Episode 107
Episode 107
No More Secrets
GIOVANNI
The sun shimmered and reflected its glorious light across the top of the lake. I breathed in the crisp air, celebrating the fact that I could even do such a simple thing. A week ago, I'd been in an explosion. Not many people could claim such a thing and live to tell about it. The many wounds on my back and legs were proof of such a miracle. I should have died in that bombing. I'd been lucky.
The real miracle, though, was walking toward me. Her head tilted to the side, her long red hair flowing out behind her. She'd lost quite a bit of weight, which I hated. I loved her full-figure hourglass shape with curves for days. She still had them, but the strain and stress of everything that had happened over the past month had taken its toll in more ways than one.
"Hey." I reached my arm out.
She took my hand. "Did Maggie give you the sign-off to walk around outside?"
"It's more like shuffling slowly, but yes, she thought the fresh air would do me some good. Did she send you out here to check on me?"
Jules grinned and shook her head. "No, I came looking for you after I found something concerning in your office."
My eyebrows rose of their own accord. "Oh?"
She pulled an envelope out of her back pocket. One that had her name written across it in my script. One I'd written years ago when I made my first million. I'd updated the information within as I'd aged and my wealth grew, but I certainly never expected her to find it while I was still alive.
My heart started to beat a million miles an hour as shame and worry filled my mind. "Jules, you weren't supposed to see that…"
She pursed her lips. "No? Then why was it in your, "When I Die" file in your desk? Hmm? Aptly named seeing as we did just fake our deaths."
"Jules." I put my hand out for the envelope. "That was private. You weren't supposed to see that until…"
"You died. Got it." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
"You read it," I whispered, fear in every word.
"Of course I fucking read it. It had my name on it and was in your death file. Horrible freakin' name, by the way. And it's your fault I found it," she snapped angrily.
"Mine?" I practically gagged, knowing what was in the file. Most specifically, knowing what I'd admitted to in a letter to Julianne that was included within that file.
"You're the one that told me to work with Muriel on keeping the business afloat yesterday. So today, when I thought you were napping, I got to work. Muriel told me anything current would be in the desk drawers. Imagine my surprise when I came across this." She waved her hand, the envelope flapping in the breeze like a big red flag.
"I'm…" I slowly walked over to the railing of the pier and braced my weight against it, worrying if I didn't, I'd fall over as all the truths I'd admitted in that letter scattered like confetti all around us. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" she growled. "For leaving me every penny of your fortune, going back as far as being the beneficiary of the trust your parents left you at eighteen?"
"Yes." I swallowed, knowing what was coming next.
"For telling me you are in love with me and always have been. Since we were kids?" She growled.
I cleared my throat as I croaked. "Yes."
"For taking my virginity that night and pretending you didn't know it was me!" she screeched, tears flowing down her face.
I nodded.
"Say it!" she demanded. "Say it to my face, you bastard!"
I firmed my jaw as all that I was, all that I would be, spilled out on the ground before the woman I loved.
"Yes! I took your virginity and pretended it never happened. Yes, I have been in love with you since we were children. Yes, I left you everything of mine, even when I'd planned to marry someone else. Anyone I ever dated, Bianca, all of them were a consolation prize to the one woman I could never have. You. It has always been you, Julianne. Always."
"And when we made love that night?" she croaked. "And the next morning when you rolled over and said another woman's name… you destroyed me ."
"I know," I admitted, the old shame-filled feelings rising back to the surface all these years later.
"I loved you too. From the very beginning. You were all I ever wanted. My brother's best friend. Giovanni Falco, the most beautiful boy, then man, I'd ever known. Inside and out. And that night, you ruined me for others. RUINED me for all other men, because I'd given myself to the only person I wanted to be with."
"Jules, I'm sorry. I was drunk, scared, but more than that, I was terrified . Of all of it. What it would mean to you that I took advantage while drunk. What it would mean to your family. To Brenden. You were the star of the Myers clan. The one person that shined brighter than any other, and I'd tarnished you. Taken something I could never give back. I hated myself. And then, when you also pretended it never happened, I stole that opportunity to do better. Be a better man. Let you flourish and shine without me."
"I went a decade thinking I was a loser because I'd given my virginity to the one man I loved—one who didn't love me back."
"I did love you. I do love you. I just didn't love myself enough to take the risk back then."
"You should have fought for me! You should have made it up to me." She sniffled and wiped at her tears as though they were pesky flies.
"Can I now?" I gulped and moved forward, coming one step closer to the woman I loved. "Can I make it up to you now? Prove that you are the only woman I could ever truly love." I took another step. "Show you every day that I am sorry for how I behaved. I am sorry for making you think even for a moment that you aren't exactly what I want and need."
Her bottom lip trembled. "Why did you even put that in a letter to me? I'd already forgiven you. Reading it today brought all of it back."
"What does the last paragraph of the letter say?" I made it to a foot away from her, where I gently went to my knees. My back and legs pulled at the movement, but I gritted my teeth and took the pain as I'd deserved.
"No, you'll hurt yourself." Jules reached for me, but instead, I took her hands and held them, the envelope crushed between us.
"Not anymore than I hurt you. Now please, what does the last paragraph say, Jules?"
Her bottom lip quivered.
