Amber turned Rafi’s laptop around and closed it.
“At least that one’s got the facts straight,” Rafi said. Other gossip rags were speculating wildly or spewing outright lies—Rafi was begging Bo to take him back, Rafi had cheated on Julian with her, Julian had cheated on him with her, Julian had had a gay freakout, or had discovered Rafi was only using him for publicity. This last was supported by a comment from an “anonymous source close to the situation” who claimed Rafi had hoped for legal help from Julian’s uncle. Another anonymous source called him “a fame-grubbing leech” and said he had leaked his own nudes last year for attention. That one was the reason there was a broken lamp on the floor.
“Which Twitter team is winning?” he asked. Earlier, the top ten trending tags had included #Jurafi, #JurafiBreakup, #TeamRafi and #TeamJulian.
“Stop it. You have to get dressed,” Amber said. “The suits were surprisingly understanding about you standing them up yesterday—”
“I’m guessing they saw the video.”
“—but you can’t do that to them twice.”
Rafi put his face in his hands. “I can’t, Amber. Just call them now and cancel.”
“Look, I know, I know this sucks, but things still have to be done. This can’t be put off—”
“Then you go. You’re my manager, right? Go manage.”
Amber crossed her arms. “You’ll actually abide by whatever I authorize on your behalf?”
“Yes. Pinky swear.” Anything to get you out of here. That was unfair. Amber was trying her best to be a good friend. It wasn’t her fault that Rafi couldn’t stand anyone’s company right now.
“Fine,” Amber sighed. “Promise me you’ll eat something while I’m gone.”
“Pinky swear,” Rafi repeated, and tried to remember if there was still any food in the house.
When Amber had gone, Rafi paced the condo, snarling at himself when he realized he was touching his wrist, looking for his bracelet. Every inch of his home had Julian imprinted on it—the lantern on the balcony, the blanket on the bed, the dining room chair where he’d climbed into Rafi’s lap—and he’d only been here twice. It was funny…Bo had lived here with him for months, but nothing seemed to bear her mark in the same way. They hadn’t spent as much time here together as he’d expected they would.
He couldn’t do anything about Julian. He was probably in California. Either way he wasn’t answering Rafi’s calls or texts. There was no way to shake Julian by the shoulders the way he wanted and make him listen. The other, even more appealing option was to track down Uncle Eddie and throw him off the top of a building, but Amber would be pretty mad if he did that. So no, he couldn’t do anything about Julian.
He could do something about Bo.
His stomach clenched as he dialed her number, and he half-hoped she wouldn’t answer.
She did, her voice as cool and calm as ever. “Hello, Rafi.”
“I counted back twenty weeks from the Constellation Gala,” Rafi said. “I was in London. The baby couldn’t possibly be mine.”
“I never said it was,” Bo said. “Though I thought very, very hard about saying it was.”
“You were sleeping with Carlos for months before you broke up with me.”
There was a long silence. “Just the once, actually,” she said at last. “Well…twice.”
Rafi sat down on the couch, staring down at his feet instead of at his obscenely expensive view. “Why?”
Bo drew a long breath, in and out. “We’d just had that awful fight over Skype. I was so mad at you, and I missed you, and I missed things being good between us—which they hadn’t been in a while, though I’m not sure you noticed.”
He hadn’t. He could see it better now, looking backward, but no, at the time he hadn’t seen any pattern to their ‘occasional’ fights.
“I felt…very rejected and alone. And there was Carlos, who I’m sure you never noticed had been in love with me for years. Or at least thought he was, because he thinks everything you have is better than what he has. Carlos was so, so ready to comfort me and soothe my poor ego…I hope you don’t think I’m making excuses for myself. I’m not.”
“There’s no excuse you could make.”
