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She’s Maori-Indian, with skin a shade browner than mine, and beautiful almond-shaped eyes she outlines with black kohl. She’s very proud of both branches of her heritage, and she sports a Maori tattoo on her right arm like me, and a bindi on her forehead. She often wears a sari, but today she’s in modern Kiwi summer clothing—a tee and shorts, her hair hanging in one long braid over her shoulder.
“You want to talk about Cam and Henry?” Gaby asks her.
She looks away, out of the window, and just sighs.
“Are you and Cam still together?” Missie asks.
Juliette just tips her head from side to side. Does that mean she doesn’t know? Or it’s up in the air? “We had a big argument the morning of the trivia night. It had been coming for a while. He wants to move to Australia. He’s fed up with his job, and he says there are more opportunities there, and he’s right of course. But I don’t want to go—I love my job, and all my friends and family are here. We’ve been arguing about it a lot. He thinks I should understand why he wants to go and support him, and I think he should realize why I want to stay and stop pushing me. So we argued about it, and he was very mean to me.”
Gaby’s eyes widen. “He wasn’t… physical?”
She shakes her head. “No, but he was incredibly cruel. He really hurt my feelings. It’s not the first time he’s done it. When he walked out that night, I was determined it was over. And I danced with Henry, you know what he’s like, he was just so gentle and kind, and he looked at me as if I was something precious…” She sighs. “But they’re all like that in the beginning, aren’t they? Until they get what they want.”
“No,” Missie and Gaby say together. “Not always,” Missie adds.
“Was it good?” Gaby asks.
Juliette’s lips curve up. “You have no idea.” It’s the first time she’s admitted that they slept together. “But when I got home the next day, Cam was there, and he told me he was sorry and wanted to make it up to me, and I was so confused… We’ve been together a long time and built a life together.”
“Does Henry want to see you again?” I ask.
She nods. “But I told him I didn’t want to give up on my relationship, and that I wanted to make it work.”
“What did Henry say?”
She bites her lip. “He said if I expected him to sit back and let me go, I was going to be disappointed. He said he wants me, and he’s going to have me if it’s the last thing he does.”
We all stare at her.
“Ooh, that’s pretty hot,” Gaby says, and we all giggle.
“What a naughty boy,” Missie adds. “Who’d have thought it? He seems so quiet and reserved.”
“He was not reserved in bed,” Juliette states. She’s silent for a long time, looking out of the window. The rest of us exchange glances, but we don’t say anything.
Eventually she says, “Anyway, enough about me. We’ve got something more important to concentrate on today.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Wedding dresses,” she says with a grin.
My eyebrows rise. “I’m not wearing a wedding dress.”
“Wedding outfit, then.”
“I told you, it’s all for show. It’s just so James can get custody of Leia.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gaby says. “James is crazy about you.”
“He’s not,” I scoff, but my face heats at the thought. Is he?
“Definitely,” Missie says. “Alex had already told me, but I wasn’t sure until I saw how James looks at you. His gaze could melt gold.”
My heart swells. They’re wrong, surely?
“Tell me right now that you’re not interested in him and we’ll shut up,” Gaby says.
I hesitate, for long enough to make them all laugh. My lips curve up. “You’re such a mean bunch.”
