Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Juliette
The Coconut Grove Country Club looked exactly how I felt—overdressed and pretending not to care.
I tugged my sunglasses down and stepped out of the car, spotting Gabrielle already perched on the terrace patio like she'd been there for hours.
Two wine glasses waited between us, sweating gently in the heat, patient, expectant, and smugly chilled.
I hated to admit it, but I was still tired from the weekend.
Not emotionally. Physically. Damian had worn me out in the best possible way—and now I was paying for it with every step that felt slower than it should.
My thighs ached, and I’d slept through my alarm that morning, which was fine, because I didn’t have anywhere to be. Spring break. No grading, no lectures, no guilt. Just sunshine, mild soreness, and the occasional flashback to Damian’s mouth on my skin.
Gabrielle waved the way only my twin could—impatient and affectionate in the same flick of the wrist.
“Spring break suits you,” she said as I dropped into the seat across from her.
“Because I haven’t had to fake a lecture on pigment degradation all week?”
“Because you’re glowing. Also, your legs should be illegal.”
I grinned and reached for the wine. “I wore sunscreen and sin. It’s a cocktail.”
Gabrielle laughed, and for a minute, we just settled into the quiet hum of the terrace. The breeze off the bay was strong enough to make the heat tolerable. A golf cart zipped by in the distance. Someone’s phone pinged softly three tables over. Everything felt very… curated.
“I left Julian with Aria,” she said, sipping her glass. “She brought an entire tote of plastic zoo animals, so he’ll be fine until at least 3:30.”
“Unless he eats one.”
“He’ll teethe on the tiger and refuse to nap.”
I smiled into my glass. “You’ve memorized your toddler’s chaos patterns.”
“Survival,” she said. “And coffee. Lots of coffee.”
We clinked glasses and drank. For a minute, it was just that—light, easy, twin-sister catch-up with no agenda.
Except… she kept eyeing me like I had a story I wasn’t telling.
And I did. But I wasn’t sharing the part where I’d spent the better part of Saturday pinned to a hotel mattress whispering Damian Sinclair’s name in a tone that definitely wasn’t academic.
“So,” she said after a beat, tilting her head. “Still teaching about dead painters and throwing elbows in the faculty parking lot?”
I exhaled. “Sort of. But honestly? I’m bored.”
She blinked. “You?”
“Yeah. I thought finishing the PhD would feel like the top of a mountain, but it just feels... flat. Like I climbed a ladder only to find out it leaned against the wrong wall.”
Gabrielle gave me a knowing look, the kind only a twin could deliver without a word.
“I’m proud of it,” I added quickly. “I worked my ass off. But I don’t want to talk about art anymore. I want to do something with it. Maybe appraisals, private clients... something that lets me move in the world, not just talk about it in theory.”
“You always said you wanted something tactile.”
“I want to use my eyes. My instincts. Get my hands on real pieces. Not just pass out midterms and break up student arguments about brushstroke symbolism.”
Gabrielle nodded slowly. “So what’s stopping you?”
I paused. “Nothing. Except money. And inertia. And the terrifying reality that I might actually be good at it... or fail so hard I have to live forever in your guest house.”
She laughed, but not unkindly. “You know you’ll never be a burden, right?”
“I know.” I sipped again. “But it’d be nice to pay rent with more than sarcasm.”
“Anyway,” I said quickly, swirling the wine in my glass. “I’m fine. It’s just one of those next chapter things.”
Gabrielle was still watching me, but the edges of her gaze softened. Then she finally spoke, her voice was lower. Quieter.
“Funny you should say that,” she murmured. “Because I’ve been thinking about what comes next, too.”
Gabrielle’s wine glass hovered near her lips, untouched. Her gaze drifted to the horizon where the tree line met the sky like a watercolor someone had half-finished and never returned to.
“What do you mean?” I murmured.
“About next chapters.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t tell me you’re quitting the gallery to raise goats and make handmade soap in Asheville.”
She smirked, but it faded quickly. “I’ve been trying to get pregnant.”
That stopped me cold.
“You mean… you and Anthony?”
She nodded once. “Since just after the new year.”
I sat back in my chair. “You didn’t say anything.”
She gave a small shrug. “We thought it would just… happen. Like it did the first time.”
The way her voice dipped made something tighten in my chest.
Gabrielle was the calm one. The planner. She was the spreadsheet to my sketchbook. The last time she’d sounded like this—fragile, uncertain—was after our mom died. And even then, she held it together better than I did.
“What did your doctor say?” I asked gently.
“She ran a full panel. Hormones, ultrasounds, the works.” Her jaw tensed. “There might be a structural issue. Scar tissue. Or a hormonal imbalance. It’s not conclusive yet, but…”
She trailed off, finally sipping her wine.
“But?” I prompted.
“She mentioned it could be hereditary.” Gabrielle’s eyes met mine then, and I saw it—that quiet desperation she was trying so hard to smother. “That maybe there’s a reason Mom only had one pregnancy.”
The weight of that landed heavier than I expected.
Mom never talked about fertility. She didn’t talk about much, honestly—not the big stuff. Not unless we dragged it out of her. I’d always assumed she didn’t want more kids, that we were enough. But maybe… maybe she didn’t have a choice.
“She’s not here to ask,” Gabrielle added softly, as if reading my mind. “And now we’ve both got a question mark we can’t erase.”
