How to Love (31 page)

“I’m sorry again about last night,” she began. “I didn’t want to drag you into my family mess but you insisted on coming.” Mike opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand. “Let me finish. I said last night I don’t think I can do this anymore and after thinking about it pretty much all night, I know now that I can’t. I’m sorry. I know you guys like sex as a threesome and I thought I could handle it, but it’s not a good idea.” She let out a small sigh. “I thought…well, never mind. But clearly this isn’t working.”

“Jules. Don’t do this,” Carlos said. “Just wait.”

She shook her head. “No, I…”

“Jules,” Mike said. “We didn’t just want sex with you. This wasn’t just about having kinky fun in bed.”

Her mouth pursed.

“We want a relationship with you,” Mike said.

Carlos blew out a breath. This time he couldn’t be pissed at Mike for charging ahead, because what did they have to lose at that point?

“A relationship.” Jules crossed her arms.

“Yes. A ménage relationship. All three of us. As in, committed, living together.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then looked at Carlos. The flatness of her eyes chilled him.

“That’s right,” he confirmed quietly. “We didn’t want to come on too strong at first, but we were really hoping that things might work out that way. That you might care about…both of us. It seemed like you did, and…” He swallowed. “And we both care about you.”

She slowly started shaking her head. “That’s crazy.”

“Why?” Mike asked. “Why is it crazy? Weren’t things going good for us? We have fun together. In bed and out of it. Why couldn’t it work in the long term?”

“I don’t
do
long term!” She lowered her arms to her sides, her hands in fists. “I already told you that. You…you tricked me.”

“Tricked you?” Carlos rose to his feet too. “We didn’t trick you.”

“Yes, you did! You told me all you wanted was a threesome. You told me you two are a committed couple. I was prepared to be the third in the threesome because that way I knew things wouldn’t get complicated and that we could end it when we wanted.” Her breasts rose and fell beneath her thin T-shirt as she breathed rapidly. “I told you I don’t do relationships with one man, and for God’s sake not with two!”

Carlos didn’t look at Mike. A sharp knife turned in his chest and a hot wave of anger rolled through him. “We didn’t mean to trick you,” he said again.

“God no,” Mike said, taking a step toward her. “Jules, calm down. Let’s talk. I think you have feelings for us, if you’d just…”

“No!” Her eyes wide and a little wild, she shook her head, her dark waves sliding over her face. “No. I should never have believed you. I should never have let you convince me it was going to be okay. Oh my God, I should never have gotten involved with you, both of you.” She sent a glare at Carlos so icy it made him shiver, then turned it on Mike as well. “I’m just…” She stopped, shook her head, then turned and slammed out the back door.

Carlos’s breath tightened in his chest, his heart bumping hard against his ribs. He covered his eyes with one hand for a moment, then slowly faced Mike. The expression of shocked agony that twisted Mike’s features made that knife in his chest dig in even deeper. “We should have been honest with her from the start,” he ground out.

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “You’re blaming me for this?”

Heat suffused him, burning him from the inside out, heating his flesh, surrounding him in a red haze. “You’re the one who planned everything,” he bit out. “You’re the one with the big plan, the one who thought he knew best about everything. Look what happened. Fucking look…” His voice broke, pain building in his chest and robbing his breath.

Mike stared back at him, his lips parted. “I can’t believe you,” he said slowly. “What the fuck?”

He couldn’t stay. Fury blinded him, the pain in his chest made him feel like he was breathing fire. He shoved past Mike, strode down the hall and into his bedroom. He flung the door shut behind him and stood there in a hot daze. He covered his face with his hands.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What the fuck were they going to do now?

He sat on the side of his bed for a long time, thinking Mike was going to come and talk to him, hoping he would so he could kick his ass out of there, hoping he wouldn’t so he didn’t have to. Muddled thoughts circled around in his head until finally, one thought became clear. He had to leave.

