Chapter 29 Julia
I'm so vastly under-qualified for my job, it's not even funny. Well, it is funny. The funny part is how ridiculously good I am. Seriously. Profits have gone up in the Swedish, French, and German branches of my father's empire since I joined the company three months ago.
However, I can now confidently say I'm not meant to have an office job…but I'll never actually say it aloud because it would prove my father right.
This shit is so boring though.
Sighing, I scroll through the massive Excel file one of my colleagues just sent to me. It's linked in an email with a single word: Thoughts?
My respect for Davis has multiplied exponentially over the last six weeks. Calcifying at a desk and reviewing financials and emailing about meetings that should have just been emails in the first place is truly one of the circles of hell. When my father shipped me out to Paris, I thought he wanted to protect me. I now realize he wanted to torture me.
Rolling my eyes, I respond to my colleague's email with, Interesting. I think we should add this to the agenda for tomorrow.
Almost immediately, he tells me he agrees completely.
He thanks me.
Jesus, this is a racket.
Bored, I close the file and check my phone. There's nothing from Gus.
Weird.
For the next hour, I get ahead on a presentation I'm prepping about Copenhagen prospects. It's mostly more smoke and mirrors, but apparently that's my specialty. Once I get to a good place, I decide to give myself a break. Again, nothing from Gus.
Annoyed, I refresh my messages. Still nothing. Not a single message from him today—so out of character for him. In fact, he hasn't said much over the last couple of days. The last time I heard from him was when he texted me about the tomato crop coming in at the cabin, including one bad selfie of him with the plant over his shoulder.
I saved the picture to my phone, where it will live in good company with the hundreds of pictures of Gus I've amassed over our two-month, intercontinental, long-distance relationship. I stare at the picture now with a lump in my throat. On a good day, I miss him so much my chest aches. Today, I'm nearly sick to my stomach.
Why isn't he answering? Maybe he's bored of me, finally, like my father predicted.
I send him a text, ignoring the overwhelming urge to play old games—to tell him to come and get me. This time, I tell him I miss him. Three little words, a gross understatement: I miss you.
When he doesn't respond within the hour, my optimism fades entirely. Something is wrong.
I can't focus. I'm not doing this.
The workday is just starting, but I detest this job and I'm a nepo baby, so I pack my laptop and cut out early, shamelessly waving at the building's receptionist before I emerge into a tranquil Parisian morning.
This week, Peter is visiting and staying in my apartment. I stop by a boulangerie and pick up a few things for us to share for brunch. When I get back to the apartment, I'm unsurprised to discover that Peter apparently brought home a cute French bartender he met last night. The three of us end up splitting the spread I bought.
Gus never contacts me.
Hours later, on the verge of tears, I fall asleep with the tightness in my stomach gnawing at me.
It's my birthday—and the one thing I want, I don't have.
Startled, I awaken to my phone vibrating nonstop.
"Happy birthday," Gus's rough voice says when I answer. "It's not midnight here, so I didn't miss it."
I have every right to be furious with him, but I'm just relieved to hear him speak.
"Where the hell have you been?" I ask, not bothering to hide the crack in my voice as the day's emotions finally pour out. "Is something wrong? I thought…"
"I'm fine. I love you, Julia. The entire world could implode and I'd still love you."
"You're so dramatic," I reply, but his words make my stomach flutter. "But seriously, where were you?"
"I have gifts for you. I would have given them to you sooner, but I was down to the wire on one. I just emailed you your first gift," he continues, not exactly answering my question.
Confused, I pull my phone away from my ear and open an email from Gus, which contains nothing but a hyperlink that says, Click Here. Even though it looks spammy as shit, I click the link, and it opens a New York Times article with the headline: Gus Winter Purchases The Carraway.
That's how famous he is; the New York Times can post an article with his name in the headline, and everyone will know who he is without qualifiers.
I scan the first few lines of the article, realization slowing dawning. My pulse speeds up. Screw this old person telephone call shit, I think, and I FaceTime him so I can see him. His image appears on the screen, handsome—so handsome—but tired and unshaven.
