After the Kiss (21 page)

“Well, I’m glad,” Julie said, meaning it. She didn’t want
Stiletto
to suffer on top of everything else.

“Allen’s fool stunt did hurt you, though,” Camille said, her voice softening.

Julie quickly dropped her gaze to her notebook. She hadn’t shed a tear since Mitchell had walked away, but sympathy from the ever-crusty Camille might be more than she could stand.

The older woman let out a sigh. “You know, Julie … I’m not a soft woman.”

Naaah
, Julie thought sarcastically.

“But I’ve always liked you. Favored you, perhaps. Thought of you as a daughter.”

Julie blinked in surprise. This was new. And kind of scary.

“Not a biological daughter, of course.” Camille literally shuddered. “I’d never do anything so vulgar as to subject myself to stretch marks and that horrid breast-feeding, of course.”

“Of course,” Julie agreed.

“I see myself in you,” Camille continued. “I love your spunk, your drive, your humor.”

“Thanks.”
Where the hell is this going?

“But the truth is, Julie, I’ve done you a disservice over the years. I’ve let you create a
very effective niche for yourself in your professional life, to the detriment of your personal life.”

Julie tried to follow. “I don’t understand.”

Camille sighed and fiddled with her computer mouse, clearly out of her element. “Well, let’s take your reputation as the first-date girl. You’ve cultivated that.
I’ve
cultivated that. And it’s been very effective. This city loves you, men adore you, women want to be you. But you’ve always been so … alone.”

Ouch. Hold on a sec, boss. Let me just remove my spleen and let you stab at that too
.

Julie’s hand went up to fiddle with her necklace, almost as though she could protect her vulnerabilities from Camille’s too-shrewd observations.

Then realization dawned. “
That’s
why you assigned me this story. You normally only ever assign topics to the new kids, but you
ordered
me to write this one.”

Camille nodded. “I thought it would be good for you. I wanted you to allow yourself to open up. To connect with a man on a more meaningful level.”

Julie didn’t know if she was touched or completely appalled. “Camille,” she began carefully, “it’s true that I’ve always been a bit … shallow when it’s come to relationships. But that’s been my own choice. Not because of my role at the magazine. I shaped my stories to fit what
I
was, not the other way around.”

Camille pursed her lips. “It probably seems that way. But you started writing when you were twenty-two, very early into your professional and personal development. I think the two shaped each other. And as long as you were writing about the easy stuff in relationships, that’s all you were going to experience.”

“I really wish you hadn’t interfered,” Julie whispered.

“I know that now. I wanted you to experience something meaningful. Something real. But this …” She waved a hand over Julie in dismay. “Your outfit clashes, your roots are showing, your brows are a mess—”

“Gosh, the useful revelations just keep coming.”

“My point is, I shouldn’t have stuck my cosmetically enhanced nose in your business. I just wanted you to have a chance at a real relationship. Maybe even a chance at love. Instead I handed you a broken heart.”

Julie didn’t bother denying it. “You couldn’t have known how it would turn out.”

“No, but I should have put my foot down when I heard about your fool-headed scheme to
manufacture a relationship.
That
wasn’t my goal at all. But then Kelli was champing at the bit, and I was stuck between delivering a blow to the magazine and letting you suffer a more personal blow of having your position usurped. I should have chosen differently.”

“It was my choice to make. It was the wrong one, clearly. But I had to make it for myself.”

Even if it cost me everything
.

Camille nodded, but her expression was still troubled. “So you still plan to write the story, then? Because I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”

Julie hadn’t seen
that
coming. She’d been planning to write the article. She didn’t have the energy to come up with a fresh idea, and the city was practically panting for it. And it wasn’t as if she had anything to lose at this point.

But Camille’s attempt at mothering was unexpected. And knowing that Camille was willing to sacrifice magazine sales for her employee’s well-being? Unheard of.

Julie chose her words carefully. “You just said that the publicity from Allen’s article would make this one of our best-selling issues. I
need
to write it. Without my article, people will be pissed.”

