Beyond Layers: Layer Series Book Four (Layers Series 4)

by Alexander, TL

  I look at Lex, silently communicating, what the hell?

  I stand, readying to walk toward Jules.

  She holds up a hand. “No… I need… I need space. I can’t think.”

  “Okay,” I say, sitting back down.

  “Jules,” Lex says, “whatever it is, honey. We’re here for you. We love you.”

  “Please tell us,” I add. “We want to help.”

  She begins to pace, rubbing her arms as if they ache. “No… no one can… help me. I’ve done something… something terrible. Something… very, very, very… bad.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” I tell her.

  She stops pacing. “It is… it’s so bad. The worst thing I’ve ever done.” She breaks down and begins sobbing.

  “Jules,” Lex says, in her nice Sister Mary Margret voice. “Look at me.”

  She looks at Lex.

  “You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to. But understand this, and never forget it: you are our sister, our family. You’re a Grant, like it or not. There is nothing you can say or do that will ever change that.”

  Jules nods, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her sweats.

  Yuck!

  “Why don’t you sleep on it? You look so tired, exhausted.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t stay. Nick… He’ll… be coming. I know him; he’ll want to talk to Jax, to confess his sins. He can’t hold it in. It’s too much for his wee betraying heart. I can’t be here. I can’t face him, Lex. I called Marco. I’m staying with him and Henry at Ryan House.”

  Lex sighs, looking equally exhausted. “Okay. When he goes, you can stay here, if you want.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll stay at the B&B. They have plenty of room and… I don’t want to upset you more. You look as if you’re about to pop.”

  “I’m sure they will be happy to have you.”

  “You can’t tell Nick you saw me, Lex. You can’t tell him we talked. Promise me.”

  “Jules, I don’t—”

  She holds up a hand. “No, Lex. You need to promise me, please. He can’t know, and you can’t tell him I’m staying with Marco and Henry. Promise me.”

  “Jules, I’m not going to keep this from Jax. That’s what you’re asking me to do. I will promise you that Nick won’t come near you. He won’t be allowed to see you until you’re ready. I’ll add more security if he challenges your wishes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to ride over with you?”

  She shakes her head while blowing her nose. “No… no, thank you, Sam.”

  I nod.

  “I’ll have Lee drive you. Is that okay?” Lex asks.

  She cry-hiccups as she gets a bottle of water from the fridge. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  “Jules, I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

  She nods and sits across from us. She takes a sip from her water; it seems to help. “I need to tell you. I want you to know my side of this… mess.”

  Lex and I reach over, putting our hands over hers. “You don’t have to,” Lex tells her.

  “If I can’t tell you, I can’t tell anyone, and I need to tell someone. I fucked up. He kicked me out. I was going to leave him anyway, but it didn’t lessen the sting of being asked to leave.”

  Lex and I look at each other. We’d pretty much figured out that something like this had happened.

  “We’ll never recover from this, never.”

  “Jules, what happened?” Lex asks.

  She blows out a stuttered breath. “I’m… I’m pregnant.”

  “Fuck!” Lex and I say together.

  Jules frowns.

  Lex squeezes her hand. “Sorry. It’s just…”

  “A shock,” I finish for her.

  “You don’t know the half of it. It’s… the baby, it’s not Nick’s.”

  “What? You’re having an affair? I can’t…”

  She frowns at Lex. “I’m not having an affair.”

  “Am I going to need a drink?” I ask Jules.

  “Make it a triple.”

  I stand and walk to the wine fridge and remove an open bottle of champagne. Then I walk to the beverage fridge, get out a bottle of OJ, slide it to Lex, and sit back down.

  I drink from the bottle, the bubbles going up my nose.

  Lex pats me on the back. “You okay, sis?”

  I nod. “I’m good.”

  Lex takes a swig of OJ from the bottle then slides it over to Jules and she does the same.

  “Okay,” Lex says. “We’re ready.”

  Jules sighs. “It’s so fucked up; I don’t know where to begin.”

  Lex takes the bottle from her, taking another sip.

