AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a slow exhale, my father shakes his head like he wants to undo the last twenty-four hours and go back to a time when he was the father of a perfect successor son and an unbothered daughter he could parade around at his parties. “I’m so disappointed in both of you,” he murmurs. “At this point, I should leave everything to Kieran.”
Davis and I know better than to protest. If my father is contemplating leaving everything to Kieran, we really have screwed our family up beyond recognition.
My phone buzzes in my purse and I know it’s likely Gus, looking for an update on how the conversation with my father went. Sure enough, when I peek at the screen, I see his name.
My father must notice my attention is elsewhere because he raps his knuckles on the top off his desk. “Julia—look at me. Listen to me. This man is fifteen years older than you and a billionaire. He’s going to get what he wants from you and discard you like you were nothing. There’s no future here. Nothing. Do not let him ruin your life.”
“So the solution is Paris?” I reply, hating the quiver in my voice. “You think that’s going to fix everything?”
“How else will you earn the ten million dollars you owe me?” he replies slowly, the worlds rolling from his tongue like a curse.
And there it is. The last word.
“Fine. I understand.” Slowly, I rise from my seat, my body numb. Davis and I leave the office and exit into the hallway. When the door shuts behind us, Davis pulls me into a hug. A tight one. And it’s strange because we’ve never been an affectionate family, but I won’t deny I needed this hug today.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters.
“Don’t be,” I reply, surprised I can still speak when I’m on the verge of crumbling. “I fell in love with Gus. We have you and your ambition to thank.”
“You really love him?”
I nod.
He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve known you for almost twenty-nine years and you’ve never said you love anyone before.”
“I love you,” I admit. “I never say it, but I do, Davis. I’m glad we got to work on this acquisition together. At the end of the day…well, it was amazing, wasn’t it? I mean, aside from the whole, disgruntled-friend-zoned-grifter airing my dirty laundry to a tabloid rag, it was amazing. We closed a deal on a fifty-billion-dollar company. How many people can say that?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He glances at the door to our father’s office. “And hopefully I taught you something remotely helpful for your new job in…European markets, apparently.”
In any other circumstance, I would laugh at the ridiculousness of it. My father’s way of punishing me is to send me to one of the most revered cities in the world with a job many people would spend their entire careers scrambling to earn—and I didn’t even apply.
“Good luck telling Gus,” Davis says grimly, leading the way down the hallway. “He was ready to rain hellfire the night you rejected him. I don’t want to be within a fifty-mile radius of that man when he finds out you’re being taken away from him.”
Chapter 28: Gus
I’m devastated.
Julia and I have only been apart for two weeks. We speak on the phone every day, and yet I’ve never missed anyone so much in my life.
Her taste. Her smell. The sound of her laugh. Her embrace. The sensation of her cunt pulsing around me when she comes. The sight of her breathing while she sleeps. We didn’t get enough time together, I decide…but then again, a lifetime with Julia wouldn’t even be enough for me.
She promised me she wouldn’t leave me.
But life moves fast when you have too much money for your own good. Her father moved her out to Paris within three days of her meeting with him, and that was that. She was in my arms one day, and the next she was gone.
Gone.
And I was alone again.
Once Julia moved to Paris, I returned to my place in London, thinking it would give me peace of mind to be as close to her as I could, but instead it made me anxious. London is nothing to me anymore. My company is no longer mine. No family. No friends.
I ache for her. It doesn’t stop.
The days are monotonous and long. I scrap my original book and start writing a memoir, like she said I should. She was right, of course.
Writing comes easily in my solitude. In my sadness. Words that used to remain stuck in my fingertips now pour out onto my keyboard.
I return to Montana at the end of the month, not to put distance between me and the unattainable woman I love, but because I feel closer to her here.
