CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Gavriil

I WANDER TO the window and gaze out over the golden sands of Malibu. It’s a place I’ve stood countless times since I bought this house. The view of the beach, the ocean, the glimpses of the mansions on either side of mine, used to bring me joy.

Right now, though, all I feel is alone. Alone in a massive house filled with priceless treasures that once meant everything, and now mean nothing.

It’s been a week since Juliette left. I learned from the captain that she had arranged for a car to take her south to the nearest airport so she could catch a flight back to Washington. She told the captain it was a family emergency. Whether or not he believed her, I didn’t know and didn’t care.

I stayed on the boat, drifting down to the coast, passing the stop at Les Baux-de-Provence where we were supposed to get off and tour the quarry together. Once we arrived in Marseille, I took up residence in the suite at Le Petit Nice I had reserved for the final phase of our honeymoon. I spent almost every waking hour on the phone or on the computer, instructing my security team to dig deeper into Louis Paul even as I tried to persuade him to meet me across the negotiating table.

His secretary deferred my calls. My attempts at contacting him through his personal phone were met with voicemail. Losing the contract would not hurt Drakos North America. Given that it appeared Paul had something to hide, it was doubtful he would talk about our falling-out with others.

But it was the only thing I could focus on right now. The only thing that distracted me from the fact that Juliette was not in my life.

The first few days, it was easy to hold on to the anger, the betrayal. It wasn’t until I was flying back to the States that the first doubt appeared. The image of her standing on the stern of the boat, looking like I’d crushed her, played over and over in my mind until I could swear the image was embedded on the back of my eyelids. It bothered me enough that I reached out to Michail of all people. I hadn’t been satisfied with our security firm for a long time. As much as I didn’t care for my newfound half brother, his firm had grown rapidly over the past couple of years. He was renowned for finding out the exact kind of details I needed to know. I was surprised when he agreed to take on my case.

I told myself it was simply confirming that doing business with Paul would not darken the Drakos name. My father had done enough of that when he was alive. I would not enter into a deal, no matter how potentially lucrative it could be, if Paul had been engaging in criminal activity.

I turn away from the window. Juliette hasn’t contacted me. I’ve checked her social media more than I care to admit. There’s been nothing since her last photo of the village where we shared wine and secrets. I’ve revisited that moment often, too, of how truly conflicted she sounded, the genuine pleasure in her eyes when I complimented her photography.

As I moved past my initial hurt, truth has been slowly edging out my rancor and leaving a gaping hole in my chest.

Did Juliette use my file? Yes. But not in the way I had accused her of. It had simply been seeing the name that had reignited her need to know and fully close a painful chapter in her life. What she had done had been a continuation of her own work, her own insecurities and self-doubts. Yes, she had kept things from me. But I had done the same, keeping so much of myself away even as she tore down the walls between us and bared herself to me.

The more I recognize this, the more I realize just how much I let my past speak that day on the river, the more I want to sink to my knees and scream up at the sky.

I haven’t called her. Haven’t reached out, even as I’ve uncovered this epiphany in slow, agonizing moments. Because it doesn’t matter that I’ve realized she was telling the truth. In a moment that mattered, I failed. I let my own doubts take over, my own fear of getting hurt override any rationality, any emotion but self-preservation. If that is my go-to at the first sign of crisis, how can I possibly be worthy of someone like her?

It doesn’t stop me from glancing at my phone, from hoping she’ll call. I do this now on my way out to the pool. There are plenty of text messages from members of my team. A voicemail from my secretary letting me know that Paul has finally agreed to a face-to-face meeting next week in New York to revisit the deal. What once would have brought a surge of triumph brings nothing.

I ease into the warmth of the heated saltwater lap pool. I swim as often as I can. But since I’ve been home, I’ve been swimming as if the devil were chasing me. That if I swim hard enough, fast enough, I’ll outrun the mistake I’ve made and somehow be able to return to the life I had before I proposed to Juliette Grey.

I’ve just completed the second lap when something bounces off my head. I stand up and rip the goggles off my head. Michail stands on the pool deck, legs spread as if he’s a cowboy headed into a gun battle. He looks down at me, sunglasses shielding his eyes. A tennis ball floats in the water next to me.

“I didn’t realize you made house calls.”

Michail holds up a file. “Got what you were asking for.”

I run my hand over my face, dislodging the water still clinging to my skin. Then I grab the tennis ball and lob it in his direction. He dodges it, but barely. I smirk as he swears. I get out of the pool and towel off.

“How did you get in?” I ask as I hold out my hand for the folder.

One corner of his mouth tilts up. “My company manufactures your security system.”

“Comforting.”