  “Start where you want to,” I tell her.

  She nods. “Remember me telling you about Nick landing a consulting job?”

  Lex nods. “The ex-girlfriend slash fiancée’s company?”

  Jules nods. “Kimber. What kind of fucking name is that, anyway?” she says, shaking her head. “I didn’t have a problem with it or her, until she told me I shouldn’t. But even then, I didn’t think much of it.” She frowns. “They’d been working together for about a month when she began asking us both to join her for dinner. I declined several times. I mean, who wants to have dinner with your husband and his ex? But she’s very persistent, must have left forty messages on my phone and just as many with my PA. So I met them at the restaurant after court one evening. Boy, was I ever wrong. I should have been worried, very worried.”

  “Jules,” Lex says, “Nick loves you.”

  She shakes her head. “If a man loves you, does he sit in a booth next to his ex, across from his wife at dinner? Does he sit too close to her, brush against her shoulder as he whispers in her ear? Does he touch her hand and run his finger down her arm, while his wife looks on? Does he laugh and talk about how good they were together, ‘the good old days,’ when his wife is near to tears?”

  “Jules,” I say, “I’m sure it wasn’t—”

  She holds up her hand. “You know me. I’m not the jealous type, I don’t exaggerate, and I don’t lie.”

  Lex frowns. “Did you talk to him about it?”

  “I tried. He told me I was crazy; it was all in my head. When I begged to differ, he accused me of being jealous. I’ve never been jealous of another woman, ever.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Nick,” I tell her.

  “It’s the new Nick. The after-Kimber Nick.”

  I frown.

  She holds up a hand. “It gets worse. Weeks later, I came home from work and they were out by the pool having dinner and… having too much fun. When Nick saw me he waved me over.” She pauses and wipes her nose. “He waved me over as if I were some kind of servant, or something.”

  “Jules, I’m sure he didn’t—”

  “Let me finish, Lex.”

  “Okay.”

  “They had been working together for a couple of months, having dinner together just about every night. A few nights Nick didn’t even bother to come home,” she says, tearing up. “I went out and sat with them and they ignored me. So I picked up my wine glass and went back into the house, thinking three’s a crowd and all that. I sat at the kitchen bar, listening to them laugh and reminisce. The longer I sat, the angrier I became. So I took a shower to calm down. When I got out… they were sitting on our bed.”

  “What the fuck?” Lex says.

  “That’s what I said,” Jules says. “Turns out Kimber is into threesomes, and she asked me if I would share my husband.”

  “Fuck that,” Lex huffs.

  Tears are now running like a river down her cheeks. “I wanted to say that, but the lust, the… want and need in Nick’s eyes when he looked at her; it broke my heart so… I agreed.”

  “You what?” I say, in disbelief.

  She nods. “You both know Nick and I have done it before.”

  Lex nods. “Yeah, but that was before you were married, and it was a mutual agreement, an arrangement with
someone…”

  “Someone who wasn’t in love with my husband, and my husband wasn’t in love with.”

  “Jules, I don’t think—”

  She cuts me off. “He does and so does she. I stuck my head in the sand and refused to see it. Now it’s as clear as glass. The sad and ironic thing about it is that it wasn’t a threesome at all. I ended up sitting in a chair, watching my husband fuck another woman. It ripped me in two. I couldn’t take it, so I left the room. They didn’t even know.”

  “Fuck,” is all I can say.

  “I was so angry and felt like such a fool. She was still there when I got up the next morning. When she finally left, Nick didn’t even have the balls enough to say anything. He just took a shower and went back to bed.”

  “For hell,” Lex says. “What did you do?”

  “What could I do? I left. I packed a bag and checked into the Hyatt. That night I went to a bar, got drunk and…”

  “And what?” Lex asks.

  “I picked up a guy. A smokin’ hot guy, and fucked him silly.”

  “Jules,” Lex says.

  “Don’t scold me. I know what I did was wrong.”

  “You think this guy knocked you up?” I ask her.

  “I don’t think it, I know. You both know Nick had a vasectomy.”

