End of the Innocence
Page 3

Oddly, his father opened the door, and Brad glanced around for the staff.
“This needs to be quick, Brad. I have items to attend to.”
Brad nodded, meeting his father’s eyes and walking past him to the formal living room, which had not changed since his childhood. He stopped next to the massive stone fireplace. His father closed the front door, and the room darkened considerably. With his hands in his pockets, he turned to face his father, who eyed him warily, skipping right to the point. “You mentioned a wrinkle in this situation?” his father prompted.
“Yes. Last night I asked Julia for her hand in marriage. She accepted.”
His father’s eyes closed briefly, and he took a few slow steps forward and sat in a cream, wing-backed chair, gripping the arms tightly as he leaned back. “Sit.”
“I don’t have much time. Like you, I have business to attend to.” He sat on the chair across from his father and studied him across the space.
His father sighed, a raspy, exasperated sound. “Is this you being stubborn? I’m assuming this Julia you speak of is the intern who has been so troublesome?”
“Yes, that is Julia. And no, I am not being stubborn. I love her.”
“I thought you were too intelligent to allow love to dictate your life.”
Brad laughed. “It isn’t a dictation. You are thinking in terms of power, which this isn’t about.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve played the only hand that could win this game. And twisted my arm in the process. You’ve won this match, Brad. But signed yourself up for a lifetime of servitude in the process.”
“It’s not a lifetime of servitude.”
The old man laughed sharply, the quick action causing his chest to clench, and he stifled the outburst, coughing and staring grimly at Brad. “Right. Because you can just divorce, right? My son, the king of destroying marriages, of ripping apart families.” He shook his head bitterly. “You disgust me.”
Brad stood, his hands clamped in fists. “Because you are my father, and I still respect the head of this family, I won’t respond to that with what is in my heart. But know that I find it despicable that, of all of your sons, I would be the one that you find shameful. Thank you for reminding me of why I cut off contact with you.”
He strode past the old man’s chair and opened the door, the harsh sun filling the room with light.
♦♦♦
Word jumped, like a bloodthirsty flea, from our wing to the rest of the firm, spreading through the East Wing within five minutes of Beverly leaving the kitchen. By the time Brad stepped off the elevator, there was not a person in Clarke, De Luca, & Burge who hadn’t received word of the train wreck engagement of the fourth floor. He pushed open the heavy door to the East Wing, and silence fell, cloaking the space with thick, palatable tension. He smiled, welcoming the change and what it meant. Julia must have told them. He strode into the lobby, meeting his secretaries’ tense greetings with an easy grin.
He certainly wasn’t new to disdain, gossip, or disapproval. He was expecting that, but—as he walked through the space—this mood felt different. He settled into his office, leaning back in his desk chair, trying to decipher the atmosphere. It was almost hostile, as if from a swarm of irate, overprotective fathers, instead of faithful and loyal staff. Fathers. The oversight hit him squarely, and he sat quickly forward, cursing his lack of attention. Grabbing his phone, he dialed Julia’s extension.
♥♥♥
I exhaled with relief when I saw Brad’s number light up on my phone’s display. Thank God. He was here, and for once, I needed his protective, overbearing self. “Hi,” I whimpered into the phone.
He ignored the pitiful tone of my greeting, barging right into a question. “What’s your father going to think?”
I sat up, my attention refocusing. “My father?”
“Yes. Have you told him?”
“About our engagement?”
“Yes.”
“No. I haven’t told anyone. Other than Beverly and Sheila, who, I assume, have told everyone within a three-mile radius.” I sighed dramatically. “Brad. It’s horrible. They were so mean to me when they found out.”
The infuriated response I expected didn’t come. His storm to my rescue, threats to fire everyone, his mandate that ‘everyone be nice to Julia’ didn’t even enter his thought process. The damn man chuckled. “Babe. You’ve got to have thicker skin than that.”
I frowned into the phone, trying to formulate an appropriate withering response when he spoke again.
“So, you haven’t told your father.”
“No. I just told you that.”
“Okay. Let’s go to Centaur for lunch. We can discuss it then. In the meantime, don’t tell anyone else.”
