War and Love

by Winter Renshaw

Peeling out of my clothes, I climb beneath the cool, faux down covers and rest my head on the pillow. The bed dips on the opposite side and the covers shift a second later. Jude slides in next to me, but he doesn’t pull me against him like he normally does—he keeps a safe distance.

  I blame the day’s events.

  He doesn’t have the energy to be “on,” to be the Jude he’s led me to believe he is.

  “Thanks,” he says, voice gruff and muffled as the bed shifts again. “Thanks for everything today. You didn’t have to do that. Lo wanted me to tell you thanks too.”

  “Not a big deal at all. I’m just glad I could help. And I’m glad Piper’s okay.” Turning to face him, I prop myself up on my elbow. “Oh. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I’m going to the Hamptons with Tierney for a few days. Leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Jude’s face winces and he lifts his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. I don’t know if he’s upset or relieved or if it doesn’t make an ounce of a difference to him. I can’t get a read on this man to save my life.

  “We just planned it today,” I say. “She wants one last girls’ trip before the baby comes.”

  He’s quiet, his eyes closed now as he lies on his back.

  “Jude?” I ask, wanting nothing but some kind of sign that he heard me.

  “Have fun, Love,” he says. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

  A moment later, he rolls away from me, burying the side of his face against a flat pillow.

  Something’s off.

  Something’s not right.

  But I’ll deal with it when I get back.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jude

  Love crept out of the apartment this morning, pressing a kiss against my forehead before she dashed out the door. Her spur-of-the-moment Hamptons excursion puts a bit of a cramp in my plans, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I wasn’t going to tell her to stay, to keep her from having a good time with her best friend, just so I could unload this burden and break her heart.

  Three days.

  She’ll be back in three days.

  Until then …

  The soft click of the apartment lock tells me Lo’s home, and I drag myself out of bed. It’s still early enough that the traffic horns haven’t woken Ellie, but I wasn’t expecting to see Lo until later.

  “Hey,” I say, ambling out of my room and finger combing my messy hair into place. “Everything okay?”

  Lo sits her purse on the kitchen table. “Yeah. She’s … she’s doing a lot better. They think they’ll send her home today. Just came home to grab a quick shower, then I’m heading back.”

  “I can stay with Ellie,” I offer, though that goes without saying. She has no one else besides Moira Gutenberg, and she’s already been gracious with her assistance this past month.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Lo says, stepping out of her Chucks and kicking them aside. “Where’s Love?”

  “She left this morning for the Hamptons.”

  Lo’s sunken gaze moves to mine. “The Hamptons? That’s random. Didn’t you two just get back from a trip?”

  “Yeah.” I exhale. Nothing about this past week has made sense. We had an amazing week together. She went MIA on me for a day due to a “migraine.” The next day she picks up right where she left off, only this time she realizes she loves me … and now she’s taking off for three days. “I’m going to end it with her, Lo.”

  My sister stands by the table, hands on her hips as she searches my eyes, though for what, I’m not sure.

  “Really?” she asks a moment later.

  I nod.

  “Wow.” Lo heads to a kitchen cupboard to grab a glass before filling it with tap water. “I … I don’t know what to say. I’m proud of you for doing the right thing, but you look … you look so … deflated.”

  “The past day has been insane,” I say, “and with Piper and—”

  “—you love her,” Lo cuts me off, hand still resting on the faucet lever.

  Rolling my eyes, I say, “No. I barely knew her, Lo.”

  “Liar.” She takes a drink of water. “But I get it. Telling yourself you don’t care about her makes this easier for you.”

  “I’m only doing this because I do care about her.”

  Shuffling to the living room, Lo sinks into a worn seat on the edge of the sofa we bought for two hundred bucks on Craigslist last month.

  “I’m sorry, Jude,” Lo says, cupping the water glass in her hand as she stares ahead at a blank TV screen. “She was pretty amazing. And I know you weren’t expecting that. I completely understand how that changed things for you.” Pulling in a breath and letting it go, she glances back toward me. “So how are you going to do this? What are you going to say?”

  Taking the lumpy chair across from her, I rest my elbows on my knees and bury my face in my hands for a second.

  “I’m just going to tell her it’s not working out and I’m sorry,” I say, rubbing my tired eyes. “Legally … there’s nothing else I can say. Hunter had me sign that NDA. If I so much as hint about anything Hunter and I have talked about and she figures it out … he can sue me for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  Silence lingers between us, though the whistle of water pipes in the building and the family of wild rhinos in the apartment above us fill that soundless void.

  “Can’t you just end it now, give her some time, and then come back into her life in a few months? People break up and get back together all the time.”

  Sitting back, I pick at a loose thread in the arm rest and shake my head. I’ve already thought about that, and it’s not an option.

  “If Hunter sees me back in her life a few months from now, he’s going to do everything he can to destroy that,” I say. “Not to mention, she’ll find out I was never a ‘strategic consultant.’” I drag in a haggard breath. “I’m done lying to her.”

