Hero Worship (Music City Moguls Book 6)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “How many times did you tell me you thought of her as the sister we’d never had?” Den asked, swiping a hand over his mouth. “And I believed you! I can’t believe I trusted you!”

  “I’ve never given you any reason to distrust me, Den.” Clint stared his brother down as he planted his hands on his hips. “Nothing happened between me and Julie. She loved her family too much, and I never would have crossed that line even if I—”

  “You don’t call what you did crossing the line?” Den’s eyes flashed with fury. “You may not have slept with her, but you might as well have. Hell, I think maybe it would’ve hurt less than what you did.”

  “Don’t say that,” Clint said, thinking how much he’d hate to lose his brother after everything else he’d lost.

  “It’s true.” Den zeroed in on the wedding picture of him and Julie on Clint’s mantel. In the picture, Clint was standing beside him, smiling. “You made her fall in love with you. I have to live with the fact that my wife went to her grave in love with another man—and not just any man, but my own brother.”

  Clint sank into an armchair a few feet away from Den when his legs gave out. He couldn’t pretend to understand what Den was feeling. If Natasha had been the woman in question, it would have destroyed him. Natasha may have been disgusted with him at the moment, but at least he still had the opportunity to talk to her face-to-face, to air their grievances. Den didn’t have that chance with Julie anymore, to try to understand what she’d been thinking or how she’d been feeling.

  Clint hung his head so he wouldn’t have to look his brother in the eye. He felt like a coward, as ashamed of himself as he’d ever been. “I wasn’t expecting to see her that day. She just showed up at my hotel room.”

  “What did she say?”

  Clint swallowed, thinking this admission might be the hardest of all. “She told me I was lying to myself, trying to deny what I felt for her because I was scared.”

  “Then she was in love with you,” Den whispered, holding his head. “She wanted you to feel the same way.”

  “She didn’t say that,” Clint said. He could at least try to mitigate his brother’s pain by downplaying Julie’s reaction. “She never told me she loved me, Den. At least, not in so many words.” Though she’d certainly implied as much.

  “Then what did she say?” he asked, looking up. “And don’t even think about lying, man. You owe me the truth.”

  He was right. After the damage Clint had done, he owed Den honesty, even if it caused irreparable damage to their relationship. “She said I’d spent too many years running from the truth, trying to find the perfect woman. She said I had unrealistic expectations because that was easier than confronting my feelings for her.”

  “Was she right?” Den looked resigned as he sank into the plush sofa cushions. “Is that the reason you never got married? ‘Cause you kept hoping she’d come to her senses and leave me?”

  “No, I—”

  “Come on, we all know Julie was too good for me,” he sneered. “You know how many times the old man told me that my wife was too damn good for me, that it was only a matter of time before someone richer and better looking stole her away from me?” He shook his head, looking defeated. “I always suspected he was right, but I never expected it to be you.”

  “The old man doesn’t know what the hell he’s talkin’ about,” Clint said, feeling enraged on Den’s behalf. “Julie loved you. She never thought, even for a second, that she was too good for you. She wasn’t looking elsewhere. She was happy in your marriage.”

  “How the hell can you say that?” Den shouted. “She was in love with you!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Clint said, glancing at the staircase leading to the basement. “Your son is downstairs. He sure as hell doesn’t need to hear this.”

  “Why? Why shouldn’t he know his uncle, the guy he looks up to, is a dirtbag who was trying to take his mother away from her family?”

  “I wasn’t trying to do that,” Clint said, feeling hopelessness settle over him. “You guys are my family. I love you. I would never have done anything to hurt you.”

  “You don’t even know the meaning of the word love,” Den said, narrowing his eyes. “You claimed to love Natasha, and look what you did to her.”

  “Natasha didn’t have to know about that conversation with Julie.” Clint’s gut clenched with frustration he didn’t feel he had the right to express. “It happened a long time ago. It meant nothing, but you knew it would change everything for us, didn’t you? Were you trying to get back at me? Is that why you told Tash?”

  “She deserved to know it was Julie you wanted.”

  “Are you deaf?” Clint asked, losing his fragile grip on his self-control. He didn’t want to go around in circles with his brother. He wanted to camp out on Natasha’s doorstep until she agreed to listen to his side of the story. “I told Julie before the accident that I could never love her that way. She was one of my best friends, the sister I’d never had. It could never have been more than that.”

  Both men were silent for a full minute before Den voiced the question Clint knew was on both of their minds.

  “The accident. Do you think it really was an accident?” Den’s voice was shaky when he said, “You don’t think she would have taken her own life, do you?”

  “No!” Clint forced himself to breathe. He’d asked himself that same question a dozen times over the past year, but he kept coming back to the same answer. “She would never have left Ryland. That boy was her whole world.”

  Den nodded. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t distracted, thinking about what went down between y’all. Maybe that’s why she took the turn too fast. It wasn’t like Julie to speed. I knew there had to be some reason—”

  “You don’t think I’ve tortured myself over that?” Clint asked, tears filling his eyes. “You don’t think I’ve asked myself a thousand times whether I had something to do with her death? You don’t think I’ve wondered whether she’d still be alive if I’d never let her get behind the wheel that day?”

