After the Kiss (20 page)

“No,” Julie whispered.

But the word didn’t stop the barrage of mental pictures. The first date, when he hadn’t bothered to ask her out for a second. The emotional detachment. The resistance to movie night. Even the obsession with baseball fit the bill.

“Yup,” Kelli said, checking her fingernails. “He didn’t even agree to it at first because you weren’t his type. But then he decided to
fuck you over for Yankees tickets
.”

“You’re lying.”

“Actually, she’s not.”

Julie froze in shock at the familiar voice. Kelli, she noted, didn’t look the least bit surprised.

It couldn’t be.

She turned.

It was.

But why was Mitchell here in Kelli’s house? Her eyes flicked to the overgrown frat boy next to him and the pieces fell into place.

The guy with short brown hair was Kelli’s boyfriend. The one who’d proposed the bet to Mitchell. A bet Mitchell had accepted.

And why was Mitchell here today? To collect?

Her eyes searched his face, silently begging him to deny everything. But his eyes were icy, betraying nothing.

“Mitchell?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Very slowly he lifted his arm, and Julie’s eyes dropped to his left hand.

Where he was holding the
New York Tribune
.

Julie couldn’t tear her eyes away from the paper. She was too late.

Feeling as though her heart would explode, she forced her eyes up to his. She was braced for his anger. Braced for his hurt. But what she saw was so much worse. Anger she could have defused; hurt she could have soothed. Instead he was completely devoid of emotion, showing nothing but stone-cold indifference.

He was done with her.

Julie heard a small keening noise and realized it had come from her own throat. “You read it,” she said needlessly.

“Yes, Julie, I read it.” His voice was dangerously soft.

“Mitchell—”

“You used me for a fucking story!”

She pressed her lips together, willing herself not to fall to her knees and beg. “You used me for a bet,” she said softly. “Can’t we—”

“It’s not the same thing,” he said with a disgusted look.

The arrogant dismissal in his tone ignited something dangerous in the pit of her stomach. Kelli and her dead-behind-the-eyes boyfriend completely faded from view as she focused on the only thing that mattered.

Mitchell.

Julie moved closer, trying to keep her voice calm. “Now hold on just a second, Wall Street. I’d say we both did a number on each other. I am sorry about what I did—so sorry—but how is my offense worse than yours?”

He looked incredulous. “Nobody would have known about my stupid bet!”

Kelli’s boyfriend made a nervous noise, and Mitchell cut him a death glare. “Almost nobody. But your little game would have been splashed on newsstands all over the country!”

“So it’s okay to play with someone’s heart if the audience is small, but it’s not okay if it’s public knowledge?”

“It’s a little more than
public knowledge
, Julie.
Stiletto
is the largest women’s magazine
in the country, as you’ve reminded me a half dozen times.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have used your name,” she said, exasperated by his drama.

It was the wrong thing to say. And hardly the point. But he was being so damned sanctimonious and power-trippy that it just slipped out.

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself as you fall asleep next to me every night? That you’d just
change my name
and everything would be okay?”

“Of course not, but Mitchell, can’t we just talk about this? Maybe alone?”

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s not much to talk about. You’re two steps away from a prostitute, except instead of money on the dresser, you want magazine fame, and instead of serving up sex, you serve up vapid little smiles. Oh, no, wait—you serve up sex too.”

Julie’s arms wrapped around her middle as though he’d punched her in the stomach. She’d known this confrontation would hurt, but she hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected cruelty. His jaw twitched as if in regret, but he didn’t take back his words.

Neither had she missed that she’d been the only one so far to deliver anything close to an apology. She clung to her anger as a way of staving off the hurt and inched closer, her eyes locked on his.

“You never had any intention of letting me be your girlfriend, did you?” she asked. “You only wanted to get me in bed, maybe have a few laughs, just so you could discard me in time to watch your damned baseball games.”

Mitchell gave a derisive snort. “As if you cared whether or not I thought of you as my girlfriend.”

“I cared.”

“Sure, so you could hit your word count!”