"August, what is this?" I demand. "The article you sent to me…"
"I bought it," he replies simply, raising his shoulder. "I own the website now."
Blinking, I let out a laugh. "You're kidding."
"I'm not," he assures me. "I bought The Carraway. And I bought it for you, love, so you can do whatever you want with it."
He bought me a website. A motherfucking website. The Carraway has been a thorn in my side for over a decade—and more recently became the reason why I'm thousands of miles away from the man I love—and he bought it.
"I'll send back the money they blackmailed your father for," he continues, completely ignoring the dumfounded expression on my face. "I can't believe he made such a fuss over ten million dollars."
I snap out of my stupor. "That's the most unrelatable thing anyone has ever said. Ever."
"Baby, I'm rich as fuck. I'm not trying to be relatable."
I wish I could put my hands on his cheeks and kiss him right now. "As far as birthday presents go, a man buying me an entire online publication—particularly in a day and age when print and journalism are extremely volatile—is the best gift anyone has ever given me."
"You're worth it. You're worth everything to me."
Sighing, I shake my head. "I don't even know what to say. I can't believe you'd go through all this trouble."
"Jesus, Julia," he murmurs, disgust finally rising on his face. "Are you seriously telling me no man has ever fought for you before?"
"Not like this."
"I want to hold you right now," he murmurs. "Look, I know it feels like we're against all odds, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere."
"But I'm trapped here."
"So leave. The Carraway is ours now, so it's not like he can hold the debt over you. Quit your job and go. You don't owe anything to your father anymore. Go wherever you want."
"But he'll cut me off," I remind him.
"He'll cut you off if you come back to me," Gus clarifies. "But you can go anywhere, and that's what you love to do, Julia. I'm not asking you to pick between your family and me. I bought the website because I wanted you to be free."
"Funny," I murmur. "I don't know how free I am if I'm not with you, August."
He stares at me with longing clear in his blue eyes. "We're going to figure this out. I promise."
"Look," I offer, "maybe…I don't need my family."
"No. Absolutely not. You're not picking me over them. We both know you don't want to."
He's right. I want everything. Gus and my father and brothers. I may grumble and groan about the parties and the pageantry, but at the end of the day, this is my reality. My life. I want it all.
His eyes briefly move away from the screen. "I want to talk about this, but I have to go. I've got a call with the President of MIT in a few minutes."
"Sure. We can talk later."
He hasn't even hung up, and already the ache is building. He stares at me, his gaze serene but filled with unbridled yearning. I get it. I feel the same.
"I love you," he says after a long pause. "I love you in ways I didn't think I could put into words. But, I did try."
Confused, I'm about to ask him what he's talking about when Gus's attention drifts away from the phone again.
"Brent is going to pop a vein if I don't go now. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
The screen goes dark and I'm left alone in my bedroom, staring at the empty space where his face was.
As I shrug on my robe, I wander out of my bedroom and over to Peter's room, where I'm relieved to find there are no cute French boys sharing the bed tonight. I crawl in next to him and pull the covers to my chin while he stirs and turns to face me.
"What's up?" he asks, still half asleep.
"What would you do in this situation," I begin. "You've got a brilliant, kind of broody, but doting billionaire who you're madly in love with. He wants to be with you and you want to be with him…but if you pick him, you would be giving up your inheritance and your family, who you pretend not to like but are secretly kind of obsessed with."
Peter is wide awake now, running his hands through his curly brown hair as he adjusts on the pillow. "Is this a serious question?"
"Dead serious."
"You're such an asshole," he replies, chuckling. He rubs his hand over his face and groans into his palm. "Julia, you narcissist, you don't remember what happened to me in college?"
Pausing, I try to think back to our Yale years, but to be honest, Peter and I drank a ton and did alot of drugs.
"I'm drawing a blank," I admit.
"I was dating a guy who my dad hated, and he told me to break up with him or he would cut me off. You really don't remember this?"
