More Than You Know (25 page)

But now he was tired and ready to fall into a deep sleep. A glance at his phone told him it was almost midnight. It felt later than it was. He needed to go to bed.

He moved through the suite to the bedroom. The king-size bed, covered in a champagne-colored duvet and pillows, called to him like a siren's song. He let his clothes drop to the floor, placed his cell phone on the nightstand, and slipped beneath the covers. The coolness of the high-quality sheets caressed his naked body and he sighed in ecstasy. He finally relaxed, letting his body melt into the mattress. The only thing that would make the moment better would have been if Julia was beside him, also naked, and wrapped around him. Thinking of her naked brought a smile to his face, and he closed his eyes.

His cell phone pinged with a text message. He was tired, but too curious not to check. Opening his eyes, he rolled over and reached for the phone.

The text was from Julia.
Thinking of you. Just saying hello. Hope you had a good day
.

Something inside him kindled and warmed. She never texted him first. He always did. This was a first. And to say she was thinking of him? Bonus.

I was just thinking of you too
, he texted back with a smile. Great minds . . .

Were you really?
she responded.
Tell the truth, Charming.

I really was!
he wrote.
I'm naked in bed. It's lonely here.
You can figure out the rest.

LOL
, she texted.
And also: delicious image. Thanks for that.

He smiled and wrote,
Nice to know you were thinking of me, Red
. He paused, but then added,
I miss you
.

She didn't answer right away, and his stomach did a tiny twist. He'd pushed it. Too emotional. Too—

I miss you too
, she sent back.

Wow.
He stared at the words, stunned and softly delighted.
When I get back
, he wrote,
I'm not letting you out of my bed for days. This is your warning.

Will I be fed at some point?
she texted.

He laughed out loud.
If you're a good girl, I'll consider it.

 

He barked out a laugh.
Wicked, wicked woman! I'll get you back for this.

I look forward to it
, she wrote.
Good night, Dane.

 

 

Trying to ignore his hard-on, he scrolled back to read the chat again, smiling at her words. Then he put the phone back on the nightstand, closed his eyes, and conjured up deliciously naughty images of Julia as he fell asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Julia entered the bar and lounge on Thursday evening, grateful to see it wasn't too crowded yet. As much as she loved a full house for her show, when she first got there, she preferred a more low-key atmosphere. Fewer people equaled less noise.

“Hi, guys.” She waved to Tonio and the other two bartenders as she passed.

“Hi, Julia,” Tonio answered. “Oh, hey, wait.”

She stopped at the end of the bar as he looked for something behind the register underneath. He came up holding a white envelope and handed it to her over the smooth mahogany that separated them. “This came for you.”

Julia didn't recognize the handwriting, or the return address. It had been addressed to her care of the hotel. She frowned at it, but thanked Tonio before heading back to the dressing room.

“Kelvin?” she called out as she closed the door behind her. No response; he wasn't in the bathroom, so he wasn't there at all. She dropped her duffel bag by the makeup table, then sat on one of the couches to open the letter.

It was several pages long, and handwritten. She glanced at the end to see who it was from.
Liam
.

The room was air conditioned, but that had nothing to do with the massive chill that skittered over her as she read the contents.

Julia's hands shook so hard she almost dropped the pages. She swallowed back bile past the lump in her throat, trying to breathe as her stomach roiled and her face flushed. But she kept reading.

Julia dropped the letter, ran to the bathroom, and vomited violently into the toilet. When she finished, she burst into tears, the sobs tearing from her chest as she sank down onto the bathroom floor. Trembling, in a daze, in a flurry of sorrow and rage, she cried harder than she had since she'd lost her son in court. Her head spun at a hundred miles an hour as she tried to process Liam's words, and what they meant if they were true.

She didn't know how long she'd been lying there when there were warm hands on her arms, trying to lift her up.

“Julia.” It was Dane. “Hey. Julia. Jesus, look at me, baby.” He brushed her tangled hair away from her face to seek out her eyes. Staring down at her with open worry, he asked tersely, “What happened?”

“Please go away,” she croaked between gasping sobs. She waved him off. “Leave me be.”

“No way am I leaving you like this.” He lifted her up to a sitting position. She felt like a rag doll, a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Can you stand?”

The tears wouldn't stop. Julia's mind was blank. She couldn't think, and she didn't care. She wanted to disappear.

Dane looked at her for a long moment, brows furrowed with concern. Whatever had happened, she was a total wreck. His insides coiled with worry. All he wanted to do was hold her, help her....

