“I’m going to a wedding?” He moved into the other lane and then briefly glanced in her direction. “Where and when is this wedding I’m going to?”
She couldn’t tell if he sounded amused or annoyed. “You don’t have to go. But I’d like you to come with me.”
Reaching over, he took her hand, squeezed it, and then placed it on his thigh. “I’m giving you a hard time. If you want me there, I’ll come. Just tell me where and when.”
“It’s in June at Uncle Mark’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard.”
“I’ve gone to Block Island three or four times but never Martha’s Vineyard,” he said, taking their exit off the highway and approaching a stop sign. “Which way now?”
“Left, and at the traffic light take a right. We should be there in about five minutes.”
Fundraisers and other society events didn’t faze her; she’d simply been to too many of them over the years. While each one might be for a different purpose, they all shared things in common, including the people on the guest lists. And some of those people were ones she only interacted with when given no other choice. The first person she spotted after walking into her uncle’s house fell into that category. Before Tasha spotted her and either dragged her into a conversation or, worse, started hitting on Aaron—the woman was like a tiger stalking its prey when she saw a hot guy—Juliette took Aaron’s hand and hurried in the opposite direction in search of her parents.
While sitting next to her at the cottage or eating dinner with her at his house, Aaron forgot Juliette wasn’t like everyone else he knew. When he kissed her, it never occurred to him that the woman in his arms came from one of the country's wealthiest families or that she called President Sherbrooke Uncle Warren. No, when they were together, she was just Juliette Belmont, the woman opening a new business in town and taking over his heart.
With the truth all around him, he couldn’t forget or ignore it.
Aaron remained silent as she led him down another hallway and into a home library after speaking with her parents. Men dressed in custom-tailored suits and women wearing diamonds the size of golf balls sat chatting away inside. Thankfully, not only did he know four of the room’s inhabitants, but he liked them. He hoped the rest of Juliette’s family was as friendly and down-to-earth as the cousins he’d met last weekend.
The man standing near Curt looked in their direction as they entered and smiled. Aaron never wasted his time reading trashy tabloid magazines. Still, he’d seen the man’s face enough times over the years while standing in the supermarket check-out line to know the individual next to Curt was Jake Sherbrooke, President Sherbrooke’s son.
“We were just talking about you,” Jake said in place of a proper greeting, hugging Juliette when they joined the group.
“No, we weren’t,” a pretty redhead commented, giving Juliette a hug once her cousin moved away.
“Don’t worry, Juliette, Charlie is right. We weren’t talking about you; we were talking about Aaron,” Trent said with a grin.
“Just ignore them. It’s what I do. Especially that one.” The woman named Charlie pointed toward Jake, then extended her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Aaron.”
Nodding, Juliette slipped an arm protectively around his waist. “It’s what we all do.”
“Funny, you weren’t ignoring me this morning, Charlie,” Jake said with a slight shrug before looking back at Aaron. “I hope my cousin treats you better than my wife treats me. Although knowing my cousin, it’s debatable.”
She’d told him her cousins Jake and Trent had similar personalities. From what he’d heard so far, it was true. “Juliette has her moments. But most of the time, she behaves.”
Juliette pinched his side but didn’t respond to his comment. “Are Scott and Paige here?”
“No. They decided to play it safe and not come,” Jake answered.
“Makes sense.” Juliette sounded disappointed as she accepted a glass of wine from a passing waiter and offered it to Aaron before taking one for herself.
During one of their many conversations, Juliette had shared her sister-in-law was pregnant with twins and due in June. He knew next to nothing about what pregnant women should or shouldn’t do, but traveling seemed like something you might want to limit once you reached a certain point.
“Are Courtney and Josh here?” Juliette asked.
For the next moment or two, Curt gave her a rundown of what relatives were in attendance. After that, the conversation turned to Juliette’s new business venture as well as her future home and the changes it needed. Eventually, they made their way to the large tent set up outside. Considering he’d so far spotted Governor Wentworth, Congresswoman Janice Bettencourt, Drew McKenzie, the star quarterback for the New England Rebels football team, and actor Anderson Brady among the guests tonight, he could only imagine the conversations that were going on around him.
