by T. K. Leigh
“I have to go.” It’s all I can tell her, at least for now.
I spin on my heels, about to race to the elevator when Viv approaches, her own expression frantic. She doesn’t even have to utter a word. I know she’s here because of the news about Sonia. Viv is the only other person who’s aware of the identity of the women I interviewed, including everything they’ve been through.
“It’s okay.” Her voice is a low whisper. She squeezes my biceps, giving me a reassuring smile. “Go. Be her voice.”
I nod, then hurry from the office, doing everything to keep my emotions under control. I barely knew the woman, but in the brief time we spent together, I felt a connection to her. I can only imagine how August feels, if he even knows.
I stop in my tracks, imagining him watching this story break on the news. I can’t stomach that. No one deserves to learn about the death of a loved one that way. So I reach out to him the only way I can.
To: August Laurent
From: Evie Fitzgerald
Subject: Sonia Moreno
Dear August,
Please call me as soon as you receive this message. It’s about Sonia. News just came over the wire. I’d rather tell you over the phone instead of through email.
E
I stare at my phone the entire ride toward Police Plaza, waiting for him to call.
He never does.
By the time the cab drops me off a block from police headquarters, news of Sonia’s death must have already spread. Reporters are camped out front, setting up cameras and preparing to go live to break the news, all for better ratings. As I hurry up the stairs and into the lobby, the place is a madhouse. Everyone passing appears as if they know exactly where they’re going. I’m lost and out of my element, unsure if I’m even in the right place or if they’ll take me seriously.
“Can I help you?” a woman asks in a thick New York accent as I look around.
I turn, my stare falling on a young brunette sitting behind a pane of what I imagine is bulletproof glass. My heart breaks a little at how far our society’s fallen that you can’t even feel safe in a police station anymore.
Straightening my spine, I step toward her. “My name’s Guinevere Fitzgerald. I work for Blush magazine.”
Rolling her eyes in annoyance, she points to the front doors. “Reporters have to stay outside and wait for the press conference.”
“No,” I interject. “I’m not here to get information. I’m here to give information. I just recently interviewed Sonia Moreno. I may have evidence to help in finding her killer.”
“The detectives already have someone in custody who was seen in the vicinity of her house.”
“Have you questioned her husband?” I press.
“Her husband?” She arches a brow. “The director?”
“Yes.” I retrieve my cell phone from my purse, unlocking the screen and scrolling through the audio files until I find the one I need. “She spoke of him. How she was getting ready to file for divorce, but was worried about what he might do.” I hit play. Sonia’s voice fills the room. Her subtle Spanish accent leaves no question that it’s her.
“Turn that off,” the desk sergeant orders, glancing at people lingering close by. She gets up from her seat and walks away. A few seconds later, the secure door opens and she holds it for me. “Are you coming or not?” she presses when I don’t move.
“Right. Of course.” I walk toward her and follow the sergeant down several long corridors. I stay as close to her as possible, worried I’ll get lost or trampled by people rushing around if I stray. I barely breathe until we step into the elevator and the doors shut, allowing me a reprieve from the chaos. I love the busy atmosphere at the magazine, but it’s never like this.
When the elevator stops, we exit onto the twelfth floor, the words “Homicide Unit” in bold letters hanging on the wall in front of us.
“This way.”
We continue down several hallways, the sound of two-way radios and loud voices filling the maze-like space. Approaching a door labeled “Conference”, she points to a line of chairs against the wall.
“Wait there. Detective Mulroney will be with you shortly.”
“Thanks,” I say, but she’s already disappeared.
Taking a seat, I smile as a man in a dark suit with a buzz cut, a detective shield hanging from his neck, rushes past, carrying a bunch of papers. I pull my planner out of my bag, scratching down notes in one of the free pages. There’s no doubt in my mind Ethan is involved, not with the threats he’d made. What I have to say may not be useful, but I must try. I’ll never be able to live with myself if I don’t and he continues to walk free. Julian would want me to do the same. He stood up to an injustice and protected his mother. I need to protect Sonia’s legacy.
When the door to the conference room opens, I snap my head up, looking in its direction, my hands growing clammy. I’m innocent of committing a crime, but I’m just as nervous as I would be if that weren’t the case.
“Thank you for coming in and sharing this with us, Mr… What do I even call you? Now that I know who August Laurent is…”
My pulse skyrockets when I hear that name.
“Call me whatever you’d like,” a familiar voice interjects. But it’s lacking the normal vitality I’m used to hearing during our conversations. It’s somber, solemn, not to mention the subtle French accent seems to have disappeared, as well.
The door widens and two men step out. I freeze, unsure how to act, whether August would want me to acknowledge him. He knows what I look like. But I have no idea what he looks like. Every single woman I’ve interviewed has remained incredibly tight-lipped about his appearance, about his true identity.
