Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Rachel
While Kell spoke with his mother, Rachel bent down to the white cardboard box and began transferring those items to the duffel bag. It would be easier for Kell, and anything she could do to make something easier for him right now was worth doing.
Since she left his apartment the other night, she’d tried to figure out how to get through to him. How to convince him she wasn’t part of any scheme. But as she re-read the emails Alissa showed him, she realized that she couldn’t. He would just have to trust her.
And despair had washed through her when she realized that no matter how good she really was, he might not recognize it. It felt like trying to accomplish something big in her family: No matter how successful she was, it was never enough.
Kell’s phone call ended. He looked at the bag and the now-empty box.
“What did you do with my stuff? Helping yourself to some of my project notes?”
If he’d gut punched her, he couldn’t have hurt her more.
“No.” Her voice shook. “I repacked it so you’d just have the rolling bag. Easier to get home.”
His tone softened. “Oh. Thanks.” Something in his eyes changed, as if the gray storm clouds parted for a moment and she could see how vulnerable and hurt he was.
She got it, completely, because she felt the same way. It hurt to even breathe, as the terror of never clearing this up with him began to sink in.
He was leaving. Really leaving.
She had to try harder than she ever had before; she had to fight for what she'd felt with him. None of that was fleeting. Every emotion she'd experienced was reciprocated, she could tell.
Until Alissa ruined it.
“You're not really leaving, are you? Karen's right. Don't throw away your whole career.”
“I'm not. I’m reclaiming it, back home. Always liked tree work better than desk work.”
“That's not true, and you know it.”
“So now I don't know my own self, and you do?”
“You're making a really rash decision in a heightened emotional state.”
“That is a very cold way of describing how I feel.”
“You're not seeing nuance right now. Look, you’ve spent a year building your career and your life here, and the L.A. job has been offered to you. You think if you walk away, you can shut out all your problems, but they'll follow you, Kell. Don't do that.”
“Too late.”
“Kell, can we please go somewhere and talk? Please?”
“I’m done, Rachel. Done talking, done thinking, done working here. I never want to see any of you again. People like you sicken me. You don’t see me for me–I’m just an asset you can exploit.”
“No. No, Kell. It was Alissa!”
“And she says you were part of it. And I saw the email.”
“I’m not! I wasn’t!”
“I don’t know who to believe anymore.” He looked around, frantic, angry, and unreasonable, but she understood. None of this was reasonable.
Alissa had set them up to distrust each other, and there was nothing Rachel could do.
Not one damn thing, except… try.
“Please, Kell. Please. Those emails aren’t what you think. And I know it’s hard to figure out who to trust right now. But you can trust me! You can.”
“It’s all right there. You helped Alissa get a meeting with my uncle in exchange for help getting a job at MonDex. Karen confirmed it.”
That didn't sound right to Rachel.
“Karen confirmed what?”
“That you were working on the Canada-Maine pipeline with Alissa.”
“Alissa asked me to keep it confidential! Then you started dating her, so I just assumed she’d said something to you.”
He let out a dismissive huff.
“I’ve told you this over and over–what I wrote to her was a joke, because I thought she was joking. And I’m going to Stanford, remember? I don’t need a job.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘Working for Big Oil would be phenomenal. I would totally leave Stanford for that.’”
“It was a JOKE! You're not listening to me.” A burning sensation started inside her. “You're so caught up in being the injured party here that you're not listening, Kell. You always listen. What's happening here?”
“I am not a joke–my life is not a joke! You two are killing me. I feel like you’re playing with my mind here. I read what I read. Don’t make me go to IT and ask for receipts. Did you say that, or not?”
“I did, but you have to understand the context. You, of all people, understand that nothing is ever as simple as it seems on the surface. People are way more complicated than that!”
“I don’t have to understand anything. What I have to do is get the hell out of here and go back home, where your friends don’t lie to your face and smile at you while they stab you in the back. At least in Luview, I know who to avoid and who to trust.”