  Rising from her sunken seat, Lo shuffles across the matted carpet until she’s standing in front of me. We’ve never been a touchy-feely-huggy-affectionate family, but I get the sense that she wants to hug me right now.

  “Don’t,” I say, placing my hand out to stop her.

  Comfort and compassion are the last things I deserve.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Love

  When Tierney said we were staying at her friend’s “beach cottage,” I wasn’t expecting a five-thousand-square-foot waterfront manse sitting on three acres with an unblocked view of the Atlantic.

  But I managed to settle in to my private, second floor suite without a single complaint.

  Sleep didn’t come as easily as it should have last night despite the fact that we spent the better part of yesterday afternoon strolling the beach and walked the evening market downtown just before dinner.

  I peel my eyes open and reach for my phone on my nightstand. I’d texted a little bit with Jude last night, but it was nothing more than “how are you?” and “how’s Piper?” and “what are you doing?”

  There was no flirting. No “I miss you.” No playful banter.

  Sliding out of bed, I inhale the salty breeze wafting from the cracked window in the bathroom, and I peel out of my pajamas.

  Taking a good look in the mirror, I press my palms against my puffy, swollen face that hurts when I try to smile. My skin is tinged in pink along my forehead and the bridge of my nose, overly sun-kissed, and the wine and salty seafood I had last night isn’t helping matters.

  Still, I’m enjoying my time with Tierney, and it’s kind of nice being a world away from the city and the maelstrom that has become my fake love life.

  A half hour later, I’m showered for the day, donning a cornflower blue, striped cotton sundress and traipsing down the elaborate curved staircase toward the kitchen.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Tierney says, oddly chipper given the fact that all she did was complain about how tired she was from eight o’clock on last night.

  “Thought you’d be sleeping in today.” I take a sea
t beside her.

  “Nah. Slept like a million bucks. These beds are heaven on earth.” She swats her hand. “Anyway, want to walk to the market? There’s this little café on the water that has the most amazing crepes you’ll ever have.”

  Glancing out the window toward the crashing ocean waves and the smooth trail of beach where the water has washed away any remnants of our footprints, I nod.

  “How’s Jude?” she asks. “You hear from him?”

  “We texted a little bit last night.”

  “How’s his niece?” She begins to rise from the table, cupping her hand over her belly as she attempts to squeeze through.

  “She’s good. She came home.” I rise, gathering my bag and phone off the counter and locating my strappy sandals and straw hat. “Is it weird that half of me doesn’t want to hate him anymore?”

  Tierney turns on her heel to face me, head cocked. She doesn’t answer, but her silence says it all.

  “I just … it’s hard to look at him and the things he does and think that he’s pure evil,” I say. “There’s goodness in his heart. What he’s doing is horrendous and indefensible, don’t get me wrong, but the more I’m around him, the more I’m pretending right alongside him, the more I find myself not pretending. Does that make sense?”

  “You’ve never been good at being fake.” Tierney stuffs her feet into a pair of espadrille flats. “So are you saying you’d forgive him if he came clean?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Then what are you trying to say?”

  I shrug as we head outside and Tierney locks the door behind us. “I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to say that half of me can’t stand him and the other half of me keeps forgetting that I can’t stand him.”

  Tierney loops her arm over my shoulders as we head toward the path to the market.

  “You want to know what I think?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Too bad. I’m not telling you.” She loosens her hold on me, her arm brushing mine, and the light breeze whips her auburn hair across her smirking face. “Because it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what you think.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” I say, adjusting my straw hat as we walk. We take a few paces, neither of us speaking, and I lose myself in thought for a while. I don’t think I can ever forgive him for lying to me, so it’s pointless to entertain the fact that sometimes I forget how angry I am with him.

  Grabbing my phone from my bag, I fire off an early morning text to Jude, just to keep up appearances.

  “What are you doing?” I text.

  “The usual,” he responds a minute later.

  “Consulting?” I ask.

  It hit me yesterday as I was leaving his apartment in the early hours of the morning. His room was light enough that I could take a better look around, and it only took a minute for my blurry gaze to hone in on the guitars resting in stands in the corner, the closet door half open and offering a glimpse of men’s clothes hanging on plastic hangers, and on my way out, I passed a stack of mail sitting on the kitchen table, the bill on top addressed to Jude Warner and the address matching the apartment.

  We didn’t sleep in his sister’s guest room that evening—that was his room. His real room.

  And he’s not a “strategic consultant.” I imagine Hunter dreamed up that phony title for him to go with his phony wardrobe and his phony apartment.

  “Not today,” he responds a second later.

  It might be the truest thing he’s ever said to me.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jude

  “The fuck.” I nearly choke on my words when I return from my run and find Hunter LeGrand standing in the middle of the apartment.

  “Two million,” he says, arms folded across his narrow chest.