“I know. And I knew the minute it happened that if you ever found out, that would be it for us. Completely. Forever. You might forgive me for straying, but not with your brother.” Her voice changed, grew a little more strained. He felt almost like he could see her, rubbing a hand over her face, weariness fraying her composure just the slightest bit. “Maybe part of me wanted to do something irrevocable. I don’t know. But it was supposed to be a one-time thing. You weren’t supposed to ever know…Then I found out I was pregnant.”
“And you thought about saying it was mine.”
“Yes. I didn’t, because in the end, we can all do math. You didn’t come home from London until I was six weeks along. Carlos would have figured it out even if you didn’t, and he would never have kept quiet.”
“You didn’t have to keep the baby. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have, just…don’t act like you didn’t have any choice. If being pregnant was going to blow up your life so badly, why keep it?”
“I don’t need to justify that to you.”
“Feel free to hang up, then.”
The line stayed open, and finally Bo spoke again. “People love their mothers. No matter what. As long as a mother isn’t an outright monster, she can be imperfect, and her children will still love her all their lives. And a mother loves her children, all her life, no matter what. Again, assuming she’s not a monster. And I’m not a monster, Rafi, whatever you might think of me right now.”
Rafi closed his eyes. Yes, he could see it. Hadn't he thought the very same thing, about the baby? I want to love somebody who will love me back. Bo had always carried a strange loneliness at her core, some combination of insecurity and unbreachable reserve that made her feel no one truly loved or understood her. A child wouldn’t have to understand her. All she had to do was love that child unconditionally—which she could do; she had that much good in her—and the child would love her back.
“There’s never going to be a time in my life when it makes sense to have a baby,” Bo continued. “It isn’t the sort of thing I was ever going to do on purpose. Yet there it was, happening, and all I had to do was not actively reject it. My only chance, in a strange way, and I found I was not willing to sacrifice it trying to save a failing relationship.”
Were we such a lost cause? Rafi didn’t know if he could believe that. But Bo choosing, not Carlos over Rafi, but her child over Rafi…that he could believe, and understand, and maybe even forgive eventually.
“Losing you was a done deal either way. But I could keep the baby, I could keep Carlos, and I could keep Distant Kingdom.” Her voice lost some of its coolness. “It wasn’t a matter of hurting you, Rafi. It was a matter of limiting my losses.”
Even if it meant leaving me with nothing. You were always going to look out for yourself first. In my heart, I knew that about you. He thought of Julian, shooting his own career in the foot over a mistreated horse. Helping an old woman sort the wreckage of her home. Teaching a child a magic trick.
“The baby’s a girl, according to the ultrasound,” Bo said, no longer cool but sweetly, tentatively excited. “Carlos is disappointed, but I think he’ll come around. We were both just…awestruck to see her. She’s beautiful.”
“They say parenthood is our last, best chance to grow up,” Rafi said dryly. “Maybe it’ll work.”
“Let’s hope.” She hesitated. Rafi could hear the pause in her breath, imagine the uncertain expression on her face. “I saw the video. With Julian.”
“You and everyone else.”
“You do know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”
“I’m sure a therapist could help me explore my attraction to vicious and unpleasant people. What’s your point?”
“Up until then, I didn’t buy you two at all. You’ve ne
ver been a good actor. I was certain you were faking it.”
“Yeah, well, so was I.”
Bo laughed—first in surprise, then again in full-throated amusement. “Oh, dear. Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing that would happen to you. Whatever did you do to upset him so badly?”
“Bo, we’re not friends again yet. We’re not doing the relationship-advice thing, unless you’re ready to hear me tell you to leave Carlos.”
“Mmm,” she said thoughtfully, which was not exactly a no. When she spoke again, her voice had hardened, though Rafi didn’t think her displeasure was aimed at him. “Speaking of Carlos, you should know he’s the one who’s been telling the tabloids you leaked your own nudes.”
Rafi swallowed, jaw clenching. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“I used to hide that kind of thing from you. Things Carlos did. I think maybe that wasn’t a favor to you after all.” Before Rafi could respond to that, she continued, “Anyway, I have to go.”