I rip open the seal and slide out a document. Louis Paul, I read, has a son in Texas. A son born from a brief affair during a tumultuous time in his marriage to an Austin oil heiress. While Paul and his former mistress are no longer intimate, he makes multiple trips a year down to Texas to see his son. From what Michail’s firm has been able to determine, his wife knows nothing about the affair or the child. Given that she’s stated multiple times she never wants to have children, along with an ironclad infidelity clause in their prenup, Paul has plenty of reasons for not wanting this to come to light.

There are several pictures in the file, too. One is of Paul and his son sitting high in the stands at a baseball game. The boy can’t be more than nine or ten years old. He wears a baseball cap. So does Paul, along with sunglasses and a casual T-shirt I never would have believed he’d wear if I hadn’t had the evidence right in front of my face. But there he is, smiling down as the boy cheers on whatever happened on the field.

My chest tightens. “All of this because he’s trying to be a good father.”

Michail snorts. “Apparently it can happen.”

I glance at him. “You truly didn’t know who our father was?”

“Nope.” Michail shifts as if he is suddenly uncomfortable. “Mom told me he was a bastard and I was better off not knowing him.”

“Smart woman.”

“The best.” He glances down at his feet for a moment. “I expected you and Rafael to be exactly like him.”

“Why?”

“You had his last name. You worked for his company.”

“Drakos North America is my company.” The steel in my voice is ice-cold. “I won’t lie and say that I got to where I was solely on my own merit. But everything that Drakos North America is, it is because I built it that way.”

“I know.” Michail shrugs. “I read up plenty on the two of you after that will-reading. And,” he adds slowly, as if it almost pains him to say, “I realized you two were different.”

“I think that’s a compliment.”

“It is.” He glances back at my mansion. “Even if you live like a damn peacock.”

I grin. “Now that I will take as a compliment.”

Michail makes a sound that almost resembles a chuckle. He glances around.

“Where’s your wife?”

My brief moment of good humor evaporates.

“Not here. I assume she’s at Grey House.”

Michail stares at me for a long moment.

“I hadn’t planned on showing up to your wedding.”

“Why did you?”

I almost missed the slight tensing of his shoulders.

“Changed my mind. I thought you were just marrying for the money.” He smiles wolfishly. “But then I saw your wife and that kiss you gave her during the ceremony. Sure was something.”

“It was.”

It had been the start of everything. Perhaps the moment I’d started to fall in love with her. And I’d let it slip away.

Michail tilts his head. “Which makes me wonder why she suddenly departed from the south of France before the end of your honeymoon and is now up on the Olympic Peninsula.”

I entertain the idea of planting my fist in his face. I’ve never engaged in a brawl with a sibling. Perhaps it’s time I finally experience that family tradition.

“You’ve been busy.”

“Curiosity.”

“We had a fight on our honeymoon.”

“Must have been some fight.”

“Is Sullivan Security now offering marital counseling as well?”

Michail makes that rumbling sound again. “In my early days, I did plenty of investigations for marriages, both the before and after. Vetting potential spouses, seeing if the loving husband or wife had someone on the side. My business tends to rip marriages apart, not mend them.”

So do I , I think gloomily as I glance back down at the report. Juliette had had a feeling that Paul was hiding something. But she had been trying to do the right thing by finding out more before pursuing him, before losing herself in the investigation and intentionally ruining someone’s life. I stare down at the photo of the boy, a child who has a father who, despite his faults, loves him very much.

Juliette did the right thing. She did the right thing, and I still pushed her away without even contemplating that there was a reasonable explanation. I caved to my own insecurities, to my intrinsic beliefs that I would never be enough for anyone, and used it as an excuse to withdraw, to pull away from something raw and frightening and beautiful. Something that was far more important than Drakos North America will ever be: the woman I loved. The woman I wanted a future with.

I’d already known I’d made a mistake. But seeing the evidence in front of me, the confirmation that she had made the right call while I regressed into old habits, kills me.

“You’re not the only man who’s suffered a setback with a woman.”

I glance up. I’d almost forgotten Michail was still there.

“If we’re going to start talking about relationships over a glass of wine, you know where the door is.”

He rips off his sunglasses. There’s still that smoldering anger I saw back in Alessandra’s office. But in those all-too-familiar pale blue eyes, I see something else. Uncertainty. Frustration. And above all, apprehension.

“You’re not an idiot, baby brother.” He grins as I bristle. “Don’t let someone like her get away.”

With those parting words of wisdom, he leaves. As much as I wanted to pitch him into the pool while he was here, I prefer his company to the silence.

