick had needed to recover. I’d been sobbing by the time our orgasms had hit us, nearly in sync. Flynn had assumed the tears had been because of how beautiful those final hours had been with him, though he hadn’t known they were our last hours together. The passionate lovemaking had been the cover I’d needed, but telling him how much I loved him just before I’d fallen asleep had been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
My body felt heavy and weak as I climbed to my feet and stepped out of the elevator. That was when my phone rang… the new phone. I sighed when I saw Louis’s name on the caller ID.
“Louis, go home,” I said.
“Yeah, um, no, I gotta tell you something…”
The man’s slurred words were drowned out by the sound of sirens. “Louis, what’s happened? Are you okay?” The cab I’d put Louis in had been heading away from where we’d seen the helicopter and heard all the rescue vehicles.
“You saw it too, right?” I heard Louis say, though it sounded like he was talking to someone else. “Ernie saw it too… what? Oh, sorry, Eddie. Eddie saw it too.”
“Louis, tell Eddie you’ll give him an extra hundred bucks if he takes you straight home right now.” There was more talking between Louis and the cabbie but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Just as Louis began talking to me again, lights began shining in and out of the windows surrounding the floor I was on. The sirens were so loud that all I managed to hear Louis say was “in your lobby” and then the call disconnected.
What the hell?
I got back on the elevator and hit the lobby button. It wasn’t until the elevator stopped on the bottom floor that I realized I had no clue what Louis had supposedly seen in my lobby, just like I didn’t know why the sirens and helicopter seemed to be surrounding my building now. It occurred to me that I could be dealing with some kind of gunman who was on the run and since my lobby doors weren’t locked yet, he’d taken refuge in my building. I pressed the button for my floor repeatedly in the hope that the elevator door would get the message and not open the door to let me off on the bottom floor like it was supposed to.
So much for Christmas wishes.
The elevator did open, but when I saw what was standing in front of the security desk that was unmanned because of the holiday, I stood frozen where I was. “No,” I cried out as the door began to close so the elevator could take me back up. I managed to stick my arm in the door before it fully closed. Thankfully, it opened again and I had the sense to step out of it. From there, I couldn’t move because I was in a state of complete shock. My phone rang again. I was so distracted that I answered it without thinking.
With a much clearer connection, Louis yelled, “I swear on all that is holy and good, I just saw a horse walk into the building.”
I didn’t respond to Louis because my heart was in my throat.
I had to be hallucinating. There was no way BJ and Flynn were standing less than half a dozen yards from me. It just wasn’t possible.
BJ nickered and bobbed his head. The big animal shook his entire body, spraying snow everywhere.
I wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that I might be hallucinating or the knowledge that I wasn’t. Based on the rage in Flynn’s eyes and the way he held himself, I kind of wanted it to be the hallucination scenario, but the knowledge that he was alive and well overruled everything else.
“Flynn…” I began but then stopped. What the hell was I supposed to say? Ask him what he was doing there? The answer was obvious. One look in his icy eyes told me everything I needed to know.
Maybe if Flynn hadn’t looked so enraged, I would have been excited to see him, but all I was filled with was dread. I’d taken the coward’s way out and run from him without any kind of explanation. He probably no longer cared why I’d done it, but he still wanted his pound of flesh.
And he had every right to.
As afraid as I was of hearing how much Flynn hated me, if that was what it took to ease even an ounce of the pain I’d inflicted upon him, I’d take any and every cruel word he had to say to me because he deserved at least that. In my gut, I knew Flynn wouldn’t hurt me physically because that wasn’t who he was. He was the guy who laughed, who teased, who gave, who protected. He’d only ever hurt someone to protect someone or something else.
Now I was just like one of those thugs from the alley in Eden and Flynn was protecting himself from me.
I wiped my eyes with my shirtsleeve. I’d divested myself of the suitcoat I’d been wearing at the first opportunity, but even now, I didn’t feel like myself. Especially now that I was in Flynn’s presence. Even as I drank in the sight of him, I could tell that he’d lost a significant amount of weight. His normally tanned skin was ashen and his beard was long and unkempt. The skin beneath his eyes was nearly black from lack of sleep and his clothes were dirty and looked a couple sizes too big. Despite the fact that he was almost unrecognizable, he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I slowly walked toward the pair. My stupid, obscenely expensive, Italian-made shoes squeaked with every step I took. Just outside the lobby door was an array of lights and sirens.
