More Than You Know (26 page)

A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he huffed out a shallow breath.
Don't manage my life . . .
her words from before echoed in his head. “Okay. I'll call you a car. You can't get on the trains like this. At least let me do that for you.”

She finally nodded, and murmured, “That'd be great, actually. Thank you.” Her head lifted and her eyes met his. She frowned in confusion, as if seeing him for the first time. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren't getting back until Saturday.”

The corner of his mouth twisted ruefully. “I was done earlier than expected. I got back to New York a few hours ago. I wanted to surprise you.”

She snorted. “Yeah. Well. Surprise.” She twirled a finger in the air. “Woo hoo.”

“Julia . . .” He took her hands in his, but she pulled them away.

“I appreciate what you both did here, I really do.” She stood up and headed for the bathroom. “But I have to be alone right now. I'm sorry.”

“You've got nothing to apologize for,” Kelvin said.

Dane stared after her. She went to the bathroom sink and splashed water on her face.

“She's dying inside,” Kelvin whispered sadly. “I'm going to kill them. Both of them. Max
and
Liam. My God . . .”

“It's unthinkable,” Dane said. He kept his voice low. “When's the last time she saw her son?”

“Years,” Kelvin said.

Dane was surprised. In his mind, he'd always thought Colin to be around ten or maybe twelve years old. But
years
? The kid had to be in his late teens. He'd never asked, and now wasn't the time. Julia needed comforting. Support. And Dane could already see she wasn't going to let him, or anyone, give it to her.

“You sure I can't get you a room?” he asked her.

“No thank you,” she said. She ran her hands through her thick hair, pulling the tangled flames into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic band.

Dane's heart sank a little. He could feel her withdrawing from him. Only a few minutes before, she'd been clinging to him as if for her life as she cried. He'd held her close and tight and soothed her as best he could. Now, she barely would meet his eyes. Now, it was as if he was watching her put her armor back on, piece by piece. Swallowing hard, he exhaled long and slow, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and arranged for a car to take her home.

When he ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, Kelvin got to his feet. Julia was still in the bathroom. “Can you stay with her, Boss? She's a little better now, and it's almost show time. I've got to get out there if you want me to—”

“Sure, I've got this. I'm here, you go. Thanks.”

Kelvin looked down at him for a long beat. “You're a good man. But just so you know, when she gets upset, she withdraws. Goes inside herself, like a turtle. Needs to be alone to deal with things. It's not you.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Dane said. Somehow, knowing that still didn't make him feel any better. He wanted to hold her all night, make sure she felt safe, make sure she fell asleep in his arms and knew he was there for her. Turtle mode didn't work for him. But . . . right now, it wasn't about him. It was about her, and whatever she needed. He scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

“You, uh . . .” Kelvin gave a slow nod. “You were there for her tonight. Thanks for that.”

“You don't have to thank me,” Dane said.

He watched Kelvin go to the wardrobe closet and pull out one of his suits, then head to the bathroom. He and Julia exchanged a few words he couldn't hear, and Julia grasped her friend in a tight hug. Then she exited the bathroom and closed the door so Kelvin could change his clothes.

With a sigh, she went to the makeup table and sat down.

“Car'll be outside in ten minutes,” Dane said to her back.

Finally, she met his eyes in the mirror. “Thank you for that.”

“My pleasure.”

She nodded absently, then said, “I'll be here tomorrow night. For work. I'll be fine, I'll do the show. I just can't now. I'm sorry.”

“I know you can't. It's fine. We'll say you got food poisoning, whatever. You'll go on tomorrow.” He stared at her, wanting to say something to comfort her and having no idea what. “That letter . . .”

“Please,” she cut him off. “Not now. I'm so drained.”

“I'm sure you are,” he murmured. “I'm glad I found you.”

She blushed and her eyes flickered away, down to her hands. She reached for her cosmetics bag.

“I wish you'd talk to me about it,” he said quietly. “When you're ready.”

She nodded but didn't say anything. She stared at herself in the mirror for a few seconds. Then she met his eyes again in the reflection and whispered, “I don't think I can see you for a while.”

His heart plummeted. “What? Why not?”

“I just . . .” Her face flushed again. She shook her head and studied her nails. “I need space. I need to be alone for a while.”

