Chasing Julia (Rhode Island Romance #2) (4 page)

“Yeah,” Tony said
gruffly. “I know what you mean. I made her unhappy once, and I hated the way it
made me feel.”

They stood in
silence for a few moments. Joe looked down, scuffed the toe of his shoe on the
ground. He cleared his throat, glanced at Tony again. “You’re my brother. I
love you. And I don’t want to see you hurt. There’s no guarantee that Julia
feels the same way about you that you do about her.”

Tony folded his
arms across his chest. His voice was firm with conviction. “I understand that.
It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“What about the
fact that I’ve slept with her?” Joe pressed. “I was her first. That doesn’t
bother you?”

Tony felt his face
redden. “
Jesus,
bro. You had to go there, didn’t you. Yeah, it bothers
me if I think about it too much. But then I remind myself that
I
will be
her last and her always.” His voice turned flat, hard. “And that’s the last
time you and me are
ever
going to have that particular conversation.”

Joe’s laugh sounded
relieved. “Fair enough.” He held out his hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

When Tony returned
his brother’s handclasp, Joe tightened his grip and hauled Tony towards his
chest for a man hug. He pounded his fist on Tony’s back and then rubbed his
knuckles playfully over Tony’s scalp. “Good luck, little bro. I’ll be here for
you no matter what happens. Like always.”

Tony squeezed his
free arm tightly around his brother’s back before abruptly letting him go and
retreating a couple steps. He had to swallow down a lump in his throat as he held
Joe’s gaze. Their eyes spoke more than words ever could. “Thanks, man.”

Joe nodded his
head, agreeing to their silent communication. Then he waved his hand forward.
“Let’s get back to the ladies. I don’t like to keep Willa waiting.”

As always, Tony was
struck by the lightness that entered his brother’s voice when he spoke Willa’s
name. “How are things going between you two?” he asked as they strode briskly
up the road.

“It’s good. Hell,
it’s better than good. Some mornings I wake up and wonder if I’m living some
crazy dream. I never imagined I’d ever meet a woman like her.”

“Any talk of
marriage yet?”

“Oh, yeah. But we
both want things to settle down first. These last few months have been insane.
Between our show and her bakery, there hasn’t been time to think of anything
else. But it will happen. Soon.”

They turned onto
Willa’s driveway. The lights shone like a beacon from the living room. Through
the window, they saw all the women sitting on the wraparound sofa. They were in
a huddle, heads close together. Audrey was gesturing with her hands while she
spoke. Collette was bobbing her head up and down in agreement. Willa looked
skeptical. Everyone else was grinning mischievously. Shirley clapped her hands
together with glee.

Joe came to a halt
just outside the pool of light. He exchanged a look with Tony. “This doesn’t
look good.”

Tony nodded his
head in agreement. “What do you think they’re plotting this time?”

She
was never going to drink alcoholic beverages of any kind ever again.

Julia took another
sip of water, praying the aspirin she’d swallowed a few minutes earlier would
work some kind of magic real soon. Her head had cleared a little during her
walk with Hannah that morning, but she still felt groggy.

Good thing she
didn’t have any client appointments today. She’d given her two part-time
assistants the day off. Fridays were typically slow unless she had an evening
event. Right now, there wasn’t anything on her roster until the first week of
October. She’d set aside today to work on her quarterly budgets. But she wasn’t
making much progress.

It was also a good
thing that her ground floor office didn’t have the distraction of exterior windows.
It was another beautiful September day. She battened down the very tempting
urge to put up the closed sign and go outside to soak up the sunshine.

Both her office and
her apartment were located in an older building on Westminster Street in
Providence that had been converted into spaces for both commercial and
residential use. Her parents had leased both the office and a third floor loft
over twenty years ago when they’d expanded their home-grown event management
business. Julia had taken over the lease on the loft eight years ago and had
moved in soon after. In March of this year, she’d purchased the business
outright from her parents so that they could take an early retirement. That had
been the plan all along and one that she’d cooperated with wholeheartedly.

She loved her job.
Providence had gone through a major revitalization around the same time the
Kelly Event Management office had first opened its doors, and it was continuing
to become more vibrant with each passing year. Admittedly, the event business
had been a little touch and go over the last seven years after the economy had
tanked. The Kelly’s had taken on more social functions than they normally did
until corporate events had slowly begun to pick up again. Julia had experienced
a steady flow of work since January; she had no complaints.

Her office was in
the busy heart of Providence known as DownCity. She lived and worked in the
midst of an eclectic mix of retail shops, art galleries, salons, clubs,
restaurants and theaters. To her, Providence didn’t feel so much like a city as
it did a big town. In fact, when most Rhode Islanders talked about “the city”,
they were referring to New York City, which was a three hour drive south.