I repeated it from memory. "That night was the best and worst night of my life. The best because I now know what it feels like to have loved you. And the worst, because I know what it feels like to love you, knowing you'll never be mine."
She fell to her knees before me, tears running down her face. "I wish I had been strong enough to talk to you about what happened."
"I wish I'd been strong enough to admit I was a fool and fight for you. I'm sorry, Julianne. I'm sorry for all of it. And if you can find it within yourself to forgive me, I'll spend the rest of my days making it up to you."
She shook her head and cupped my cheeks. "I have already forgiven you. I wouldn't still be married to you if I didn't. I knew what I was getting myself into when I signed that contract. When the officiant declared us as husband and wife, and I kissed you. But as we genuinely fell deeper in love with one another, I let the past go." She ran her fingers through my hair, easing some of the tension racing through me. "What happened when we were kids is in the past. We both have to let it go so we can move on. This is out in the open now for both of us. No more secrets. It happened. We both regret the way it went down, but we are smart enough and mature enough to leave it where it belongs, in our past. We're paving the way to a beautiful future, Gio. After all we've endured, we both deserve it."
Jules pressed her forehead to mine.
"God, I love you so much, Julianne. And I really am sorry for being such an idiot. You didn't deserve that. Especially from me. And the fact that you are being so graceful about it now shows how incredible you are. I promise to never keep anything from you again. No more secrets."
She shifted her head and kissed my lips. I cupped her face and kissed her back with all the love I had to give. My body started to quake; kneeling for so long had morphed into a full body ache.
"Are you okay?"
"Help me back up," I hissed in agony.
She jumped up and helped me to stand. I put my hands on her shoulders, feeling light-headed and dizzy.
"Breathe, baby, just breathe with me." She inhaled for a few seconds and then let it out slowly.
I paired my breathing with hers as my back felt like the fire had returned, licking across my skin and burning everything in its wake. Every time the pain meds wore off completely, I felt the flames again. At least, I no longer smelled the burning flesh. That had been the worst.
"We need to get you inside." She looked at her watch. "You're long overdue for your meds and a nap."
"I'm tired of fucking sleeping all day," I grouched through gritted teeth. The pain was worsening, making it difficult to hobble back up the path toward the house.
"Maggie says…"
"You heal when you sleep," we both said at the same time.
"Will you lay with me? After that conversation, I need you close." I didn't care if I sounded like a wounded animal—because that's exactly how I felt.
She pouted, and her mouth was so beautiful I wanted to kiss it, but the fiery heat tapping into my nerve endings was preventing me from doing anything but grinning and bearing it until I could take the meds.
"If you need me, I'm there. Doesn't matter what it is. Helping you run your empire while you're healing, yelling at you for the stupid shit you pulled in the past, or lying down with you so you sleep soundly. Gio, I'm never leaving you. This is our life now. I've got the one I've been in love with for as long as I can remember, and I'm never letting you go."
"Good," I managed through a wince.
Maggie stood inside the kitchen, waiting for us, hands on her hips. Today's scrubs were a plethora of rainbows with cute little bubble clouds on each end.
"I see you overdid it, just like I told you not to. Don't think I didn't catch you kneeling. Pffftttt!" She shook her head. "Come on now, Pookie. Let's get you sorted with your meds and back in bed. No more walkabouts today. No more begging to do some work. It is my job to help you heal, and by golly, I'm going to do it, whether you help me or not. Ya hear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Ohhh, ma'am. I like it. Very respectful. Maybe if you're good, I'll have your chef whip up your favorite dinner." She bolted ahead of us, allowing Jules to lead me to our room.
"What was the chef supposed to make for dinner?" I asked to keep my mind off the mind-numbing pain.
"Your favorite meal. I asked him to do it. She heard me. Now, she's playing you like a fiddle," Jules snickered. "Serves you right."
"We need to have a son," I griped.
Jules stopped us both in our tracks. "Um, come again?"
"So I'm no longer the only man in the house. Everywhere I go, I'm outnumbered and outranked by the females in my life."
That had her cackling. "It's cute you think you'd have a boy. I doubt the universe would be that kind," she teased. "I know we've sort of talked about it…but, you still want kids? After all of this?"
I started shuffling forward again, lifted her hand, and kissed her fingers. "I want everything there is to have with you, Jules."
"Okay," she whispered. "And, uh, when were you thinking about us trying for a family?"
I shrugged one shoulder and then gasped at the sudden burst of explosive pain. It made me sway on my feet while stars popped all around the edges of my vision, threatening to take me down.
"You're not looking good, Giovanni." Maggie appeared with a muscle relaxer in one hand and a syringe in the other. The doctor had prescribed some of the heavier pain killers that Maggie doled out sparingly as I'd requested. I wanted to get better and off the drugs as soon as possible, but it would take a lot more time.
Maggie and Jules helped me back into bed where I took the pill, and Maggie administered the pain killer. In what felt like an eternity but was only a few minutes, the woozy floaty feeling from the pain medicine coated the worst of it.
Jules got into her side of the bed, put her hand over mine, and smiled. "Sleep, Gio. I'll be here when you wake up."
I tried to say I love you, but it came out garbled to which she laughed.
Her response was, "I wub oooh too."
I fell asleep to the sound of her laughter and the memory of her forgiveness. I couldn't ask for better.