Wrong Man, Right Kiss (19 page)

She relented quickly, and Julian knew it was due to the guilt that gnawed at her over the way she’d attempted to separate him from Molly over the years, and the pain it had ended up causing him now. In fact, she’d even relented about her threat of cutting off his trust fund because he’d quit the family business, though she was still trying to convince him to come back.

Now his brothers strolled over, wet suits soaked, and plopped down just as a redhead emerged from within the house, carrying a salad bowl.

Julian stiffened at the same time Garrett did.

It must have been the red hair, shining in the sun, flowing behind her in the wind. For a blind second, Julian thought it was Molly. He didn’t even know how he felt about that, but his heart kicked in his chest like a wild thing. He was relieved when he realized that it was Kate.

He calmed back down while Garrett went over to take the bowl from her hands and whisper something in her ear.

“Hi, Julian,” Kate said, spotting him. “You’ve been so busy all morning I haven’t been able to say hi.”

“You just did, so now you can sleep soundly,” he said.

Then he realized how grumpy he sounded. Well, hell, he could still tackle some kayaks and hike this afternoon to let out some of his frustration. His every muscle ached, but there was still some juice in them, and he didn’t want to have a drop left by the time he was finished. It wasn’t enough; he needed to push harder. Push every single muscle to failure.

Servants brought out trays of canapés and wine. While the family chatted, Julian sat in silence, brooding when no second redhead came out of the house. Kate had been invited. So where the hell was Molly?

He wanted to ask, his tongue itching in his mouth. He wanted to ask where she was and how she’d been doing and why in the world she had betrayed him. He’d never gone twenty-three days, four hours, thirty-two minutes and about thirty seconds without talking to her. The time had dragged on so hellishly that it felt like years as far as he was concerned. However he measured it, this was proving to be the crappiest period of his life so far.

Kate kept her attention on him, and he could feel her gaze on his profile as she asked, “You’re not going to eat anything?”

Julian stared at the salad bowl. Molly used to get all of his croutons and he’d eat all of her raisins.

He shook his head, not even hungry anymore.

Beth and Landon kept squeezing each other’s hands tenderly as they nibbled salad and drank their lemonades, and the grenade inside Julian’s stomach seemed to be ready to detonate. His oldest brother had a truly doting wife and a great kid, and he doted on them both in return. The family had been thrilled that Landon had been able to find love again after his first wife and their son had died. They thought he’d closed himself off for good, yet Beth had opened him up like a Christmas present and found gold.

Usually, the sight of them brought Julian immense cheer, but today he found it was…difficult. To see that connection.

Because the only person he’d ever had it with was not with him here.

“So how is dear Molly, Kate?” his mother asked, very politically bringing her up, damn her. “I’m so disappointed she couldn’t come.”

Lips compressed into a thin line, Julian stared at his empty glass of lemonade, wishing he’d gone for vodka.

“She was disappointed, too,” Kate said, “but she had that exhibit in New York and had to fly over for the opening.”

Julian refused to think about Molly flying all alone to her solo exhibit. Getting chatted up by someone next to her in first class. By her fans and collectors at the gallery. It was an important time in her career. And Molly had celebrated…alone.

He refused to think about how he should’ve been there, always had been there.

He restlessly shifted in his seat, trying to console himself with the thought that at least Josh Blackstone, her gallerist, would be there with her. Julian’s old acquaintance was as ruthless as a hellhound, but fair with his artists and especially with Molly, whom he’d taken under his wing a long time ago when Julian urged her to submit her works for his consideration.

Blackstone had flipped, called it feisty and fresh, and the rest had been history.

“I’ve always loved her canvases, my dear. So bright and sunny. Like her. No wonder they do so well in the art market,” his mother casually told Kate, and the topic only incensed Julian to a whole new level.

“Remember how she used to save all those wrappers,” Garrett added in lingering disbelief. “And twine them around the tree trunks to make some weird…”

“Oh, yeah, the candy tree,” Landon said, lifting up his glass. “I think she has one in this exhibition. It’s considered to be her ‘early work.’”

“Remember that one review?” Beth said, turning to Landon. “You know the one, Lan… Where the reviewer said Molly was the kind of artist who could draw a simple sketch on a paper napkin and sign it and with that, not only pay for her dinner tab, but for the entire restaurant’s? Like it was rumored Picasso once did.”

The chair legs screeched like angry banshees as Julian pushed back his seat and rose, his face black with rage. With a shove-it-where-it-hurts look, he grabbed his drink to leave.

“Oh, Julian, dear,” Eleanor said, “Could you tell one of the servants to bring out the pies?”

He realized his drink was empty and slammed it back down. “Tell them yourself.”

Ready to call it quits on family time, he marched toward the dry clothes he’d left on a wood bench by the dock, angrily unzipping and yanking the top part of his wet suit down to his hips. His family kept talking of Molly’s artworks, how special they were, and yes, they were incredible pieces, amazing. But it was Molly whom he’d always considered the masterpiece. Living and breathing, coloring his world with passion and liveliness, making his every moment…worthwhile. God, he hated to remember how she used to make him feel.

Stopping in his tracks, he scowled at the wood bench. His clothes were nowhere to be found.

He stormed back to the group. “Where the hell is my stuff?”

Kate covered her cheeks with both hands, eyes wide. “Oh, I’m sorry! I hung everything in the closet at the cottage so it wouldn’t get wet or wrinkled.”

He rolled his eyes and stomped down the path to the spare cottage a good distance from the main house. Once he got there, he slammed the door shut behind him to keep the AC inside and went to the closet.

That was when he caught a shadow moving out of the corner of his eye.