No sooner did Juliette sit in the chair he’d pulled out for her than she stood back up. “All of you be nice,” she said, looking at her three male cousins and then at him. “I’ll be right back. I just want to say hello to Tory.” She kissed his cheek before heading across the dance floor.
His eyes, along with those of several of the other male guests in attendance, followed her every movement. Without realizing it, he pushed back his chair so he could follow her and make sure everyone there knew who she’d be leaving with tonight.
“Wow, you’ve got it bad.” Jake’s voice stopped him before he stood. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about. My cousin hasn’t taken her eyes off you all night. Don’t you agree, Trent?”
Trent frowned and nodded. “Yeah, I wish someone would look at me the way Juliette’s been looking at you, Aaron.” In return, his wife pinched his hand. “Hey, that wasn’t nice.”
“Ignore the kids, Aaron. After a while, they’ll be quiet,” Curt said.
Aaron suppressed a smile but couldn’t resist joining in the fun. “Do they always invite children to these types of things? Or is tonight a special occasion?” Although he hadn’t expected to, he liked Juliette’s cousins, at least all the ones he’d met so far.
“Unfortunately, these two are usually included.” Curt pointed to his cousins.
“Charlie and I can’t find babysitters willing to put up with them,” Addie added.
He couldn’t help but laugh. He’d been a little apprehensive about coming tonight, but it was turning into a very enjoyable evening.
“Next weekend, Taylor, Reese, and I are heading down to my house in Newport. You and Juliette should come down and join us. Tiegan’s welcome as well. Reese keeps asking when she can see her again. And I promise Trent and Jake won’t be there.”
It’d been years since he’d been to Newport. A weekend down there would be nice. “Let me—” His eyes landed on a twentysomething-year-old man with light brown hair and a smug smile entering the tent, and the world around him came to a screeching halt. There was no way it could be who he thought it was. Tugging at his tie, he moved the knot down a fraction of an inch and watched the guest head toward the bar in the corner.
“Aaron, are you okay?” Trent still sat next to him. He could see Juliette’s cousin from the corner of his eye, yet Trent’s voice sounded as if he stood in another room.
“Who’s the guy standing at the bar?” Somehow Aaron got the question out.
“Which one?” Trent asked.
“The twentysomething-year-old with light brown hair and a gray suit.” No, he had to be wrong. It couldn’t be the same guy.
“Isn’t it one of Prescott Casella’s sons, Curt?” Trent asked.
Somehow Aaron remained seated as he watched the bartender hand a drink to the man in question.
Curt glanced over his shoulder and then back at the table’s occupants. “Yeah. That’s his youngest son, Bryon.” Juliette’s cousin didn’t sound all that pleased to see the man either. “The Casellas live next door. I’m surprised Bryon is here, though. The guy is… let’s just say not the type of pe
rson I’d want around my sister.”
He hadn’t noticed Juliette coming toward their table, but now she was sitting down next to him. “Who are you talking about?”
“Bryon Casella,” Curt answered. “If he’s here, I’m sure his parents are too.”
“I passed them when I went over to see Tory. They were talking to your mom and mine.”
Not only was the punk who’d killed his cousin here but the parents who helped him get off with little more than a slap on a wrist sat under the same tent as him. Perhaps even worse than being at the same event with the three of them was the fact they were guests of Juliette’s family.
With no destination in mind, Aaron pushed back his chair. Before he went over and caused a scene, he needed to get away. “Please excuse me.”
“Aaron, are you okay?” She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away before their fingers touched and stood.
“I just need some air.”
“Air? We’re outside?”
He didn’t wait to see if Juliette followed him. He passed by the table where Governor Wentworth sat talking to one of the owners of the New England Rebels football team.
Exiting the tent, he crossed the well-manicured lawn. Behind him, he heard Juliette call out to him, but he didn’t stop. He headed up the same stone walkway he’d walked down while joking with her family earlier and into the house.
