by Marie Force
“It’s just better if I don’t think about him at all.”
“Didn’t you agree to stay in touch with him?”
“Yeah, but not regularly. Once in a while.”
“Hmmm…”
“What?” Ava asks.
“I just think you’re being unrealistic—and hear me out before you object. You loved this man for eight years. For six of them, you didn’t know where he was or if he was even alive, but you remained faithful to your feelings for him. Am I right?”
“Until I met Eric and fell in love with him.”
“So after you fell for Eric, you no longer had feelings for John?”
“Not exactly, but my feelings for John changed after I met Eric.”
“But they never went away completely, did they?”
“No, but… that doesn’t mean…” She looks over her shoulder at me, as if trying to calculate the damage her words are doing.
I keep my expression completely neutral, but inside… Inside, I’m bleeding.
“It’s okay to still have feelings for John, Ava. You’re not doing anything wrong by having them or acknowledging them. By denying them, you’re giving them permission to flourish in your subconscious, without your consent or control.”
“If those feelings are flourishing in Ava’s subconscious, does that mean he’s what she really wants?”
Ava spins around in her chair to stare at me, shock stamped into her expression.
“No,” Jess says, “that’s not what it means. Ava is awake and aware and fully in the moment when she tells you she loves you, that she chose you and married you because she wanted to. You should believe her when she says those things.”
I glance down at the floor. “It’s just that I can’t help but wonder…”
“What?” Ava asks, sounding desperate and undone. “What do you wonder?”
“If you went through with our wedding because you wanted to or felt you had to.”
Ava gasps and stares at me in horror. “Eric…”
“Guys, listen.” Jess must feel like a witness to an unfolding disaster at this point. “We need to sit down when you get back and work through this. The situation you find yourself in is nearly unprecedented, at least it is as far as my practice is concerned. There’s no road map that neatly lays out how you proceed from here. You’re going to have to write that map yourselves, and we can do that, but it’s going to take some hard work.”
“O-okay,” Ava says. “I-I’ll let you know when we’re back in New York.”
“Please do, and call me if you need to talk again before then.”
“We will.”
“Hang in there, and be careful not to say things that can’t be unsaid. This is just a speed bump. Everything will be okay. It’s just going to take time and persistence and work. No one ever tells us what hard work marriage can be.”
Jessica is probably hoping we won’t go crazy before we get home, and I appreciate what she’s trying to do. But the thing about Ava and me is that it’s always been somewhat effortless between us. Take away the external factors we’ve had to deal with, and there’s been nothing but perfection, at least I thought so.
But who knows now?
Ava ends the Skype call with Jess, and we exist in painful silence for several minutes.
I clear my throat, forcing myself to sit up a little straighter. “I think we should go home.”
“Now?”
I nod.
“But we have two more weeks… It’s our honeymoon.”
“The honeymoon is over, wouldn’t you say?”
“No! It’s not over. Not unless you want it to be.”
“I don’t want it to be, but this… It’s too much, Ava, and being here only makes it harder. It’s like the beautiful scenery is mocking us because everything is such a mess.”
“I shouldn’t have told you about the dreams.”
I look at her, incredulous. “Yes, you should have.”
“No.” She shakes her head, her lips pressed tightly together. “I shouldn’t have. We were better off when you didn’t know.”
“I knew something was wrong days before you told me what it was. Don’t forget that I know you better than anyone, and if you think I couldn’t see that something was torturing you, then you don’t know me very well.”
“I’m sorry,” she says softly, her red eyes filling once again. “I’m so, so sorry about all of this.”
“Don’t be sorry. We’ll figure our way through it, but I can’t do that here. I just can’t. I want to go home.”
“Okay.” She looks and sounds so defeated, and I feel terrible about that. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Thirteen
JULIANNE
After another few days of intense question-and-answer practice, I feel like John is finally prepared. We’re leaving for New York tomorrow morning on a military charter flight that Muncie arranged so John won’t have to fly commercial. He requested permission for Amy and me to accompany them and seemed surprised to receive approval that he conveys to me by phone.
“Goes to show that the Navy will give Captain West anything he wants right now,” Muncie says.
“As long as he participates in their dog and pony show.”
“True.”
“How’s he feeling?”
Muncie called me early this morning to tell me that John was under the weather and would like to take the day off. Amy and I spent the day out at Coronado, where we toured the famous hotel and sat on the beach for a few hours as military planes came and went from the nearby base. I was concerned all day about whether he was truly ill, sick of me or heartsick after reading the emotionally charged letters. And if he’s truly ill, how will that impact the trip as well as the interviews that begin the day after tomorrow?
“He seems better. He’s intent on taking you and Amy to tour a craft brewery before we leave, if you’re still up for that.”
“Sure, that sounds good.”
“Great, we’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“We’ll be ready.”
I end the call and glance at Amy, who’s brushing her hair after blowing it dry.