But as the detective moves to the side and I meet the eyes of the man I’ve spent months obsessing over, my heart plummets. The room spins, my grip on my planner loosening. It falls to the floor, pages spreading in every direction as the world seems to give out from beneath me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Julian?” I say through the thickness in my throat, fighting to capture a breath as I stand. Chills rush through me, my limbs trembling as flashes of the past several months play before me. What I thought was a coincidence when I ran into him at the Steam Room. August calling me because a “little birdie” told him I was looking for him. His sudden change of heart after he’d adamantly refused my request to interview a few of his clients. His agreeable attitude wasn’t because of any skillset I possessed. It was all because he wanted to sleep with me.
“Julian?” I squeak again when he only stares at me, his jaw slack. My expression pleads with him to finally say something. But he doesn’t. He simply bows his head, shaking it, silently confirming the awful truth. My eyes burn with the betrayal filling me and I spin from him, running down the hall, searching desperately for the elevator.
“Guinevere! Wait!” he calls out, but I continue, wheezing as my sobs remain trapped in my throat.
With each step I take, the more it makes sense. I often mentally remarked about the parallels between the two men. But I never considered Julian was August Laurent. He would have told me. Wouldn’t he? A voice in the back of my head reminds me he wouldn’t if he were trying to hide the truth. And there’s only one reason he would do that… Because on the nights he wasn’t with me, he was keeping another woman company. The thought turns my stomach.
I somehow find the bank of elevators and send a prayer of thanks to the big man upstairs when there’s already one waiting. Once inside, I repeatedly hit the button for the lobby. Julian’s voice grows closer, calling my name, begging me to stop. I bang the button faster, willing the doors to close. They finally do just as he reaches the elevator, the echo of his fists slamming against the doors filling the car. I release a relieved breath and slink against the wall, needing the support to keep me upright.
When the elevator arrives on the main floor, I dash from it, keeping my head lowered, refusing to look over my shoulder in case Julian…or August…or whoe
ver he is manages to catch up. I barrel past the front desk, ignoring the desk sergeant’s questions about how it all went, and continue through the large glass doors.
The instant I step outside, a coldness hits me like a wall, and not just from the frigid temperatures on this December morning. There’s a strange feeling in the air. The sky is a foreboding shade of gray, one I’ve grown accustomed to over the years.
I inhale a breath, tasting the impending snow in my mouth. Based on the weather report I caught earlier, that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen over the next few hours. The first snowfall of the season. Normally, I’d play hooky from work and enjoy the beauty of snow falling around New York City. But my mood’s been drastically altered.
Tugging my jacket closer, I do my best not to slip on the slick brick as I hurry past the growing number of reporters, evading their shouts asking if I know anything about Sonia Moreno. I ignore everything, until he bellows my name, his voice carrying across the plaza, echoing against the tall skyscrapers.
“Guinevere!”
I glance behind me, watching as Julian frantically runs toward me, panic and desperation covering him. His stare is distressed, neck stiff, jaw tense.
“Leave me alone!” With quick steps, I continue toward the corner, raising my hand to hail a cab. When one pulls up to the curb, I open the door to get in, but come to an abrupt stop when an arm blocks me.
“Guinevere, please. Just hear me out.”
I keep my eyes forward for a moment, my vision obscured with tears. This truth is worse than Trevor walking away after twelve years. He may have had his faults, but he never lied to me, never misled me, never used me.
“Hear you out?” I squeak, biting down at my bottom lip, hoping to transfer the pain from my heart to another part of my body. “Why? So you can make up an excuse about why you lied to me? I’ve heard them all before. I don’t need to listen to you go on about how you wanted to tell me the truth but didn’t know how. That’s a bunch of bullshit. You just wanted a guaranteed piece of ass every goddamn night.” A shiver rolls through me, acid burning my stomach. “Nothing more.”
I go to duck under his arm and into the cab, pausing when I hear his voice again.
“I haven’t taken on a client since the beginning of June.”
I have no reason to believe him, but something in his tone makes me second-guess myself. I still, one foot in the cab, one foot on the ground. So what if he hasn’t taken on a client since June? Does that change anything?
“Lady, are you in or out?” the cabbie asks in a thick Middle Eastern accent, glancing at me. I look at him, then back at Julian, torn.
“Don’t run from me, Guinevere. Not without knowing the truth. Please.”
I close my eyes, squeezing them tightly. Once again, I’m entangled in a battle between my brain and heart. My heart screams at me to stay, but my brain tells me to walk away and never look back.
“Please,” he says once more, this time softer. “‘No matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.’”
The instant Julian utters that quote from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I exhale a protracted breath, shaking my head. I hate that he’s using that movie against me. It’s unfair, but it still makes me stop and think rationally for a moment. And a moment is all it takes for me to realize I’ll never move on unless I have answers.
Blowing out an exasperated sigh, I step away from the cab and close the door, but don’t turn around. If I peer into Julian’s eyes, I fear I’ll crack. “You wanted to explain. Here’s your chance. Explain.”
“Please, look at me.”
“Explain,” I repeat, this time harder.
At first, it’s silent, then he exhales deeply. I picture him running his hands through his hair in resignation. “I never intended things to get this messed up.”
