How to Love (30 page)

She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t need to look at him to know he frowned. “What are you talking about, Jules?”

“I want to go home.” She sounded like a child. She fought with her breathing. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not driving all the way back there tonight.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Jules. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Oh for God’s sake. She was sounding like a child and a bitch. “I’m sorry. God.” She rubbed her face. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Just take a breath. We’re almost at the hotel.”

A hand landed on her shoulder from the back seat. Carlos. He rubbed her skin and she couldn’t help it, she laid her cheek against it and closed her eyes against the waves of seasickness washing over her.

Carlos went into the room first and flicked the lamp in the corner on. Light spread around it in a circle, not as far as the dark corners of the hotel room. He yanked on his tie and undid the top two buttons of his shirt. “I don’t get having a party you have to wear a suit and tie for when you’re at home,” he said. “Home is for jeans and T-shirts. Or sweats.”

Jules stood there, clasping her hands together. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what, baby?” Mike came up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders, lightly massaging tight muscles.

“This. I can’t stay here with you tonight.”

“Yes, you can. You’ve spent lots of nights with us. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know! I just feel weird.”

“Your parents did this to you? Seeing them? What did your dad say to you, just when we were leaving?”

“Nothing. Just the usual.” Oh man. She sank onto the bed and looked down at her feet in the strappy sandals. “I hate leaving Olivia and Madison. I hate that Candy and my dad are bringing them up, the things Candy says to them, I mean, she’s not abusive, it’s just, I know how damaging it can be…” Oh hell. She didn’t need to share her own crap with them.

Warm, strong bodies sandwiched her as they both sat too, one on either side of her. “What was that shit with your dad introducing you to that guy?” Carlos asked in a low voice.

Oh double hell. “He does that.”

“It felt weird,” Carlos said.

“Yeah. Creepy,” Mike added.

She sighed. “Do we have to talk about this?”

Mike stroked her back. “You’re the one who was freaking out, Jules. Tell us what’s bothering you. It’ll help.”

How could she tell them when she didn’t even understand it herself? All she knew was, the feelings swelling up huge and dark inside terrified her.

She turned to Mike and kissed him hard. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Hold on, hold on.” He caught her chin. “Now you want to stay?”

“You said we weren’t driving home tonight. So let’s make the best of it with some hot hotel sex.” She tugged his tie. “This is very sexy.”

“Stop.” His hand covered hers. “Stop, Jules. You’re not doing this tonight.”

“Doing what?” But she didn’t need to ask. Shame heated her skin.

“We’re talking,” Mike said firmly. “We’re not jumping into bed and banging our brains out so you can avoid it.”

She dragged her tongue over her bottom lip. When his eyes went dark she realized he was turned on, but he was also angry because he thought she’d done that on purpose. She hadn’t. She didn’t think she had.

“Tell us what the hell your dad was thinking, trying to set you up with that guy who’s probably at least as old as him. Old enough to be your father.”

Her stomach clenched. “Fine.” She faced forward, staring at the framed painting on the wall. “After I went to college, I moved back home with my dad and Candy. I got a job at a portrait studio, which was okay, but I didn’t make much money and it was hard to afford to live on my own, so I was kind of stuck there. My dad started introducing me to people he knew…in a different way. I told you about how when I was little he liked to show me off. I can’t fucking believe he has two more daughters.” A knife blade turned in her chest. “Two more little girls he can screw up. Oh.” Another shaft of pain took her breath away. She couldn’t believe she was telling them this. “He introduced me to older men, friends or acquaintances of his, who’d look at me not like I was his daughter, his little girl, but like I was…a woman. They started flirting with me and making sexy jokes all the time.”

“Oh.” The one word expressed Mike’s displeasure.

“I’d flirt back. I even dated some of them.” She shrugged one shoulder. “They bought me things. I had sex with them. I used them. Because they were just using me.”

“Shit,” Mike muttered.

“Then one day my dad…wanted me to marry one of these guys. He was fifty-two years old and I was twenty-three. And I actually thought about it.”

“For Chrissake, Jules,” Carlos growled.

“What? That’s the way the world works, right? Or in my world, anyway. But when I found out the real reason my dad wanted me to marry this guy was because of a business deal they had, I felt like my own dad was pimping me out for money. My dad’s business wasn’t doing so well, and he was desperate to get this guy to invest in his company and bring in some cash, and the guy wanted me as part of the deal. That was when I left home.”

She glanced at Carlos, then Mike. They both had identical expressions—narrowed eyes, clenched jaws.

She sat there with a scary, helpless feeling filling her up. Without seducing them, without sex, she felt naked. Which was fucking weird. She got naked all the time. It was often when she felt her most confident. But here she was fully clothed, sitting on the bed with two fully clothed guys, and she’d never felt more bare or vulnerable.

“A trophy wife is one thing,” she said with a shrug. “But marrying some guy because my dad wanted his money creeped me out. That’s why I moved to San Amaro. I wanted to be on my own, a fresh start. I couldn’t completely abandon my little sisters, though.”

“Aw, Jules.” Mike bent his head. “No wonder. No fucking wonder.”

No wonder what? No wonder it was so hard to go visit them? Well, yeah.

“I just worry about them,” she finished, her voice dying a little bit. She cleared her throat.

They sat in silence, moments accumulating, one on top of the other. “Jules. You’re so much better than that. You know that, right? You don’t need to manipulate men and use them.”

She blinked at Mike. His words didn’t make sense to her. “What?”

“You use sex,” he continued. “To manipulate men. To keep from getting close. You do it time and time again.”

Her heart started hurting. Her face burned. “What are you saying?”