She flinched. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Yeah?” he asked, softly, dangerously. “What was it like, sweetie? Were you just going to lead the poor dull Wall Street broker along by the balls until you could get back to pineapple vodka shots with your collection of wannabe actors?”

“At least those wannabe actors want something more out of their life than baseball!” she shouted.

For the first time something hot and guilty flashed across his face, and Julie zeroed in on it. “This was never even about baseball, was it? This all comes down to some ridiculous sense of
male pride. Evelyn kept your balls locked up in her jewelry box, and you thought you could get them back by getting me into bed, only to shove me back out again when you were bored.”

Mitchell lifted a shoulder, bored mask back in place. “You came willingly enough. Pun intended.”

“You’re disgusting.” Julie was all but hissing now, wondering how she ever could have cared about this cold man. Wondering how she ever could have thought
he
cared about her.

He took a half step closer. “Go ahead, babe, get all up on your high horse, because writing a column in a magazine about lipstick and blow jobs is such a moral cause. You’re right up there with Red Cross and cancer runs.”

“I wasn’t going to write the story!” she exploded.

He blinked, and for a moment she thought she saw something raw flare in his navy eyes, but the shutters slammed down just as quickly and he resumed his insolent glare. “No? And when did you decide that? Right after our friend Allen exposed you?”

She wanted to tell him that she’d decided before any of the shit had hit the fan. But he didn’t deserve that knowledge. Not now.

“At least
I
had intentions of calling it off,” she said instead. “What were you doing talking to your friend here, collecting?”

Kelli’s boyfriend stepped forward, looking earnest but nervous as hell. “Actually—”

“Shut up, Colin,” Mitchell said coldly.

“Were you ever planning to tell me about the bet?” she pressed on. “Or were you just going to sweep it under the carpet?”

His silence was answer enough, and she felt the knife dig just a little deeper. “Jesus, Mitchell. At least I was going to come clean.”

“Yeah, after you got what you wanted.” His arms folded over his chest, making him look completely closed off. Completely unreachable.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Mitchell,” she said, some of the fight going out of her.

“Don’t worry. You didn’t.”

Translation: He didn’t care enough to be hurt. Wouldn’t
let
himself care enough.

She lifted her hands helplessly before letting them fall back to her side. “So that’s it? We’re done? Just like that?”

“One could argue we never started.”

“But we did,” she said. Okay, so she was on the verge of begging, but damn it, she knew whatever they had was worth fighting for.
Knew
that it hadn’t
all
been about the bet. At the start, maybe, but not last night. And not this morning. That had been real.

“Babe, I was just seeing how far I could take you.”

Liar
.

“But I love you,” she choked out, allowing all of her pride to puddle at her feet as she laid herself bare.

Mitchell’s dimples flashed as a gentle hand came up to stroke a finger over her cheekbone before he leaned in close. “Well done, Jules. That’s a
great
touch for your story.”

Without a backward glance, he walked out the door.

Julie’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor, her chin tucking into her chest as she grabbed her stomach, as though if she could just hold herself together tightly enough, the pain would stop.

But the pain wouldn’t stop. It just kept growing and growing until it felt like it would swallow her. And even as her pride demanded that she get up off the floor of Kelli Kearns’s foyer, a small dry sob slipped out.

Then a second, and a third.

A soft female hand settled on her arm, and Julie glanced up into Kelli’s face, which looked almost as ravaged as Julie felt. Kelli whispered, “I’m sorry,” and then Julie began crying for real, big, racking sobs that felt like they would never end.

Because nothing said things were over like your worst enemy feeling sorry for you.

And when Kelli crouched beside her, letting Julie sob on her shoulder, Julie knew things were worse than over.

They were utterly, irrevocably hopeless.

Julie wouldn’t talk about it.

Not to Grace.

Not to Riley.

Not to the dozens of friends and acquaintances who had been calling nonstop with a morbid combination of curiosity and sympathy. Grace had even gone so far as to reach out to Julie’s aunt and uncle to let them know what was going on, and they had phoned, but Julie had dodged those calls too.