I’ve known for days now that I spoke too harshly to Juliette. That she didn’t walk out of my life; I all but pushed her out with my fears and doubts. I should have walked away, given myself time to calm down, then go back and talk to her. Yes, I was hurt. But love doesn’t mean never getting hurt or being hurt by loved ones. What I’ve realized, perhaps too late, is that loving someone includes being willing to forgive, to focusing on and trusting who they are at their core, even in the moments when they mess up.

And I do love her. I love her so much, the thought of never seeing her again, of never seeing her face light up, of hearing her voice or seeking her out at the end of a long day, nearly kills me. The thought of never building a family together, of never knowing the magic of all the things I’ve denied myself over the years, fills me with an even deeper fear, one that threatens to choke me.

No. I have fought for what I wanted for years. I’m not going to give up now. I’m going to make mistakes. Chances are high I will hurt Juliette again. But I love her. I love her and I will never stop trying to be the man I want to be, the man she deserves.

I make several phone calls. Then I start packing. Tomorrow, I will tell my wife how I feel and pray that I haven’t broken her heart so much she’s incapable of returning my love.

Juliette

I stare out over the ocean. It’s the end of the day. The workmen have left.

But Grey House is coming to life once more.

The house itself has been maintained. I might curse Lucifer Drakos for many things. But his care of Grey House is not one of them.

When I first stepped foot inside, it hurt. The refinished floors. The repaired walls. All things my father had dreamed about doing. Lucifer took that away from him, too. But, especially in light of what had happened in France, it was also one less thing I had to pay for.

I shove thoughts of my husband away. There’s no need to spend time or energy thinking about something that’s lost to me. Instead, I need to be thinking about the future. Things like the plans Gavriil’s sister-in-law Tessa emailed over for making the house more welcoming for Dessie. We’ve talked a lot the past week, ever since I emailed her asking her opinion on making Grey House accessible for Dessie and the possibilities that come with her multiple sclerosis. I’d forgotten that she had started her own interior design firm with a focus on accessibility.

But once I’d arrived back in the States, I’d recalled our brief conversation at the wedding reception. I’d desperately needed something else to focus on. Remodeling Grey House had been an immediate solution, one that brought both Dessie and me joy. Collaborating with Tessa, someone who understood the difficulties of traditional home construction for those with mobility challenges, had given me something else to focus on.

I hadn’t expected Tessa to come up with the plans so quickly. I fell in love with them, as did Dessie. Tessa truly has a talent, combining her inner knowledge of the accessible touches needed to make a house a home for someone with mobility challenges with a sense of style.

There will be about two-thirds of the money left after the project is completed. Some of that has already been earmarked for a donation to Catherine and her facility for renovation and expansion. The rest will go into a high-yield savings account that will give Dessie and me enough to live off of as I work on rebuilding my career.

I circle my arms around my knees and stare out over the ocean. It will be enough. I will make it enough.

But every now and then, and moments like these when I’m alone with nothing but my thoughts and regrets, I can still hear Gavriil’s voice from that day in the cemetery.

And you, Juliette? What do you want?

I want to turn back time. I want to go back to the penthouse in Paris and tell him about my suspicions about Louis Paul. I want to go back to that little French village where we had wine and cheese, tell him about Paul then before we went back to the boat and tumbled into bed.

It had been the perfect opportunity. To tell him my lingering fear as I confessed one of my darkest moments. But it had slipped by me until it was too late.

I miss him. On more than one night, I’ve reached out for him, only to have my fingers grasp cool sheets. It doesn’t matter, though, how much I want him. He doesn’t trust me. Can’t trust me. I can’t blame him for the conclusions he jumped to. For the hurt I caused.

I lie back in the grass and close my eyes. When he’d looked at me with betrayal haunting his face, I felt like someone had grabbed my lungs and squeezed all the air out. It wasn’t just that I’d hurt him. It was that I had realized in that moment how deeply I loved him. How much I’d been hoping that our time together might result in him feeling the same way.

But instead of trusting him, I’d given life to my doubts. Let them rule when I’d chosen not to tell him my suspicions. I knew how much Drakos North America meant to him, knew better still after everything he had shared. Yet I hadn’t given him critical information that could have affected the most important thing in his life.

My heart twists at that memory. The moment when he confirmed that, despite his hidden depths, his company would always be the only thing in his life he allowed himself to care about.

But it doesn’t stop me from loving him. From respecting the man who built so much out of nothing. Who can still have compassion for people like Rafe. People like me. Who can realize he’s not doing enough and change it.

Tears bead on my lashes. I love so many things about him. So many things I’ll never be able to tell him.

“You were right.”

My eyes fly open. Did I imagine that voice? I sit up and look around. There he is. Still too handsome, with his dark hair blown wild by the wind, that slight smile curving his lips up.

His pale blue eyes shift from mine to the ocean behind me.