Dane stood and crossed the room in two long strides. He stood behind her, looked into the mirror, and said, “Don't do this.”

Her eyes met his again. “I'm not right for you, Dane. We both know that.”

“I know no such thing,” he ground out. His mind spun as he tried to figure out her reasoning. “Why do you think you're not right for me?”

She only stared back at him in the mirror.

He gripped her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “I know you're hurting, and you want to be left alone. But I don't want to leave you alone to go crawl in a hole by yourself and get lost there.”

“That's exactly what I need to do right now,” she whispered hotly.

“I get that, but I just don't think—”

“I don't care what you think! This is what I need to do!” she cried. She shoved his hands from her shoulders and stood to face him. “Dammit, Dane, you don't always know what's best for me. Just back off !”

Kelvin burst out of the bathroom. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dane said.

“Everything,” Julia said. She grabbed her bag from the floor. “I have to go.”

“Julia, wait—” Dane reached for her arm, but she shook off his hand. She left the room as quickly as she could. His heart thumped in his chest as his stomach roiled.

“What just happened?” Kelvin asked.

“I think she just dumped me,” Dane answered, staring after her.

Chapter Seventeen

Julia stared across her bedroom, out the window, but not really seeing. Sunlight filtered in, streaming thick rays of bright morning gold into her room. The only sound was that of her air conditioner, humming from its perch in the other window. She curled up into a tighter ball beneath her pale yellow comforter and stared into the distance. As it had since she'd returned home, her body felt lifeless, but her mind kept spinning in endless circles.

She hadn't gotten out of bed since she'd hit it the night before, except to pee. She had no appetite. She had downed a few glasses of water, and that was it. Sleep had finally taken her around 3:00
A.M.
, but it had been a tortured, restless sleep. Since nine, she'd just been lying in bed, staring into space, thinking about everything. Going back down roads of memory she'd closed the gates to years ago.

It was all like something out of a bad movie, whether what Liam had written was true or not. It was mind-boggling. To think that Max would have gone to all that trouble, been so devious, underhanded, and scheming . . . not just to her, and to their son, but also to drag a heroin addict back under . . . Max was a true sociopath. And that was who had raised Colin all this time. It made her literally sick to think of that.

Colin. Her sweet boy. As an infant, they'd been inseparable. She had been his world, and vice versa. She'd always wondered what horrible, degrading lies Max had fed to their son to keep him so firmly away from her. Considering that broke her heart each time she wondered, and almost broke her spirit, even still. An innocent boy, used as a tool for a spoiled psycho of a man who wanted a trophy for his family. Who knew what kind of person Colin had become as a result?

And Liam. If everything he said was true, his life had been destroyed too. She had sympathy for him. She did. He'd been courageous to come and find her after all this time, and then to write that letter even after he'd been thrown out of the hotel. He hadn't had to tell her the truth. She never would have known, and he could have just gone on with his life. But he'd told her. And over the years, nearly killed himself to numb his self-loathing for his part in it. Yet another life wrecked by Max's hand.

Max. Damn him to hell. Thinking about him made her blood burn like volcanic lava. Max had to answer for his crimes somehow. She wished she had the power, the leverage, the evidence, anything . . . but she didn't, and she knew it. The feeling of powerlessness she'd suffered for so many years had returned and swallowed her whole. She couldn't get out of bed. She didn't even want to. If she hadn't promised Dane she'd show up for work that night, she likely would stay in bed for days.

Dane. She sighed for the hundredth time as she thought of him. How she'd been ready to let him in more. How they'd been growing closer, inch by inch, and how it scared her but thrilled her too. How she'd been planning, when he got back from his trip, to tell him how she felt. How she'd been . . . hopeful.

But not now. No way. He'd read that letter. He'd seen her in a ball on the bathroom floor. He'd held her as she cried and she'd needed that, needed him, more than she'd thought possible, but . . .

All those things combined—and the sad, pitying look on his face when he came to sit with her after reading the letter . . . she was horrified and humiliated. Now, to him, she must seem like not much fun anymore—and worse, weak and pathetic. A sniveling girl, not an empowered woman who stood on her own. A woman who'd been stupid enough to be set up . . . so she'd pushed him away last night. Shoved him away, before he had the chance to do it to her.