"Peter, you dated so many people."
"It's not my fault I'm pretty," is his response. He sits and flicks on the lamp on the nightstand, illuminating the amused expression he wears.
"I'm sorry I forgot. Seriously. I have, like, zero memory of whatever you're talking about…so what did you do?"
Peter raises a shoulder. "I'm cut off," he mentions casually.
A rare silence sets in between us while I replay those three words in my brain. Once they register, I raise my eyebrows. "Sorry—what?"
He nods, nonchalant. "Yeah, I haven't gotten a dime from my father since I was, like, nineteen."
"Ten years ago? But how?" I demand. "We've been hanging out constantly and I never knew you weren't spending your father's money."
"I spend Gray's money," he replies casually, shrugging again. "Elizabeth's too. The stakes of being cut off are low when you have siblings with unlimited money. Have you not thought about it?"
"Well, I'm not worried about money. My alternative to my father's billions is…"
"Gus's billions."
"I'm more afraid of losing my relationship with my father and my brothers. Even if I don't say this often, family means everything to me."
"Being cut off doesn't mean you're ostracized. At least, not to the Davenports. I still talk to my parents. I just don't get their money. And trust me, your brothers aren't going to be upset at you if you're cut off. Their share of the inheritance balloons to fifty/fifty if they don't have to split it with you."
"Oh my god, you're right."
"So fuck these games," he goes on. "For me it was a no brainer. Cut me off. I don't give a shit. I picked love. Granted, he dumped me three months later, but still. Worth it."
"I need my own money though," I reply. "I don't want to rely on Gus for his money."
"Why not?" Peter questions before deadpanning, "He has a lot of it."
"Not the point."
Knowingly, Peter nods. "Get another job," he replies. "And this is precisely where my expertise ends because I've never had a job in my life."
"And yet you need one more than any of us."
He shrugs. "Said the woman who is housing me for free in Paris."
"Touché," I murmur.
Peter and I talk for hours. He tells me about his experience losing out on billions in inheritance, and assures me the sting goes away faster than you'd think. Worth it, he keeps saying. If you love someone, it's worth it.
By the time I head back to my bedroom, my mind is made up. Gus fought for me. Now, it's time to fight for him. I just need to figure out how.
I'm back in bed, already dreading another day of my horrible job when I take out my phone and find a new email from Gus. Subject: Your other birthday gift.
There's an attachment on the email. Within minutes of looking at it, I realize I was wrong. This is the best gift I've ever gotten. It's exactly what I needed—something money couldn't buy, gifted to me by a man who could buy anything.
Within minutes, I've booked a flight back to Boston.
When I breeze into my father's office without an appointment, he's on a call. He frowns when I take a seat on the other side of his desk without waiting for him to summon me in.
"I'm going to have to call you back," he murmurs before putting his phone on the receiver. His expression is tight with confusion. "You're supposed to be in Paris."
"Read this." I drop the thick document I printed out onto his desk. It falls with a satisfying thud by his laptop.
He hesitates before he looks. His eyes travel over the topmost page and then he glances up. "What the hell is this?"
"Read it," I instruct, folding my arms.
"It's long, Julia."
"Read it," I repeat, refusing to back down.
To my surprise, he does it. My father sighs hard, but he closes his laptop and reads page after page, taking in words I've now read ten times over since Gus sent me the draft.
Chapter 15: Julia
The moment I first saw Julia Ridgeway, I began to doubt whether I had ever seen beauty in my life before. There had been forty-three years' worth of sunsets and sunrises and broad expanses of ponderosas, fireworks on the Fourth, thick layers of fog on the beach. It all paled in comparison to her…
By the time my father gets to the last line of the chapter, the line where Gus wrote, Spending the rest of my life loving her will be my next great venture, an uncommon silence has settled between us. It's a rare thing, heavy and notable because we're two people who can't resist getting the last word in.
He looks up at me. "He wrote an entire chapter about you in his memoir."
"Yes."