  “You fucked a stranger and you didn’t use a condom?”

  She frowns at Lex. “Of course we did. I made sure of it. I watched him roll the damn thing on. It obviously punctured, or tore.”

  “This is bad,” Lex says. “Really, really bad.”

  Jules rolls her eyes. “No kidding.”

  “How far?” I ask her.

  “Seven weeks.”

  “Have you told Nick?” Lex asks.

  “Yes. I told him everything. He asked me to move out. No that’s not true, he said, ‘get the fuck out of my sight.’”

  “Bastard,” Lex huffs.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask her.

  “You mean about the baby?”

  I nod.

  “I never wanted a kid. But now that I’m going to have one, I want it. I want this baby.”

  “Jules, you’re not alone, Lex says. “You won’t be doing this alone.”

  She nods.

  I put my hand over hers. “We’re behind you 100 percent.”

  “I know.”

  Lee walks into the kitchen. “Sorry, am I interrupting?”

  “Of course you are,” Lex tells him.

  He sits beside me. “Jules, whatever is going on, if there’s anything…”

  “You can take her to Ryan House,” Lex tells him. “She’s going to be staying with Marco and Henry for a while.”

  “Of course I’ll take her.”

  “Thank you, Lee,” Jules says.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  She nods and stands.

  Lex and I get up, and give her a hug and kiss.

  “You need anything, we’ll be there,” Lex tells her.

  “Thank you. I’ll call you later.”

  We nod and she walks out with Lee’s hand on her purple-sweatshirted shoulder.

  Lex looks at me. “Oh. My. God,” we say simultaneously, and laugh.

  Dreaming about my angel, I reach for her. When I find nothing but cool sheets, my eyes open. I blink several times as three sets of eyes the same color as mine look down on me.

  As I sit up, the sheet slides lower, damn near revealing my morning wood. I reach down and pull it up to my waist.

  “Don’t worry, dude. My dad has a great big pee-pee in the morning,” the boy in the middle tells me.

  Whoa! Dude, TMI!

  “Big. Pee. Pee,” the littlest one says, pointing to my junk.

  I plaster on a fake half-smile.

  “Don’t worry, dude. We don’t bite,” middle boy says.

  “No. Bite,” the little one says.

  “I’m JB,” middle boy says, holding out his hand.

  We shake.

  “This is my brother Chase,” he says, elbowing his brother.

  “Dude,” Chase says, holding up his knuckles. We bump, he smiles.

  “And the little dude, that’s Gray,” he tells me, nodding toward his little brother who looks just like his older brothers.

  Gray hands me a blue blanket. It looks as if it’s been washed a million times. “Me. Gray.”

  “He wants you to shake hands with his blankie,” JB tells me.

  “It’s an honor,” Chase adds, nodding at Gray’s blankie. “Gray doesn’t let just anybody touch his blankie.”

  “Shake. Blank. Kie,” Gray tells me.

  I shake his blankie. “Nice to meet you, Gray.”

  “Nice. Dude,” he tells me.

  “Gray speaks in one syllables,” Chase tells me. “We call him Robot Boy.”

  “Mom doesn’t like it. So, it’s best not to mention it,” JB adds.

  “Ro. Bot. Boy,” Gray says.

  Fuck, they’re weird… and cute as hell.

  “I’m Logan,” I tell them.

  “We know who you are, dude,” JB says. “Romeo Romano. We’re big fans.”

  “Big. Fan,” Gray says, and drapes his blankie over and around his head as if it were a burka. He yawns and lies down next to me.

  “When Watson came off his injury, we thought for sure you’d hit the pine,” Chase says.

  “So did I, dude.”

  He holds out his knuckles and we bump.

  “You might want to stay clear of my dad for a few days,” JB tells me.

  I lift a worried brow.

  “He’s a sore loser. Mom says he’s being a wanker,” Chase informs me.

  “Wan. Ker,” Gray says with his eyes shut.

  His brothers giggle.

