Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
T he next few days flew by quickly. While Juliette spent her days focused on filming the crews, he worked on emptying the basement with the help of Palmer.
In the evenings, while Juliette edited footage, he continued to work on his project in his newly put together office.
All he was missing was a comfortable sofa and a large rug.
Juliette had surprised him with a painting of the lighthouse in oil by Alison Jordan, Iian’s famous wife. Her paintings were highly sought after and, from the looks of it, this one was one of a kind. It fit perfectly above the new mantel.
Juliette had helped him turn every newly remodeled space into a home. She hung some other paintings that she’d found in the barn on the walls. Magically, somehow, most of them matched the colors they had picked out.
They had dragged the nicer furniture into each room when it was completed and had even gone shopping for new mattresses for the bedrooms.
Since he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the rest of the basement, he used it as storage for the furniture they planned on using in the rest of the place.
Some of the more distressed pieces they had sold to Lilly and Riley down at Classy and Sassy. He’d traded a few pieces for other items they needed, like a very large mirror that he hung in their bathroom above the double sinks.
Juliette had moved one of mirrors they’d replaced into the powder room and another to the top of the stairs.
She even filled a couple old vases she found with fresh flowers from the flower garden he hadn’t known was tucked behind the barn.
The place not only looked like home but it smelled like it. Even now, as he worked on his laptop, the warm, rich smell of baking cookies floated into his office.
A half an hour later she walked in with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a large glass of almond milk. After the first bite, he blurted out, “Marry me.”
She chuckled and then placed a kiss on his lips. “Okay.”
“Really?” He perked up.
“Sure.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I will the moment you find me the Ocean’s Heart.” She looked at her hand and sighed. “Or did you forget that you promised someone else you’d find it?”
He pulled her into his lap and kissed her. “For you, anything.”
“What are you working on?” she asked when she pulled back.
He quickly shut his computer screen before she could get a look at it. “Something I don’t want to share with you just yet.”
“Okay.” She pouted slightly. “When it’s done?” He nodded in agreement. “When will that be?” she asked.
“Soon.” He kissed her again and then took another bite of his cookie. “Best cookies I’ve ever had.”
She laughed. “I told you. Oh.” She pulled back and pulled a locket out from under her shirt. “I found this in my things the other day.”
He looked down at it and ran his fingers over the gold locket. “It’s pretty.”
She shifted on his lap and opened it. “I found this when I was twelve.” Her eyes met his. “In the rose garden just outside that window.” She motioned to his windows. “Read this. I thought you could use it for… whatever.” She smiled as she opened the locket and handed him a very small piece of paper.
He read the text out loud.
“Where the tides carry our laughter and the wind holds our secrets, love will always remain—tucked away where the earth meets the sea. Love H.”
His eyes jerked up to hers. “Wow, this is… thanks.” He set the love note down by his computer and kissed her. “Are you done for the night?” he asked her, wanting to take her into the bedroom.
“No, I was going to head into the restaurant. Sophia isn’t feeling well, and she asked me to cover her shift tonight.”
He groaned softly. “Then I have a few more hours I can work.” He motioned to the computer. “Let me know when you get there and when you’re on your way home.” He kissed her again and then let her crawl out of his lap.
“I’ll set the alarm when I leave,” she told him. She left and he opened his laptop and got back to work on his secret project.
Did Juliette know what he was working on? What it meant to him to find a love letter from Harry Rothschild to Karnia Bergman?
For the next few hours, as he wrote, immersing himself in the story and the characters, he completely lost track of time and place. Details flew from his fingertips. History. Fiction or real, it didn’t matter at this point. What mattered was getting it down before he lost the thoughts.
“So, this is what you chose over my sister,” a voice sounded from the doorway. He jerked his head up.
There, standing in his doorway, was a figure in all black.
No alarm in the house had sounded.
No noises had caused him to be on guard.
“Who are you?” he said, reaching for his phone.
“Don’t!” the figure warned him, and it was then that he saw the shadow of the gun pointing at him.
His hand froze in mid-air.
“What do you want?” he asked slowly.
“I thought it was for you to suffer.”
He frowned. That voice. That wasn’t a man.
He squinted as the figure took a step further into the room. He managed to hold in a gasp.
“Gabriella?” He shook his head. “But you’re…”
“Not Gabriella.” The woman sneered.
No, he thought after she took another step further into the light. It wasn’t Gabriella. But whoever it was was a spitting image of her, maybe just a few years younger.
“Giovanna DeLuca,” she said, and his heart sank.
Gabriella had mentioned her younger sister while they’d dated. He’d read all about her. How her sister had been locked away at an early age after trying to smuggle a gun into her middle school with a list of students she wanted to end. Then, shortly before their parents’ death, she’d been sent to rehab. Or so the articles claimed.
“You… attacked me and killed your sister?” he asked, feeling his throat go dry.
“She loved you, you know that,” Giovanna said, taking another step closer. “If she was capable of love.”
“Why attack me then?” he asked, his mind racing. How could he get help? And what would it do to Juliette if he couldn’t?
“Because, there’s something… different about you. You’re not like her.” She tilted her head.
“Meaning?” he asked, hoping and praying that it wasn’t too late and that Juliette was not on her way home anytime soon. Whatever was going to happen, he didn’t want her to be a part of it.