“Jesus, Mike,” Carlos muttered. “Shut the fuck up.”

Startled, she glanced at Carlos, then back at Mike. Mike’s mouth tightened. “What?” he asked Carlos. “It’s true.”

“You don’t need be an asshole about it.”

“What the fuck? I’m not being an asshole. I’m trying to help here.”

Her mouth dropped open as her gaze went back and forth between them.

Mike turned to her again. “I’m saying, we care about you. We want to get close to you. We want to know you, the real you, the soft you who loves your little sisters. The lonely you I see in your photographs. I can tell you want more. You deserve more.”

She jumped up from the bed, her hands curled into fists. “I am
not
lonely. I don’t want more. And when you say I deserve more, I guess you mean
you
?”

She saw the look they exchanged. She saw the flare of anger in Carlos’s eyes. And she saw the guilt in Mike’s.

Oh dear God. Carlos knew that Mike thought he was in love with her. She skewered Mike with a look. “Take me home. Right now.”

Chapter Twenty

The drive home through the dark night was made in mostly silence. Carlos sat in the front, staring moodily out the side window as Mike drove, since Jules insisted on sitting in the back. Carlos was pissed and worried and to tell the truth, a little scared.

Once back in San Amaro, back in their driveway, Jules jumped out of the car. As soon as Mike popped the trunk she grabbed her bag and hauled it out.

“I’m sorry,” she said shortly, looking at the grass. “I guess I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.” And she took off across the lawn toward her own house.

Mike took a step after her, then stopped. He looked at Carlos.

Carlos shook his head. “Fuck.”

A look of pain crossed Mike’s face and then he too grabbed his bag. Carlos reached for his own, slammed down the trunk lid and they headed into the dark house.

“Probably better to wait until morning to talk to her,” Mike said, rubbing his eyes with both hands.

Carlos had to agree with him, although he didn’t know if he could stand waiting until morning. But Mike was right. Carlos and Jules had both had quite a few drinks. They were tired. She was obviously very emotional. And honestly, so was he. His feelings for Jules had grown and seeing her tonight with her sisters, with her crappy parents, just made them all come rocketing to the surface. He wanted to look after her, take care of her, make it all right for her. But she was so fucking complicated.

And things between Mike and him were messed up too. He was pissed at Mike for being so harsh with her when she was clearly hurting. He was pissed at him for telling her how he felt about her without all three of them being involved. They were supposed to be a team and he’d gone and done that, and Carlos wasn’t sure what to think about it.

“I’m going to bed,” Mike said. He turned and carried his bag down the hall. He shut the door of his bedroom behind him.

They were sleeping alone tonight, apparently.

It shouldn’t have bugged Carlos as much as it did. There were nights they liked their own space and slept alone. But he didn’t like it with things strained between them.

In his room, he undressed and climbed naked into bed, but sleep was hard to find. The knots in his stomach got tighter and tighter the longer he tossed and turned, thinking about Mike and Jules. They’d felt like they were so close to having what they’d wanted, and even more than that, having Jules. Suddenly it seemed that their goal of finding a woman who could love them both was meaningless…unless it was Jules. Because he’d fallen for her hard, and Mike had too, and if they couldn’t have her…hell. He punched his pillow and rolled over once more.

Mike had pushed too hard. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew better than that. He was the one who was always telling Carlos to slow down, take a step back, figure things out, think before he acted. Why had he done that?

Was it possible Mike wanted Jules for himself? Maybe they’d been crazy to think they could love two people at the same time. The idea sent a slash of burning pain right through him. What if he wasn’t about to lose just Jules, but was about to lose Mike
and
Jules? How the hell would he ever deal with that?

When he finally fell asleep, his dreams were scary and restless. He was chasing something and he couldn’t catch it, over and over again, coming back to wakefulness agitated and full of frustration.

He took a long shower before heading out to the kitchen to see if Mike was up yet. Since it was nearly noon, he figured he would be, and found him sitting at the table, reading the paper and drinking coffee. “You look like shit,” he said, grabbing a mug out of a cupboard.

“Thanks.” Mike gave him a cool look. “So do you.”

“Figures. I slept crappy.” He filled the mug and sat at the table, slumping low in the chair. “We gonna talk now?”

Mike nodded. “Sure.”

“What’s going on, man?” Carlos searched Mike’s face.

“What’s going on? You know what’s going on.”

“No. I really don’t. Why’d you tell Jules you’re in love with her?”

“Because I am.”

“But…” Carlos swallowed some coffee, the heat easing the tightness in his throat a little. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

“I didn’t know I was. It just happened.”

“And why were you so rough on her last night?”

“I wasn’t being rough. I was being honest.”

“Fuck, man. Look what happened!” Carlos set his mug down on the table so hard coffee sloshed over the rim. “She wasn’t exactly in a good place to start hearing hard truths about herself. If you hadn’t noticed, she was having a rough night. Now she’s hurt and pissed off, and we’ll be lucky if we ever see her again.”

“I’ll talk to her later.”

“You’ll talk to her?
You
will?” His insides burned and not from the hot beverage. “What happened to
us
, Mike?” He stared at Mike.

“You think I screwed up, then I’ll be the one to fix it.”

A heavy dread settled in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah. Sure.”

A knock on their back door had both their heads whipping around. “Jules,” Mike said, shoving back his chair and bolting to his feet. He opened the door.

She looked about as bad as they both did, except she was still beautiful, even with dark shadows under her eyes and pale skin.

“Hey, guys,” she said. She didn’t smile. “I thought I’d better come over and talk to you before I head into the gallery.”

“Come in.”