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“I’ve lost my keys, and—”
Before I could even finish my sentence, there was a loud buzz signaling that the door had been unlocked.
“Thank you!” I said before letting the button go and heading inside, surprised and so thankful that that even worked. It was quite a different world over here.
I dashed up the stairs all the way to the third floor, the dread in my belly growing heavier and heavier as I got closer to what I knew would probably be one of the most devastating confrontations in my entire life. I knew that I needed to be strong and hold my own—defend myself to him against all the lies—but no matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t see an outcome where I wasn’t crying my eyes out.
But maybe he’ll believe me once I’m in front of him, I thought, though that tiny glimmer of hope was almost instantaneously extinguished by my omnipresent sense of realism. He might, but I can’t bet on that. I have to go in fearing the worst and be ready to deal with it. This is the last stand for us… and there’s no guarantee that we’ll make it out of there with our relationship in one piece.
Before I knew it, I was outside the door to his flat, chewing nervously on my bottom lip. I felt like I was frozen in place, standing before the gate to what I was sure would be my complete and utter emotional destruction. But I’d come all this way, traveled across an ocean, just so I could see him—possibly for the last time. I couldn’t stop here.
I reach out for the door, my hand shaking as I knocked three times. At first I thought that I might have been too quiet and Julian hadn’t heard me. Or maybe he wasn’t even home—but then what had Tessa been doing here, if not talking to her client? Her only client, now that I thought about it.
Sure that I hadn’t been heard, I reached out to knock again, only to hear the rasping sounds of a deadbolt being slid open. From the other side, a familiar voice grumbled something that I could barely make out.
“You were just here,” Julian said as he opened the door. “What, did you already lose your…”
His eyes, red and bloodshot went wide as they met mine. His mouth dropped open, eyebrows raised as the two of us stood there, staring into one another’s eyes as though we might have just seen our own respective ghosts.
“You,” he said, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “What’re you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you,” I said, swallowing nervously as I took a step closer to him. “I needed to explain—”
“I think that I’ve heard enough explaining from enough people about what happened,” Julian said, his voice rising as he shook his head. “No. I don’t think I want to hear what you have to say.”
“You’ve heard other people tell you what happened,” I countered, grabbing the edge of the door as I saw him move to shut it in my face. “But you haven’t heard me tell you what happened. And after all we’ve been through, I deserve that much from you, Julian Bastille.”
Julian stared at me hard. It wasn’t until he was looking at me that way, until we were so close, that I realized his eyes weren’t just red from the alcohol. They were red because he’d been crying. My heart suffered yet another crack through it as I imagined the kind of pain he’d been in ever since the day that story broke. To have gone from seeing his child on an ultrasound, to being told his wife was some gold-digging fraud…
I was beginning to think we’d stand there forever. But then Julian turned his back on me, leaving the door ajar and walking farther into his flat. I followed him, shutting the door behind me as he sat down on the couch, his eyes fixed on me expectantly.
“All right,” he said, his accent thick, “let’s hear this grand explanation of yours.”
I felt my throat tighten, and suddenly I was at a loss for words. How could I express what had been happening over the last day and a half? I wasn’t sure where to begin, or what I could say that would make me even sound remotely believable. No matter how many times I’d rehearsed this in my head on the way over here, my courage failed me in the face of his pain. By now Julian must have seen me as some tramp who’d actively tried to ruin his life, all in the name of money. I knew I had to say something, something big, something important, to change his mind. Even if I walked away from this empty-handed, he had to know the truth.
“All right,” I said, swallowing thickly and then clearing my throat. “I know you have no reason to believe me. I know what’s been said and written, and everything else. But I promise you, every single word I’m about to tell you now is the truth. And I swear, Julian. I’ve never given you anything but that—the truth.”
“Get on with it then, Liz,” he sighed, taking a long drink from the bottle in his hand. “I haven’t got all night.”
I reached into the pocket of my jacket. There, between the lining, was one of the printouts from the ultrasound we’d had done that fateful day. In lieu of liquid courage, thoughts of this child—Julian’s child, our child—delivered the strength I needed to go through with this. To bare everything for him, and hope that he didn’t take advantage of my vulnerability in return.
Okay, I thought. Here goes…
Julian
“First, I’m going to have to ask you not to be an ass,” Liz said, clearly quite done with my shit before we’d even started. That little bit of frustration, though, proved to be exactly what she needed to break free of the stumbling block that had stopped her at the door. She was now too angry to be nervous, and inside, that made me ache for her all the more.
“Second…” she continued, taking her hand out of the pocket of her jacket and holding it up as I began to protest. Judging by the look on her face, she wasn’t in the mood to be interrupted, and she seemed more than willing to tell me to shut the hell up and listen if she needed to. “Everything they’ve been saying on the news about me—these e-mails, whatever ‘plan’ I supposedly cooked up with Jen—all of it is complet
e bullshit.”
“I’ve seen them, Liz!” I said, shaking my head at her. “You come in here telling me that you’re going to tell me the truth—promising that what you’re saying is true—and start out with a bloody lie?” I snorted and turned away. “Come on…”
“I’m not lying!” she shouted, her face growing red. “Those emails aren’t mine. The first time I heard about them is when I was stuffed into a car, flown to New York and locked away in a hotel room. I saw your press conference on TV!”
That gave me just a moment’s pause. Even in my inebriated state, I knew something didn’t add up there.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I slurred, squinting hard at her. “Why the hell were you in New York? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I don’t know!” she replied. “Tessa had me shoved on a plane and somebody had my cellphone service turned off! I tried to call you on the hotel phone but Tessa wouldn’t let me talk to you. She threatened me Julian! And now you owe me an explanation. How, exactly, do I know that you and Tessa hadn’t planned all of this from the very beginning as a way for you to get out of your responsibilities?”
I scowled. “Don’t turn this around on me, love. I don’t know anything about you getting flown to New York.”
“Right,” she said. “Just like I don’t know anything about any damn e-mails!”
“Sure. And you had no idea who I was when you met me, either. Not the first clue that I was a celebrity. We’re all just innocent idiots here, are we, Lizzie?”
Her eyes darkened. “Julian Bastille, you call me ‘Lizzie’ one more time and I swear by my cabbie’s insatiable love for historic landmarks, I will end you.”
I believed her on that one, at least…
“I told you, I don’t remember anything about that night. Not much, anyway. I have no idea if I recognized you when we met, but I can tell you when I woke up next to you in that hotel room I recognized your tattoos from a picture my friend Jen keeps on her desk!”