Jules managed to get back into her house before the scalding tears came, sliding down her cheeks in copious rivers. Dammit, she hated crying. She never cried. She never let herself care enough about anything to cry over it. Well, almost never. Yesterday and today she’d been some kind of emotional fool, all worked up about Mike telling her he loved her, then dealing with her father, her sisters and Carlos. It was all too much, a load of bricks crashing down on her.

She wanted to curl up in her bed and sob until there were no tears left, but she had work to do. A business to run. She tried to reapply mascara, but the tears wouldn’t stop and finally she had to admit defeat, had to give in to it, and she threw herself onto her bed and pressed her face into the pillow, letting the sobs come with noisy abandon, harsh and painful. She cried and cried, until she was drained and exhausted. Finally she pulled the comforter around her and curled up. Her throat raw, her eyes burning, she let herself feel the pain she’d been trying to ignore, the emotions she’d been keeping locked up way down deep inside.

The betrayal she felt by Mike and Carlos was so much like the betrayal she’d felt by her father. In fact, it hurt more, which made no sense, because really they were nothing to her. Her own father betraying her, now that was shitty, but them…oh hell, she was totally lying to herself. It hurt way worse and they weren’t nothing to her. They were important to her.

But that never should have happened.

She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling, her face tight, her nose stuffy. One more tear leaked from the corner of her eye and ran into her hair.

How had it happened? She’d thought it was the perfect situation. Everybody got what they wanted. She got hot sex with two hot guys. They got sex with each other and a woman, just like they’d wanted. She got sexy photographs and her muse back. They got…what? What else? Had they seriously thought they were getting some kind of committed ménage relationship?

A mistake. She’d made a mistake. She’d thought she could do it, but things had gotten messed up. It wasn’t all her fault. If they’d been honest with her right from the start, this wouldn’t have happened. If they’d been honest with her right from the time she met them, this wouldn’t have happened, none of it. None of this burning pain, this searing agony. None of the sex. The fun she’d had with them. The huge sense of accomplishment she’d felt at climbing the rock face, or taking those amazing pictures and sharing them with the world. Aw, dammit. There had been so many good things, and that was what had seduced her into the whole big fiasco.

She rolled out of bed, her entire body aching, and walked into her bathroom. She washed her face with icy water, stared at her reflection in the mirror, her bloodshot swollen eyes, her red nose and blotchy cheeks. She blew out a breath.

She’d stop at the Black Bean and get a coffee and maybe talk to Neve. That was what she’d do. After she applied a bucketful of concealer under her eyes.

When she walked into the coffee shop, Neve spotted her and waved. “Hey, Jules!”

“Hi, Neve.”

“The usual?” Then Neve’s eyes narrowed as she took in Jules’s appearance. “Whoa. Rough night?”

“Yeah. But not in a good way.”

Without another word, Neve prepared her macchiato. “I’m taking a break, Cora,” she announced to the other barista working.

“Sure, no problem. It’s not busy.”

Jules followed Neve to a small table in the back. “What’s up?” she demanded. “You look like someone died. Oh wait. Weren’t you going to your stepmom’s birthday party last night? Was it that bad?”

Neve didn’t even know all the details of her family history, but she knew Jules didn’t get along with them. “Yeah, it was that bad. Christ, Neve.” She rested one elbow on the table and covered her eyes with her hand. Her head throbbed. “It wasn’t just my family, though. Although that was bad enough. My dad and I had a little scuffle. Candy was her usual self with the girls, trying to starve them so they’re as skinny as she is. Mike and Carlos came with me.”

“You’re kidding!” Her mouth dropped open. “Why on earth would they go with you to a family thing?” See,
she
understood that when you were just having a sexual relationship with someone, or two someones, you didn’t
do
things like that. Jules had
known
that was going to be a bad idea.

“I don’t know…I mean, I guess I do know now. Shit, Neve. This is such a mess.” She stared down at her creamy coffee. “I thought we were just fooling around. You know.”

“Yeah. I know. And I’m still jealous.”