Juliette grabbed his hand and tugged, forcing him to stop before he got any further. “Are you feeling okay? You look awful all of a sudden.”
“I’m not sick.” He tugged at his tie again. He needed to get away.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Then what’s the matter?”
He didn’t want to have this conversation at all and certainly didn’t want to have it where anyone might come along and overhear. Taking in a deep breath, he exhaled slowly. “I cannot talk about it right now.” He was probably being the biggest ass in history, but he couldn’t help it. “I need to go. I’m sorry.”
He saw the confusion and concern reflected in her eyes as she nodded. “Yeah, okay. We can go. Do you want me to drive?”
Did he want her to drive? He wasn’t even sure he wanted her coming with him. Aaron shook his head rather than tell her the truth. “No, thanks.”
Chapter 17
As much as she wanted to question him, Juliette kept her mouth shut on the ride back to the hotel. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure what the problem was. She thought they’d been enjoying themselves, at least as much as anyone could at a political fundraiser. And while her cousins could be annoying—even she sometimes wanted to gag them all—they’d never do or say anything to make anyone react the way Aaron had. So that brought her back to her original question. Why had Aaron suddenly decided he needed to leave? And why couldn’t he talk about whatever the problem was while at her aunt and uncle’s house? Much of the house was off-limits to the other guests but not her. They could have found a quiet area upstairs and talked. Maybe if they had, they could’ve rejoined the party, and she would have gotten a chance to introduce Aaron to more of her relatives. Other than Jake and his wife and her parents, she’d only briefly introduced him to Aunt Judith as they passed her in the hall when they first arrived.
After opening the door to their suite, Aaron followed her inside. The moment they’d gotten in her car, he’d undone his tie and left it draped across his neck. Now, he pulled it off and tossed it on a nearby chair. His jacket followed the tie.
“You probably wanted to stay,” he said, speaking for the first time since they left. “I’m sorry. If you want to go back, you can. You don’t need to stay here with me.”
He no longer looked shell-shocked. Juliette didn’t know of any other word to describe how he’d looked earlier. But something had caused his earlier reaction, and she wanted to help him if she could.
“No, not really. I’d rather be with you.” Unsure of how he’d react if she touched him, she moved closer but kept her arms by her side. “Is everything okay? You seemed upset at my uncle’s house. Do you want to talk about it?”
Aaron raked a hand down his face and then through his hair. “You’d be….” Rather than continue, he paused and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the pain she saw almost knocked her to the floor.
“My cousin Troy and I were close. Much the same way you are with your cousins. Seven years ago, your uncle’s neighbor Bryon Casella had a whole cocktail of drugs and alcohol in his system when he killed my cousin in a car accident. Troy’s girlfriend survived, but she spent weeks in the hospital and then months going to physical therapy. Bryon and his sister walked away unharmed.”
What did she say to that? “I’m sorry” didn’t come close to being adequate, but what else was there? “I’m so sorry, Aaron. I can’t even imagine how you must have felt.” She couldn’t even begin to imagine losing her siblings or cousins in a similar fashion.
“Do you know how much time Bryon spent in jail?”
She didn’t know, and by the tone of Aaron’s voice, she didn’t want to either. “No.”
“None. He had his license suspended and got probation. And you know why, don’t you?” Even if she’d had a response, he didn’t give her a chance to offer it. “Because money can buy just about anything, and his parents had plenty of it.”
Hugging him might not be the right move, but she didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t push her away, but he didn’t put his arms around her like he usually did either.
“I couldn’t stay there and be around him.”
She understood that. In a similar position, she would have left too. “I’ve bumped into Bryon at parties and whatnot, but I don’t know him well. You won’t have to see him again, I promise.”
Aaron laughed sarcastically, sending an uneasy chill down her spine. “Great, I just have to be around people like him and his family.”
People like him? How should she interpret that? And did she even want to know? Before she made up her mind, either way, he stepped away from her.
“You know what? I need a little time alone.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “I’m going to change and go downstairs for a swim. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Sometimes you needed to be alone. She understood that too, at least intellectually. Emotionally was another matter. “Okay. I’ll be here.”