  “I guess we’ll never know what would have happened if she hadn’t died.” Den sighed. “We won’t know whether she would have left me or tried to make it work for Ry’s sake.”

  “You’re blowing this out of proportion.” After the good years Dennis and Julie had had together, it pained Clint to think he’d tarnished her memory in her husband’s eyes. If he could do anything to restore Den’s faith, to make him believe that Julie had died loving him, he would. He figured it was the least he could do, for both of them. “How many times during a long-term relationship does one partner think about leaving the other?”

  “I don’t know.” Den leaned back, closing his eyes. “Maybe a few.”

  “Then you’re admitting there were times when you thought about leaving Julie?”

  “Not really.” He covered his face with his hands, as though he were trying to hide the truth. “Okay, maybe I thought about it after we’d had a fight or whatever, but I never would have acted on it.”

  “That’s my point,” Clint said, praying he was finally getting somewhere. “You had those thoughts. Maybe you didn’t write them down the way Julie did, but those thoughts still crossed your mind. You know you never would have torn your family apart, and Julie wouldn’t have either. Not for anything or anyone.”

  “You really believe that?” Den asked skeptically.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “We’d grown apart that last year.” He looked wary, but he finally asked Clint, “Did she tell you things weren’t… all that great in the bedroom?”

  Clint wished they weren’t having that conversation, but he’d promised himself he’d be honest with Den. “She told me things had changed and she didn’t know how to make them better.”

  “It’s not that I wasn’t attracted to her. I was.”

  “I know you were.”

  Julie had been a beautiful woman, inside and out. It wasn’t just her smile that att
racted attention, it was her compassion and infectious energy, and Clint knew his brother would never have taken her for granted. He’d loved her too much.

  “Relationships have their ups and downs, Den. Julie understood that. She wasn’t ready to bail on you just because you didn’t have the same level of intimacy you’d once had.” As uncomfortable as it was to talk about, Clint was relieved they were talking without hostility and accusations.

  “Then she wanted to make things better?” Den asked.

  “I think she did.” Since he was one of the few people who knew what thoughts had been running through Julie’s head before her death, Clint guessed this conversation was long overdue. “She just didn’t know how. She asked for my advice a few months before the accident. I suggested she take you away for the weekend. I thought a little alone time might do the trick.”

  “You suggested that?” Den asked, a slow smile spreading across his face as he stared off into the distance. “Man, that was one incredible weekend. It felt just like it did when we were teenagers. I’d been so afraid of losing her, but that weekend, I felt like we reconnected.”

  “She felt the same way.” Clint smiled when Den looked at him for confirmation.

  “She really told you that?”

  “She did.” Clint let Den process that for a minute. “So you see, she wasn’t in love with me. It was you, Den. It had always been you.”

  “She told me to read the journals,” Den said, shaking his head. “Why would she have done that? I mean, she had to have known how much this would hurt me. Why would she do that to me?”

  Clint wondered about that himself, but Julie hadn’t been a vindictive person. She would never have intentionally hurt Den or left him with doubts about the state of their marriage after she was gone. “I think in her mind, it was insignificant. She was probably lying there in that hospital bed, panicking because she didn’t have enough time to tell you and Ry how much you meant to her, and she thought of her journals. She knew she’d poured her heart out in those books and said things she probably wished she could have said to you.”

  “She did say a lot of amazing things about us in them,” Den said, blinking back tears. “It hurt so much to read them at first, partially because you were always the one who was there for her when I should have been. You really were her best friend.”

  Clint knew Den should have been the man she’d shared her hopes and dreams with, but he wouldn’t have erased all the hours he’d spent with Julie for anything or anyone. She’d been a rock for him, and he would always remember her fondly, even if it meant his affection for Julie cost him the woman he loved.

  “And she was mine,” Clint said. “It hurt like hell to lose her, and not because I had any romantic feelings toward her. It hurt because I knew I’d never have another friend like her.”

  “What about Natasha?” Den asked. “You can’t talk to her the way you talked to Julie?”

  “I can.” Clint swallowed the agony that rose up at the mention of Natasha. “I guess that’s why the thought of losing her hurts so much.”

  “I guess I should have talked to you before I went to Natasha with Julie’s journal,” Den said grudgingly. “But I was so damn angry I couldn’t see straight. The only thing on my mind was taking Natasha away from you the way I thought you’d tried to take Julie from me.”

  Clint knew his brother wasn’t apologizing for his actions, and he didn’t expect him to. He probably would have reacted the same way. “Then you believe me when I tell you I loved Julie but I wasn’t in love with her?”

  “I guess.” Den cracked his knuckles before sitting back and kicking his boots up on the coffee table. “Where’d you leave things with Natasha?”

  “She told me it was over.” Forcing those words out was difficult, but Clint couldn’t make up for his mistakes until he faced them like a man. “I sure as hell don’t blame her for reacting that way. I would have too, had I been in her shoes.”

  “You want me to talk to her?”

