Mother nature made the decision for him. Lightning streaked across the sky, and the dark clouds that had hovered all day opened up.
“I thought you were still in your office,” Candace said as she put a bowl of salad in the middle of the table. “As soon as Mom gets here, we can eat.” With the entire campground open for the season, his mom spent a lot more time over in the office and less time here.
Sitting down on a barstool, he grabbed a slice of garlic bread. His sister wasn’t Juliette’s keeper. They were friends, though, and soon they’d be coworkers, so she might know Juliette’s plans for the day and, more importantly, when she’d be back. Then again, if he mentioned Juliette, he risked another lecture where Candace told him what a jerk he was.
Right now, he’d sit through her lecture if it got him the information he wanted.
“I’ve gone down to the cottage twice today, but Juliette hasn’t been there. Did she spend the day at the dance school?” She wanted to get it open as soon as possible. Maybe she’d spent the day setting up her office or something.
“Nope.” Candace took a slice of garlic bread from the basket as well.
“Do you know what she was up to today?” Maybe she’d gone furniture shopping. She closed on her new house next week, and she didn’t plan to keep the furnishings the home came with.
“Nope,” she answered and then proceeded to tear the crust off her bread so she could eat it first—something she’d done for as long as he could remember.
Candace knew more than she was letting on. “Is there anything useful you can tell me?”
“She never came back after you dumped her.”
A two-hundred-pound heavyweight boxer punched him the chest.
She is buying a house here. The reminder did nothing to help ease the pain. Most people would be hurt financially if they purchased a home and never moved in. Not Juliette. The same was true about the dance school. She could never return to Avon and not suffer any repercussions.
“I… never mind.” There was no point in telling Candace he hadn’t dumped Juliette. “Do you know where she went?”
“Maybe.”
Strangling his sister wouldn’t help, but man, he wanted to right now. “C’mon, Candace. I need to talk to her, and it’s not a conversation I want to have over the phone. If you know where she went, please tell me.”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“Will the conversation include you telling Juliette you’re a first-class moron and getting on your knees and asking her to give you another chance? Or are you going to tell her you don’t want anything to do with her?”
He’d get on his knees and beg if he had to, but he hoped it didn’t come to that. “What do you think?”
Instead of answering, she crossed her arms and studied him. “She went to New York. I’m sure she gave Mom her home address when she reserved the cottage.”
Yeah, his mom more than likely had it on the computer, but he wasn’t comfortable getting the address that way. He didn’t want Candace calling Juliette and asking for it either, because she’d want to know why she wanted it. He’d prefer not to have Juliette tell Candace she didn’t want to see him and refuse to give it to her. Although, even if she did, it wouldn’t stop him from asking his mom for the address and trying to see her anyway.
“Do you have either Holly or Mrs. Lambert’s numbers?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you call and get the address from one of them?”
“I’ll try Mrs. Lambert after dinner.”
Clearly, his sister wanted to punish him tonight. “Candace, come on. Please call one of them now.”
“It’s already five-thirty, and it’s at least a six-hour drive to New York. Even if you left now, by the time you got there, Juliette might be in bed. If you’re hoping to get her forgiveness, you shouldn’t start by waking her up in the middle of the night.”
Candace had a point, but he wouldn’t admit it to her. “But if I go tonight, I can check into a hotel and be at Juliette’s place first thing in the morning.”
She picked up her cell phone on the counter and opened her contact list. “Whatever.”
Perhaps he deserved it for being such a jerk on Saturday, but neither Mrs. Lambert nor Holly answered his sister’s calls before dinner. Thankfully, Tiegan distracted him enough that he could sit at the table and eat rather than pace around the kitchen. Candace’s second call to Mrs. Lambert after they cleared the table and their mom left went unanswered as well, but she got through to Holly. Of course, she made him sit and suffer while they chatted about Juliette’s new dance school and the classes Candace would be teaching in the fall. And the next time Candace asked him for a favor, he’d repay her just enough for the torture she put him through since she got him the information.
By the time he had the address and packed an overnight bag, it was almost seven o’clock. He briefly considered waiting until the morning to leave. If he left now, it’d be well after midnight when he reached the city, but he’d avoid any traffic. More importantly, however, he could be on Juliette’s doorstep before breakfast. If he left in the morning, there was no telling how much time the traffic would add to the trip, forcing him to wait even longer to speak with her. In the end, it was a simple decision to make.