"This man loves you," he states. The words are simple by definition, but complex at their core. My father keeps his eyes locked on mine, blinking every now and then, but keeping his focus squarely on me. The look holds so much: recognition, surprise, and remorse.
"I quit the job you gave me," I tell him, wondering why I have an urge to cry. "I'm not supposed to be in Paris."
"You love Paris," he responds, almost like he's reminding me.
"I love a lot of things."
My father is quiet again, eyes oriented at the printed copy of Gus's manuscript. His fingertip traces one of the corners, smoothing it to perfection.
"You can cut me off," I continue. "You should cut me off. I'm twenty-nine as of yesterday. I have a college degree and plenty of savings. I'm going to get a job I actually want. I know there's no way I can achieve anything without our last name and your influence clouding everyone's judgment, but at least I can find a job more suited to my experience."
The look he gives me is guarded. "Julia, I want the best for you. You're not Davis, my successor in the most literal sense, but you are my successor. When I'm gone, you'll still make your way in the world, and I wanted more for you than to be a plaything for a man like Gus Winter."
"I understand. You're anchored to who you are, and the decisions you've made. You're on your third wife, and she's thirty years younger than you. I'm not surprised the thought of Gus and me strikes you as inappropriate because deep down, you know your situation isn't exactly above reproach."
My father's jaw lowers an inch. "Well," he mutters, "that's, frankly, the cruelest and yet most articulate thing anyone has said to me in years."
And it's not even my best work.
"Our relationship needs to change," I tell him. "I'm your daughter through and through. I cower to no one, and I get what I want. It's who I am, and I learned it from you, honestly. Which means, for me to be happy, I can't cower to you and I want Gus. So, I'm going to be with him and you can cut me off. It's fine. I'll still come to your office to have lunch every two years, if you'll let me."
"Julia," he begins slowly.
I wait.
"I'm proud of you," he finally says. "Perhaps I don't say it enough, but I am."
"What for?"
"For this," he admits, gesturing at me. "Many things, but this conversation in particular. You stood up to me, you held your ground, and you demonstrated a remarkable sense of self. It's clear I don't need to worry about you and Gus Winter. I assume you can handle him."
"I can."
"And you love him?"
"So much it hurts."
"Then you should be with him. And yes, I would love to continue having lunches with you—perhaps more often. You can tell me about your new job when you find one. Any company would be lucky to have you. I heard the European markets—"
"Yeah, I'm letting you know right now: I'm going to repress the two months I spent working at Davenport-Ridgeway and have zero interest in ever discussing European markets ever again."
"Duly noted."
I smile. "I love you, dad. I should say it more often. I do love you."
"I love you too. I would never cut you off, by the way. You know that."
"I do now," I admit with a nod before I stand and head to the door. "Oh, and dad?"
"Yes?"
"I hate kale salad," I tell him before winking. "Something to remember for the next time I visit."
The following day
When I knock on the door to the cabin, there's no answer. I try Gus's phone, but it immediately goes to voicemail. Confused, I take a seat on the porch swing—the one I know he built for me—and take the picture of myself.
Come and get me, August.
It doesn't take long for him to respond this time. Minutes, in fact. When he does, I'm surprised to see his response: Are you kidding me, Julia?
Before I can ask what he's talking about, a picture of him arrives…with Peter.
He's in Paris.
I burst out laughing. My phone rings, and I'm still laughing when I answer Gus's video call.
"This is our own Gift of the Magi, isn't it?" he nearly grumbles.
"I was trying to surprise you," I explain.
He releases a languid exhale. "Yeah, no shit. I was doing the same thing. I'm such an idiot. Do you know what happened the last time I went to Europe for a woman without telling her I was coming?"
"I've heard the rumors," I deadpan.
Gus lets out another sigh and rakes his fingers through his black hair. "You know, this could be funny, but I was so ready to see you."
"How long will it take you to get back?"
"Well, it's fifteen hours with connections, so if I leave right now—"
"That's insane," I interject. "You just flew from Bozeman to Paris. You're probably exhausted. Spend the night and come tomorrow."
