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Julianne squeezed her eyes shut and her mouth with them. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. No matter how much she loved Heath and how badly he deserved to know the truth, the price of voicing the words was too high. She’d rather he believe she was a flighty, spoiled little girl who couldn’t decide what she wanted and stomped on his heart like a ripe tomato.
Heath rolled onto his side and wrapped his arm around her waist. He tugged her body against his, curling her into the protective cocoon to keep her warm. Even now, without realizing it, he was trying to protect her. Just like he always had.
Heath could never ever know that he’d failed that day.
* * *
The drive back to Cornwall from Hartford was long and quiet. Heath wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with Julianne, but she’d barely spoken a word since they’d departed Paris earlier that morning. How was it that their relationship didn’t seem to work on U.S. soil?
They pulled up at the bunkhouse and stumbled inside with their bags. It had been a long day, even traveling by private jet. The sun was still up but it was late into the night on Parisian time.
Heath was pulling the door shut behind him when he nearly slammed into Julianne’s back. She had stopped short, her bags still in her arms, her gaze fixed firmly on the kitchen table.
“What is it?” he asked, leaning to one side to look around her. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. Molly had brought in an overnighted package and left it on the table for them. The same type of packaging the divorce papers had originally arrived in. That only brought one option to mind. The thirty-day waiting period was up. A judge had signed the papers and her lawyer had mailed them.
They were divorced.
Just like that. After eleven years, their relationship was possibly better than it had ever been and they were divorced. Heath took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wanted this. He had asked for this. He’d harassed her and demanded his freedom. And now he had what he wanted and he’d never felt so frustrated in his life.
He unceremoniously dropped his bags to the floor and walked around Julianne to pick up the envelope. It had her name on it, but he opened it anyway. There was probably a similar envelope being held at the front desk of his building, waiting for him to return to Manhattan.
A quick glance inside confirmed his suspicions. With a sad nod, he dropped the papers back to the table. “Welcome home,” he said with a dry tone.
“The time went by quickly, didn’t it?”
He looked up, surprised at her first words in quite a while. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Julianne’s eyes narrowed at him, her lips tightening as she nodded. She didn’t look like she was having fun. She also didn’t look pleased with him although he had no clue what the problem was.
“Julianne...” he began, but she held up her hand to silence him.
“Don’t, Heath. This is what we wanted. I know the last few weeks have muddied the water between us, but it doesn’t change the fact that we shouldn’t be married. We aren’t meant to be together long-term. As you said, we were having fun. But fun is all it was, right?”
Heath swallowed the lump in his throat. That was his intention, but it had started to feel like more. At some point, he had forgotten about the divorce and just focused on being with her. Was he the only one that felt that way? It didn’t seem like it at the time. It seemed like she had gotten invested as well. Perhaps that was just Paris weaving its magic spell on their relationship again. “Fun,” he muttered.
Julianne brushed past him and pulled her wedding ring off her finger. They were both still wearing them after their weekend charade for Madame Badeau. She placed it on top of the paperwork. “We won’t need these anymore.”
Even as she said the words, Heath got the feeling that she didn’t mean them. She was unhappy. Her, the girl who slammed the door in his face and told him to move on. When he finally tries, she takes it personally.
“So now what?” he asked. Heath wasn’t sure how to proceed from here. Did getting a divorce mean their fling was over? They still had the crush of the Christmas season ahead of them. He wasn’t looking forward to the long, cold nights in bed without her.
“I think it’s time for me to move back into the big house,” she said, although she wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Why?”
“When I spoke with Mom yesterday, she said the live-in nurse would be leaving tomorrow. They were able to move Dad’s bed back upstairs since he’s getting around well. That means I can have my room back.”
“Your studio is out here.”
She nodded. “But under the circumstances, I think it might be better if we put some distance between us.”
Heath’s hands balled into angry fists at his side. It was his idea to move forward with the divorce and yet it still felt like Julianne was breaking up with him all over again. “Why is it that whenever our relationship gets even remotely serious, you run away?”
Her eyes met his, a flash of green anger lighting them. “Run away? I’m not running away. There’s nothing to run from, Heath. As I understand it, we were just having some fun and passing the time. I don’t know if that qualifies as a relationship.”
She was lying. He knew she was lying. She had feelings for him, but she was holding them back. Nothing had changed with her in all these years. She loved him then, just as she loved him now, but she refused to admit it. She always pulled away when it mattered. Yeah, he hadn’t confessed that he had developed feelings for her, but what fool would? He’d done it once and got burned pretty badly.