“No? What was your intent then, Julian? Or is it August?” Spinning around, I throw my hands up in frustration, paying no attention to the snow beginning to fall around us. “I don’t even know your real name.”
“Julian Gage is my real name. I was born August 10, 1980, in Jersey City. I never lied to you about that.”
“But you failed to mention you also go by August Laurent, the man I was doing a story on.” With each word, my voice gets more and more agitated. “You called me repeatedly, pretending to be this other person, when all along it was you. Hell, you even used a fake French accent so I would be none the wiser. You had so many opportunities to come clean, yet you deliberately kept the truth from me. Why? Why would you do something like this?”
“I never meant to hurt you, Guinevere.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit, Julian. You did mean to hurt me! The second you made a conscious decision to lie to me, to deceive me, you intended to hurt me. You know what they say about secrets, don’t you?”
He remains silent.
“Two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead. At some point, the truth was bound to come out. Or were you going to wait until we were married to tell me you had to leave on occasion to go screw some other woman?”
He grabs my biceps, his eyes imploring. “I know I fucked up. I knew it the second I walked into the guest room of my beach house and saw you wearing that stunning two-piece. That entire weekend, there were so many times I considered telling you the truth. Because I had started falling for you. Even in those early days. For the first time in my life, I wanted somebody to know every part of me. The good. The bad. The ugly. You know my ugly. The reason I am August Laurent is because of that ugly.”
“Tell me this, Julian…” My voice wavers as my next question remains on the tip of my tongue, my throat closing up at what his response will most likely be. “When you approached me with your proposition, did you only do so because you knew I was on the hunt for August Laurent?”
He briefly closes his eyes, hanging his head as he drops his hold on me. “I wasn’t planning on calling you as August Laurent that Monday after our first dinner. I was just going to let it go. But I found myself forming feelings for you. And I liked the idea that I could help you get promoted. So I picked up the phone and did the one thing I swore I’d never do. I called a journalist who was hoping to do a story about me.”
“Did you not even stop to think about what this would do to my career?” I shriek, pacing in front of him. “All along, I honestly thought I did something right to get the elusive August Laurent to agree to an interview when he’s refused everyone else for years. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could prove everyone wrong and show them I am good at what I do. But all along, the only reason August Laurent agreed was because Julian Gage wanted to get into my pants!”
“That’s not true. That’s not the only reason.” He advances toward me, but I step away.
“Oh really? If I weren’t the one sitting at that coffee shop trying to get a lead on August Laurent, if it were someone else, would you have reached out to them?” I lean into him, my nostrils flaring and fists clenched as I wait for his answer. “If I hadn’t shared my frustrations over the direction of the story, would you have granted me access to some of your clients?”
He averts his eyes. His silence is the only confirmation I need.
I push past him once more and hail a cab, keeping my back turned. I can’t stomach the sight of him, of the visible reminder I’m not enough, that I never would have gotten this far with this story, with this promotion, if he hadn’t made it so.
When a cab pulls up, I go to pull the passenger door open.
“I love you, Guinevere!”
I stop in my tracks, choking out a sob at his admission. I’ve waited months for him to finally say those three beautiful words. I pictured him sweeping me into his arms, showering me with kisses as he declared his love for the first time. Instead, it tastes of desperation, one final act to make me stay.
“That’s the truth. That hasn’t changed. You taught me that. You. That has to count for something.”
“Maybe. But you know what you taught me?” I lo
ok over my shoulder at him, but he doesn’t answer. “That being spontaneous comes at a cost, one I’m no longer willing to pay.” I hold his gaze for a moment, watching as the snow falls around him.
“I’m ready to give it all up for you. All of it.” His voice is strained and wrought with emotion.
I bite my bottom lip to stop my chin from quivering. “I wish I could believe you. I just don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Goodbye…whoever you are.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Are you certain this is the direction you want to take?” Viv looks at me from over her horn-rimmed glasses.
I rub my clammy hands along my pants, glancing out the window of her office. The city is dark, despite it only being three in the afternoon. A downpour soaks Manhattan, the weather matching my mood.
“Like I said, I’ve given this serious consideration over the past few weeks. I didn’t get the story because of my talent or tenacity. I got it because…” I trail off as I attempt to compose myself. The last thing I need is for Viv to see how the truth of who Julian is has affected me. “Because I had a personal relationship with my…subject, although it was unbeknownst to me at the time. That still doesn’t change anything.” I straighten my spine, rebuilding the wall around my heart. “I would have never gotten remotely close to landing that story had he not had a personal interest in me. You should choose your new assistant editor based on their talent, not luck…or the fact that the subject hoped to get something out of our agreement.”
Telling Viv I no longer want to be considered for assistant editor has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but it’s necessary. I could never accept a promotion I didn’t earn.
When she doesn’t respond, I stand, heading toward the door.
“Do you honestly believe that?”
I turn around. “What do you mean?”
She removes her glasses, chewing on the end of the frames. “That you didn’t get the interview with Mr. Laurent based on talent.”