  “What? No.” My jaw clenches and the pulse point in my neck throbs. The sight of this douchebag’s unexpected presence sends my blood pressure soaring. “What are you doing here?”

  “Giving you one last chance to finish what you started.”

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “Have you ended it already?” he asks.

  “Tomorrow,” I say.

  His lips crack into a smile that has no business being on his smug face because I’m not changing my mind.

  “All right then.” His hands press together. “One last time … two million dollars.”

  Heading to the door, I yank it open and nod for him to leave. If he’s lucky, I might let him leave without telling him exactly what I think of him—not that he’d care, and he probably already knows what he is. But a not-so-gentle reminder couldn’t hurt.

  “Fine,” he says, feet planted. “Five million.”

  “You might as well be talking about Monopoly money, Hunter, because it’s just paper to me.”

  His self-righteous smile fades and his complexion darkens.

  “What’s this about anyway? Why do you want someone to marry her?” I ask. He wouldn’t tell me before due to “liability reasons,” but now that the deal’s off, it shouldn’t matter. “And why the hell is it worth millions of dollars to you?”

  Hunter releases an incredulous laugh. “You don’t get it at all, and I suppose you wouldn’t … alimony.”

  “Alimony? What about it?”

  “Once she’s married and becomes someone else’s problem, I no longer have to donate millions of my hard-earned dollars to a woman who didn’t do a damn thing to earn them. That manhating judge let her make off like a bandit, and then she gave her alimony on top of it. Can you believe that shit? What gives her the right to give away my money like that?”

  Raking my hand across my jaw, I have to look away for a second to keep myself from knocking him to the floor.

  “So Love didn’t stand by you and support you while you made your first million?” I ask. “She didn’t put her dreams on hold so you could chase yours?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he says. “And honestly, let’s be real. You were nothing but hired help. The details of this arrangement have nothing to do with you and quite frankly, you have no right to concern yourself with them.”

  Hired help.

  I suppose he’s right. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever met in my life—right up there with my father. Only difference between them are a few metal bars and the disproportionate size of their bank accounts.

  “Five million,” Hunter says, finally strutting toward the door. “Take it or leave it.”

  The tautness in my jaw sends a dull ache radiating up the sides of my face, threatening the beginnings of a tension headache.

  “Fuck off, Hunter.”

  He stops in his tracks, turning on his Prada loafers and charging toward me until his face is way too fucking close to mine.

  “Your key,” he says, holding out his hand. “Give me your apartment key.”

  Releasing a forced breath, I grip the metal of the key until I feel the indentations in my palm.

  “The key, Jude,” he says, harder this time. “Take any personal belongings and leave everything else. Including the phone. I’ll be sure to let the doorman know you’re not to set foot in this building again.”

  I don’t have Love’s number memorized—it was only ever programmed into the phone he gave me. And if I’m banned from the building, I won’t be able to come back and talk to her in person.

  She’ll come home from her trip and I’ll be gone and that will be that.

  Slapping the key on the counter, I lock eyes with the revolting excuse for a man standing in front of me.

  “You’re pathetic,” I tell him before leaving to grab my guitar—the only thing that truly belongs to me in this apartment.

  Everything else was a prop, part of a costume I agreed to wear when I made a deal with the devil himself.

  Hunter smirks, like he finds my insult funny.

  “I don’t feel bad for you,” he says as I head out. “You knew what you
signed up for, and you fell for her anyway.”

  How could I not?

  Being with her was so effortless, so natural.

  I never expected to hit it off with her.

  And I never expected her to be everything Hunter said she wasn’t.

  Stopping in the doorway, my fist clenches at my side, and I start to say something but stop myself. He’s not worthy of the oxygen it would take to tell him exactly what I think of him one last time.

  Turning to leave, I clutch the strap of my guitar case and slam the door behind me. Pausing in front of Love’s door, I wish she were standing right here so I could tell her how sorry I am.

  And how much I love her.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Love

  “So weird,” I mumble, checking my Messages app for the hundredth time today.

  “What?” Tierney moves her hat out of her eyes and squints toward me.

  “I’ve been texting Jude all day and the messages aren’t even showing as read.” I flip the screen of my phone to show her. “First one was sent at eight fifteen this morning. I sent four others throughout the day. It’s been almost eleven hours. This isn’t normal.”

  The dusky sky and crashing of the ocean against rocks paints the prettiest backdrop to our last sunset in the Hamptons, but I can’t appreciate any of it because despite the fact I have no business caring about this nonsense, I’m desperate to figure out what the hell is going on with him.

  He was hired to make me fall in love with him, and just when I’ve led him to believe he’s on the right path … he pulls away.

  “Maybe he changed read receipt settings?” she asks.

  “Why would he do that now?”

  “Why does it bother you so much?” she asks, reaching for her virgin margarita. “Because it shouldn’t. You two aren’t really together. You’re both pretending.”

  “I know.” I exhale, wishing I didn’t care, wishing it didn’t bother me, wishing I knew if he knows that I know.