  Clint was touched by the offer. It gave him hope that he and Den might actually come out of this storm even closer than they’d been before. “Thanks, but this is something I need to figure out on my own.”

  “So you’re gonna sleep on it?”

  Clint stood. “Hell no! I’m gonna go over there and make her believe I can’t live without her.” Reaching for the cowboy hat he’d left on the ottoman when he’d walked into the room, he said, “‘Cause honestly, man, I can’t.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Natasha was curled up in bed with the pillow tucked under her head, listening to the clock on her bedside table marking the seconds. She was all alone. Austin had called to tell her he’d be spending the night with his nana, and the silence was deafening. She’d tried to study to pass the time, but couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts kept wandering to Clint and Austin.

  She knew her son was confused. He hurt for her, but he was angry too. He thought she was being unreasonable, but he didn’t know the whole story. Besides, he was a child. He couldn’t possibly understand how much it hurt to find out the man she’d been brave enough to give her heart to considered her his Plan B.

  When she heard the first dull thump, she assumed it was her upstairs neighbor, but when it didn’t stop, she realized it was at her own front door. He wouldn’t have the nerve to show up at her apartment at this hour, would he? But who else could it be? Unless Austin wasn’t feeling well and needed her. With that in mind, she shot out of bed.

  She muttered a curse after sneaking a peek through the peephole. How dare he? “Get lost,” she muttered, knowing full well he couldn’t hear her through the wood. Still, it felt good to say it.

  “Come on, Tash,” he said, tapping his knuckles against the door. “Please let me in. We need to talk.”

  Natasha knew if she didn’t open the door, her neighbors would crowd around to find out who was causing the commotion, and given her guest’s celebrity status, that was the last thing she needed. She told herself she’d try to keep their conversation civil since they couldn’t avoid future meetings, but if he thought he could say or do anything to convince her to take him back, he was deluding himself.

  She tightened the short silk robe she’d pulled on over her matching nightshirt. Opening the door, she hissed, “Why are you here?” before glancing down the hall to make sure they didn’t have spectators. “I said everything I had to say to you earlier.”

  “That may be,” he said, walking past her, “but you barely gave me a chance to get a word in.”

  She wanted to remind him that she hadn’t issued an invitation for him to come in, but she knew it was pointless. Once Clint had made up his mind about something, there was little anyone could say or do to change it. Or so he thought. She was about to prove to him that she could be every bit as stubborn as he was.

  “Fine, but make it quick. I’m tired, and I have to get some sleep.” She knew a restful night was too much to hope for, but Clint didn’t need to know she’d been losing sleep over him.

  “Is Austin asleep?” Clint asked, glancing at Austin’s closed bedroom door.

  “He’s upstairs with my mother.”

  “Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  If he thought being alone with her gave him an advantage, he was wrong. She was too strong-willed to succumb to his charm. She hoped. “I think he wanted to give me some time alone.” Clint also didn’t need to know that her son was annoyed with her for snatching away his dream.

  “I’m glad we’re alone,” he said, setting his cowboy hat on the rack by the door.

  “I’m not.” Natasha would have felt better knowing her son was sleeping just down the hall, preventing her from doing something she might regret—like believing Clint felt as ravaged as he looked. He was still the most attractive man she’d ever seen, but his appearance told her he’d been through the emotional wringer tonight, probably the result of going at it with his brother.

  “I appreciate your honesty,” Clint sai
d, smirking.

  “It would have been nice if you’d been honest with me too,” she said, wrapping her arms around her midsection. She knew she looked defensive, but she felt weak and vulnerable because, as hurt and angry as she was, she still loved him.

  “I never lied to you, Tash.” He stood directly in front of her, his feet shoulder-width apart, and made eye contact with her. His message was clear: I’m not giving up on you without a fight.

  “A lie by omission is still a lie,” she said, brushing past him, determined to take the high road. “But I’m really not interested in arguing semantics with you. There’s no way I could be with you now, knowing that if Julie were still alive, you’d be with her instead.” It hurt to even say it, but she refused to run from the truth. Besides, she’d have been a fool to pretend he could ever love her the way he’d loved the woman he lost.

  He gripped her arm, turning her to face him. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You read Julie’s words, but you never asked me how I felt.”

  “I didn’t have to,” she said, glaring at him. “I know how amazing you thought Julie was. You’ve told me enough times. And in her journal, Julie wrote—”

  “I know what that damn journal said.”

  “Are you saying she was lying?” A part of her wished he would tell her it had been a lie, the musings of a woman out of touch with reality, bored and entertaining herself with fantasies about how her life would be different if she hooked up with her jet-setting brother-in-law and left her sleepy small town behind.

  Clint loosened his grip on Natasha’s arm. “Julie and I talked about…” His hands fell to his sides before he stepped around her. “We talked about our feelings, how close we were, how important I was to her and she was to me.”

  Natasha wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any more. As he pulled the curtains back and looked out the window, she knew he was lost in his thoughts of Julie. The stirring in her belly reminded her how sad it was to be jealous of a dead woman, but she was.