She didn't want to face him. Hell, she didn't want to face herself. That was the truth of it.

Her eyes slipped closed before the tears started again. She drifted in and out of sleep for a while, she wasn't really sure. A few hours, or a few minutes? The sunlight shifted position outside, and soon she knew it was past midday. She yanked the blanket up around her chin, then her mouth, almost concealing herself completely. She wished she could disappear, just vanish into thin air. The heartache was all-consuming.

The phone rang a few times. She ignored it. Finally, her stomach rumbled so hard that it hurt, and her hands and arms felt shaky from low blood sugar. She had to eat something. Slowly, she rose from bed, dismayed to realize she was light-headed from lack of food. Cursing herself for being an idiot, she dragged herself to the kitchen. She gulped down some orange juice straight from the carton to give her blood sugar a boost, then quickly made and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The phone rang again. She ignored it again.

Trying not to become consumed with hatred toward her ex-husband was the only thing that kept her from focusing all that hatred upon herself. Of course she was responsible for part of it; she'd made some bad choices. But Colin shouldn't have had to pay the price for that. Max was the one who had to pay for this horror show. And she had to reach Colin somehow; she had to do something.

As she put her plate in the sink, something started to bubble inside her, from a deep and dark place. She leaned against the counter and closed her eyes against it.

God, she hated him. She hated what that man had done to her life. To their son.

Red-hot rage seared through her like an electric current. But she stopped trying to swallow it, and finally welcomed it. Time to stop moping, get back up, and fight. When she was sad, she was paralyzed. When that ebbed and she got angry, she was revitalized. Now, she grew more than angry as she thought about it over and over, in different ways and scenarios. She was furious. She wanted to take an action, to strike back. But what could she do, really? “Think, Julia,” she spat at herself. “Think!”

She started to pace her apartment, walking from room to room. When the urge hit her, she stopped in her tracks. She had nothing to lose.

She grabbed the cordless phone from the tiny table next to her couch, then went to comb through her old address book—still a paper book, with all the entries made in ink. Before she could think it through too much and possibly change her mind, she pounded in Max's phone number.

It rang once. Twice. Was it still a valid number? she suddenly wondered. She hadn't called his house in years. But on the third ring, a familiar male voice answered. “Hello?”

Her stomach twisted at the sound of his voice. “Max. It's Julia.”

He paused for a second, then said, “What do you want?”

“A million things,” she murmured. “But I wanted to tell you I just found out the truth. I know what you did.”

He snorted. “Not too vague. Still a drama queen, nothing's changed. What the hell are you babbling about?”

“Liam told me everything,” she said in a low voice, meant to cut like a blade.

Max was quiet for a long beat, then said, “You talking to that junkie again? After all these years? How wonderful. Was it a happy reunion?”

“There was no reunion,” she ground out. She could feel her blood pounding at her temples. “He came to see me. To tell me what you did, because he's felt so guilty all this time for his part in it that he felt he had to. He told me how you set me up.”

“You're talking nonsense,” Max scoffed, but his voice wavered the tiniest bit.

“How you set me up,” she repeated, with force this time. She felt her fire ignite and flame in her chest, and used that anger to spur her on. “How you paid him to work his way into my life so you could use him against me. How you paid for his drugs to keep him in line when he threatened to back out and tell me what you were up to. How you knowingly got him high and told him to come to my home that way so he could horrify our son. Our sweet, innocent, six-year-old son! He told me everything, Max, you filthy sociopathic bastard.”

Silence floated over the line for a few seconds. Then, in a voice like the devil himself, Max snarled, “Prove it, you pathetic bitch.”

“I will,” she snapped back. “Believe me, I will. And then I'll find a way to get to Colin and expose you for the disgusting excuse for a human being that you are. He needs to know the truth. All of the truth, not just your twisted version of it. He needs to know just how deranged his father was, and apparently, still is.”