“Right.”
But neither of them hung up.
“Rafi,” she said after a moment, her voice hardly above a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
Rafi blinked, hard, several times—then gave up and let the tears fall. “Yeah. Me too.”
He hung up the phone.
* * * *
Julian was supposed to be in California.
He’d missed his flight, not even remembering it until hours after it departed, while he sat in the back of a cab and told the driver to “Just go. Anywhere. Just keep going.” There had already been a passenger in the back when he got in; he’d given her a hundred dollars to get out at the next red light and not try to talk to him or take his picture. She’d closed her mouth and taken the money.
He told the director that he was sick, too sick to fly, so very sorry. Whether the man actually believed him, he couldn’t say—probably not once the video hit the web—but he pretended he did. Julian had made sure that he was a dream to work with up ‘til this point, and he was cashing in that good will now.
So instead of flying to California, he had gone home, sat on the marble floor in front of the mother-and-child statue in his foyer, and cried. A humiliating lapse, but at least no one had been there to witness it.
Sitting on the side of the bed now, watching the darkness lift after a sleepless night, he put his father’s bracelet back on. It felt too heavy now, didn’t fit as well as the one Rafi had given him. His body was sore in embarrassing places, and he kept thinking he smelled Rafi—
The shirt. He was wearing Rafi’s shirt.
He tore off the blousy piratical thing Rafi had worn to Ren Faire and buried his face in it for an inexplicable, instinctive moment. Appalled at himself, he balled it up and threw it across the room.
Maybe getting the smell off him would clear his head. He couldn’t afford to falter, now of all times, he had to stay one step ahead of his uncle—but his uncle had won and Julian couldn’t think, just went in the same awful circles over and over.
His phone said 4:53 A.M. He’d had it silenced for the last eighteen hours or so; he had texts and missed calls from Aaron, Christian, Tasha, his uncle.
And Rafael. His loyal Fido. The big bad wolf. Julian threw the phone against the wall and heard the screen shatter.
He shouldn’t care. He and Rafi had had a business arrangement, that was all. Access to Uncle Eddie’s power and influence were probably the main reason Rafi took the deal. It wasn’t as if Julian himself had much to offer.
He said we were friends, Julian thought, and knew it to be the complaint of a naïve child, one that had never been deceived before. He hadn’t been that child in a very long time. Idiot.
He should have known better. Should have known that nothing in his life would remain untouched by his uncle. Should have known that people like Rafi—what Rafi appeared to be—didn’t really exist, especially not in Hollywood. He would learn from this. He would never let it happen again, never trust anyone so easily again. Never.
Though even now he couldn’t pinpoint where he’d gone wrong. It wasn’t like he’d trusted Rafi lightly. He’d considered the evidence very carefully, evidence that indicated Rafi was honest and kind, that Rafi liked him. He’d thought Rafi liked him.
At least now you know what all the fuss is about, he thought, blackly amused. He’d never understood before why so many people—not just people like his uncle, good people—were so strongly motivated by sex. His own experiences with it hadn’t been ideal, but still, he was familiar enough with the physical sensations. He’d thought he knew what it was like.
Wrong. He hadn’t had any idea. If—the way it had been with Rafael—if that was what it was usually like, then it was no mystery why people would do insane things to get it. Clash swords and burn cities.
The chime of an arriving text sounded. He crossed the room to his shattered phone and stomped it, until he had to hobble over to the bed and pull broken pieces out of his heel.
After that, with the sun fully up and streaming through the skylight, the sleep that had eluded him all night crept up on him from behind. He fell asleep with bits of bloody glass still scattered on the bed.
* * * *
The sound of the doorman’s intercom woke him, sometime in the early afternoon, jolted from a dead sleep that left him groggy and disoriented.
“Mr. Gault, there’s a man here to see you that claims to be an old friend.” The doorman sounded very dry. “He’s wearing a press badge.”
