by Jamie Pope
“Yes. I’m sure. They pay someone to go and check on the place. You would be doing them a favor.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I could do that.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Something bad happens and you pull away instead of reaching out for help.”
“I don’t need help. I can handle it myself.”
“Why should you have to handle it alone when I’m here to help you? When we’re all here to help you?”
“I’ve been to ten foster homes and every time I thought maybe it would be the one that would keep me forever, but it never worked out. I always had to move and every time I did, I had to pack up my stuff in a black garbage bag and drag it to the next place. After a while you learn to stop hoping for things and keep your life moving. This is one of those things that happened and I’m just going to have to keep it moving.”
Detective Rodgers swore and turned away from her.
Julian stepped closer to her and placed his hand on the back of her neck, forcing her to look him in his eyes. “That’s a shitty explanation. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to get me to go anywhere. You’re coming home with me tonight.”
“You’re going home with him tonight,” Detective Rodgers said. “Right now you need a father. And I’m him. I refuse to let you stay here. What’s important to you? It’s going to get packed right now.”
“The trunk.” She nodded to the leather trunk that her last foster mother had given to her when she first arrived. It was the first place she had to store her belongings. She knew she wasn’t going to win this argument.
“Do you need to put anything in it?”
“No. It’s packed.”
“Come on, gentlemen. Let’s put this in Julian’s car.”
They left Arden and Sunny alone and as soon as they did, Arden smacked her arm. “What the hell is going on with you and Julian?”
“I don’t know. I might fall in love with him.” She sat back and sighed.
“You’re not in love with him already?”
“We’re supposed to be working together, but somehow we became friends and he offered to go with me to Detective Rodgers’s retirement party and somehow I ended up in his closet asking him to help me zip up my dress. And somehow he ended up stripping it off of me and giving me the most intense orgasm that I’ve ever had.”
Arden gasped. “Did you have sex with him?”
“No. And it’s not because I don’t want to. He looks at me and I melt. In fact, you all showed up at the exact wrong moment.”
“We interrupted you? Oh no! I’m so sorry. He looks like he would be so good in bed.”
“It would be a mistake to sleep with him.”
“Why? The way he looks at you . . . It’s rare to find a man who’ll look at a woman like that.”
“We have to work together on a very important case and he has an ex that is still in love with him. They’ll probably end up together.”
“They won’t. Don’t think that way. Even if it doesn’t last forever or even very long, allow yourself to fall in love, to feel that rush. You always hold yourself back. Why don’t you try giving yourself away to it?”
Because she’d had her heart broken before. She didn’t know if she could survive a heartbreak with him.
Chapter 11
Julian hung up the phone in his office and rubbed his forehead. A very important case had landed on his desk. One of his clients was being charged with assault with a deadly weapon. A reality television star who found her husband in bed with a nanny and then proceeded to chase him down the street in her car. She only bumped him, causing him to fracture his ankle, so it wasn’t attempted murder, but, still, his client was facing serious time.
She was expecting him to get her out of jail time. He probably could. He’d had a similar outcome in a case like this before, but this time he didn’t feel like doing all the legal maneuvering it would take to convince a judge that she needed counseling over jailtime. She was guilty. Thanks to cell phone video, the whole damn Internet had seen the incident.
He had a lot of long hours ahead of him to win this case, but he was having a hard time concentrating this week. Sunny had moved into his brother-in-law’s apartment a week ago. She was just a few floors away from him, but he hadn’t seen her once.
He knew she had been just as busy as he was. Another letter had come from Soren’s mother. It was more of the same. Promises that they were going to be reunited along with additional cash. The Earls were understandably terrified. Julian hadn’t made much progress on the case. He was fairly sure if it came down to a custody battle that the Earls would win. He had been researching family law. Soren’s mother had abandoned her. He had no problem destroying her in the courtroom, but he needed more information. More about her past.
But part of him didn’t want to drag Soren through that. She was a sweet kid who had been through too much. He thought it might be better to be proactive. To stop her in her tracks before this turned uglier than it had to be.
He had texted with Sunny daily. But he hadn’t gotten the chance to speak to her. Work had been busy for her. Arden had her baby. A boy that she and her husband had named Flynn. Sunny had sent him a picture of her holding the baby. She was beaming. He had never seen her so happy. He wished he could see that expression on her face all the time. He pulled out his cellphone and looked at it again. He found himself doing that a lot these past few days. He had wanted to hear her voice and see her face and have her in his presence. But he had stayed away, or maybe she had stayed away from him.
The attraction was there. It was strong and if she were anyone else he would have taken her to bed a long time ago. But there was something more with her. Something confusing and intense and there was a friendship too. He just didn’t want to know her body; he wanted to know her.
He picked up his cell phone and called her, unable to stop himself.