“So let them be pissed,” Camille said with an indifferent shrug. “No magazine is worth a heart.”

Julie swallowed. “I think it’s a little late for that.”

Camille leaned forward. “So you
did
care? About him, I mean.”

“Very much.”

“Then write about it.”

Julie resisted the urge to rub her temples. This conversation was getting exhausting. “I thought you just told me I shouldn’t.”

“I don’t mean write about that abstract idea we came up with two months ago. I mean write about what you learned. Write about your heartbreak. Write about
him
.”

Julie exhaled slowly through her nose. “Camille, with all due respect, I’ll write what I said I’d write because I’m a professional. I’ll write about the subtle difference between dating and
being
with someone. I’ll even sprinkle in some of my own observations. But I’m not going to spill my guts to strangers. You’re the one that told me that
Stiletto
isn’t a diary. Please don’t ask me to turn it into one.”

Camille gave a small smile. “A good speech, Julie. And I can tell you mean it. But somewhere in the midst of this train wreck, you unintentionally tapped into something we don’t cover often enough at
Stiletto
.”

“What’s that? Manipulation and skanky journalism?”

This time Camille let out a full-on laugh. “No. If I wanted all that, I’d ask Kelli to write a farewell piece. But I meant your heartache. As a magazine, we’ve never paid tribute to an inevitable part of many relationships: the breakup.”

Julie opened her mouth to protest, but instead, she let the truth of Camille’s observation run over her.

Her boss was right.

The Dating, Love, and Sex department rarely tackled the messy bits. Sure, they talked about how to patch up squabbles, how to get the right leverage in reverse-cowgirl position, and whether men prefer women to wear lip gloss or lipstick. But they didn’t take on the hard stuff.

They didn’t touch the
end
of relationships. After being through one, Julie understood why.

“Writing about it might help you,” Camille said thoughtfully. “I understand it’s uncomfortably personal, but you could omit names, and of course keep the most sacred moments to yourself. But other women are out there hurting from breakups. Write this story for them.”

Julie opened her notebook without realizing it, and tapped her pen thoughtfully against her knee. “A breakup article. I could do that.”

Camille smiled sadly. “Yes, you can. I hate that you can.”

Julie closed the book without writing a single note. She needed to think.

Could she really do this?

Yes. She could, and she should. She wanted to tell the truth. And the truth about what had happened between her and Mitchell—the
real
truth—wasn’t about the facade under which it had started. It was about what happened after all that. About the slow, unnerving process of falling in love, and the ripping moments when that love was taken away.

Julie gave Camille a nod and a promise to have notes delivered by the end of the day tomorrow.

With each step back to her office, she felt her writer’s block begin to lift. Julie could write this story. She owed it to herself. She owed it to her readers.

And most of all, she owed it to Mitchell.

“Mr. Forbes, I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a woman here to see you.”

Mitchell almost laughed into the phone. Once upon a time, a woman wanting to see him had been a good thing. But that was before his home had been invaded by a manipulative, social-climbing heartbreaker and an endless bevy of nosy journalists.

“Get rid of her, Christian,” Mitchell said to his building’s doorman. “I’m not expecting anyone.”

“But she says she knows you, sir.”

Mitchell pushed his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets in exasperation. “I’m sure she said that. But so have a dozen other women who’ve been by here wanting an exclusive.”

Christian’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t think this one’s a reporter. She’s quieter, you know?”

Mitchell raised an eyebrow. Couldn’t be Julie. There was nothing quiet about her.

Curiosity got the best of him. “What’s her name?”

“Grace Brighton. Says you work with her ex-boyfriend?”

That had Mitchell pausing. Ex-boyfriend? Greg and Grace’s relationship predated cellphones. They were over?

And he noticed that Grace had failed to mention their
other
connection. Julie.

What the hell was she doing here? They’d only ever made a little small talk. And he highly doubted Julie had sent anyone to plead her case. It had been almost three weeks, and he hadn’t heard from her. Not a text, not an email, not a missed call.