Oh God, was Flynn going to be arrested? It didn’t matter because all it would take was money and a great defense lawyer, and since I had the first one in spades, getting the second one would be a breeze.
I forced away the presence of everything going on outside and focused on Flynn. The closer I got to the man who’d once loved me, the farther Flynn moved away from BJ’s side. At one point he even turned his back to me. I continued to move forward until I reached BJ. He gave me a much warmer welcome.
We all stood there in silence for what seemed like forever. I knew it wasn’t my turn to talk and it definitely wasn’t BJ’s, so that left one person, and he had the right to say whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.
“You have one chance to tell me the truth,” Flynn announced, his back still turned to me. “One chance,” he warned.
“I found out my father?—”
“I know all about how your father and cousin took you to court arguing that you weren’t doing what was in the best interest of the company shareholders by putting the reins in someone else’s hands, so don’t even bother with trying to sell me on that one.”
His words gutted me. If I told him the truth, he’d hate me forever, but if I lied to him, the outcome wouldn’t be any different. It came down to whatever would hurt him less.
BJ gave me a nudge. I put my hand on his soft nose in the hope of working up the courage to tell Flynn I’d bailed on him because I no longer had the same feelings I’d had for him back on the ranch.
I opened my mouth to say that exact thing, but instead I whispered, “I was afraid.” I wasn’t sure what part of my brain had decided it was time to be honest for the first time in a long while rather than run from something that I knew could hurt me, but I was grateful for it.
“I was afraid,” I said more loudly. “When I got the call that my father and cousin were trying to take the company from me, I knew I had to come back here and stop them. For Uncle Ray. For everything he’d worked so hard to build and for all the employees and tenants who relied on him. I didn’t want to leave. I was being a selfish asshole because I didn’t want to leave the ranch. I was selfish because I didn’t want to spend even five minutes apart from the person who finally made me feel like I was worth taking a risk on. But that isn’t who I am and that’s not the man you fell in love with.”
“I thought I’d fallen in love with someone who promised to be my home for the rest of our lives. I remember the promise that said I’d never wake up alone again,” Flynn said coldly.
I couldn’t stop the tears from silently flowing down my cheeks. “I knew leaving like I did was wrong. I knew how much it would hurt you, but I did it anyway.” I paused long enough to suck in a few deep breaths.
“When you told me about how you and BJ explored the country on foot, I could see it. I could see it just by listening to the way you talked about having seen so many places that few people ever did. You were living life on your terms. Do you even know how incredible that is? How brave? That was when I knew that no matter what we meant to each other, it would never work. How could it? You’d literally experienced this life-changing event that made you see the world in a different way while I was trying to do the same thing by throwing money away like it was paper. While you were out there living a real life, I was hiding behind designer clothes and handing money and presents to people like it was candy for trick-or-treaters. Everything about me is a lie, Flynn. Even Brooks. I might not have paid him to like me, but I lied and manipulated him so I could get what I wanted.”
Flynn was silent for a long time. So silent that even BJ took notice because the horse started getting antsy. I took the reins and looped them around the saddle horn so he wouldn’t step on the reins if he began walking.
Which was exactly what he did. BJ went straight for Flynn, who was staring out the window. The longer Flynn remained silent, the harder it became to stay where I was. I dashed at my eyes so I could watch as BJ nudged him gently. Flynn raised his hand and began stroking his best friend’s neck. Knowing Flynn would never be alone made it the tiniest bit easier to let him go.
As the minutes passed and Flynn didn’t speak or even turn around, my need to lick my wounds became too great. Instead of retreating to my office so I could cry my eyes out, I walked toward the lobby doors because there was something I needed to do first. It wasn’t often that I used my name to my advantage, but if it helped get rid of the cops, reporters, and gawkers, I’d gladly throw it around so Flynn could leave without microphones being thrust in his face and the bright lights from cameras blinding him.