Ignoring her request, he sat on the tiled floor with her. The small bathroom was narrow, but he managed to pull her into his arms. “I'm not leaving,” he said against her hair as he stroked her back. “So just cry on me. I've got you.”

She was too distraught to fight him. So she did what he said to do: she slumped in his embrace and cried brokenly onto his shoulder. He held her close, rubbed her back, said nothing, and let her cry. After a long while, her sobs began to ebb. Just when he was about to try to start her talking, he heard the dressing room door open and shut, and a few footsteps.

“What the hell?!” Kelvin looked down at them from the bathroom doorway.

“I don't know what happened,” Dane told him. “I found her here, like this, about twenty minutes ago.”

“Jesus Christ . . .” Sucking in a breath, Kelvin knelt down beside them. “Honey, what happened?”

“I . . . I can't,” she managed. “I can't . . . perform . . .”

“Of course not,” Dane said. “Kelvin, can you play all night without her? People get sick. Julia's sick tonight.”

“Absolutely,” Kelvin said. “Yeah, I'll play, don't worry.” He reached out to caress Julia's hair. “Honey, please. You're scaring me. Did . . . someone hurt you?” He gasped as another thought occurred to him. “Liam didn't come back, did he?”

At that, she started to cry harder again. “Read the letter, Kel,” she moaned.

“What letter?” Kelvin asked.

“On—on the couch,” she sobbed.

“I'll go look,” Kelvin said, rising to his feet. As he walked away, Dane's hands caressed her back, cradled her head, and didn't stop.

“Was it Liam?” Dane asked her. “Did he come back? Did he do this to you?”

“Kind of,” she whispered.

Dane's blood rushed like molten lava, wondering how the hell that asshole had gotten past Tonio and security. When he got done with them . . .

Reading as he moved, Kelvin returned to the bathroom door with a few sheets of folded paper in his hands. As he read, his brows puckered at first. Dane watched as his face changed, morphing into a mask of horror. “Holy shit,” he kept whispering as he read. “Holy fucking shit.”

Dane was ready to jump out of his skin. “
What?
Tell me.”

Kelvin held up a finger and kept reading. When he was done, he stared down at Julia, who had finally stopped crying and was down to sniffling. “I can't believe it,” he breathed. “Do you believe him? Any of this?”

Julia nodded. She finally lifted her face from Dane's shoulder. Looking at her slammed Dane's chest like a physical blow. Mascara ringed her eyes, which were swollen and bloodshot. Her face was blotchy and wet with tears. It hurt his heart to see her this way.

“Why not?” she said to Kelvin, her voice raspy and rough from the crying jag. “It makes sense. He was an addict, he's clean now—he's working the program. You know, owning his mistakes, coming clean. Why else would he have come here at all? What would he have to gain?”

“Maybe he was hoping to get you back,” Kelvin said. “Or, at least, back in bed.”

“No.” Julia shook her head hard. “No. From the minute he walked in that night, he said he had something important to tell me. He kept repeating it, over and over, but I didn't give him the chance to talk.”

“If all he wanted to do was talk,” Dane asked quietly, “why'd he have you up against the wall like that?”

“Because I pissed him off,” Julia said. “He got frantic. I tried to leave, to walk out on him. He insisted I had to listen, so that was what he did to get me to stay.”

“He's a douche bag,” Kelvin seethed. “And I'm sorry, but I don't know if you should believe this.”

Dane strove for calm as he said, “Would one of you please tell me what's going on here?”

Julia shifted off Dane's lap and tried to stand. Kelvin shot out a hand to help her rise. Dane got to his feet as well, and Kelvin handed him the letter as he pulled Julia out of the bathroom and over to the couch.

Dane watched them go, watched Kelvin put a protective arm around her and lower her to the couch, then grab the box of tissues and hand it to her. Then he started to read the letter.

When he was done, his heart was hammering against his ribs and he realized his teeth were clenched, his jaw was set so tightly. He leaned against the frame of the bathroom door and looked across the room at Julia. Jesus, what a story. He ached for her.

She was eerily silent now, sipping water from a bottle and staring off at nothing.

“I'm shot,” she said quietly. “I have to go home.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kelvin asked.

Dane crossed the room to sit on the coffee table to face her. “Why don't you stay in my suite tonight? Just go upstairs and—”

“I need to be alone,” she said. “I just . . . need to take this all in. Think.”

Dane swallowed back the rejection. He knew she was a mess and let the sting go. “I'll get you your own room, then.”

She shook her head. “I want to go
home.
I want to crawl into my own bed and be by myself, Dane.”