Julian swore under his breath. Paps always thought they were so creative. “He can leave or he can be drawn and quartered, your choice.” Julian clicked off the intercom and staggered to the bathroom.
Splashing water on his face did little to help his light-headed daze, but did make him realize he was desperately thirsty. He’d had nothing to eat or drink in, what…thirty-six hours?
A glass of water left him feeling better, but a hunt for food turned up nothing more appetizing than pickles and some moldy bread.
He took a deep breath, tried to pull himself together. There was a bodega on the corner where they didn’t make a big deal about him. If the doorman let him out the back, he might get there without being recognized.
Or maybe some reporter would try to mess with him, and he’d finally have an outlet for the endless scream that kept vibrating under his skin.
Julian never left the house without giving careful thought to how he was presenting himself, and he seldom dressed to be inconspicuous. The best idea, to avoid being recognized, would have been a big, sloppy T-shirt and baseball cap, but he wasn’t certain he owned anything like that—and even if he did, his entire being rebelled against the idea. He didn’t want to look sloppy and hunted and sad. He wanted to look so meticulously put together that no one could doubt he was in complete control.
The shirt he chose came with black straps that felt good to draw down tight against his skin. Holding him together. The trousers were likewise tight, and pinched in the crotch, which was probably what he deserved. The black gloves were going to be far too hot for the weather but he didn’t care; like the straps, the confinement felt reassuring. All in all, it wasn’t inconspicuous, but once he tucked his hair up into a newsboy cap and got his eyes behind a pair of huge pink sunglasses, at least he didn’t look immediately like Julian Gault.
“Watch your step out there, sir,” the doorman said as he let him out the back exit. “There’s paparazzi all over the front of the building.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep my eyes open.”
There were so many distractions, though—his dizzy hunger, the glare of the sunlight, the worry of recognition, the weight of the too-heavy bracelet he’d forgotten to hide, the pain in his heel every time he took a step, the wretched sick feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with Rafael Reyes—
“Oi, Julian! Er, Mr. Gault, sir!”
Julian’s body was already turning to run before he froze, recognizing the voice.
; Robert, Uncle Eddie’s valet, came jogging up to him, his high-necked uniform unusually rumpled. The dapper young Brit was really a bit of a doofus, but good at presenting himself in proper valet fashion. “Oh, good! Thought that was you.”
“Thanks for announcing it,” Julian said dryly, eyeing the crowd in front of his apartment building. So far no one had peeled off in his direction. “What are you doing here?” As with Svetlana, Julian usually only saw Robert at discreet pre-arranged meetings.
“I’m sent to collect Christian.”
Julian frowned. “Collect? From where?”
“From you! Isn’t he here with you?”
Julian felt a chill of uneasiness. “No, I haven’t seen him since the Renaissance Faire, day before yesterday.”
“Right-o. I will of course inform Uncle Eddie of that immediately,” Robert said easily. “But, erm…he actually is here, right? Asking on me own behalf only.”
“He really isn’t,” Julian said with a deep frown. “Why would he be?”
“Well, he ain’t at home. He and Uncle Eddie have had a row of some sort, I reckon—and I reckon he’ll turn up again when he wants to and not before. But Uncle Eddie thought sure he’d run straight to you, and so did I, truth be told. Where else would he go?”
Where else indeed?
Robert shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, he’s good at looking after himself, that one. ‘M sure he’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure he will,” Julian said, not sure of any such thing. “You’ll tell me if he turns up?”
“Sure thing. Cheers, Julian!” Robert turned to go.
And a passing woman with an enormous camera perked up like a shark scenting blood. “Julian?”
Julian swore and began to run.
* * * *
In the elevator, headed downstairs to the building’s pool, Rafi found himself cornered by a reporter. What publication she was with or how she’d gotten in, he couldn’t say; she didn’t even seem to be looking for him, but she was delighted to have found him.
“So what happened between you and Julian Gault?” she said, recording him on her phone.
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