“You stay away from him,” Max warned. His voice was filled with fury now. He was done pretending. “You don't contact him, or I'll—”

“You'll what?” Julia laughed, a hollow, derisive sound. “You've already done the worst thing to me you could do. You took our son away from me, and kept him away from me, all these years.” She knew she was almost shouting now, but she couldn't control herself. “I'll never get those years back! I have a son who doesn't know me. I have a son who I've always loved, and I might as well be dead to him, thanks to you and your manipulations. So don't you threaten me, Max. You don't scare me anymore.” She forced herself to lock down her voice, sound more controlled. “If anyone should be scared now, it should be
you.
I'm not some powerless, naïve young girl anymore. I'm strong as can be, thanks to the hell you put me through. And now, one way or another, I'm going to make you pay for what you did.”

“You listen to me, you goddamn slut,” Max snarled ferociously. “You stay away from Colin, and you stay away from me. Liam's nothing but a lying junkie, and you're nothing but a tramp who lures men while you sing for your supper, one step shy of working the pole. I'm a pillar of the community. You're a trashy lounge act. No one will believe you. So if you try to stir this up—”

“Oh, I'll be more than stirring this up, Max. And people
will
believe me. Which is probably why you suddenly sound so . . . desperate.” Julia tried to sound snide and calm, but her heart pounded wildly in her chest. “Consider this your only warning. When I bring this out, and prove what a disgusting, manipulative person you are to Colin—and the world—you'll be sorry you ever met me.” She disconnected the call and stood there for a long moment, trying to catch her breath. Her words came back to her . . . and she laughed.

She had finally told him off. Her heart raced, her breathing came in short bursts, but . . . God, confronting that bastard had felt amazing! Empowering. She felt strong, like the woman she was now. The woman she'd worked so hard to become after all that misery.
That
woman was back on her feet.

Feeling energized, she went to take a shower and prepare for her trek into the city. She had a show to do that night, dammit.

As for Dane . . . she'd deal with Dane when she saw him. If he even wanted to see her at this point. After how she'd rebuffed him last night, she wouldn't blame him if he never wanted to talk to her again, much less them keep seeing each other. Maybe that would be for the best . . .

Her heart hissed at her.
No it wouldn't, idiot. You love him.

She sighed as she stepped into the shower. She had no idea what he wanted now. Maybe she'd finally pushed him away hard enough that he'd stay away this time. The thought made her throat constrict and her chest tighten.

 

 

“Thanks for dinner,” Tess said, smiling at her brother. “This was nice.”

“My pleasure.” Dane put a credit card inside the leather billfold and handed it to the waiter, who thanked him and walked away.

As soon as he did, Tess said flatly, “You're not yourself tonight.” She stared across the table at him, scrutinizing without mercy. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dane shrugged. Of course, he knew Tess knew. He'd been in a pissy mood all day. But he didn't want to get into why. Didn't want to talk about what had happened with Julia the night before. Or the fact that she'd been a total wreck, or the fact that he'd called her twice today and texted her and she hadn't returned any of his messages, or the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about her and it was making him crazy.

“I'm okay,” he said.

Tess snorted. “No, you're not. All through dinner, I kept hoping you'd volunteer something, but you haven't. Talk to me.”

He sighed and said, “I really don't want to talk about it, Tess. Please.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then switched gears. “Dinner was lovely. I'm glad you could meet me out. Now, let's go back to your hotel. I want to have a few drinks and see Julia's show tonight.”

At the mention of Julia's name, he actually flinched. He tried to cover it by rising to his feet, but his sister knew him too well.

Standing along with him, Tess pounced. “You think I didn't see that?” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Talk to me, for Pete's sake. Did you two have a fight or something? You're obviously miserable, and it's obviously about her.”

“Don't want to talk about it,” he repeated. “Let it go, Tess. You want to see her sing, let's go. She goes on in less than an hour.”

Tess sighed, but fixed him with a hard gaze and linked her arm through his. “Yes, I do. We're going to hear her sing, I'm going to buy you drinks, and I'm going to pry it out of you. Whatever it is.”

“You can try,” Dane smirked. “I'll take the drinks, though. Definitely that.”

Forty-five minutes later, they were seated at a small table angled off the stage. The bar and lounge were packed with people happy to be out on a late August Friday night. Bouncy swing music played from the speakers in the bar, mingling with the sounds of talk and laughter. Dane and Tess soaked up the atmosphere, comfortable enough with each other not to have to make small talk, which he was grateful for. Even when their drinks arrived, which was his third of the night, he couldn't shake the tension that had gripped his insides since Julia had shaken off his hand the night before.