He did a forty-five-degree turn and saw Molly. She stood by the window, like a virgin fire princess ready for the sacrifice of her life, her hair molten lava running down her rounded shoulders, wearing a sexy little strapless dress and glittery sandals, big earrings, big bangles and a big smile.

His body, traitorous, jumped to life at the sight of her as though
twenty-three
miserable, endless days of continual physical exertion were not enough to keep it numb. Oh, no, not around her. Her mere presence had flicked on his power switch. Now his blood rushed through his veins and his mind sparked to awareness, taking in every detail of her porcelain skin, her pale blue eyes, her shiny hair, her sweet, white, tiny little teeth she’d used to bite him lovingly. He took in every detail now only to torture himself with them later.

His palms itched, his breath hitched, and he said, “You.”

He heard shuffling outside the door, and then the sound of a bolt sliding into place.

Plunk.

And he realized too late, that his family had just locked him in with her.

* * *

“Me,” Molly agreed calmly.

And suddenly it didn’t matter that Julian obviously didn’t want to be here, that he didn’t want to see her. It didn’t matter that his eyes flashed reproachfully at her, that his stance was wide and defensive, that his lips were hard and pressed together in anger. The sight of him after all these painful days made her lungs throb and her head spin with the sheer joy of being able to look at him.

And he looked extremely good.

His torso was damp with lake water and tanned by the sun. His chest looked wider, his athletic form so incredibly sexy in the way the wet suit hung halfway down his body, emphasizing his narrow hips and waist. The shiny black fabric clung seductively to his thighs and to the prominent part of him that had once joined him with her. His hair was damp and slicked back from his face, revealing every inch of his formidable features. The features of a playboy, a Greek god, the man she loved—and the man who wanted nothing to do with her.

Molly trembled with nervousness, desire, regret.

She noticed his hair, still streaked enticingly by the sun, was growing a bit longer, to his nape, and she could smell the woods on him, the oaks and the cedars on the property.

“I thought you had a show,” he said, his tone indicating that he didn’t really care about her answer.

She still wanted to tell him—because he used to be the only one who truly listened—that it had gone well, that the reviews were excellent and everyone thought she was the luckiest person on earth to have succeeded so young. They thought she had it all.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t have what she wanted most. Had always wanted.

“I got back from the opening yesterday,” she said slowly, her hands restless at her sides, fiddling with the skirt of her dress. “Everyone seemed to like my paintings, except for my two most depressing ones.”
The ones that suck because of you.

“You
have no depressing works,” he said, pointing at her.

He pursed his lips as he once again scanned his surroundings. Then he shook his head in disgust, marched back to the closet, yanked open the doors and began to pull out his clothes briskly from the hangers.

She felt an unwelcome rush of desire when he began to change right before her eyes. He pulled off his wet suit with a snap, and when he peeled it from his thighs and kicked it off, she saw his nude backside. Glorious muscles rippled and clenched as he put on his Boss underwear and khaki pants. He slipped on a polo shirt and buttoned the two top buttons, then crossed the room toward the cottage door and tried to force the knob. He cursed under his breath when it didn’t open and angrily swung around to her.

“So you’re into kidnapping now, Molls? Is that your new kick?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I’m into spanking, kidnapping and robbing unsuspecting clients of their money while I fail to complete their murals.”

Jaw clamped, he stormed to one of the windows and attempted to open it so forcibly the glass rattled in its frame. He acted as if he was in prison and eager to be set free, which just made Molly sigh in despair.

“Look, this wasn’t my idea, but I think the plan is brilliant,” she said.

“Except for one flaw,” he said wickedly, unlocking a second window with a surprising click. He cocked a devil-may-care brow at her and grinned as he pushed upward, only to realize there was another lock on the outside and the glass stayed right in place, no matter how hard he tried to get it open.
“Damn.”

“You don’t want to talk to me, Julian, that’s fine,” Molly said softly. “But I need to talk to you. So now you’re going to have to hear me out. Even if you
break
one of those windows, Jules, what are you planning to do? Let in some fresh air?”

He scowled as she pointed at the forged-iron bars on the outside.

“Your mother had that design made specially to keep the drunk teenagers from getting in like they’ve been doing at other lake houses, and if they can’t come in through those bars, I doubt even
you
can go out through them.”

The glare he shot her could’ve been Lucifer’s. “I can’t believe this idiocy. First they don’t want me near you, now they lock me up with you?”

Shaking his head, he paced like a caged lion.

His tumultuous energy spun through the room like a whirlwind, making her want to go over there, wrap her arms around him and calm him down like she had many times before when he was irritated about other things.

But now he saw her as untrustworthy, and he wouldn’t want to open up. Now his irritation was caused by the fact that he was locked in the same room as Molly.

“Your family has realized we’re miserable and they’re trying to make amends. Well,
I
have been miserable,” she added, watching him pace. “Jules, will you please look at me so I can talk to you? Or do I need to call you JJ to make you react?”

He stopped in his tracks, his hands curling at his sides, fingers clenching. Although his face was a mask of cold indifference, his eyes blazed with intensity. “Don’t even think about provoking me.”

“Or you’ll what? Kiss me?”

His glare was as bleak as a cemetery. “I’ll spank the hell out of you, how about that? I’m
through
with kissing you, Molls.”

The decisiveness in his words summoned a fresh wave of outrage from her. “Really? And who says I even
want
you to?”

“A closed door with a lock on it, that’s who!” His teeth were clenched so tight, she could see a muscle twitch in the back of his jaw.

She glowered at him, but feared in the innermost part of her, where a candle of hope flickered its last lights, that this battle was already lost. Apparently, not only was her presence not wanted, her kiss was worth nothing to him, either. But she, on the other hand, remembered perfectly all the things she had done as a result of
his
masquerade kiss. “So are you going to listen to me,
JJ?
God, I’m trying to fix things here!” she cried.