When the weather
was nice, Julia usually spent her lunch hour outdoors. She liked to eat at
Grant’s Block, a spot farther down Westminster on the corner of Union Street
that had once been a building site but was now an open public space for
businesspeople, college students, shoppers and the like to gather. Usually, she
brought her own lunch. On Tuesdays, she opted for the delicious possibilities
offered by the various food trucks that lined up on nearby Weybosset Street.

In the summertime,
Grant’s Block was the setting for weekly outdoor evening movies, free to the
public. Just three weeks ago, Julia and Tony had parked lawn chairs on the
cement along with a huge crowd of others to watch Fred and Ginger dance across
the silver screen.

Afterwards, Tony
had asked her if she’d be interested in taking ballroom dance classes with him.
He’d joked that he’d spent more time looking at his female partner’s boobies than
focusing on the lessons he and his classmates had been forced to endure back in
middle school. “Wasn’t paying that much attention to my feet,” he’d confessed
with a laugh.

She’d laughed along
with him. “Boobies? That’s what you called them when you were that age?”

“Either that or
titties. Hey, I was eleven. So, what do you say? Classes start after Labor
Day.”

She’d said she was
interested, but she regrettably had to decline a few days later when some new
business came her way that would conflict with some of the class dates.

As much as she
loved securing new clientele, she really wished she could’ve said yes to Tony.

He’d been so good
to her these past few months.

After the break-up
from Joe, she’d escaped to her Cousin Eileen’s condo in San Diego for a few
weeks. Eileen was a flight attendant and wasn’t around much. She’d invited
Julia to stay as long as she’d needed. The first week, Julia had spent most of
her time in bed. When she wasn’t crying, she watched television and ate too
much salty junk food. The second week, she ventured onto the patio where she
spent more time crying. But she ate less of the salty food, drank lots of water
and slowly began to feel alive again under the warmth of the early summer sun.
The third week saw more of the same, except for that one Friday night when
Eileen was home on an extended layover and dragged Julia to a local bar that
was a popular hangout for Navy personnel. Emboldened with one too many Jell-O
shots, Julia had almost—
almost
—invited one extremely hot-looking officer
to come back to the condo with her. He’d gravitated towards her the instant she
and Eileen had walked into the bar; it’d been a much-needed boost to her
shattered ego. She remembered thinking with drunken logic that there was
nothing like dirty sex with another man to take her mind off the man she’d
lost.

But she’d never
been that kind of girl.

She bought a return
ticket to Providence the very next day and sent a text to her mother to let her
know that the flight would be landing at three-thirty the following afternoon.
But it wasn’t her mother who was waiting for her in the baggage claim area at
T.F. Green airport. It was Tony.

Julia had frozen in
place for a few seconds when she’d spotted his smiling face in the crowd. He
and Joe shared the same dark hair coloring and olive complexion. But, while
Joe’s hair was thick and wavy, Tony kept his cropped short. Tony’s eyes were a
lighter, warmer shade of brown than Joe’s, and he was a couple of inches
shorter. Even so, he still seemed to tower over her as she’d drawn closer.
Without a second of hesitation, he’d tugged her into his arms and held her
close.

“Welcome home,”
he’d whispered gruffly in her ear.

She’d allowed her
body to rest against his for a while, missing the sensation of being held by a
man. She’d felt tears forming but had quickly tamped them down. It had been too
public a setting to cave in to the emotions churning inside of her.

“What are you doing
here?” she’d asked against his chest.

“I made your mom
promise me she’d tell me when you were coming back.”

“You mean you
badgered her and finally wore her down.”

He’d chuckled.
“Maybe.”

He hadn’t questioned
her when she’d asked him to take her to her apartment instead of her parents’
house. He’d carried her suitcase up the two flights of stairs. At her request,
he’d made a pot of tea while she’d taken a shower. When they were ensconced on
her living room couch, he’d turned to her and asked her how she was doing. His
voice had been so tender. She’d burst into tears and practically thrown herself
into his outspread arms, crying her heartbreak and misery into his shirt until
it had become soaking wet. He’d murmured soft, indecipherable words of comfort and
rubbed his hands up and down her back. Afterwards, he had listened patiently as
she’d put words to her feelings about what had happened with Joe. He’d answered
all of her questions directly and honestly. Later, he’d made her dinner and
then tucked her into bed. She’d slept better that night than any night in the previous
three weeks.