Like that was a remote possibility. “You act like I’m running around waving a big ass sign! I’m the one who wanted to wait to share the news. Speaking of fathers, did yours take the news well?”
There was a brief moment of silence, which definitely wasn’t a good sign. “He’s fine,” Brad bit out. “You are officially out of danger. But he will want to meet you. He didn’t say so, but he will. Thanksgiving is soon, so you can meet everyone then.”
Meet the entire Magiano line, the family responsible for killing my boss and putting a hit out on my own head? Sounded super fun. “I don’t know if I can take a lunch. This is Burge’s first full day.”
“So. I’ll tell them I need you for something.”
I glanced in the direction of Burge’s office. “That’s not going to work. Especially now that everyone knows we are together. Just wait and see me after work.”
“No.”
I frowned. “This is not how our marriage is going to work.”
“Our marriage?”
“Yeah. You know, that thing after engagement? To have and to hold, and all that?”
“So you are planning on marrying me.”
I growled into the phone. “I’m hanging up now. I’ll see you tonight.”
There was a click, and he was gone. I buried my head in my hands.
Chapter 6
Somehow, I made it through the rest of the day. I cringed at every interaction with Burge, waiting for a comment, a question, a statement. But he was purely professional, and I wanted to hug him for that. He also seemed to lack the workaholic gene, and walked out the door at six, another point in his favor. Five minutes after he left, my cell rang, Brad’s name displayed on the screen.
“Hey.”
“Hey. How much longer are you going to be there?”
I looked at my watch. “Thirty minutes?”
“Great. Want to come to the house and eat?”
“Sure. But I’m not going to stay over; I need to be at home tonight.”
He grunted something into the phone. “Just hurry.”
I rolled my eyes and ended the call, focusing on my computer screen. I didn’t really have anything to do, just wanted to wait for everyone to leave. And, with Burge out of the building, everyone else should soon follow suit.
They did, no one bothering to swing by my office and say goodbye—an oddity, but one I was grateful for. I waited until the wing was silent for a good ten minutes, then gathered up my items and snuck out. I was being weak and cowardly, but I didn’t give a damn. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into someone’s arms and have a good, long cry.
Seeing Martha opened the dam. She swung open the back door before I even reached it, concern already on her face. “Honey, I can tell from the way you’re walking that you’re down in the dumps.”
I smiled at her, feigning casualness, but that facade lasted only a step or two, and I launched myself into her arms, sniffling. She held me tightly to her chest, patting my back and shushing me, walking us backward into the kitchen. I was distracted for a brief moment and snuck a glance to the stove, seeing fried pork chops sizzling in a skillet. Then she had me on a stool and sat across from me.
“Julia. Last week your life was in danger, and you held yourself together just fine. What is going on?”
I spat out words quickly, jumbling my sentences together in a mush of tears, indignation, and stress, and she had the gall to laugh when I finally took in a big, gasping breath. I swallowed a lump of saliva and glared at her. Brad spoke from behind us. “What’s wrong?”
I covered my face quickly, my hands squeezing any tears off the skin, my eyes blinking quickly in an effort to return their appearance to normal. “Nothing.”
Martha, damn her, spoke, “Julia’s upset because the women at the office were mean to her. About the engagement.”
I glared at her fiercely, my back to Brad, and waited for him to join in the laughter fest. Steps were heard on stone, and then he was behind me, wrapping his arms around me and turning me into his chest. He tilted my chin up, looking into my eyes, his own turning troubled when they saw my face. “You’re crying about this?” His voice was so baffled that I almost laughed, a strangled sob coming out instead. I flung myself into his warmth, body shaking, my sobs now wet and sticky, seeping out of my body in huge waves of emotion. He held me and kissed my head. “Julia, stop crying, please.”
“I don’t want to go back,” I whispered. “Burge knows, he might say something to me, Sheila is going to write me a bad recommendation, and everyone keeps pointing and whispering.” A surge of anger hit me, and I pulled back, reaching out punching his hard chest. “This is your fault! I didn’t want to tell anyone, and now everyone knows!” He caught my fist before it landed another blow and tried to frown at me, the corners of his mouth fighting to turn up.
