Irresistible You

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “No.”

  “Yes. Goodbye J.T.” She opened and held the door for him.

  He walked past her without a word. When he got to the gate he turned and said. “To be continued.”

  She closed the door softly.

  Juliet leaned against the door frame and watched J.T. get into his car and drive away. Wyatt Bridges may have perfected the walk-away, but today she was truly her father’s daughter.

  “Senator, there’s a gentlemen by the name of J.T. Evans, here to see you. He said that you were expecting him, but I don’t have him in your appointment book or on your calendar. And you have a committee meeting in half an hour.”

  Randolph chuckled and shook his head. “Send him in.”

  J.T. marched in angrily, slammed down in the nearest chair, stood and walked across the room, turned to Randolph then got right to the point. “She’s killing me.”

  Randolph laughed joyfully. “Welcome to my world.”

  J.T. looked at Randolph murderously. He had no idea why he had even come to the Senate building. But he had to do something.

  When he left Juliet he drove back to the office. But instead of going inside he sat out in the parking lot. Then he drove to the townhouse, to McLean and finally he found himself driving in DC traffic on his way to Capitol Hill.

  “I presume you’ve spoken to Juliet.”

  “I have.”

  “Based on that remark, I presume you two are not back together then.”

  “You presume correctly.”

  “Pity, if you ask me you deserve each other.”

  “Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “Your concern is heartwarming.”

  Randolph laughed openly.

  “She’s killing me. I proposed and she turned me down. Did you know that she intends to go to New York with Lena or possibly to London?”

  Randolph continued laughing. “Yes, she told me.”

  “And you’re just going to allow her to leave?”

  “I understand your concerns, but I assure you Juliet is a grown woman and capable of making up her own mind. She’ll be fine whatever she chooses.”

  “But she loves me.”

  “Yes, I believe she does, but again it’s her choice.”

  J.T. looked at Randolph as if he’d gone mad. “What about money. In a few days she’ll be without an income. What is she going to do?”

  “I’m sure she won’t suffer. In case you haven’t noticed, Juliet is very good at what she does. Besides, she has money,” Randolph assured him. He noticed J.T.’s confused frown. “Apparently she didn’t tell you everything.” Randolph chuckled to himself. “Juliet has a trust fund from our grandfather worth conservatively three and a half million dollars. I assure you, she’ll be fine.”

  J.T. shook his head. This day just kept getting better and better. “I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”

  “Do you want the list alphabetically or chronologically?”

  “Alright so my grand scheme, even though it worked and got Mamma Lou and her matchmaking off of my back, wasn’t exactly the best idea. And in the process I lost the only women in the world for me.”

  “You do learn quickly,” Randolph said. “I give you that.”

  “Apparently it’s too late. I told her that I wanted to start over. I asked her to marry me. She shot me down cold.”

  “One thing about love,” Randolph noted,” it’s never too late. Be patient give her time, she’ll come around.”

  “She doesn’t want to marry me. Why?”

  “Our father, Wyatt Bridges, got married last weekend, it was his eighth. He’s the only man I know who falls in love, marries and divorces in the span of twelve months. Not much of a role model, granted, but that’s how he’s chosen to lead his life. The reason I’m telling you this is because Wyatt is Juliet’s only role model for relationships,” Randolph explained.

  “She knows what it feels like to be hurt by love. Her mother never really got over Wyatt, and I guess that transferred to Juliet. She doesn’t want to wind up like that—bitter and heartbroken for twenty years.”

  “So Juliet sees that as being typical of relationships and marriage,” J.T. interrupted.

  “Correct, also she’s been on stage dancing as a principal ballerina all of her adult life. Dance is her passion, her love and her escape. In two days, all of that’s going to come to an end. She’ll have to walk off into the sunset to…” He didn’t finish.

  “What?”

  “…Her future. Change isn’t easy for any of us.”

  “And she’s anxious about it.”

  “An understatement, but accurate. Then you show up, and apparently complicate matters. I think time and patience are in order.”

  J.T. shook his head and stood to leave. “She’s killing me.”

  J.T. returned to his office and worked the rest of the evening. He’d taken too much time away from his job already. But he was sure that nothing was over.

  Later that evening, J.T. sat at his desk in quiet darkness listening to the buzz of his computer program filtering through his latest innovation. In reality, he felt nothing. The utter elation he should have felt at the success of his latest designs was chilled by his heartache.

  The software problem he’d been struggling with for the last two years had been solved in the past two days.

  He looked back at his desk then turned his head away from the screens. Saying it out loud was futile. But there was no other explanation for it. She was right, he needed balance.

  In the short time he and Juliet had been together, he’d begun to see the problem from a completely different perspective. Then something she had said that night here in his office had completely changed his perception. He’d been looking at the software design problem from the wrong direction.

  He looked down on the coffee table and picked up the familiar playbill. Juliet had been his inspiration without even knowing it. The clear and exacting way she saw the solution had eluded him. For two years he’d been blind to the obvious, because his unyielding way of looking at things.