I sat quietly, swirling my glass. The wine caught the sunlight and cast little pink constellations on the tablecloth. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know how I felt.
Gabrielle looked down at her hands. “I’m scheduled for another test next week. Then we’ll talk about IVF.”
“And Anthony…?”
“He knows some of it. But I haven’t told him about the odds. The condition. Any of it.” She looked up. “I wanted to tell you first.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my twin. I don’t have to explain things to you. You’ll understand even when I don’t make sense.”
I swallowed hard. “You don’t have to make sense to me, Gabs. You just have to tell me the truth.”
She smiled, but it was forced. “I’m scared this might be it. That Julian was the only chance I had. And if that’s true… I just needed someone to know.”
I reached across the table and laid my hand over hers.
She squeezed back, then added, “You should get checked too. If you ever think you might want kids. You might not—but if you do, you need to know.”
I tried to laugh. “You do realize I’m still in the ‘I need a three-day recovery window after a wild weekend’ phase of my life, right?”
Gabrielle raised an eyebrow. “You also realize that the phase can run out at any moment.”
“Not everyone’s clock is ticking.”
“No,” she said quietly. “But some of ours start early.”
That one got to me.
I looked out over the green, blinking against the sun. Then, like she couldn’t help herself, Gabrielle added one more thing—casual on the surface, but sharp underneath.
“You know, if you do want kids eventually… IVF isn’t so bad. Some women use anonymous donors. Or they ask someone they trust.”
I smirked. “You offering Anthony up?”
She gave me a look. “God, no. But you already sleep with a billionaire who has unnervingly good genes and zero emotional boundaries.”
I nearly choked on my rosé. “You want me to ask Damian to be my sperm donor?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m just saying… it wouldn’t be the worst cocktail to shake.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe. But you’re the one sleeping with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not exactly picking china patterns.”
“No. But you could pick his DNA.”
I tossed a cloth napkin at her. She laughed, but something in me twisted—because now I couldn’t unhear it.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Eventually.”
She nodded. “That’s all I wanted.”
We didn’t say much after that. But the silence didn’t feel awkward. It felt earned.
And when she reached over to refill my glass, I let her—even though mine wasn’t empty yet.
By the time we split the bill and hugged goodbye in the breezeway, the sun was thick in the sky, mid-afternoon and unapologetic, casting everything in a slow, honeyed heat that clung to my skin and made Coconut Grove shimmer like a movie set right before the kiss.
Gabrielle pulled out first, waving from her BMW convertible with her oversized sunglasses and a to-go cup of sparkling water tucked between her thighs like a woman who’d done this a hundred times.
I watched her go.
It wasn’t jealousy I felt. Not exactly. Gabrielle had a life. A beautiful, complex, exhausting, fulfilling life—and for the most part, I loved being part of it. But there were moments like now, when the silence returned, where I realized I was the only one still orbiting.
Still floating.
I slid into my car and shut the door, letting the quiet wrap around me like a seatbelt. The leather was warm, sun-soaked. Familiar. I pulled my sunglasses back on even though I didn’t need them and stared straight ahead at the parking lot for a full thirty seconds without starting the engine.
She told me first.
That part stuck more than I thought it would. Gabrielle had Anthony. She had friends. She had a whole curated gallery of people who’d show up if she asked—but she picked me.
Because I was her twin.
Because we shared the same blood, the same bones, and apparently, possibly, the same expiration date on our fertility.
I didn’t want to think about that. About appointments, doctors, or what might be hiding under the surface of my own medical chart. I wasn’t even sure I wanted kids. I’d spent most of my adult life convincing myself I didn’t—and most of my twenties convincing men that it didn’t make me broken.
But now? That unspoken maybe was louder than I expected.
What if Gabrielle was right? What if I didn’t have all the time I thought I did?
What if someday I wanted a version of the chaos she lived with—and it was too late?
The thought made my throat tighten—sharp and unwelcome, like someone had reached in and flicked a switch I didn’t know was wired to anything.
I unlocked my phone and opened the browser with mechanical precision, fingers moving faster than my thoughts.
Fertility clinic Miami . That was all I typed.
Just three words. No punctuation. No specifics.
And then I just sat there, staring at the blinking cursor like it might answer the question for me.
It didn’t. It just blinked. Steady. Waiting. Like it had all the time in the world.
Perhaps, I didn’t. That was the part that scared me.
I locked the screen and tossed the phone into the passenger seat with more force than necessary. It landed with a dull thud, sliding against the leather like even it was tired of me pretending I wasn’t panicking.
“Not today,” I muttered.
Maybe not tomorrow either.
Maybe not until I could admit I wanted to know the answer.
And maybe I wasn’t there yet.
But the question was already planted—deep and uncomfortable like a seed in dry soil.
And whether I watered it or not… it was still there.
I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror—hair wind-tossed, lips a little too pink, a smudge of mascara I hadn’t bothered to fix. I looked like myself. But under it, something was shifting. Something I couldn’t name yet.
I started the car and rolled down the window, letting the breeze rush in. The scent of cut grass and gardenias drifted through the air.
I didn’t turn on the radio.
I didn’t call Damian, even though part of me wanted to.
I just sat there for a moment longer, the car idling under my hands, and let myself feel everything I wasn’t ready to say out loud.
Then I pulled out of the parking lot, sunglasses on, heart tight, and headed back to the guest house.