Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (11 page)

“But …” Her jaw goes slack for a moment. I think I might have said something right, though, because she almost smiles before the frown clouds over it. “But this isn't possible!”

“Why?” I ask as she turns to face me. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that Ashleigh has found the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with?”

“It’s not that hard to believe,” she reasons. “What's hard to believe is that it’s you, and not …”

“Sean?” I don’t know what makes me finish her sentence, or say her brother's name. Ashleigh had confessed her feelings in confidence, but I guess, if I’m competing against Julia’s belief in Ashleigh’s once-upon-a-time fairytale ending, then I need to know what I’m up against. Maybe it’s another monkey wrench I so do not need.

“You know?”

“That your brother has a piece of her heart that I’ll never have?” I ask, finally feeling like I have a little ground I can work with. She nods and I smile. “Julia, I wholeheartedly believe your first love leaves an imprint on your soul. So I can live without that one piece, just as long as she gives me the rest of it.”

“Oh. That’s really …” Her voice trails off for a moment, then she shakes her head. “Never mind. Just wait until I get my hands on her. How dare she keep something as big as this from me?” She stomps toward the bathroom. “Where is she? In the shower?”

Good question, where is Ashleigh? I could really do with some back-up in here. Despite my belief, I’m not used to voicing my old romantic notions.

“She couldn't sleep last night,” I shuffle out of bed, grateful I haven't trusted Ashleigh to keep her word and not share her bed with me. I’ve slept in sweats rather than shorts. I cross the room to the chairs in front of the window, where I slung my t-shirt in the early hours of this morning. I snatch at it with one hand as I pull back the drapes with the other.

Instead of cutting through the water, Ashleigh is standing at the far side of the pool, slowly transitioning through martial arts moves. “She's still outside.”

“Oh.” Julia's feistiness deflates. “So she didn’t sleep at all last night? Again?”

Again?
I turn. Julia's gaze is fixed on my shirtless upper body, her expression a mixture of surprise and confusion. She doesn’t seem to have acknowledged my attention returning to her, but I know she’s aware of it. Everything about her screams out ‘caution’ … and something else, something I can't put my finger on. If she was any other woman, I'd have said she was appreciating the view, but that couldn't be right. Could it?

Suddenly, as though she knows she’s doing wrong, her gaze flips to the carpet. “She never sleeps anymore,” she continues as her hands fold together. "She blames herself for what happened to Mimi. I don’t think she’s had a decent night’s sleep since it did.”

Doesn't sleep anymore?
I make a mental note to ask Ashleigh about it. But right now, what can I say to Julia to make her aware that I know what she’s talking about? “But you blame yourself, right?”

In the same moment as Julia’s gaze locks with mine, she slams the smallest of getting-to-know-you windows shut, and immediately changes the subject. “Does she sleep when she's with you in New York?”

I curse under my breath. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m surprised. I knew this case would not be easy. But that single, sudden change in her demeanor tells me everything I need to know about Julia. She doesn’t trust me. It’s going to take a lot longer than two weeks to gain enough trust for her to open up to me, if it ever happens at all, and I can’t step out on my responsibilities any longer. I promised Lisa’s voicemail I would be home in two weeks. I never make a promise I don’t intend to keep, and I never break one once I’ve made it, no matter what it costs me—except the promises I made to Izzy, of course, and that was for her safety.

Instinctively, I turn back to the window. I watch Ashleigh maneuver through another set of poses, because it’s wiser than watching Julia pretend she hasn't been watching me. If my relationship with Ashleigh was real, then those graceful autonomous transformations would be enthralling, wouldn’t they? So, I’d be able to watch her all day long and not get bored. Besides, Ashleigh is the common ground—well, the only ground between us—and Julia seems bent on keeping the topic on neutral subjects. If this is going to work, I can’t afford to get stuck in a lie. I won’t lie to her again, unless I can’t avoid it.

“I thought you didn't believe me?” I ask in answer to her question.
Honestly, I have no idea how Ashleigh sleeps
. In our therapy sessions, she's always told me she slept quite well, but it’s quickly becoming apparent those sessions had been, just as I suspected, a way to keep me around.

Julia crosses the space between us and reaches for the other drape, also blocking her view. Her gaze sweeps across my bare chest and abdomen. Heat fires through her silvery eyes and sets off the kind of sparks in me I don’t want to identify. Last night, Ashleigh manufactured the exact same look for Mel's benefit, and it left me cold.

“You're half-naked, and in Ash's bedroom. Either you're a crazy-assed stalker who's done away with Rylan, or …” she sighs and turns to the window, “you're telling the truth.”

“You don't sound too happy about that.”

“Don't get me wrong, I'm happy you've interfered with the slippery slope that is Dex Leighton. But you and Ash? I’m sorry, but you’re not supposed to be 'the one’ and honestly, this is only going to lead to heartbreak. Ash doesn’t need any more heartbreak.”

I sweep the t-shirt over my head before stepping closer to her. Cautious of the impression I’m making, I follow her gaze out the window, trying to ignore the mixed scent of sweet vanilla and spicy cinnamon I know I shouldn't be noticing. Julia’s perfume, and the looks she sends me, are all off the table, for … well, forever.

After learning what my sister lived through, and witnessing what she put John through time and time again as a result, I’m damned sure I’m never getting involved with a woman with that kind of history. I’m nowhere near as nice or as patient as John was with my sister. I’d never survive that kind of hell.

“Julia, there comes a time when you have to let go of the past and the regrets, and decide if you're going to start moving forward or remain unhappy forever.”

A gasp leaves her lips. Her hand rests on my chest as she visibly sways. She blinks rapidly, more than half a dozen times, before the optimism fades from her eyes. “Spoken like a true psychiatrist.”