She waited on the sofa while Aaron went into the bedroom and changed. Once he left, she went in and put on the pajamas she’d packed. She didn’t bother to hang up her dress before pulling back the blankets and climbing into the king-sized bed. Earlier in the evening, she’d imagined climbing into it with Aaron while wearing far fewer clothes. Instead, she was flipping through the television stations while Aaron went for a swim. Talk about the night not going as she’d expected.
After going through all the channels more than once, she settled on a history channel and tossed the remote on the nightstand. They shouldn’t have gone tonight. If they’d stayed in Avon, he never would’ve seen Bryon or the Casellas. Perhaps someday, in the distant future, he would’ve still told her about his cousin. However, doing so might have been less painful if he hadn’t just seen the man responsible.
Be around people like him. Aaron’s words repeated in her head while the narrator on the television talked about the building of Stonehenge. She wanted to believe he meant people who used their money to get out of trouble. And no question about it, people like that existed. In fact, she’d bet Bryon’s family wasn’t the only one at the fundraiser guilty of doing it.
The large knot in her stomach suggested her interpretation wasn’t accurate. “It’ll be fine.” Maybe if she heard the words, not only thought them, she’d believe them. “Aaron just needs some time alone.”
She heard the suite door open, and soon after, Aaron entered the bedroom with a towel draped over his shoulders. The frown he’d worn when he left remained fixed in place, and the knot in her stomach grew.
“How was your swim?” Not even the threat of torture
would get her to ask the question really on her mind.
“Not bad. I had the pool to myself.” He grabbed clothes from his suitcase and headed toward the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”
Her cell phone on the nightstand chimed, and a glance at the screen revealed a text from Addie asking if everything was okay.
Beats me. Juliette kept the thought to herself and instead sent Addie a simple yes.
“We can look for something else to watch or turn the television off. It’s up to you,” Juliette said when Aaron came back into the room. She’d seen Stonehenge, and while it was an impressive structure, she didn’t care about what part of England the stones came from or how the builders transported them.
Aaron climbed into bed and repositioned his pillows behind him. “Do you mind putting on the baseball game? The Red Sox are playing the Angels in Los Angeles tonight.”
Yep, she hadn’t imagined watching the Red Sox play tonight, but if that’s what he wanted, she’d put the game on.
For a long time, Aaron had stared at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. When he finally did, it hadn’t been a restful sleep. Instead, the memories from Troy’s funeral and Bryon’s trial plagued him. Thankfully, he hadn’t stayed asleep long. Rather than linger in bed, he went into the other room and turned on game one of the 1986 World Series. It’d been either the game or a documentary about the Giza Plateau. Not that it mattered much in the long run what he put on, because he didn’t pay much attention to the television. Even if it’d been this year’s World Series and his favorite team had been playing, his thoughts would have remained focused on the events of the previous evening and the woman sleeping in the other room.
Over a month ago, when Candace pushed him to invite Juliette over, he’d admitted he would’ve considered it if she was like so many of the guests who stayed there. But since she wasn’t, he had wanted nothing to do with Juliette, because people like her lived in a world that played by a different set of rules. The weekend the power went out, and she stayed with him, he began to see her more as someone he genuinely liked and enjoyed spending time with and less as an individual who had the money and influence to get away with anything—even the killing of another person. At some point between then and now, she’d gone from being someone he enjoyed spending time with to someone he cared about. Not only did he care about her, but for the most part, he never thought about the influential people she was related to or the connections she had. Unfortunately, that started to change last night when they walked into her aunt and uncle’s house. Seeing Bryon and knowing his parents were not only there but also her aunt and uncle’s neighbors drove home the knowledge that Juliette existed in a part of society far removed from him. A part he’d have to put up with if he stayed in Juliette’s life, and honestly, he didn’t know if he could do it even for her. Until he reached a decision, it was probably in both their best interests to take a break from each other.
The Billionaire's Kiss (The Sherbrookes of Newport Book 14) Page 19