How to Love (35 page)

Mike nodded. “I screwed up,” he finally said. “I’m sorry too. I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. Mike’s heart turned over in his chest and a rush of emotion overtook him, and then they both moved, Carlos straightening and rounding the counter, Mike moving toward him. Mike grabbed him, wrapped his arms around him, fisted a hand in his hair and pressed his face to Carlos’s. He closed his eyes, his heart swelling up huge and painful in his chest. “Fuck, Carlos,” he muttered. “I love you. You gotta know that.”

“I know. I love you too.” Carlos turned his head and found Mike’s mouth with his, a long, hard, desperate kiss. His hands gripped Mike’s ass and pulled him in closer, and Mike too tightened his grip on Carlos. They stood like that for long moments, kissing again and again.

Then they leaned their foreheads together. Mike felt a tightness in his throat, emotion rising up inside him. “You fucking scared the shit out of me,” he said hoarsely. “Everything we have—our house, our business, just…us—Jesus, Carlos.”

“I was scared too,” Carlos admitted, lifting a hand to Mike’s cheek.

“Why couldn’t we have just talked about it?”

Carlos sighed. “I needed some time. But I gotta say, I’ve never been so pissed at you. It was unreasonable, I know it. I’m settled down now, but shit.” Their eyes met, so close together Mike could see every single eyelash that made up the thick fringe surrounding his eyes. “It was because of Jules.”

Mike swallowed hard. “I know,” he rasped out. “I know.” He closed his eyes against the knife that stabbed into his gut. “I fell in love with her too. I know how you feel.”

“Maybe we were stupid to think we could have that,” Carlos said, his voice low. “Maybe we were greedy. But shit.” His voice cracked. “Shit, I really care about her.”

“Not stupid,” Mike said, drawing back. He met Carlos’s eyes with resolve. “And not greedy. I thought she cared about us too.”

“Let’s go talk to her. Right now.”

“Fuck no!”

“Huh?”

“Shit.” Mike rubbed the back of his head. “I saw her yesterday. I ran into her outside as she was going out. We talked for a minute. I told her you’d left and basically said, what the fuck, it doesn’t matter anymore. She looked pretty horrified about that, but she left. I got in my car and followed her.”

“Jesus. Stalker much?”

“I know. Thank Christ she didn’t see me. She went to Laguna Dorado. I came home. I waited. I kept thinking about her, about how she wouldn’t answer her door or my calls, so I got in the car and went back to see if she was still there. I walked in to see her sitting at the bar, kissing some other jackass.”

“
What?
”

“Yeah. Okay,
he
kissed her, but they were all snuggled up close. Jesus, Carlos! What was that about? I seriously thought she cared about us.”

“I don’t know, babe,” Carlos said slowly.

“I don’t know what she was doing with that guy,” Mike said. His insides burned again just thinking about it. “Okay, maybe I do. That night we were at Aura she let that dude buy her a drink and I was pissed off. But I think now I know her better, and I know about her family and all that shit, maybe I understand her better. I don’t think she even realizes what she’s doing.”

“What is she doing?” Carlos frowned.

“She uses sex. And her sexuality. She thinks that’s how you have a relationship, but she’s substituting sex for real intimacy.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

“Yeah. Tell me to shut up.”

“Shut up.”

They smiled at each other, slowly, reluctantly.

“You know I like to analyze stuff,” Mike said. “I spent all last night and today thinking about it. Seriously, she hides behind her camera too. She doesn’t want people to know her. Because she’s afraid. Do you blame her? Her mother abandoned her by committing suicide, after she got dumped for a younger woman. Her father considers her a ‘trophy daughter’ if there is such a thing. All her stepmother cares about is staying skinny and getting boob jobs.”

Carlos snorted. “Yeah. I see what you’re saying.”

