19. Jude
JUDE
I’m sitting beneath the large veranda where we eat, turning over small pieces of a jigsaw I found on the hotel’s game and book swap shelf.
The rest of our group has gone on a boat trip for the day.
I declined Mel’s request that I join them.
When she came back to our bungalow last night and saw the state of my bed, her eyes lit up with an eagerness to hear every juicy detail.
Until she saw my face.
We fell asleep beside one another in her unbroken bed, talking about how women don’t need men, and that they’re only trouble.
We came up with a whole list of reasons why I was better off without Woody messing with my head, and that no sex, no matter how hot, was worth the sinking feeling I had in my stomach when he walked out.
Each reason made sense.
But what didn’t make sense was the fact I didn’t breathe a word to my best friend of years, about who I suspect Woody really is, or that I’ve been Googling the Beaufort family.
Everything I’ve found has been about their luxury jewelry business.
Hardly anything is written about the accident three years ago that supposedly killed Slade Beaufort and—as I’ve also since discovered—his mother too.
I’ve kept his secret.
For now.
My eyes snag on a straight-edged jigsaw piece and I lift it, placing it next to the other edge pieces I’ve set to one side. A voice calls from the path, and I look up as Nandi shuffles past, waving at me.
I smile and wave back. She’s going in the direction of his workshop. I wonder if she’s brought him money again. His workshop isn’t far, but at the speed she’s going it’ll take her a while to reach it.
“If you need to leave something for Woody, I can give it to him,” I call to her.
She shuffles over to the table and looks at me, then at the path she’d have to walk. A cough steals her breath, making her pull out a handkerchief to press to her lips.
“Thanks, bokkie. If you don’t mind?”
I smile at her kindly as she stuffs the handkerchief away and pulls a few bills from her pocket.
“It’s his half. Really, he should get more. He does the bedding. That’s tough. All that tucking and bending,” she mutters, pressing the money into my palm.
“Does he help you a lot?” I ask.
“Every day.” Her eyes crinkle at the edges with years of laughter lines as she gives me a wistful smile. “I’ve got girls. Two. Both away studying. That boy… he’s like the son I never had.”
“I’ll make sure he gets this,” I tell her as she shuffles away, back down the path that leads toward the hotel.
I put the folded notes beneath a candle in a glass jar and lean on my hand, trying to concentrate on the jigsaw.
But my eyes keep darting back to the money.
He helps her every day? Those aren’t the actions of a man he claims should be thought of as a ghost or a shadow.
Or the behavior of a man I should keep my distance from, despite how hard he’s trying to convince me I should.
I manage to put another six pieces into the puzzle before the hairs on the back of my neck prick up. I glance over my shoulder, and there he is, looking all gruff and serious in the same gray T-shirt and swim trunks I’ve seen him wear multiple times.
His eyes meet mine as he places some wood in the firepit supply pile.
“Nandi left some money for you,” I say.
He walks over, stopping beside me. His gaze flicks past the money to the jigsaw.
“I like them. All the pieces are there. You just have to figure out how they fit together.” I shrug, even though I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to him.
“Why do I feel like there’s a symbolism aimed at me?” he mutters.
I sigh. “Don’t panic. I never said I was any good at them.”
He leans over the table, the scent of his warm skin blanketing me as he reaches across me, so close that his breath falls onto my bare shoulder in my vest. My nipples spring to attention as he picks up a straight-edged piece I’ve missed and slots it into place against the few pieces I’ve managed to put together.
“Show off.” I snort.
The long wooden bench creaks as he sits beside me. I swallow, hating the way my stomach flutters as the top of his arm brushes mine.
“I should apologize,” he says in a husky voice.
“For what? You broke my bed, not my heart.”
His tight expression gives nothing away as he keeps his attention fixed on the jigsaw.
“Do you still love him?”
His question catches me off guard and I swing my eyes to his. Warm brown the color of sweet chocolate is waiting for me. But the sight makes my stomach sink. I’d take ice cold blue over it any day. The brown’s just another lie.
“Who? Callum?”
“That his name?” His lips thin into a grimace as he reaches for a jigsaw piece and presses it into place.