They were over.

Exactly what he wanted.

And yet …

“Oh, what the hell. Send her up.”

Mitchell tugged at his tie and threw it over the back of the bar stool as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. It had been his sad routine for the past week: wake up, run, work, come home, work some more, maybe watch a game he no longer cared about.

He was bored. And maybe a little wounded. He washed away that last emotion with a swallow of beer.

He’d never thought of himself as someone who needed a woman. Hell, when he and Evelyn were together, those rare “alone” nights had been precious. But with Julie … with Julie it had been different. Calling her after work to grab a glass of wine or a beer had been second nature. Watching a movie with her legs slung over his lap had been relaxing. Shit, even takeout tasted better when they’d eaten together.

And she was probably scribbling notes about it every time you took a piss
.

To think that he’d been actually daydreaming about what style of ring would suit her best. The thought of his own foolish naïveté made him sick.

There was a polite knock at his door, and Mitchell yanked it open with more force than necessary. If Grace had come to plead her trampy friend’s case, he’d let her know exactly where she could shove her precious magazine.

His self-righteous anger faded slightly at the sight of Grace. “Are you okay?”

The question spilled from his lips as he pulled her inside. He’d never seen Grace Brighton look anything but perfectly put together. But
this
Grace looked like she’d been rummaging around for hot dog remnants in the garbage cans of Central Park.

“I know,” she said, running a hand through hair that hadn’t seen shampoo in days. “I look like hell.”

Pretty much
. “Nah, you just look … not yourself.”

Her smile was probably meant to reassure him, but the grimace only made her look more like the Joker. “Got any more of those?” she asked, jerking her chin at the beer bottle in his hand.

He hesitated for a moment but then realized he couldn’t exactly throw her out in her present condition. And a little companionship wouldn’t kill him. He hadn’t spoken to anyone except colleagues in the past couple of weeks, and then it had only been about bonds and money.

Colin had been nervously circling around him like a whipped dog, forever dropping off gourmet sandwiches and fancy coffees as peace offerings. He wasn’t a bad guy, just an incredibly stupid one, with wretched taste in women.

Still, the fact that he’d dumped Kelli after learning she’d sold their pillow talk to Allen Carsons spoke highly of him. And Colin had pulled the necessary strings over at the
Tribune
to get the second part of Carsons’s ridiculous story killed before publication.

All in all, Colin was shaping up to be a better friend than Mitchell would have guessed.

Didn’t mean Mitchell was going to put a stop to the free coffees and lunches, though.

Mitchell grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped the cap, and handed it to Grace. She took a healthy swallow. And then another. Then another.

She let out the tiniest of burps before grinning like a madwoman at the bottle. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a beer? With Greg, I only ever drank chardonnay.”

Oh, boy
.

“Hey, Grace, can I call someone for you?”

She gave a maniacal little laugh and settled uninvited onto one of his bar stools. “Sure, sure. Call Greg. I’m sure he has nothing else going on. Oh, wait! That’s not right. He’s probably busy boning that slutty coworker of yours.”

Mitchell tipped the bottle to his lips.
Ah. So that’s how it was
.

Not that he was surprised. Greg’s “friendships” with the females of the office were well known. He only wished they were rumors instead of fact.

But the proof was in Grace’s tangled hair and mismatched shoes. He felt a surge of sympathy. “You guys broke up, huh?”

She gave a wave of her hand. “Broke up … exploded. Whatever you want to call ten fucking years down the drain. Apparently I don’t
excite
him anymore. Guess I should have been spending my time figuring out how to hoist my breasts up to my eyebrows instead of doing his damned laundry.”

Mitchell fiddled with the label on his beer bottle. This was definitely not his territory. And surely she had other girlfriends she could man-bash with. He was betting she and Julie could have a field day.

“Well, Greg’s loss,” he said finally, meaning it. Grace Brighton was a classy broad. He couldn’t see
her
shacking up with some guy for the sake of a story.