“I wanted to celebrate you. You deserved it; you worked hard for your show,” I say, imploring him to see that.
His softer voice prevails again. “You had Sunday night to tell me. Monday. Tuesday. This wasn’t about last night. This is about you keeping secrets.” But then his anger builds a new head of steam. “You always keep all your stuff to yourself. You hold everything inside . . . until it suits you.”
“I was protecting you,” I explode. Because what the fuck?
“From what?” Jude matches my intensity. “Protecting my poor little ego because I can’t handle you being more successful than I am?”
If the shoe fits—
But I bite my tongue.
“Is that it?” he pushes.
I point at him. “Yes, this is ridiculous.”
“You want to know what’s ridiculous?” he demands. “Me opening up to you. Me trusting you. And you taking every bit of information and using it for yourself.” He jerks his gaze away, swallowing whatever emotions have a hold on him. “I’m such an idiot. Arlo did this to me. He got my agent, fucked him, and then . . .”
He breaks off and waves the phone at me, and he’s one step shy of an accusation I will never forgive him for.
My jaw ticks. I hold up a hand. “Think real hard before you say the next thing.”
Jude purses his lips like he’s holding something in. Good. He fucking better.
“And then after that, my career just—” He can’t seem to finish, and I know he’s talking about those years when he didn’t work. For the second time, I hope so hard that he simmers down, that he sees I would never do this to him. Maybe, just maybe I’m getting through. But then, he breathes out hard, his eyes darkening. “I’m going to ask one more time. Did you use me?”
I’ve had enough.
I’m not the bad guy and I won’t let him treat me like one. “I already told you what happened. You know I wouldn’t betray you.”
He scoffs. “Do I? I’m wondering if I ever knew you at all. And do you even know me? Maybe I’m not your dream guy. Maybe I’m not the swooniest man you’ve ever known. Maybe you’re not as far gone as you think.”
My brain goes eerily quiet. I freeze for terrible, stretched-out seconds as the world turns deathly silent too. I stare at Jude like he’s a math problem.
But I’ve already solved it. I just can’t quite believe the answer.
“Did you—?” I hiss, but I don’t have to finish. I know what he did. He knows what he did.
Jude blinks, eyes wide. Busted. “It was open. On your computer,” he says, scrambling. “When you showed me your book in London. I didn’t mean to.”
That sounds exactly like I can explain.
I back away from him, holding up a hand. “You read my journal seven years ago, but I’m the one hiding things?” I glance around at the living room couch where we crashed into each other the first night, then the deck where we made out under the stars, then the bedroom where we came together. Everything looks wrong, like this house is contaminated. “I’m leaving.”
I spin around, stalk into the bedroom, and throw my stuff together, slamming clothes and toiletries into my suitcase, yanking my charger from the wall, stuffing my laptop into my messenger bag.
A minute later, Jude crosses the creaky floor. “I’m really sorry. I can explain about the journal,” he whispers from behind me, sounding so contrite I nearly want to cave.
I stand my ground, though, and wheel around, fueled by his long con. “We’re kind of past explanations now. You shouldn’t have done that, and you know it. But you did it seven years ago and didn’t say a word—”
“But there’s a reason.”
“You’re past the grace period,” I bite out. “And yet you’re mad at me for something that snowballed over the past four days that I was going to tell you last night?”
I couldn’t write the shitstorm unfolding in front of me. There’s no coming back from it. And I peddle happy endings.
“I know. I’m an ass. I’m sorry,” Jude shovels his hand through his hair and tightens it into a fist as if reining in runaway emotions. He closes his eyes in pained regret. Like he wants the world to rewind. Yeah, same here, but life doesn’t work that way. When he opens them, they’re full of fear and sorrow and what I think is genuine remorse. “I just wanted this so badly, TJ, and it didn’t happen. I feel so stupid for this whole thing – wanting it so badly I blew up at you.”
But I feel foolish too.
Foolish for falling in love with him again.
Foolish for thinking he was the one.
Foolish for putting on rose-colored glasses with him. The one guy I thought would never hurt me has punched below the belt. The Jude Graham I knew would never have done this. But he’s now so clearly Jude Fox.
Even if he’s sorry, and even if I’m sorry, this fight is a sign.
Jude will always devastate me.
He’s doing it now and he’ll do it again in a week, a month, a year.
I can handle the hurt in this moment. But if he breaks my heart down the road, when I’m even deeper in love with him, it will wreck me forever.
I strip the anger from my voice. “I’m sorry too. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Sorry I handled this badly,” I say, then draw a deep, soldiering breath. “And I’m sorry that I can’t be in this with you.”
His lips part. He shakes his head adamantly, refusing to accept that. “What do you mean?”
His words are a plea, and it’s hard to resist. I want to drop everything, take him in my arms, and say, Let’s forget this happened.
But I’ve got to look out for future me, so I gird myself and do the hard thing. “This isn’t what I wanted when I came to LA. Goodbye, Jude.”
I grab my bag, leave for the airport, and I don’t look back.
Not even when he calls me a few days later and leaves a message asking to please talk. Not even when he texts begging for the same.
I don’t answer. I don’t reply.
We. Are. Over.
Epilogue
If Found, Please Return
Ten Months Later
* * *
Jude
* * *
A taxi trudges by on Fifth Avenue, and Holly shakes her blonde head then tuts.
“Jude, darling . . .” A sigh comes next, a blown-out breath that says I can’t believe this picture of you is in the paper, and I certainly can’t believe you’d let this kind of salacious mess happen after everything we’ve accomplished in the last ten months.
But this picture—this fucking picture of me in a supposed salacious mess—isn’t what everyone thinks it is. “I can explain,” I say, and déjà vu sweeps over me.
Someone I was once in love with breathed those words to me in a beach house in Venice. And here I am at a sidewalk café in New York City, my new home, saying them to my agent.
“Of course you can explain it,” she says in the friendly tone that always tricks me into thinking she’s the lovable aunt type. But she’s actually a lion, with sharp teeth she hides behind a Hollywood smile. “But I can too.”