And she certainly hadn’t given the time of day to the handful of reporters panting for her side of the story.

Because her side of the story was
so
not for sale. Not ever again.

Still, Julie’s attempted avoidance of the issue hadn’t stopped the society pages from blasting the whole sordid affair. Making matters worse was the way the tabloids had glamorized the entire thing.

Instead of painting Julie as a heartless tramp, they’d dug up every picture they could find of a smiling Julie in designer cocktail dresses, stilettos, and glossy lips. These pictures were laid alongside pictures of an unsmiling Mitchell in subdued suits on his way to work.

She should have been pleased with the spin. It wasn’t a case of the man-eater crushing the wronged boyfriend. It was Manhattan’s favorite party girl outsmarting a Wall Street dud.

Instead she felt like crap.

Mitchell’s side of the story had never made it to publication. Julie had refused to look at the
Tribune
the day after her and Mitchell’s showdown, but Julie and Grace had told her that Allen Carsons’s part two had never been published. Julie figured Mitchell had threatened a libel suit, but she didn’t know for sure. Didn’t really care.

Yet, despite the ongoing drama, Julie had refused to say a word about it. Hadn’t confided in Grace. Hadn’t moaned to Riley. Hadn’t told her family, hadn’t bought a diary, hadn’t babbled to strangers on the subway.

Hadn’t called Mitchell.

But there was one person who wasn’t going to accept Julie’s silence on the matter for much longer.

Camille.

Her boss had set up a one-on-one meeting and had made no secret about the agenda. August’s story outline had been due on Monday. Julie hadn’t turned in so much as a Post-it note.

It was time to pony up.

With an anxious glance at her watch, Julie grabbed her notebook and braced herself for the inevitable interrogation. She made her way to Camille’s office, barely noticing that nobody called out to her. Coworkers who had once demanded her company avoided eye contact. Laughter and chatter turned to feigned concentration on their monitors as she walked by.

She didn’t blame them. She felt dull, listless, and irritable. And while a part of her longed to fix a smile on her face and fake her sparkle, the other part of her was tired of putting on the show.

She felt like she didn’t have a single genuine sparkle left.

Camille was on the phone when Julie knocked, but she waved Julie in with an impatient hand.

Julie sat and waited, and for the first time in weeks, she felt like laughing at the incredibly awful full circle she’d just completed. Just a couple of months ago she’d sat in this very office, in this very chair, on top of the world, so damned sure of her life.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen
.

“Sorry,” Camille muttered, hanging up her phone.

Julie mustered a wan smile and waited for the interrogation to start.

Where are your notes?

How’s the story coming?

Will it be any good?

“Kelli quit,” Camille said. “And good riddance, eh?”

Whoa
. Julie sat up a little straighter. She hadn’t seen Kelli all week, but she’d figured she was just playing sick until the worst of the storm had blown over.

“Oh? Did she say why?”
Stiletto
had been everything to Kelli. She couldn’t imagine she’d leave it intentionally.

Camille arched an eyebrow. “Let’s just say her resignation was strongly encouraged.”

Ah
. “You knew?”

“That she sold us out? Yes. Not that she showed any integrity and ’fessed up. But Allen couldn’t wait to let me know that one of my own was responsible for that trash he wrote.”

Julie looked more closely at Camille and noted the dark circles under her eyes, the chips on her fingernails, and the hair that was just a little less shiny than usual. Most telling of all, her lips were completely devoid of red lipstick, and she’d forgotten to draw on her eyebrows. As a result, she looked … human.

Apparently Julie hadn’t been the only one doing penance for
Stiletto
’s undercover-girlfriend gig.

“I’m sorry the story got out that way. It hasn’t exactly been flattering publicity for the magazine,” Julie murmured.

Camille waved this away. “Are you kidding? My phone’s been ringing off the hook. I wouldn’t be surprised if this issue is one of our best-selling of all time. In typical fashion, shortdicked, shortsighted Allen didn’t have the brains to understand that in our world, any publicity is invaluable. His stupid attempt at sabotage blew up in his bloated face.”