His expression darkens. "Julia, I cannot articulate clearly enough how badly I need to see you."
I pump my legs to move the swing. "Well, we're going to be together tomorrow and every day after. Take your time."
A look of placidity arises on his face. I want to ask him what he's thinking about, but I can guess: After twenty years of heartache, Gus Winter is finally getting the happily ever after he thought he'd never have.
"Enjoy the cabin," he instructs. "I want it to be yours too."
At precisely that moment, he unlocks the front door remotely.
Weird, endearing tech billionaire things as usual.
I take advantage of his absence to look around, which I couldn't do the last time I was here because I was either fighting with Gus or screwing him senseless. As I wander through rooms, memories flood back. In retrospect, over the three days I was here, I was falling hard for him already—I just didn't realize it at the time.
The place looks and smells like him, and even the trivial details like a FundRight coffee mug in the dish rack or an Elvis album in the record player make my heart skip.
I can't wait to see him. The next day is going to be agony.
I need to distract myself, I realize, and playing with my phone and watching TV isn't going to cut it.
I stare out the windows at the gorgeous trees—now green rather than snowy white like the last time I was here—and an idea strikes me. I find what I'm looking for in Gus's bedroom: a book on local trails. Sure enough, there's a dogeared page smeared with dirt. I take the book, along with a vintage copy of The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Survival from the library.
An hour later, with borrowed camping and hiking equipment, I set out for my first solo journey.
The afternoon sky is a stunning spread of blues and oranges and I've never seen anything so breathtaking in my life. Last time I was out here, the air was cold and hung heavy with the smell of ice. Today, it's clear and crisp with notes of spring. There's something floral in the air, something rich and musty that swirls with fecundity.
I walk and I think. I think about my father, wondering who he's verbally decimating at the moment. I think about my brother, likely eating in front of his laptop and texting his secret girlfriend who he thinks I don't know about, but I saw him smiling at his phone thousands of times when we were working together. I think about Peter, who never once gave me any indication that he wasn't a billionaire-heir—because our friendship is more than money. I think about Jay and where he might be at this very moment—and I hope wherever he is, he's miserable and has a giant canker sore on the inside of his lower lip.
And I think about me. The job I quit. The end of a fast-paced lifestyle of clubs and clothes and liquor and lavish travels centered around influencer bullshit. I won't miss it. After missing Gus for months, I know real heartache. I feel nothing for the changes I'm making. If anything, they're long overdue.
I keep walking.
My feet ache and I'm starving, and my lips sting from the unforgiving wind, but I keep going.
It takes me four hours.
Panting and exhausted, I arrive at Gus's lookout point and stare out at the vast, untouched expanse. I've seen so much of the world, but there's something quintessentially majestic about the nothingness of unmarred nature. I wonder if the first people to witness the grandeur of this valley felt the same optimism I do at this moment. Broad, stretches of untouched land: They could have done anything with it.
I can do anything with my life.
I stand there for a long time, watching the light move over the valley as the sun shifts.
Gus would kill me if he knew I were out in the woods at night, so once the sunset begins, I get to work on my campsite, referencing the Pocket Guide as I go. By the time the sun fully sets, I have a tent and a fire, and a vile packet of reconstituted beef stew that inspires me to make the biggest pot of beef bourguignon known to man when I return to the cabin.
Night falls, the stars come out, and there's nowhere else where they look so clear or endless.
Dirty, achy, and elated, I curl up in a sleeping bag that smells like Gus and I drift off to sleep.
And in the morning, while I stand at the edge of the precipice and watch the rising sun, my periphery finds Gus Winter.
There he is—tall, handsome, and smiling.
Gus is smiling.
My entire life, I've recoiled from disappointing men. They've bored me or let me down, or have achieved an unholy combination of both. Needless to say, I've never run to a man before. I've never run to him, thrown my arms around him, and exhaled with relief in his embrace.
That all changes.
From now on, everything changes—and after years of wandering, I'm finally where I'm supposed to be.