“Julia. I need you to be strong on this. Fuck the office. I’m getting my own pushback from the staff. We need to be united, a team. The girl I fell in love with doesn’t hide in the corner on stuff like this.”
Fuck. How could I respond to that? He was right; I was normally good in situations like this. I wasn’t an embracer of confrontation, but I could hold my own. Why was I hiding in my office? I sighed, leaning back into his arms. He tightened his hold on me, and I closed my eyes, taking a last, delicious moment of feeling sorry for myself. Then I straightened, keeping my arms around him and looked up into his face. “Okay.”
He frowned, wiping moisture gently off my cheeks. “You always say that, and I never know what it means.”
“Okay. I’ll stop being a baby about it.”
He grinned, leaning down and brushing his lips against me. “Good.” He glanced over at Martha. “Martha, how much longer do you need?”
She shrugged. “It’s ready now.”
Chapter 7
We ate, just the two of us, at the kitchen table. Martha had fixed a plate and taken it upstairs, her preferred way of dining. Brad drank from his glass of tea and looked at me. “Let’s talk about your parents.”
I chewed furiously, trying to get the piece of pork chop down my throat before I spoke. “Okay.”
“I know next to nothing about them.”
I shrugged. “There’s not much to know. They’re pretty normal.”
He smiled wryly at me. “Well, I’m not too familiar with normal. Humor me.”
“Okay. Mom’s a botanist. She works for a co-op of local farmers, helping to increase their field’s production, developing hybrid strains of cotton, that kind of thing. Dad’s retired from Gulfstream—he spends most of his time fishing or going to garage sales, a hobby that drives my mother absolutely crazy.” I grinned for a moment, forgetting the horror that had been my day. “I should go home more. With school and work ... I haven’t been home as often as I should. But, now that you’ll be driving me crazy, I am sure I’ll make the pilgrimage more often.”
A look of mock pain crossed his face. “That’s mean. Really mean.”
“I’m sure your ego can handle it.”
His brows knitted as he chewed. “So what exactly are they going to think of me?”
I laughed, covering my food-filled mouth with my hand. “I have absolutely no idea.” It sounded terrible, but I wanted this engagement to cause him at least half the discomfort it was causing me.
“I erred in not asking your father for your hand before I proposed.”
I shrugged. “He won’t care. It’s not like he knows whether you are good for me or not. Actually, it probably works in your favor that he doesn’t know anything about you.”
“I would defend that statement if it wasn’t accurate. So, how do you propose we tell them?”
My fork froze. I hadn’t actually considered the fact that I would need to tell my parents. Now, it seemed ridiculous that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, especially with all of the questions he had just asked me. “Do we have to tell them now?”
“Why would we wait?”
“Ummm ...” I slowly moved my fork the rest of the distance to my mouth, chewing the meat ridiculously slow. I mumbled the next sentence through pork and saliva, hoping that the words wouldn’t translate properly. “Because I may not have told them that I broke up with Luke.”
“What?” He moved the fork away from my face. “I couldn’t understand that through your mastication of food.”
I slumped, finished the chewing process and repeated the sentence.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Why not? It’s been, what, almost two months? Isn’t that the type of thing that comes up in phone calls?”
“My parents raised me to be independent. Ever since I left for college, I haven’t been in as close of contact with Mom and Dad. It’s not that they aren’t interested in my life—they have just encouraged me to spread my wings, live my own life. Luke loved my parents, and Mom really took to him. I guess I’ve just put off making the call to tell her. I didn’t really want to hear her thoughts on the matter, especially once my decision was made.” The reminder of Luke’s reaction to our breakup—his repeated calls, guilt trips, his insistent to let our relationship go—made me frown. The truth of the matter was, I hadn’t really wanted to speak ill of him, to explain in honest terms to my mother the multiple reasons behind my decision. I looked up, meeting Brad’s steady gaze. “It hadn’t, at the time of the break-up, seemed like urgent, I-must-share-this-right-now news. And now, two months later, I just haven’t got around to telling her yet.”