  For the past two days he’d kept his distance. He’d done his job, he went to meetings, he ran the company almost on autopilot, but emotionally he was a disaster.

  His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door. He looked at his watch. It was late, too late for anyone else to be working. Then it occurred to him that it had to be the cleaning crew. “The office is fine, come back later,” he called out as he plopped down on the new sofa his mother had bought. The door opened anyway. “I said come back later.”

  Trey stopped by and stuck his head in the office. “I tried calling you last night and again this afternoon,” he said as he walked into the dimly lit office and looked around.

  The office looked completely different from what he’d expected. It was comfortable and warm. Trey, expecting to see J.T. sitting at his desk with his terminals blaring their eerie blue light, instead he found him sitting on the cushioned sofa with the playbill in his hands. He walked over and sat down in the chair across from him.

  “Nice job.” He began as he continued to look around the comfortable room. “Warm cozy, very nice. I’m surprised. I expected something a bit more…” he procrastinated searching for the right word, “…sterile.”

  J.T. absently looked around the room. Trey was right. The room was nice and cozy and a far cry from where it had begun just a few weeks earlier. He smiled and shook his head as he thought about where his life was a few weeks earlier. He was happily on his way to corporate bliss.

  Now look at him, he was frustrated, disheartened and miserable. He had proposed to a woman who was as opposite from himself as possible and finally he was so in love he couldn’t see straight.

  “As I said, I called earlier, but your very efficient secretary told me that you were unavailable until further notice.”

  “I am.”

  “You don’t look unavailable to me.”

  “Look closer,” J.T. grumbled, “Better yet, I ha
ve work to do, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Not so fast, rumor has it that you could us a little cheering up.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “A friend of mine suggested that I stop by and check on you.”

  “What friend?”

  “Doesn’t matter, the point is, it looks like he was right, you could use a little cheering up. Why don’t we go out tonight and see what kind of trouble we can get into?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “My friend told me that there’s a very interesting party on Embassy row this evening.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “Okay, how about a little gala at the Treasury Department?” J.T. shook his head no as Trey continued with his suggestions. “Let’s see, there’s a party at the main post office, a soiree at the Department of the Interior and a fundraiser at the Department of Justice?”

  “I’m really not in a partying mood.”

  “They’re a lot of lovely ladies just waiting to meet the CEO of E-Corp.”

  “No thanks.”

  “So, do I have to see you moping around the rest of your life feeling sorry for yourself or are you going to get up and do something about this mess you’ve created?”

  J.T. looked at Trey with annoyance as he tossed the playbill on the glass coffee table. The answer to his question was obvious, J.T. intended to mope. “You could just go and leave me alone,” he said.

  Trey casually picked up the playbill and scanned it. “Nah, not exactly the answer I was looking for so let’s try again.” He opened his mouth to continue.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Which part, the Senator who’s really Juliet’s half-brother, the definitive turn down, or the marriage proposal?”

  “You knew about Randolph and Juliet?”

  “I just found out. Kind of puts a different slant on things, don’t you think.”

  “Don’t you have stock options to buy or an investor to annoy or something else constructive to do?”

  Trey looked at his watch confirming the time. “Actually no, at least not at the moment, however, now that you mention it, I do have a theory about all of this.”

  “No,” J.T. said warning him.

  “But it’s a good one,” Trey assured him.

  “No. I’m not in the mood to listen to any of your page from a player handbook, theories.”

  “You’re gonna kick yourself for not listening to me.”

  “In what world does the word no, disappear from your vocabulary?”

  “Good, I’d be delighted to share.” J.T. looked at him with murderous intent. The last thing he was in the mood for was Trey’s ridiculous quips and pearls of wisdom. “In the nutshell, old habits die hard so it’s time for some new ones.” The look from J.T. continued as the sincerity of Trey’s expression revealed that he was completely serious.

  “Like what, she doesn’t want to see or hear from me.”

  “Well then,” Trey added, “as far as I can see there’s only one way out of this.”

  J.T. looked to him with interest. He had racked his brains for the past two days searching for an answer to his problem. How was he going to get Juliet back in his life permanently?”

  “You know what you have to do,” Trey said.

  J.T. looked at him lazily. “What?”

  “Go to her, she’s the only one who can help you now.”

  “Juliet won’t see me, I’ve tried. She’s been in some kind of intense rehearsal for the performance tomorrow night.”

  “That’s not the, who, to which I’m referring.”

  J.T. looked at him in wonder having absolutely no idea who Trey was talking about. Then it hit him, Mamma Lou.

  “Sorry it took so long to get here,” Patricia said as Juliet opened the door and greeted her warmly. “I’ve sort of been under the weather lately.”

  “How do you forget a man who was never yours in the first place?”

  “Awe, sweetie,” Patricia consoled Juliet as she opened her arms to take her in. They hugged for a long time until Juliet slowly backed away and they walked into the living room.

  Patricia immediately stopped short. “Nice chair.”