Since then, not a
week went by that she didn’t see him at least once. Sometimes he’d stop by the
office out of the blue. There had been a few times when she’d called him with
one request or another—little things that she’d used to ask of Joe. Like fixing
the leak in her bathroom sink, or helping her hang up a heavy mirror. He’d even
helped her repaint the walls in the bedroom. If he’d guessed why she’d decided
to completely overhaul the bedroom, he hadn’t voiced it aloud.

He’d asked her to
come over to the Rossetti house on a couple of occasions, stressing the fact
that Joe didn’t live there anymore, but she’d refused. It was too soon. There
were too many memories in that house.

These last few
months, Tony had been her rock. Sometimes she worried that she was growing to
rely on him too much, even more than she’d ever relied on Joe. She was a grown
woman. She needed to stand on her own two feet and not depend on him so much…

A bell chimed as
the front door opened. Julia glanced up from her computer screen towards the
reception area of her office. A woman stood in the entrance. She looked
familiar.

Julia stood up from
her desk.

The woman spoke
first. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Audrey King. We met back in May.
At that breakfast?”

Julia hoped her
face didn’t betray her sudden bout of anxiety. She didn’t want to think about
that particular day; it’d been the last time she and Joe had gone anywhere
together as a couple. It had also been the day she’d met Willa. “Yes,” she
managed to say, glad that her voice didn’t betray her nerves. “Of course. How
are you?”

“Crazy busy, now
that the college kids are back in town. Business at my store has been nonstop.”

“Right. You own
that jewelry store on Thayer Street. I’ve meant to stop by.”

It was a lie and
both women knew it. Julia wasn’t surprised when Audrey arched one fine eyebrow
and pursed her mouth in a moue of disbelief. “I’d be shocked if you did but
absolutely delighted to see you. Willa’s bakery is right next door.”

Audrey didn’t mince
words. None of her friends did. They were a brash group of women, possessing a
self-confidence and bravado that Julia had found admirable and even a little
inspiring during her brief time with them at the May Breakfast she and Joe had
attended at Collette’s invitation.

Audrey had a very
sophisticated presence about her. Her figure was tall and slender, almost
gamine. She was dressed in a simple black sheath dress that provided the
perfect backdrop for the blue-toned costume jewelry—no doubt her own
creations—that accentuated her slender neck and wrists and the creaminess of
her skin.

Julia stood up
taller. She was glad that she had chosen to wear her usual business attire
today—a black skirt and blazer, paired with four-inch pumps that put her on eye
level with the other woman. She acknowledged Audrey’s words with a stiff nod of
the head.

Audrey gave a
little sigh. She closed the door behind her and moved farther into the room.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to talk about Willa. I’m here for business reasons.
I need someone to help me plan an event. Are you interested?”

Julia’s eyebrows
rose. “What kind of an event?”

“I’m introducing a
new jewelry line. Something I’ve been working on for the last year since I
moved back to Providence.” She touched her necklace. “It has an ocean-inspired
theme. I’m very excited about it. I want to host a party for my customers and
prospects. Not at my store. The space is too small.”

Julia shoved her
emotions aside and became all business. She retrieved her electronic tablet
from her desk drawer and then extended her arm in a welcoming gesture. “Let’s
talk in my conference room.”

As she led Audrey
into the conference room that Tony had helped her put the final touches on just
last week, she asked, “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

“No, thank you.”
Audrey glanced around the room. “This is nice.”

Julia had gone with
a sage green, cream and gold theme, offset by an oval cherry wood conference
table with complementing chairs. “Thanks. I just finished remodeling last week.
Tony helped me move the furniture. Please, have a seat.”

“He’s a doll,”
Audrey said, taking the chair Julia indicated and placing her black pocketbook
on the seat beside her. “All of us girls are completely smitten with him.”

Julia sat down
across from her and opened the notes app on her tablet. She cleared her throat.
“I have a few questions before we go any further. How many people are you
planning to invite?”

Audrey smiled. “At
least a hundred, I imagine. Between my customers, my friends and others, it may
even be more than that. Let’s say two hundred to be safe.”

Julia jotted the
number down and then returned her gaze to Audrey. “And what dates are you
considering?”

“As soon as
possible. I want buyers to add this to their holiday inventory. It might be a
little too late for that. But I think they’ll be as excited as I am about the
line. Can we aim for the third Friday in October?”

Julia swiped her
fingers across the screen to access her calendar. “Would this be an afternoon
event? Or evening?”

“Evening. I’m
thinking from six to ten p.m.”

“That day is
currently open on my schedule. What’s your maximum budget?”

Audrey flicked her
hand. “Money isn’t an issue.”

Julia did an inward
eye roll. “Right. But I still need some parameters to work within. There are
all kinds of events. Were you thinking of something elaborate? Or more casual?”