“Mr. King.” She picked up on the second ring. “It must be important if you’re calling me.”
“What if I told you I just wanted to hear your voice?”
She was quiet for a long moment. He hadn’t meant to say that, but it was what fell from his lips.
“I would say you’re full of crap.”
“How are you settling in?”
“It’s a gorgeous apartment on Central Park. I could die tomorrow and be fulfilled.”
“That’s not true. There has to be more you want out of life.”
“You’re right. I want Indian food for dinner. Will you have it with me?”
“Yes. You want to go out or stay in?”
“In. I have to go make a home visit for a difficult parent. I think I’m going to be too wiped out to deal with a restaurant.”
“Okay. Meet me at my place at eight.”
“Will you let me buy the food?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
“You’re such a bully.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “I know you didn’t call me just to talk. What’s wrong, Julian?”
“I was thinking about Soren’s mother. Where did this new letter come from?”
“It was postmarked from Maryland. All the letters have come from towns in Maryland or South Carolina.”
“I looked up the population of Hope. It’s very small. You think someone might know her there?”
“Maybe. But we don’t know what name she’s going by. We don’t know what she looks like. How can we find her?”
“We can go down there and start asking questions. Somebody had to have missed Soren. There has to be a family for her somewhere.”
“I always wondered the same thing about myself. How could my mother just disappear without anyone missing her or me?”
“Did you ever find out what happened to your mother?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Don’t you want to know?”
“Very ba
dly, but a large part of me is afraid to find out.”
Julian’s office door opened and his boss, Mr. Bruno, walked in. “I’ve got to go, Sunny. My boss is here. I’ll see you tonight.”
“You will. I’m buying dessert and you can’t stop me.” She disconnected before he could say anything else and again he found himself smiling.
“Hello, sir. How are you?”
“I’m good. But I’m always good. Just wanted to have a little chat with you.”
“Of course, sir. Please sit down.”
Bruno eased himself into the chair in front of Julian’s desk. “You were talking to Sunny? There’s still a thing between you two?”
“We’re good friends and we’re working on this case together. I see her fairly often.”
“You can drop this professional bullshit. We both know that if the girl had no tits and a flat ass you wouldn’t have looked at her twice.”
Julian’s fists clenched and unclenched in his lap. This was his boss. He couldn’t knock him on his bloated ass.
“I don’t feel comfortable speaking about Sunny like this. She’s not just a woman off the street. She came to the firm for help with an important case. Mr. Cleese was the one who asked me to help her. The way she looks has nothing to do with anything.”
“You’re good.” He grinned at Julian. “You never drop the act. Not even with me. I don’t have a stick up my ass like my partner. You know you can let loose with me.”
“It’s not an act, sir.”
“You know Regina called me. We go back a long way. This firm has been representing her company for years. She has grown a nice little empire.”
“Regina’s a great businesswoman.”
“She asked about you. Wanted to know what was going on.”
“There is nothing going on. We are no longer seeing each other.”
“I think that’s the problem. She played it very cool on the phone because far be it from Regina to show actual emotion, but the fact that she asked about you is very telling. She’s got it bad for you.”
“I have nothing to say to that. We aren’t seeing each other anymore.”
“It wouldn’t be a good thing if she pulled her business from our firm. Why don’t you give her a little attention until she finds someone else to occupy her time? It would bring you one step closer to getting where you want to go in your career.”
“Losing her business would be a big loss to the firm but I represent every major athlete in the tristate area as well as some of the biggest music producers in the country. I keep this firm’s name in the papers and I win cases. How often do we work for Regina? My clients keep us busy the entire year.”
“Are you threatening to leave and take your clients with you?”
“No. I’m just pointing out the things that make me an asset to this firm. Sleeping with the clients is not one of them.”
Bruno stood up. The master litigator didn’t seem to have an argument for that one. “Just keep your head in the game. You’ve been a little distracted lately. You’re paying clients get first priority. Don’t ever forget that.”
Julian sat at his desk staring at his computer screen for a long time. He was more distracted now than he had been.
His boss, the man who had a huge say in the next step in his career, said he was distracted. He wanted to say it was unfounded bullshit, but was it? He hadn’t seen Sunny in a week. He had barely worked on her case and yet he was distracted by her.
But why? He wasn’t sleeping with her. He hadn’t kissed her lips yet. And then there was Regina in the background. They had been on and off for years. The had both dated other people in the meanwhile. Maybe she thought that this time wasn’t any different than the last time. But there was a difference. They weren’t moving forward. He needed to go forward. He had wanted to be partner at the firm, and to have a life partner. But he wasn’t so sure about that anymore.
What the hell did he want?
He needed to close things with Regina for good. Nothing else hanging in the air. He wasn’t sure what his future was going to look like but he was sure that wasn’t going to include her.