Tears spilled over, Rachel’s emotions a tornado, yet she fought. She had to fight.
Had to make sure Kell knew what he was giving up.
“Why wouldn't you trust me? Please believe me. I care about you. We’re friends. You got the job offer in L.A. and I’ll be in Palo Alto. I was hoping maybe, someday, we’d be more than friends. That can't happen if you won't even give me a chance to explain.”
A bone-chilling realization washed over her: Try as she might, this could fail. But if he wouldn’t give her a chance, then she had to stay true to herself. She was desperate, but she also knew she mattered. And in his anger, Kell wasn't seeing that.
The sound he made shattered her heart.
“More than friends?” he choked out, eyes meeting hers with a look she would never be able to forget.
Those eyes begged her to tell him the emails weren't true, but what else could she say?
She'd said it already. No matter how deep into her soul Kell's eyes pierced, she knew. Knew she hadn't betrayed him.
The searching look she gave him held so much pain, so much yearning, so much potential.
And met so, so much anger in Kell's gorgeous eyes.
“Oh, Rachel, we’re more than friends. You know what we are now?”
“What?” she responded, barely audible.
He just huffed and stormed away, leaving her to wonder what that last word was, what they were.
And then her chest collapsed, heaving with grief, because she knew.
The word he hadn't uttered?
It was enemies.
o. O
What happens next for Kell and Rachel? So much.
So, so much.
Five years later, Kell and Rachel run into each other unexpectedly. Here’s a sneak peek of the first full-length standalone book (Kell and Rachel get their happily-ever-after by the end!) in the Love You, Maine series, Love You Right:
A missed opportunity five years ago makes for an unexpected encounter now between two people meant for each other–but who square off in a very public battle of wills in the small town of Love You, Maine, where every day is Valentine's Day. Can love conquer all in a town steeped in it?
Kell Luview refuses to be a sucker at love again.
Five years ago, he left D.C. with his pride severely wounded and his heart broken.
Fiercely protective of his small town in rural Maine, he's determined to save the family tree business and avoid his feelings at all costs, no matter how much he longs to solve the mystery of what happened in D.C.
L.A. native Rachel Hart hates being underestimated almost as much as she hates this small town.
She has two goals on this trip: get out of the cheesy tourist trap of Love You, Maine with a completed business deal, and avoid running into Kell, her old friend from D.C.
who never became an old flame because of a huge misunderstanding.
One that still aches.
When her rental car breaks down on a logging road and Kell comes to her rescue, it's clear he's a changed man – and not for the good.
Grumpy and reserved, he pushes all her buttons, still stubbornly convinced she betrayed him all those years ago.
He's never forgiven her, and she's never forgiven herself for carrying a torch for him.
An embarrassing incident gets the town gossip mill going when residents wrongly assume Kell and Rachel are the newest couple to find love in the most romantic place on Earth. But the townsfolk aren't wrong for long…
As Rachel breaks through his defenses and charms the town, he faces his biggest fear: all those pesky feelings he's been avoiding.
Because they're all about Rachel now.
And maybe they always were.
Can Kell and Rachel fight their growing attraction in the one place in the world where you can't avoid love?
If you're looking for a fun read about enemies to lovers, forced proximity, heroines who get their comeuppance and sworn bachelors felled by unexpected true love, featuring a hot bearded lumberjack impervious to poison ivy, and a city-slicker, jaded career woman with a penchant for great coffee, set in a small town in New England - then this is your book.
Grab a cup of (properly good) coffee, a can of hot cocoa mix, a jar of Fluff, and maybe some calamine lotion (just in case), and get your happymeter ready as you read the very first book in New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author Julia Kent's Love You, Maine series - where love isn't just a feeling - it's a way of life.
This book is a:
Standalone
Slow burn
Enemies to Lovers
Small town romance
Lumberjack and city slicker outsider showdown
... with a cat named Calamine
Keep flipping the page to read Love You Right now and see what Kell and Rachel are like when they meet again!