after they’d gone to her place. She thought he was trying to help her, but looking back, Juliet could see it for what it really was.
He’d been interrogating me. Gathering information for the CIA.
A memory from the night of the explosion surfaced. One from when she and Derek were on the floor taking fire.
I want you to make your way back to Mike’s...uh...Jay’s bedroom. But stay low, and don’t go near any windows.
At the time, she thought he’d misspoken by telling her to go to his room. But now...
Another memory struck. One with Derek’s brother, Eric.
What about Mike? Where is he?
Derek had played it off, reminding his brother that ‘Mike’ was the name of the man who’d owned the home previously.
“And I bought it,” she whispered to herself.
Jay’s...no, Mike’s words from that night at the hospital hit her like a kick to the gut...
I meant what I said tonight. I love you, Juliet. I think I have from that first moment I laid eyes on you.
“Oh, god.” Juliet felt sick in the deepest parts of her soul. “I bought it all.”
Losing the battle, she doubled over and vomited into the sink. Her stomach didn’t stop convulsing until it was depleted of every last ounce of the lunch they’d just shared.
Trembling, she rinsed out the sink and ran the garbage disposal, and on wooden legs she made her way back to the bathroom. There, she brushed her teeth and gargled with mouthwash to rid herself of the rancid taste, wishing she could get rid of the overwhelming feeling of betrayal just as easily.
When she was finished, she went back to the front room and took off her coat and gloves. Shoving the gloves into the pockets, she hung the coat on her peg and went back to the table where she’d been sitting.
Removing the paper with Mike’s real name, she closed the folder and placed the paper neatly on top. Then...she waited.
A very long, torturous forty-five minutes later, he came back. “Damn, it’s getting cold out there.”
Not as cold as it’s about to get in here.
Juliet remained silent.
The man she’d known as Jay—the same man she’d given her body, heart, and soul to—glanced up at her and frowned.
“Listen, Jules. We need to talk.”
Ya think?
He ran a hand through his hair. “There’s something...” His chest rose and fell with a long, deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should’ve told you a long damn time ago, but I—”
“Ben stopped by,” she cut him off. The jerk had stolen her heart. Her trust. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of taking this moment from her, too.
“Ben?” Jay’s—no, Mike’s—frown deepened. “What did he want? And why the hell did you answer the door for him?”
“I didn’t,” she spoke coldly. “I opened the door to go find you, and found him standing there, instead.”
Confused, he turned and hung up his things. “It’s his place, so he has the code to the gate at the property line. Explains why my sensor didn’t go off when the gate opened.” He turned back around. “What did he want?”
“To give you this.” She pushed the folder...and the paper...toward him.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. You tell me, Mike.”
His brown eyes shot to hers. The color drained from his face, and...there it was. Confirmation that her suspicion was spot on.
“Jules, I can—”
“Explain?” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Oh, you bet your lying ass, you’re gonna explain. And when you’re finished, you can call Jake, or whatever the hell his name is, and tell him to get his goddamn jet back here and take me home.”
Chapter 13
I’ve lost her.
Juliet was sitting less than five feet away from him, but in that moment, it felt as if an entire world separated them.
She hates me.
No, this was worse than hate. The woman he loved and cherished, the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, was staring back at him as if he were a stranger.
He couldn’t even be mad about it because, to her, that was exactly what he was. A stranger. Except he wasn’t.
What Juliet didn’t know—what she couldn’t possibly see through the blinding haze of anger and betrayal currently surrounding her—was that when he was with her, Mike felt more like his true self than ever before.
With her, Mike was...home.
It wasn’t a conscious effort on his part. At first, he’d done everything he could to fight against the magnetic pull the incredible woman held over him. But it didn’t matter.
From damn