“So he’s feeling better?” she asks.
“That’s what Muncie said. They’ll be here in an hour to go to the craft beer place.”
“I hope there’s food involved. I’m starving.”
“Me, too.”
We get ourselves together and are waiting in front of the hotel when Muncie parks his SUV at the main doors, right on time. If there’s a benefit to doing business with military members, punctuality is definitely one of them.
I’m sitting behind John, so I can’t see how he looks, and I’d ask Amy for a report by text, but I can’t risk that setting her off again on the many reasons why I shouldn’t care how he looks. So I have to wait until we get to where we’re going to look for myself.
“There’re like seventy breweries in the San Diego area,” John says, breaking the silence. “I’m taking you to my favorite one from when I used to live here, but if you asked a hundred people, they’d all list a different one as their favorite. I figure you ladies probably don’t care too much about how the beer is made. Is that a safe assumption?”
“It is,” Amy says, “though we do like drinking it.”
Both men laugh.
“In that case, we’ll skip the tour of the brewery and go right to their tasting room in Little Italy, where we can also get some dinner. That part of their operation was added while I was gone, so it’ll be my first time there, too.”
“Sounds perfect,” Amy says. “We’re both famished.”
“The food is nothing fancy, but it’s supposed to be good.”
“We don’t need fancy.” Amy glances at me, and I can tell she’s wondering why I’m so quiet.
I’m not quiet. I’m panicked. The second I saw him sitting in the passenger side of the SUV, my entire body began to hum in acute awareness of him. I wish I could make it stop, but it’s not something
I can control—or ignore. When he started speaking, the humming intensified to the point that I feel like someone plugged me into a nuclear reactor or something equally powerful.
Amy is right. I should drop him as a client and never go near him again. I try to imagine actually doing that. For one thing, I’d lose my job, and most of my new media contacts would shun me for abandoning the tour I set up. But my stomach really starts to ache at the thought of abandoning John, who has come to trust and rely upon me to guide him through these next couple of weeks.
I cannot desert him. I just can’t.
My phone vibrates with a text from Amy. What’s wrong with u? U look like u r going to pass out.
Everything is wrong, and there’s nothing at all I can do about it.
Nothing, I reply.
I call BS.
I glare at her.
She glares right back at me, seeing me as only a sister can. Normally, I love the close bond I share with my siblings. But the bond I cherish could be jeopardized if I allow these nascent feelings I have for John to flourish. It has to stop. Right now.
I take a deep breath and hold it for nearly a minute before I release it slowly, quietly, so Amy won’t hear me.
My family matters too much to me to risk their censure. I can hear Eric now. With all the men on this planet, you had to choose him? And he’d be one thousand percent right. Not to mention the career I’ve busted my ass for. Marcie would be appalled if she knew that the biggest client we’ve ever landed makes my body hum with desire whenever he’s around—and even when he isn’t. All I have to do is think about him, and my whole system goes batshit crazy.
Enough, Julianne. Stop it right now. I give myself a stern talking-to that ends when we arrive at our destination. Since I’m on John’s side of the car, I hold the door for him and hand over the crutches that Muncie retrieves from the cargo area.
When he’s standing, John positions himself on the crutches and then glances at me. His gaze connects with mine, and I feel the torment coming from him. It’s visceral and hits me like a punch to the gut. “Are you all right?”
He offers a quick nod, but he’s not all right, and I want to know why. What happened since I last saw him to knock him sideways? And dear God, he got his hair cut, which only makes him hotter, if that’s possible.
The rest of us follow him, moving at his pace, which seems slower than it was the other day when we walked down the block to get breakfast. Did he have a setback because of that outing?
When we’re seated at a table inside the cavernous dining space, John suggests we order flights so we can try all the different kinds of beer.
I don’t want beer or food or anything other than information about what’s going on with him. But I can’t ask, not with Muncie and Amy there and my sister turning everything I say and do into a BFD. What if she goes home and tells our brothers that I’m crushing on my client? My stomach clenches. She’d better not, or I’ll have to kill her.
“Everything all right, Jules?” John asks, gazing at me across the table with piercing blue eyes. I feel warm all over, as if the sun has just broken through clouds and decided to shine directly on me.
“Uh, yeah. All good. You?”
“Better now,” he says, keeping that formidable gaze trained on me.
What does he mean by that? Dear God, my mind races and my heart beats so fast, I fear I might be having some sort of anxiety attack. I get up and manage to knock over my chair in my haste to get away.
“Sorry,” I mutter to the people at the next table, who just missed being hit by my flying chair. After righting the chair, I grab my purse and tell the others I’ll be right back without looking directly at any of them.
I can tell they’re all looking at me like I’m crazy. I’m sure that’s how I must seem. I silently beg Amy to stay at the table and not follow me. Of course, that’s too much to hope for. She’s right on my heels when I step outside. The cool evening air makes me realize my face is blazing with heat and embarrassment and despair. I’m almost thirty years old, and I’ve never felt anything even close to what I do when he looks at me with those eyes that seem to see right through me.