“I was seriously pissed last night,” Mike said, shaking his head. “But after I thought about it…maybe there’s still hope. She could really care about us and just be reverting back to using sex to cover up her feelings.” A fist socked him in the gut, thinking that Jules could have gone home with that guy. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“What if she slept with that guy?”

Carlos’s forehead wrinkled and he squinted, looking past Mike. “I don’t know. That would seriously piss me off.”

“Me too.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Well, like I said…let’s go talk to her. Let’s find out.”

“We can’t just go over there. She won’t talk to us. We have to figure out a plan.”

Carlos groaned and took a step back, thrusting a hand into his hair. “I’m sick of planning! We waited too long to tell her the truth before, you said yourself it was a mistake.”

“I didn’t say that was a mistake.”

“What the fuck?”

Mike sighed. “Let’s not do this again. I’m sorry I told her how I felt without having you there, without you being involved. But I’ve thought about it over and over again for the last week and how things could have gone differently if we’d told her the truth. I don’t
know
if things would have gone differently. Honestly, who knows? I don’t know if it was a mistake. Or maybe it was the only thing we could have done.”

“I know. I know.” Carlos looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve thought about it too.”

“How the hell do we get her to talk to us then?”

“How about right now?”

They both turned at the husky feminine voice speaking to them from the open sliding door. Their mouths dropped open at seeing Jules.

“Jesus,” Mike breathed. “Jules.”

She stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and black tank top, her hair pulled up into a messy knot on top of her head, dark wisps hanging around her face. With no makeup on at all, her eyes were big and shadowed, her mouth soft, and she looked so damn beautiful. She held a flat rectangular parcel in her hands.

Mike’s stomach swooped, and he glanced at Carlos who also stared at her.

She swiped her little tongue over her bottom lip in that way that he’d first thought was so sexy but now recognized as nervous, and her eyes dropped briefly to Mike’s bare chest. “I want to talk to you too,” she said, voice trembling a little. Anger faded into protectiveness. He wanted to sweep her up, wrap his arms around her and hold her forever, or at least until she stopped shaking.

So much for coming up with a plan of action. He wasn’t about to tell her to go away while they figured one out. His lips quirked at the ridiculous thought.

“Something funny?” she asked.

One corner of his mouth kicked up higher. “Just me,” he said. “Come in.”

“I’m glad you’re both here,” she said, stepping into the kitchen. She eyed Carlos. “You came back.”

“Yeah.” Carlos sent another look Mike’s way and nodded.

Mike turned back to Jules and saw her lips tremble again. She visibly took in a deep breath. “Are you back?” she asked Carlos. “For good? Or…”

“I’m back,” he said. “For good. Or bad.” He huffed out a laugh.

“Oh.” She said it with what sounded like relief.

“Here. Let’s sit,” Mike said. “Maybe we should go in the living room.”

“Sure.” She moved through the arched door to the small dining room attached to the L-shaped living room. “I smell paint.”

“Finished the bathroom,” Mike said. “It looks good.”

“That’s great.”

“Let me go grab a shirt,” Mike said. “I just finished cleaning up.”

He grabbed the first T-shirt he saw in the closet. He shoved his arms in it and pulled it over his head as he strode back down the hall into the living room.

They all sat, Carlos and Mike on the big couch. Jules handed the parcel to Mike. “Here. This is for you guys.” She took a seat on the chair across from them and set her hands on her knees.

Mike lifted an eyebrow. Obviously it was a framed photograph, but of what? He shot Carlos a look, then unwrapped the picture. He turned it around to right side up and held it so Carlos could see it too.

His breath stuck in his throat and he went very still, staring at the image. It was of him and Carlos, one of the ones she’d shot at her studio that day. Their bodies were visible from the waist up, including their faces, which meant this wasn’t one of the ones she was going to sell. Mike was behind Carlos, his arms around Carlos, hands on Carlos’s body, Carlos’s arm up and behind Mike’s head, their faces pressed together, not kissing, but their eyes fastened on each other in a look that was full of love and trust. His throat tightened.