“Jules, if you even think about walking out that door so you can save me from all the cops and reporters…”
Flynn let the threat hang. Since I already knew he’d never hurt me physically, I braced myself for whatever he was going to say next. Either way, the knowledge that I’d turned Flynn into someone nearly unrecognizable began to shred me into little tiny bits that would eventually float away until it’d been like I’d never existed at all.
“I didn’t read your fucking note,” Flynn continued. “You want to know why?”
I knew better than to open my mouth to respond.
“Because there was nothing you could have said on that scrap of paper that would have made me suffer even a tiny fraction less. I just got on my horse and left the one place where I’d finally started to feel like I belonged. The place I wanted to build a future with the one person who meant more to me than anything else. The person who made me finally feel safe. The person who made me realize that the two years I’d spent exploring some of the most beautiful places in the country didn’t hold a candle to even a single second of the time I spent with him.”
Bile crept up the back of my throat, filling my mouth with a sour taste that made me want to gag. I swallowed repeatedly to rid myself of the taste because I owed Flynn however long it took him to tell me in excruciating detail what my cowardice had done to him. But in true Jules fashion, I couldn’t do it. As it was, all I wanted to do was sink to my knees and lie down on the cold marble floor and wait until it was all over.
Selfish to the end, huh, Jules?
There was no arguing with the voice inside my head… the one that had reminded me from the time I was a little kid that no matter how long I waited by a window for a father who was never going to appear or hoped that the mother I barely knew would send for me, it would never happen because I wasn’t like other people. There was something fundamentally wrong with me and no amount of money or sex or buying friends was going to change that.
When the silence became too unbearable, I feebly murmured, “I knew I couldn’t ask you to come back here with me?—"
“No, you don’t know that, actually. You took the right to decide that for myself away from me.”
Every word was another knife being driven into my body but not with the intent to kill me. I needed to suffer. There was no fighting back because everything Flynn was saying was true. The wounds he was inflicting would never heal, just like the wound I’d left him with would stay with him forever. I’d cut into his chest just like the surgeons had, but not to save him. I’d done it to save myself.
“You know what the funny thing is? When I got on BJ, I didn’t tell him which way to go when we left the ranch because I didn’t care. I didn’t care about myself, but worse, I didn’t care about him. I was the one who was supposed to take care of him. He trusted me not to let anything happen to him and I just threw that away. Because of you. Because all of my thoughts were consumed with wondering what I’d said or done to drive you away.”
Flynn let out a harsh, ugly laugh. “I didn’t see anything around me. There was no beauty or life in anything we passed. I was on autopilot. I had enough sense to untack BJ at night, eat food I couldn’t taste, drink water I didn’t want, and stare at some stars that were nothing but dots of light against a dark background.” Flynn ran his hand along BJ’s neck as he spoke. “I didn’t come here because I’d planned it the entire time. BJ brought me here. This horse has never once set foot anywhere near this city and yet every day, he brought me closer to this terrible place that I’d never wanted to see again. He brought me back to the place where the one person I never wanted to see again lived.
“I was too stupid to notice the change in weather at first. When I did, I got BJ turned around so he’d head south to where it was warmer. Then I buried my head in the sand so I could continue to feel sorry for myself and try to find a way to erase every moment we were together from my brain. The weather turned on us, so I pointed BJ west and figured he’d stop once we reached the ocean. And wouldn’t you know it, it was cold as fuck going that way too. Snow had started to fall and the temperatures kept dropping to the point that I knew we were in trouble. We didn’t have the right supplies to survive that kind of cold, and since I had no clue exactly where we were, I couldn’t find the closest ranch or barn that I’d used in the past to stable BJ during the worst part of winter. Do you have any idea how easy it is to die in those kinds of elements?”
I shook my head even though Flynn still had his back to me. Never in a million years had I expected him to leave the ranch, let alone put his and BJ’s lives at risk.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn. I never wanted?—”
“That was the moment I came back to life. It was one thing to throw away my own life for something as foolish as love, but to put BJ at risk…” Flynn shook his head. “I finally had the sense to pull out my compass and map so I could try to figure out where we were, but when I saw that little arrow pointing in the exact same direction it’d been when I’d turned BJ around for the first time, I finally got it. BJ was bringing me here.”