  “Thanks, don’t ask,” Juliet said seeing her questioning expression.

  Juliet took a deep breath and sighed as she walked over to the oversized lounge chair. “It’s the old feelings all over again. I thought I’d finally gotten through it. But here it is again, with happiness comes pain.”

  “No, Juliet, it doesn’t have to be like that.”

  “Who was I kidding?” She plopped down heavily on the seat. “What was I thinking? Dad left me, mom left me and the first time I stand up and refuse to walk away I got left anyway. The Bridges’ curse once again has reared its ugly head.”

  “That’s it,” Patricia began as she stamped her foot on the wooden floor getting Juliet’s attention. “There is no such thing as the Bridges’ curse. There’s only you, scared to death of leaving your cozy little world. You have gone way beyond the passive aggressive tendencies and abandonment issues and you’re seriously heading for clinically nutzo young lady.

  “You finally get over leaving the stage and changing careers and now this.” Patricia shook her head, crossed her arms and tapped her toe parentally. “Psychologically speaking, you have just invented your own Julietphobic phobia, fear of finding love, falling in love, being in love and lovingly living happily ever after.” She breathed finally.

  Juliet opened her mouth in awe. She looked at her friend with a mixture of shock and annoyance then a crack of humor chipped her sternness as they both instantly broke with laughter. Patricia collapsed down on the roomy chair beside Juliet and they hugged in misery again.

  “Clinically nutzo? Julietphobic phobia? I can’t believe that the medical board actually gave you a license to practice psychology with that line,” Juliet said. They laughed again until the moment still again.

  “Juliet, I still can’t believe you turned J.T. down. He asked to marry you for goodness sakes and you said no.”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “He loves you, you love him. Get over the Bridges curse and marry the man. Please, for me? I’m getting emotional roller coaster burnout.”

  “Another medical term I presume?” Juliet teased jokingly then turned serious. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I was a fool. I can’t go back and change my mind now.”

  “Girl, go get your man.”

  “He’s not my man, he never was. Don’t you get it, it was all a sham, a scheme to fool a nice old lady, and it worked. Unfortunately too well, ‘cause I got scammed too.”

  “I have hope.”

  “You always do.” They smiled in a brief moment of tranquility. “Okay,” Juliet took a deep breath. “Enough of this pity party, I don’t have time for this. I have a performance in two days, my last performance as a principal ballerina for CBC.”

  “Are you ready?”

  Juliet thought a moment then nodded her head assuredly. “Yes, I’m ready. So, what did you want to talk to me about? Your call sounded important.”

  Patricia smiled and instinctively held her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”

  The idea was pure insanity and even though his mother had suggested it first, only Trey could have come up with it and actually talked him into going. On an impulsive whim he decided to go to her, the only woman in the world who could help him. He got in the car and headed south, his destination, Crescent Island.

  When he took the ferry over hours earlier, he had no idea what he was going to say. All he knew was that he needed Mamma Lou’s help to win Juliet’s heart again.

  J.T. stood at the rail and watched as the Virginia mainland shoreline slowly came in to view as Mamma Lou’s words played in his heart.

  He had confessed that his relationship with Juliet had been a fraud and his only intention was to prevent her from matching him up with someone.

 
“It doesn’t matter how it started,” her voice gently echoed with wisdom, “what matter is how it ends. Follow your heart it will always lead you to love.”

  She fed him lunch, gave him a tour of her prized begonia gardens then sent him on his way. J.T. smiled and shook his head. His respect and love for Mamma Lou had grown but now he realized that, just as Tony, Raymond and Dennis had said, she had wisdom for love beyond most.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Juliet sat at her dressing table the lights dimmed and candles lit. She looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was down with a large red silk flower pinning it back on the side. She reached over and dropped a CD into the player. A slow smooth tranquil tone played through sending a relaxing rhythm through the room.

  She closed her eyes experiencing her usual ritual. This was her time of meditation. She used the few moments before a performance to get into character and let the ballet flow through her. She let go of her anxiety to find peace and let the music wash over her.

  Unfortunately the only thing she saw when she closed her eyes was J.T. She cupped her face in her hands and focused until the sound of light knocking on her door caught her attention. “Come,” she called out to the umpteenth interruption as she turned in her seat.

  Dressed in her costume Vanya peeked around the open the door. She smiled genuinely. “Hi, I just wanted to stop by before stage to wish you a good performance and break a leg.”

  “Thanks,” Juliet said, “I’ll see you on stage.”

  Vanya nodded and closed the door behind her.

  Juliet turned and picked up a make-up brush and brushed it across her cheeks. She dotted the bristles into the powder and prepared to brush her face again when another knock on the door got her attention. The constant parade of well-wishers had made her more nervous. “Come.”

  “You look wonderful,” Lena said as soon as she closed the door behind her.

  “Thanks,” Juliet said. “This is it, the final stage.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll be on stage again.”

  “As a guest dancer maybe, possibly, probably. But never again as the principal dancer for a company.”