“It’s beautiful, Jules,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.” Carlos cleared his throat. “Beautiful. It’s for us?”

“Yes. I wanted to give that to you. It’s not one I’ll sell, but I…I loved it and I thought you two might like it also.”

“I do,” Carlos said. Mike caught his eye and nodded.

“Me too,” he said. “So much. Thank you, Jules. It’s amazing.” He leaned forward to set it on the coffee table.

“Um. About last night,” she said.

Mike’s stomach cramped. He frowned.

Jules bent her head. “I don’t have to apologize or feel guilty,” she said in a small voice. “Because…because it’s not like you own me, or anything. I’m free to do what I want, with whoever I want.”

She sounded like she’d said that to herself about a hundred times. Mike’s body tightened, once again thinking about her with that other dude.

She sighed. “But I do feel guilty. And sorry.” She met Mike’s eyes. “Nothing happened with that guy.”

Mike slumped a little.
Thank Christ.

“And nothing was going to happen. I flirted a little with him, but I’d had a lot of tequila. I thought I could do what I always do…but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him.” Her lower lip trembled, and it pulled at his heart. He believed her.

“I went home alone last night,” she said. “And today, I went to see my dad.”

Mike frowned and leaned forward. “What? Why?”

“We needed to talk. There was a lot of stuff I’ve been keeping inside that I needed to tell him.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” he agreed. Carlos made a noise of assent.

“I knew I had to do it if I was ever going to see Olivia and Madison again. And I wanted my dad to know…so maybe he won’t do the same thing with them. It was hard.” She lifted a hand and pushed a strand of hair off her face. “It was
really
hard. Telling him how I felt all those years. I tried to focus on that, and not on him and what he did. I told him I’m more than just a pretty face, and so are his other two daughters. I asked him not to do to them what he did to me, but he had no clue. No idea how I’d felt. No idea that I’d tried so hard to be what he wanted, to please him with the contest victories, the pretty clothes, the hair and makeup. That was all he’d ever seen of me.”

“Good for you, Jules,” Mike said quietly.

“I told him how it felt to me when he ignored my photography but praised my pageant trophies. How it felt when he wanted me to marry Jeremy Scott.” She gave a choked laugh and turned her face up. “I told him how I felt like he was pimping me out to his friends.” She grimaced. “I thought he was going to have a stroke when I said that.”

“Whoa,” Carlos murmured.

“He apologized. He seemed so stunned though, I think he’s still probably thinking about that.”

“Good.”

“He said he thought that was what
I
wanted. I’d seemed to like dating older men, guys with money. And I guess I understand why he thought that.” She made a face. “I should have told him back then how I felt, but…I couldn’t.”

“Aw, Jules.” Mike shook his head, again resisting the urge to pull her onto his lap and hold her.

“The good thing is, he’s going to let Madison and Olivia come visit after all.”

He loved the way her eyes softened when she mentioned her half-sisters.

“I talked to him about my mom too. I think it was pretty hard for him. I didn’t realize that I’d been blaming him for her death for so long. Because she loved him so much, and he dumped her for someone else. To me…” She stopped and he saw her little chin quiver, her throat work. “To me it seemed like that’s what love was. Something terrible and hurtful. Something to be handed out when you felt like it, when someone did what you want. I didn’t want that. If that’s what love is.”

She lifted her head, her eyes shiny. “When I saw you two, I saw what love could really be.”

Holy shit. Mike stared at her, stunned speechless. His mind reeled. He looked at Carlos and saw the love for him shining there in his eyes. Yeah.

He looked back at Jules.

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to get you back here,” she said, looking at Carlos. “So I’m glad you’re here. But I knew I had to make sure you two stay together. I felt horrible that I’d come between you two,” she said, her voice barely audible. “You have something so wonderful together. My stupid hang-ups and crap shouldn’t affect anyone but me. And I am so, so sorry for that.”