He needed to call her, but he didn’t pick up his phone. He buried his head in his work instead. The direct line to his office phone rang. Usually, all calls went through his assistant. He answered it to hear an unfamiliar voice.
“Hello, Mr. King?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Maxine, Sunny’s supervisor. We need you to come down to Manhattan Hospital. Sunny needs—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. “I’m on my way.” He grabbed his keys and his cell phone and ran out of there as fast as humanly possible.
* * *
Sunny kept looking at the deep red smear on the skirt of her dress. It was her white sundress, the one with the pretty little flowers on it. She had loved this dress, but now it was ruined, covered in drying blood that she would never get out. She kept focusing on that spot because she didn’t want to think about anything else. Like how the blood had gotten there, or the child who was going to be traumatized for the rest of his life.
“Sunny!” She heard a deep, familiar voice yelling her name and when she looked up, she saw Julian rushing across the ER toward her. There was terror on his face as he approached. She had asked Maxine to call him to ask if he could send someone over with a change of clothes for her. But he came and he looked so scared. Her heart squeezed.
She stood up, realizing that she looked like she had been through a war. “It’s not my blood. I didn’t mean for you to leave work. I just needed some clothes.” She felt herself start to tremble and tried to stop herself but she couldn’t. “I’m just here as a precaution. They cleaned the blood off my skin to make sure I didn’t have any open cuts.” Her voice broke. She stopped speaking. She was dangerously close to crying. She hadn’t cried in years. But having him there before her was rocking her foundation.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go home. I’ll run you a bath. We’ll order dinner early.”
“Don’t you have to go back to work?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m where I have to be.”
* * *
Sunny went back to Julian’s house and just like he said, he ran her a bath filled with warm, soapy water. He didn’t seem to care that she got in his beautiful car covered in someone else’s blood. He didn’t pepper her with questions. He was just there. It was exactly what she needed right then. He was exactly what she needed.
She left his bathroom to find him waiting for her near the door. The worried look never left his face and she felt bad that she had put him through that. “I’m fine, Jules. I promise. You don’t have to look at me like that.”
He shook his head and grabbed her hips pulling her into his chest. “You’re crying.”
“No. I’m not.”
He took his thumb and swiped it over her cheek. “Yes.”
It was then she noticed her cheeks were hot and wet. She was crying. She hadn’t cried since her final foster mother’s funeral. But she was weeping and she couldn’t stop herself.
“Oh, God.” She gave a watery laugh. “Tell me to stop.”
“Why would I do that? You need to cry.” He pulled her head to his chest and smoothed his hand down her back.
“You haven’t even asked me what happened.”
“You’ll tell me when you feel it’s right. I just needed to know that you weren’t the one who was hurt.”
“I went on a surprise home visit to see a parent who has been dodging me for weeks. I’ve gone to that house a half dozen times and she was never there. But this time when I knocked on the door I saw that it was slightly open and when I walked inside I saw little bloody footprints leading to the bathroom. My client’s mother had slit her wrist. There was blood everywhere. He had tried to help her.”
“Where was the boy?”
“In the closet. He was hiding, terrified because he didn’t know what h
ad happened to his mother. He was covered in her blood and I know the protocol. I know I wasn’t supposed to touch him, but he’s five and he burst into tears when he saw me and I picked him up and I held him until the police and EMTs came. I stayed with him until they took him to emergency foster care.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, baby.” He kissed the side of her face. “I’m glad you were there for that child. You probably saved him.”
“I should have gone yesterday,” she whispered. “I could have stopped it.”
“Don’t. Don’t think that way. Don’t do that to yourself. I know you tried your best. I know you always go the extra mile for every child. Look at what you’re doing for Soren.”
His words were meant to comfort her, but they made her feel guilty. Yes, she wanted to make sure Soren stayed with the people who were best suited to raise her, but she was also so invested in Soren’s case for herself. Because she needed to follow this crazy thread or it would eat at her. It was selfish.
“Come sit down.” He took her hand and led her to the couch. “I ordered almost the entire menu. I have a fully stocked bar. We’re going to watch ridiculous movies tonight and laugh and relax.”
He wiped the tears that were still rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop herself.
“Something came for you today.”
“Something came for me?”
“Yes.” He walked away from her and into his kitchen where he retrieved a small white box off the counter. “Open it,” he said, handing it to her.
She looked up at him suspiciously.
“It won’t bite you.”
She ripped open the box and her eyes became so full of tears she could no longer see. “How . . .” She took out a barrette. It was very similar to the one that had been destroyed the night of the robbery, but it was gorgeous. Her mother’s barrette was simple, cheap, purchased from a flea market for a few dollars. But this one much more than that.
“I have a client who’s a jeweler. I sent him the pieces of the barrette and asked him what he could do. There’s something else in the box.”
She looked again. There was a little jade Buddha.