“Yeah.”
“Callum what?”
“Huntington. I would have been Mrs. Huntington.”
“Huntington,” he repeats in a low voice like the name tastes vile.
“But I’m not. Instead, I’m here sitting beside a man who won’t tell me his real name, yet asks me for other people’s. What are you going to do? Look Callum up?” I snort.
“If I did, he wouldn’t be walking away after.”
His attention is fixed on the jigsaw like he didn’t just say something that, although threatening, is burning with a sexy, fiery possession.
Like I’m his to protect and defend.
“Callum knows it’s over. He knew before I left. Everyone else will too once I get home.”
“What do you mean, when you get home?”
I shrug. “No one knows I caught him cheating. Not even my parents. They think I’m a runaway bride who got the jitters.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
I wince. “Not yet. I was embarrassed I didn’t know and that I was a fool for not suspecting anything.
The girl he was with was supposed to be my friend.
She even stayed with us last year after she broke up with her ex.
Callum was the one who kept asking when she was going to move out.
Looking back, I think that’s when it started, and he was either feeling guilty or worried I’d find out. ”
“Asshole,” he mutters.
“I returned his ring and walked out. I didn’t think about our guests and what to tell them.
I just… I couldn’t process it all. Cal told everyone I’d gotten sick and that the wedding was just postponed.
I guess he wanted to save face in front of our guests.
But he’ll have to admit the truth once I get back. ”
Woody’s fingers curl into a fist on top of the table.
“What’s your family like?” I ask, knowing I won’t get an answer but trying anyway.
“Gone,” he replies, which is more information than I expected him to offer.
“What happened? Did you steal money?” I purse my lips, picking up a jigsaw piece to study it and trying to act casual.
Maybe if he thinks this is just a friendly chat, he’ll be more forthcoming.
But taking money doesn’t seem right. Not when he’s making money here and refusing to take it from Nandi. Surely if he’d stolen from his billionaire family then he’d be living a life of luxury somewhere. Not working every hour of the day.
He jerks his head in one rough shake. He hasn’t stormed off yet or told me to stop talking, so I press on, trying a different approach.
“Let’s trade. My secrets for your hypothetical secrets?”
He side-eyes me but doesn’t shut me down, so I take a deep breath.
“I guess I’m going first. Okay, well… my father likes my ex better than me.
They’re both surgeons. Dad’s the top in his field and Callum’s what he wanted me to be—his protégé.
Someone to follow in his footsteps and continue his legacy.
But I’m too squeamish.” I wrinkle up my nose at the thought of blood and shiver.
“Files are more my thing. I like things to make sense and be where they belong. I created this database for patient records, and it’s now used by thousands of hospitals across the States, and soon it’ll be used in other countries too.
I wanted to help people. Just not… not by having to cut them open.
Mom’s proud of me. She says I’m living up to my name—Saint Jude.
But my father…” I exhale slowly. “I guess he thought I’d do it in a more conventional way. Like him.”
“Families are complicated.” Woody flexes his hands, making his knuckles crack. “Parents especially,” he adds, his brow furrowing into a deep V.
“Yeah. My father loves me, I know that. I just…” I shrug, not knowing what else to say.
“You want him to be proud of you?”
I swallow around the thick lump in my throat as he hits it on the nose. “Yeah.”
“He should be, Jude,” he says seriously, looking at me in a way that steals my breath. “He should be damn fucking proud to call you his daughter.”
I tuck my hair behind my ear, my cheeks heating. I’m not used to being complimented. And not like this. Not with so much… raw intensity.
“You’re only the third guy I’ve slept with,” I blurt before immediately averting my eyes from his.
I was hoping to steer the conversation away from the complicated relationship I have with my father, but wow, my brain couldn’t come up with literally anything else?
I sneak a look at him and he stares so deeply into my eyes, his own darkening, that my breathing quickens, and electricity shoots up my spine.
“You’re the first woman I’ve been with in more than three years,” he says.
I suck in a breath. “Seriously?”
His expression hardens, and he looks away. “Last time was a drunken one-night stand on a bachelor weekend in Miami. Can barely remember it.”
I stare at him in shock. A guy like him surely has loads of opportunities.