Amy takes hold of my arm and tries to force me to look at her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I started to feel sick.”
“You’re never sick. Ever. What gives, Jules?”
I shake her off. “I’m allowed to feel sick even if I’m never sick.” I take greedy deep breaths of the fresh air, hoping it can cure what ails me.
“Do you honestly think you’re fooling me? I know exactly what’s wrong with you, and that’s why I told you to walk away before it was too late.”
I’m tempted to argue with her, to ask her what she’s talking about, but that would be stupid. We both know exactly what she’s talking about. “I can’t,” I say in the softest-possible whisper.
“Yes, you can. You have to.”
“I really can’t, Amy.”
“You can get another job.”
“If I walk away from this client at this moment, I’ll never work in this business again. But that’s not why.”
She folds her arms and stares me down. “Why not, then?”
“Because of him. Because of what he’s been through. He’s lost everyone he ever cared about, Amy. He’s put his faith in me—and that faith was hard-won. If I walk away from him, he’ll be left to flounder through this on his own, and I can’t let him do that. They’ll swallow him whole.” My throat tightens when my emotions get the better of me.
I don’t do this. I don’t become emotionally involved with my clients. Most of them don’t deserve my emotional involvement. But this one…
I look to my older sister, who always has the answers I need. “What am I going to do?”
She puts an arm around me and walks me away from the valet parking guys, who’re showing a little too much interest in us. “You’re going to do your job—and only your job.”
I nod. I can do that.
“You’re a smart woman. You know as well as I do that this would be a disaster of epic proportions, so you have to stop it before it goes any further.”
“I know. I just wish I knew how to make it stop.” I grasp her arms. “How do I make it stop, Ames?”
“Go back to when you didn’t like him. Remember how you named him Captain Cranky? Call up that version of him any time you need to be reminded of why it’s not a good idea to allow him to be anything more than just another client.”
“Just another client.” I repeat the words, hoping they’ll permeate my addled brain. “I can do that.”
“You have to do that. You absolutely have to.”
“I will. You have to believe me. I don’t want to feel this way. It’s the last thing in the world I want.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Any time you need to, and stay the hell away from him when you aren’t working. If that doesn’t work, think about Eric and Ava and what they’d have to say about it.”
Their names are a sobering shot of cold water in my face. I witnessed their torment firsthand, all of it caused by the same man who makes my body hum with awareness. “Yeah, okay.”
“Take a minute. Get your shit together. I’ll deal with the guys.”
“Thanks, Amy.”
She squeezes my shoulder and walks away, disappearing inside to make my excuses.
One of the valets approaches us. “Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“That guy you’re with, the one on the crutches? Is he that SEAL from the video?” The young man’s eyes glitter with anticipation of my reply.
This, right here, is why John needs me. “No, that’s not him, but he gets mistaken for him all the time.”
His face falls with disappointment. “Oh, damn. I was so sure it was him.”
I shake my head, take a deep breath and try to find the grounded center that has guided me throughout my life and career. I know the difference between right and wrong. Our par
ents pounded those lessons into our heads when we were growing up, with lofty expectations for academic and professional success. Each of us has achieved that success, and I refuse to be the one who disappoints the others.
My feelings for John would devastate Eric, and I love my brother too much to hurt him that way. I take a few more deep breaths, trying to calm myself before I return to the table. When I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I head back inside, even as my stomach continues to churn with nerves. I hope I’ll be able to eat something.
“Sorry about that.” I wonder if the chipper tone I’m attempting is convincing. “I had to take a call while I was in the ladies’ room. What’d I miss?”
Muncie holds up a glass full of dark beer. “Beer delivery.”
I glance at the flight of six small glasses that’s been left at my place before venturing a tentative look at John.
He’s studying me with that intense, knowing way of his that probably made him an effective SEAL. He never misses anything.
“Which one do you like?” I ask Amy, desperate to look anywhere but at him.
“The lighter ale.” She points to the glass that has the lightest-colored beer. “I can’t do the heavier stuff.”
“I’d be happy to take it off your hands,” Muncie says.
Amy smiles and slides the three glasses on the right side of her flight across the table to him.
“Easy, sailor,” John says. “You’re driving.”
“No worries. I’m only having a little.”
The humming is so loud, it makes my ears ring. What I wouldn’t give to know how to make the involuntary reactions stop. I try to ignore the humming and the tingling, but desire has my heart racing and my palms damp with sweat, which never happens. I study the menu, trying to find something that appeals to me. I was starving an hour ago. Now the thought of eating nauseates me. “What’s everyone having?”
The guys want burgers, and Amy has her eye on a chicken Caesar salad.
My phone and Amy’s chime with incoming texts.
She gasps. “Oh my God.”
“What?” I’m almost afraid of what she’s going to say.