“Is this your first time in Manhattan, Mr. Wright?” the gentleman at the desk asked when Aaron arrived at his hotel sometime after one o’clock in the morning.
On Saturday, when she arrived in the city, she’d gone straight to the hospital where she met her two identical twin nieces. Afterward, she’d gone to Scott’s condo to relieve her cousin Callie, who’d come by to watch Cooper while Scott and Paige were at the hospital. She’d stayed there until her parents as well as Paige’s mom and dad arrived much later that night. She’d had a similar routine for the past three days. She saw today going much the same way.
Carrying her second cup of coffee and a cinnamon-raisin bagel to the table, she joined her sister and brother-in-law. Courtney and Josh had arrived yesterday. Since Paige had stopped working in the middle of April and they didn’t expect her to have the babies until next month, Cooper’s nanny, who usually watched him while Scott and Paige were gone, had taken a three-week vacation. Since the woman would be away for another week, Courtney and Josh planned to stay and help out until she came back. If Juliette didn’t have the closing on Monday and so much to do if she wanted to open the dance school in the fall, she would have remained in the city and helped her brother and sister-in-law too.
“Do you want to relieve Mom and Dad or go to the hospital first?” Courtney asked.
If Scott could split himself in half and be at the hospital and with Cooper at the same time, he would. Since he couldn’t, he went to the hospital as early as he could. Usually well before Cooper woke up, and he came home sometime in the late afternoon. Her brother stayed with his son until Cooper went to bed, and then he headed back to the hospital for another brief visit. All that meant that by now, Scott had left, and their parents were watching Cooper.
She adored her nephew and enjoyed spending time with him. Plus, it was impossible to be unhappy around him, a state she’d found herself in often since Saturday. “I’ll go over this morning. You’ll be with him all next week. Once I go back to Avon, I’m not sure when I’ll see him again.”
“Sounds good. And before I forget again, has Addie started on the designs for your house?”
Since she could live in the house as it was and she knew Addie had other clients, she’d told Addie to work on the plans when she had the time. Of course, Addie being Addie, she’d started on the plans anyway. “She sent me her ideas for the kitchen. I’ll grab my laptop and show you.” She took another sip of coffee and stood as her doorbell rang.
“Holly?” Courtney asked.
She shrugged. Holly had stopped by for a little while yesterday.
Juliette opened the door, expecting either Holly or a relative because for anyone else security would ha
ve called before allowing them up.
Aaron? Jake’s prediction on Saturday replayed in her head, and hope exploded around her heart. It didn’t make any sense that he’d drive well over six hours just to tell her he’d decided he didn’t want anything else to do with her. Delivering the news over the phone or when she returned to town would be so much easier. Afraid to learn she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, she asked the second most pressing question she had.
“How did you get in?” And how did you know where I live?
“Holly gave my name to security and told them she was expecting me today. She gave Candace your address too.”
Had Holly passed along the information before or after her visit? If she’d done it before, she should have told her Aaron planned to come here.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” She took several steps back so he could enter. “When did you get to Manhattan?” She walked alongside him toward the living room, careful not to let any part of her body touch him, because if even her fingers brushed against his skin, she would be tempted to hug him. And she didn’t want to risk being rejected by him.
“Early this morning. I don’t know exactly. Maybe around one-thirty or two.”
The hope in her chest spread through her body.
“I didn’t know you never came back from Boston, and I went down to the cottage twice yesterday to see you. After the second time, I asked Candace if she knew where you were.”
“Paige went into labor Saturday afternoon, so I came here.” She considered her options of places to sit before picking the sofa.
“How is everyone?” he asked, joining her as she’d hoped he would.
“Paige is fine and will be home today. My nieces are doing well. They were six weeks early, so they’re small and will be in the NICU for a little longer. The hospital won’t let them come home until they weigh at least four pounds. Except for their low birth weights, they’re healthy.”
“You were hoping she’d have girls.”
Until Saturday, the youngest generation of Sherbrookes and Belmonts had consisted of boys. And as much as she adored her nephew and her cousins’ sons, she’d hoped for two nieces. And hopefully, when Courtney gave birth later this year, she’d get a third niece so Scott’s twins wouldn’t be so outnumbered by their male cousins.