One corner of Jules’s mouth kicked up in a reluctant smile. “Well, don’t be, because it’s over.”

“Oh no.” Her eyebrows slanted down. “Why? What happened? Was it because of the party?”

“No. Not really.” Actually that question kind of confused her. She shook her head. “Mike told me he’s in love with me. I freaked out. I got mad at him. He’s supposed to be in a relationship with Carlos. He’s not supposed to…” Her throat closed up. She tried to talk again but all that came out was a squeak. She sipped her coffee and tried to relax the constriction. “He’s not supposed to love me,” she finally choked out.

Neve set her fingertips to her lips. “Oh my God. Does Carlos know?”

“Yes.”

“I gather he was…um…upset about that.”

“Damn right he was! I could tell he was hurt and pissed off at Mike. And probably at me too,” she said miserably. “I never meant for that to happen. They’re so good together. But then…” She sipped her coffee again. “They told me the real reason they wanted the whole threesome thing…they want a…a…hell, I don’t even know what to call it. They want a relationship, all three of us. A ménage à trois, that’s like, permanent.”

Neve’s mouth dropped open. “Holy shit.”

“I know, right? Isn’t that crazy?”

Neve smiled. “Crazy hot.”

“Oh come on. It would never work. And especially for me! I can get into a hot threesome for sex, but live forever with two guys… Jesus. I can’t even do that with
one
guy.”

Sympathy filled Neve’s eyes, but she still looked at her curiously. “Why not, Jules?”

Jules drew back. “You know why not. That’s just not me.”

“You always say that. But what if you met the right guy? Or guys? Don’t you think you could do it then?”

Neve’s question ricocheted around in her head. She didn’t know how to answer it. She wanted to cry again. She shook her head. “How do you do that?” she demanded. “How do you live with two guys? What on earth would people think about that?”

Neve shrugged. “Do you care?”

If she cared that much about what people thought of her, she probably wouldn’t take nude pictures and sell them in her gallery. Trust Neve to make that point, the girl who’d gone out of her way to rebel against her family. But Jules didn’t answer her because even though she didn’t care what people would think about it, it still seemed like something impossible to her.

“What are you going to do?”

“I already did it. I told them we’re through. It’s going to be kind of awkward, with them being my neighbors and all, but I don’t spend that much time outside. We don’t really have to see each other.”

Neve nodded but her forehead wore a faint crease. “Anything I can do? We could go out somewhere for dinner later. I’m off at six.”

“Aw, thank you.” Jules touched her hand. “I don’t feel like going out tonight, but maybe another night this week? Tonight I think I’ll just go hide in my bedroom.” She glanced at her watch. “I better get to the gallery. Thanks for the talk.”

“Anytime, you know that. Talking helps, sometimes.”

“Yeah.” And it did feel good to have a friend who didn’t judge her.

After she’d checked in with Min and Anna at the gallery, she went up to her office-slash-studio. She booted up her computer. She’d planned to do more work on the images she’d taken of Mike and Carlos, which she’d started working on but hadn’t quite finished. Earlier she’d been so filled with excitement. She thought they were good and couldn’t wait to share them with other people, anticipating the reaction she’d get when people came in to the gallery and saw them. The ones of Mike alone had been selling like crazy, which thrilled her to her core. But now, she wasn’t sure if she could bear to open up Photoshop and look at them. A bleak, black wave washed over her as she sat in front of the computer. Crap. Just when she’d thought things were back on track, this was sucking her back down into that dark pit.

Chapter Twenty-One

Fuck him. Fuck her. Fuck them both.

Mike wanted to punch someone. How the hell could Carlos blame him for this?

Okay, yeah, things hadn’t turned out so great. But dammit, he wasn’t giving up yet, not on Jules, not on any of them. Once she’d settled down, they’d talk. He knew she had feelings for him and for Carlos, and he was damn well going to make her admit it. And Carlos…well, once he’d talked Jules around, Carlos would get over being pissed off at him and blaming him.