  “Sam told me your dad was a Rangers’ fan and he goes…”

  “A little crazy when they lose,” JB finished for me.

  “And the game last night…” Chase says, shaking his head.

  I run my hand down my playoff beard. “Not pretty.”

  He nods his agreement.

  “We’re not supposed to bug you about hockey, or ask for your autograph and stuff,” JB says, shrugging.

  Chase frowns. “Yeah, it’s a rule.”

  “Rule,” Gray says, sleepily.

  “A rule?”

  Chase nods. “Dad’s into lists. He writes them down and we sign off on them.”

  I nod. “Yeah, it was the ‘talk’”—I air quote—“with my dad. Then we’d have to repeat what he said.”

  They nod.

  “How about I sign your sticks or whatever you want, and we not tell your dad.”

  They look at each other and smile. It reminds me of how Luke and I used to look at each other. It’s a twin thing.

  A door creaks open. We look over as two big labs trot in. They jump up and lie at the end of the bed. I was thinking this was a nice big bed, but now… not so much.

  “This is Higgins,” Chase points to one of them. “And this is Darnit.” He point to the other dog.

  Darnit? I raise a brow.

  “Long story,” Chase says. “You’ll get it by the end of the day.”

  I nod.

  JB yawns and lies down next to Gray. “So, you like Aunt Sam?”

  “I do. Very much.”

  “She doesn’t like to watch you play.”

  “I know. She worries.”

  JB nods. “Yeah, and she hates when the reporters ask you about her and not about the game.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.”

  “My mom’s been banned from the rink,” Chase says.

  I shake my head. “My mom couldn’t handle it either. It’s a mom thing.”

  JB’s eyes drift shut and he’s snoring in five seconds.

  Chase looks at him. “It’s a JB thing.”

  I nod.

  He crawls closer and kneels in front of me. Looking down at his hands, he says, “Logan?”

  “Chase.”

  He looks up at me,
his eyes sad and haunting. Sam told me what happened the night Lane was killed. How he’d been held hostage by a madwoman and was found frightened, nearly blue, lying in a bathtub. She said he couldn’t talk for several days. I told her it seemed unreal, like something you’d see at the movies or on TV.

  “My mom is my universe,” he whispers.

  “She’s special?”

  “Yeah,” he says and smiles. “I love her a lot. She gets me.”

  I nod.

  “Aunt Sam is my…Well, she’s a star in my universe. A big star.”

  “You love her.”

  He nods. “She’s been so sad and I….” He looks back down at his hands, playing with his fingers.

  I lift his chin. “Hey, dude. You can tell me.”

  “If you can help it, Logan. Don’t hurt her.”

  Who is this kid? “I love her, Chase. Sam is my universe.”

  He smiles.

  I sit back on the pillows and pat the bed beside me.

  He crawls over to the nightstand and pushes a button on a remote. The lights dim and moonlight bathes us. He lies down next to me and I pull a blanket up and over all of us.

  He sighs. “I like you, Logan Romano.”

  “I like you, Chase Grant-Ryan.”

  “Like. You. Lo. Gan. Ro. Ma. No,” Gray says.

  “I thought he was asleep,” I whisper.

  Chase giggles.

  Just when I think he’s asleep he says, “Do you like cars, Logan?”

  “I love cars, Chase.”

  All goes quiet for several minutes.

  Chase rolls over, facing me. “You’re a star, Logan,” he whispers.

  “So are you, Chase.”

  A few hours later…

  “Logan. Logan.”

  I open my eyes. “Angel.”

  She smiles at me, her face perfect, her hair looking like gold in the filtered morning light. “Looks like you’ve met my boys.”

  “Yes, they are…”

  “Unique?”

  I nod. “Very.”

  She pulls back the blanket and slides in next to Gray.

  “Where have you been?”

  She sighs. “Jules showed up a few hours ago. She’s… well, she’s not good.”

  “I’m sorry. Is she… going to be all right?”

  “I think so. I came up earlier and well… you were all snoring, so I slept in a guestroom.”

  “Do they… visit you often?”

  “Every night.”