They could talk about her family or any other topic he wanted later. Right now, she wanted him to tell her why he’d driven all the way here in the middle of the night instead of calling her.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here? You could have called me or waited until I came back to Avon.”
“I didn’t want to have this conversation on the phone or wait and see if you came back.”
“I told your sister why I was in New York and when I’d be back.”
“Yeah, well, she wasn’t in a sharing mood,” he grumbled before shifting his position, so he was closer to her. “It doesn’t matter. Even if I’d known when you’d be back, I wouldn’t have been able to wait, and I would’ve come here. I messed up on Saturday, and I’m sorry. I don’t think about what happened to Troy often anymore. When I saw Bryon, it hit me hard.” He swallowed and clasped his hands together.
She watched as a mix of emotions played across his face. And as much as she wanted to tell him she understood, she kept quiet rather than interrupt him.
“And sitting there with you surrounded by people that had the same or even more wealth and influence as his family, I assumed they were all the same. That in the same situation, any one of them would get away with what Bryon did. I lumped your family into the group too, and I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re right about some of the people there, but not most.”
“It doesn’t matter. Who your family associates with doesn’t change who you are.” He touched her cheek. “Or that I love you.”
Jake and Trent were never going to let her forget they were right. Maybe she’d tell them it took Aaron a full week before he knocked on her door so that she could say they weren’t 100 percent accurate.
Moving closer, Juliette put her arms over his shoulders and rested her forehead against his. “I’m glad you’re here. Whatever you said on Saturday doesn’t matter. It’s in the past.”
She didn’t want him changing his mind. At the same time, she remembered Charlie mentioning how she’d found adjusting to the media attention the family often got difficult. She wasn’t sure Aaron had considered that at all. If he hadn’t, she didn’t want it coming up in a month from now and causing him to have second thoughts again.
“Aaron, I love you, but I need to ask you something. The media is going to bother you, especially when we go to events like my cousin’s wedding or a fundraiser. Some people have a hard time with that. Will you be okay if a picture of us together shows up on the Star Insider website or on a magazine cover at Gorham’s?”
Instead of answering, he kissed her first. “I think I’ll look good on the cover of a magazine.”
Well, he had her there. The first time she’d seen him running, hadn’t she thought he should be starring in a summer blockbuster with her brother-in-law? “I’m serious, Aaron. I know Charlie had a hard time getting used to the media attention. It most likely won’t happen too often since we’ll be in Avon, but I guarantee you it will happen.”
Aaron slipped his arms around her and kissed her again. “Don’t worry. I considered all that.”
Good. “I love you.” She pressed her lips against his in the briefest of kisses. “And I’d love to stay here with you all day, but I need to watch my nephew so my parents can go to the hospital. Unless you need to get home, I’d like you to come with me.”
“The only place I need to be today is with you.”
Even if her dad, all her uncles, brother, and male cousins had stood in the room, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from crushing her lips against his and showing him how much she loved him.
Other Books By Christina
Loving The Billionaire
The Teacher's Billionaire
The Billionaire Playboy
The Billionaire Princess
The Billionaire's Best Friend
Redeeming The Billionaire
More Than A Billionaire
Protecting The Billionaire
Bidding On The Billionaire
Falling For The Billionaire
The Billionaire Next Door
The Billionaire's Homecoming
The Billionaire’s Heart
Tempting The Billionaire
The Courage To Love
Hometown Love
The Playboy Next Door
In His Kiss
A Promise To Keep
When Love Strikes
Born To Protect
His To Protect
About the Author
USA Today Best Selling author, Christina Tetreault started writing at the age of 10 on her grandmother's manual typewriter and never stopped. Born and raised in Lincoln, Rhode Island, she has lived in four of the six New England states since getting married in 2001. Today, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, three daughters and two dogs. When she's not driving her daughters around to their various activities or chasing around the dogs, she is working on a story or reading a romance novel. Currently, she has three series out, The Sherbrookes of Newport, Love on The North Shore and Elite Force Security. You can visit her website www.christinatetreault.com or follow her on Facebook to learn more about her characters and to track her progress on current writing projects.
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The Billionaire's Kiss (The Sherbrookes of Newport Book 14) Page 21