Especially here, with all the tourists, like Declan does.
He could be safe in the knowledge they’re all going to leave one day.
Just like he said we wouldn’t have to think of one another again when he proposed I fuck Callum out of my system with him.
“Umm, okay.” I frown, not knowing how to react. “So, um… your turn.” I clear my throat. “What did you do? Sleep with your brother’s girlfriend?”
“I’d never betray my brother or any of my family,” he says.
“You have one then? A brother?”
He presses his lips together, and a muscle ticks in his cheek.
“Did you…?” I blow out a breath, searching for possibilities. “Get diagnosed with a terminal illness and want to spare them the pain of seeing you die?”
His eyes meet mine and he arches a brow.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. No way could you break my bed like that if you were sick. Your dick’s probably immortal. It’ll live on long after the human race becomes extinct.” I lean my chin on my hand. “Humor me. Let’s say, hypothetically, if you are related to the hot billionaire…”
“Then hypothetically you’d have just called my brother hot. But yeah?”
“You jealous?”
He blows out a breath. “Nah. If you think we look alike, that means you think I’m hot too.”
I perk up at the hint of teasing in his tone that I’ve never experienced from him before. Narrowing my eyes, I muse, “I think we’ve established I find you hot. Piece of evidence number one being my broken—”
“I’ve reported it for you. The hotel will replace it today.”
I tilt my head, biting back my smile. “It was worth it even if I have to sleep on the floor the rest of my stay.”
His jaw softens. It’s not a smile. But for him, it might as well be.
“Which of you would be the older twin, hypothetically?” I ask, scanning his face.
The similarities are more obvious now that I’m looking for them.
The man in the magazine had short, dark hair.
Woody’s is longer and falls into his face at times, giving him a less polished look.
Then there are his eyes. Brown again today, but I recall their piercing blue—a perfect match for the ones belonging to the other man.
And he’s broader, more muscular. The other guy looked fit and toned from what I could tell was beneath his suit, but Woody is solid. He’s got the kind of bulging biceps a guy gets from working with his hands all day. And his forearms are tanned, with strong veins.
He’s sexy and hot. And part of me would love to see him wearing a suit like the guy in the magazine, because I know he’d rock that look too. Totally own it.
He runs his thumb over his lower lip, avoiding my gaze. I sigh and pick up another jigsaw piece, searching in silence for a few minutes for the place it fits.
“Sullivan,” he whispers.
I look at the side of his face and his tense jaw until eventually he inclines his head to face me.
“He’d be the older one,” he adds.
“Would people get you mixed up as kids?” I give him a careful smile, not wanting to do anything that will break this moment where he’s actually baring a part of himself to me.
“Those who didn’t know us well might on occasion. But I also have this, and he doesn’t.”
He turns his forearm, revealing a faint scar running along it that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Broke my arm zip lining through the house using a clothes hanger when we were ten.”
I gently run a finger along the lightened line of skin. “You were a daredevil, huh?”
He pauses. “My brother called me The Risk Taker.”
I nod, stroking his skin, not wanting to do anything to ruin this moment. Because at some point, he stopped talking hypothetically.
And he started being honest with me. Finally.
“The Risk Taker,” I repeat, chancing a glance at his face. “So… what was the last risk you took?”
His eyes smolder with a heat that makes my stomach flutter.
“Not turning you away when you climbed into my bed.”
I swallow as he leans closer, reaching up to cup my cheek and dust his thumb over my mouth, pulling my lower lip down and letting it go with a gentle pop.
“Hypothetically, if I were a man who was supposed to be dead, I shouldn’t be kissing smart mouthed little thieves from New York City.”
“Because you hate New York?” I whisper, staring into his eyes.
“Because New York hates me,” he replies, dropping his hand and leaving my skin cold.
His shoulders tighten and he turns away, staring into the distance. I’ve lost him. But for a few precious moments, he shared the real him. And even if he won’t talk about his past anymore, I’m not ready to give up on learning about who he really is.
I’ll find a way to make him open up to me again.
“No one will be back for ages,” I say, looking around the empty camp area. “What do you do for fun around here when you’re by yourself?”