He had felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Was that Juliette texting that she was on her way home? God, he hoped not. He wanted to respond, but Giovanna was watching him too closely.
“Gabriella was vicious.” She practically hissed it. “She always had a snide remark at the ready. Always a twist to the story to make her seem like the victim.” She sighed heavily, her eyes still glued to his. She mimicked Gabriella’s voice. “Oh, my poor sister is crazy. How can I spin this to get attention? I know, I’ll claim she went into rehab. Oh, my parents died in a car crash as they headed up to vacation. I know, I’ll have them die in a freak skiing accident. That’s how I can spin this to get attention on me.”
He remembered her telling him about their deaths and, yeah, he had felt sorry for her.
“Did you know, she is the reason they were on that trip in the first place?”
He shook his head. “I… no, I didn’t know that.”
“She paid for their trip after they had me locked up. I didn’t even get to attend their funeral.” She raised her voice slightly, and he tensed.
“I… I’m sorry.”
“It was very hard living in her shadow, you know,” she said softly. “Everywhere I went, everyone I met instantly compared me to her.”
He wondered how someone like her could do the things she’d done.
“You have two sisters.” She changed her tone and, somehow, the way she was holding herself.
“I do.” He felt his heart stop. Had she hurt them? Was she planning on doing so?
“I met Faye. I wanted to see what they were like. She was nice.” She sighed. “She helped me. I’m sorry she’s deaf.”
“Th-thanks.” He frowned.
“Your other sister…”
“Ally,” he supplied.
She nodded her head. “Your niece is cute. I watched them play in the park. She looks sad most of the time but happy when she looks at her daughter. I didn’t hurt them, or your mother.”
“Th-thanks,” he said again. He wanted to ask her what she planned to do with him, but the words wouldn’t come out.
She was quiet for a moment and then, to his surprise, she glanced around the room. “This place is pretty cool. I thought…” She stopped for a moment before continuing. “I thought I could sneak in, kill you, find the diamond, and maybe start a new life with the money. You know, maybe head somewhere tropical. Where no one recognizes me because I have my sister’s face. But then I saw this place and… it’s not all fancy like Gabriella liked. It’s… raw. Classic.” Her eyes returned to his. “I remembered how much she hurt me when you broke things off with her. She locked me up after she flew into a rage when the first articles surfaced that she had broken things off and… now I know the truth. I’m sorry I hit you.”
“Thanks,” he said, feeling his toes and fingers go numb. “Why come back here?”
She shrugged. “I have nowhere else to go.”
He waited. She was in charge here. Whatever happened next, it was all her move.
“Did you love her?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, she used me,” he admitted, knowing that she needed and deserved the truth.
“She used everyone.” She paused and took a step towards the windows. The light from the lighthouse circled outside the windows every now and then, lighting up the dark ocean beyond. “Do you love the woman you are with now?”
“With everything I am,” he answered quickly.
Just then, he heard the front door open and wanted to scream out to warn Juliette not to come in.
“I won’t hurt you,” Giovanna said, turning back towards him, no doubt because she too heard the front door. “I won’t hurt either of you,” she said as Juliette came around the corner and gasped at the scene. “I’m sorry,” Giovanna said to Juliette. “I had nowhere else to go. I have no one left.” She lifted the gun towards her own head.
Juliette screamed as he rushed towards the girl, but he was too late.
The glass behind her head shattered, sending broken shards raining over them. He caught her body right before it hit the ground.
With shaky fingers, he felt for a pulse.
“She’s still breathing,” he called out. “Call?—”
“I’ve already called,” Juliette said, rushing to his side. “Is that…” she asked, but then turned away and gave the dispatcher their information. He held his shirt to the large hole on the girl’s cheek.
“Don’t die,” he told her over and over. “Please.”
“I just don’t want to be in pain any longer,” she gasped as blood oozed out of her mouth. “Please, just let me go. I want to be with them. With my family.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he just held onto her, trying to stop the bleeding, until lifesaving hands replaced his, and she was taken away.
Then he sat on the floor, holding his blood-soaked shirt. Juliette helped him stand and walked him into the bathroom to change and clean up.
He was a zombie. He’d do whatever she asked of him at the moment. His brain had just… shut down.
Questions were asked and answered. He heard himself explaining everything as if watching the scene from above. He vaguely heard someone mention the padlock being broken on the outside basement door. That was how Giovanna had gotten in the house without tripping the alarm.
Someone set a glass of the Irish whiskey he’d bought the last time he’d been in Dublin in front of him, and he’d sipped it until everything felt… numb.
Hours later, after Juliette had walked everyone to the front door, he followed her up into the bedroom and let her strip him down. He crawled into bed when she asked it of him.
As he held onto her, his mind finally felt centered.
“I mean it this time,” he said into her hair. “Marry me. I don’t want to live this life alone. You’re the one I dream about every single night, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She shifted and looked up at him as the full moonlight shone into the room through the French doors. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He used his thumb to wipe them clear.
“Yes, Max. With all of my heart, I’ve known from the first time you asked me that I was going to marry you someday.” She smiled. “After all, it’s not often a woman gets asked four times by the same man.”
He smiled for the first time in hours and then kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She sighed.