“It is beautiful.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Michail did some additional digging on Louis Paul.”

I barely stop myself from slumping. He’s here about business.

“But even before he showed up, I knew I’d made a mistake.”

I suck in a shuddering breath. “Oh?”

“I told you the most important thing in my life was Drakos.” He stares at me like we haven’t seen each other in centuries, devouring me with every shift of his eyes. “But I lied. Both to you and myself.”

He crouches down in front of me. I don’t want to hope. I don’t want to think that there’s possibly some way we could fix this. I thought I would never see him again, unless it was on the cover of a magazine or a news report. If this is to be the last time we see each other, the last time he touches me, I want to savor every moment I can. I’ve apologized for my role and what happened. I’ve grown a lot in the last few weeks. But if he can’t change with me, we have nothing.

“I don’t want an arrangement, Juliette.”

The pain is swift, sharp. He’s going to ask for a divorce. Not even the prospect of losing Drakos North America is enough for him to want to stay married.

“I see.”

“I want you.”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“I want you as my wife. As my partner. As...” His voice falters. “As the mother of my children. I lied when I said Drakos was the most important thing.” He reaches up and smooths my hair away from my face. I can’t help but lean into his touch. “It’s you, Juliette.”

I blink rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “What?”

“I’ve known for a while that Drakos North America was not the answer to my life. It’s a big part of it. But it’s nothing compared to you. The acceptance you’ve given me, the trust you’ve placed in me—”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” I break in. “I wanted to do the right thing. To take my time and make sure I had the facts—”

“I know.” He cups my face in his hands. “I know, Juliette. You did the right thing and I pushed you away because of it. I hope you can forgive me. That you want me in your life just as much as I want you in mine.”

I stare at him, my heart thundering so loudly I can barely hear my own racing thoughts as a door opens to a future I never thought possible.

“Juliette?”

“Yes,” I whisper, “I want you.”

“Thank God.”

He wraps one arm around my waist and pulls me onto his lap. He crushes his lips to mine, then kisses my face, my neck.

“I pushed you away. I pushed so hard I was afraid I would never get you back. It hurt even more because I finally started to accept I was falling in love with you.”

“You love me?” I whisper.

“I love you. I admire you. I like you.” He punctuates each statement with a kiss to my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. “I enjoy spending time with you. Your writing is phenomenal. I hope to God that what happened between us hasn’t derailed your plans for your career, because I know, Juliette, you’re going to make a difference.”

A tear slips down my face, but not one of sadness or heartbreak. One of hope. He cups my face.

“I never thought I was capable of letting myself love again. Perhaps it was seeing you dance with Dessie at our wedding, or realizing how much you overcame to get where you are today. Maybe it was seeing your face as you looked through the pictures you took, or watching how much you enjoyed the things I took for granted, like a limo ride in Paris. Or maybe,” he says with a smile so beautiful it makes my chest ache, “it was everything. Everything that made me love you.” Pain darkens his eyes. “And then I pushed you away.”

I shake my head. “I should have told you. I let my doubts get in the way. I didn’t want to be wrong again.”

“You did the right thing. You told me about how I hurt you before. That you deserved better. Don’t do yourself the disservice now of thinking you deserve any less.”

I smile through my tears. “You did hurt me. But I hurt you too, and I’m sorry.”

“We both have work to do.” One thumb wipes away a fresh tear. “But I’d like to do that work together.”

“Together sounds wonderful.” I loop my arms around his neck. “Especially because I love you, too.”

He smiles then, a real smile that lights up his face.

“I can’t pinpoint the moment it started. But I know by the time it hit me I was so deeply in love with you the thought of getting divorced nearly tore me apart.”

I cup his face with one hand. “No divorce. Not now, not ever.”

He grabs my hand and pulls it away, looking down at my bare ring finger. “That’s a shame.”

I wince. “It’s back at the house. I can put it back on—”

“I have something better in mind.”

He pulls out another ring box. My heart speeds up as he flips the lid open. Inside is a silver band with an emerald in the center and two small diamonds on either side. It’s simple, elegant, a far cry from the ring he slipped on my finger at almost this very spot six weeks ago.

“I bought the first ring to make a statement to the world. When I bought this one, I bought it for you.”

He shifts to his knees. My heart thunders in my chest.

“The first time I proposed, I didn’t have the words I do now. I love you, Juliette. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much you mean to me. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

I smile through hot tears. “I’m already your wife.”

“In name. But I’m asking you now, Juliette, will you be my wife in the ways that count the most? Will you stay with me, create a family with me?”

“Yes. Yes, Gavriil.”

He swoops me into his arms and spins me around. I throw my head back and laugh moments before he seals his proposal and the beginning of our new life together with a kiss.