The remark hits me squarely in the chest. It burns as much as her fingers had. I step back. I can't allow intimate moments like that to happen again. There are so many things wrong with it—most important of all, that I'm here to help Julia.

“Ah, the best friend exhibits signs of distrust toward the new boyfriend. I think that's what we in the profession call a classic behavior. Where's my notebook?”

“You might come as a surprise to me, Darryl, but you're not new. In fact, a year is the longest I’ve ever known Ashleigh to have the same guy, except Ben—”

“Ben?”

“The last guy she shared her bed with who wasn’t my brother—”

I gasp at the harshness of those words, and it’s not an act. Christ, if this was real I’d be devastated to be referred to so disparagingly. But my mind swiftly moves on to the small glimpse of Ashleigh’s relationship history.
Who is Ben? The high school boyfriend, or the man she’d very nearly spent the rest of her life with?

“Oh god, I’m sorry, Darryl. That came out all wrong. The sharing-the-bed thing was totally platonic, and Ben wasn’t as open-minded about Ashleigh and Sean as you seem to be. He made her choose in the end.” I just stare at her as her mouth runs on. She stops suddenly. “Oh dear,” she laughs nervously, “You didn’t know about Ben, did you?”

Hmm, that was the understatement of the century!
I wonder how I should respond to the news of another guy who was as privileged as I’m supposed to be.
A little jealous maybe?

“I’m still getting used to this idea that there’s a whole side to Krystal I know nothing about. Different name, different job, different city, state even.” My attention returns to the window and Ashleigh. “I understand she was a different person entirely back then?”

To my surprise, Ashleigh is no longer training. She’s toe-to-toe with a guy almost half a head taller than her. Neither one look particularly happy about the situation. Both are up in each other's face about whatever problem has caused him to interrupt her meditation. “Is that … Is that J.T. Preston?”

“Please,” Julia sighs, “tell me he's not with Ash.” She turns those huge and sparkling silver eyes to me in despair. “You have no idea what it's like to live with them.”

“With them?” I repeat, and look at the guy risking his life by ruffling Ashleigh’s feathers. “But I thought your brother’s name was Sean?”

“It is.”

“Your brother is J.T. Preston?” I gawp at her and she nods. “What is with you people and pseudonyms?” How is anyone supposed to keep up in this world? I shake my head. If this situation wasn’t complicated enough, the man Ashleigh said she was in love with is also an award-winning journalist turned showbiz blogger. What makes her so sure she can trust Sean to keep our romance, albeit a fake one, a secret?

“I’d better go.” She rolls her eyes in reluctance before turning and walking away.

I follow Julia out of the bedroom and to the left. We head further, deeper into the house. At the end of the corridor she pushes through a heavy door and out into the bright morning sun.

“You had to have Wayne, didn't you?” a man’s voice yells, louder than possible until my bearings catch up with me. We’re on the other side of the pool and nearer to the beach. It becomes clear that Julia and I are very close to the war breaking out. “Why would you do that to my sister?”

“Yes, of course, I did,” Ashleigh shouts back. “Because I couldn’t get enough of him when he was mine, could I?” Even though I can’t see her, I know there’s an expression of utter disgust on her face. "I thought you of all people knew me better than that!”

“You're supposed to be her friend, Ashleigh. You're supposed to be supporting her through one of the most traumatic times in her life, not trying to get rid of her so you can run off with her husband!”

Julia comes up short of the top step. The concrete stairwell leads towards the path to the beach. Her breath catches and she sags against the wall, breathing heavily from the sprint, as she tries to mask the pain from her face caused by her brother’s words. She fails.

“Can you hear yourself, Sean?” Ashleigh bursts into a bright, tinkling laugh and we continue down the stairs. “What woman in her right mind would want to run off with the same man she’s trying to convince everyone else is abusing her best friend?”

“I'd know if my sister was being abused!” His words are muffled, by his teeth, I suspect as he forces them through a clenched jaw.

I stop dead in my tracks as we turn a corner and finally see the couple arguing. Sean’s words are like blades to my heart. If someone had made the same accusation about Faith and Calvin, I would have said the same thing:
I'd know.
But I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known anything at all, and it had cost Faith her life in the end.

“You know nothing, Sean!” Ashleigh cries.

“Interfere in your own sister's life for once, Ashleigh, and leave mine to me!” He cackles now, an evil, villainous laugh that warns every muscle inside my body of what is about to come. “Oh, that's right. How could I forget? She won't speak to you. Why is that I wonder, Ashleigh? Maybe because you’re carrying Wayne’s child?”

Julia gasps beside me. With my own heart pounding in my chest, my gaze jumps to her blanched face. I know I reflect the same colorless expression. I didn’t sign up for the expectant-daddy role.
What the hell? Nu-huh.
If I wasn’t happy about the prospect of children with the woman I’d loved my entire life, there was no way I could pretend to be happy about a baby with Ashleigh.
This is an absolute deal-breaker for me.

“I thought she would have told him the truth.” Julia closes her eyes as she places her palm over her tummy. My brows draw together in a frown as I wait for her to explain the cryptic response. “I don’t want anyone to know until I’m in the second trimester.”

When she opens her eyes again, her whispered confession comes rushing back to me. Ashleigh isn’t pregnant; Julia is. “She’s faking a pregnancy for you?”

Julia nods.

“Why don’t the tabloids know about this yet? Your brother is—”

“He’d never hurt Ashleigh that way,” she defends. “Krystal, yes, he’d sell her out in a second. But not Ash, no matter how much she hurts him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He loves her, Darryl,” she says simply. “And I’m talking about the kind of love that leaves an imprint on your heart, but not in the same way you are. She was his best friend for years; I’m sure it would have been more if he hadn’t been married for most of it. He’d never betray her … and neither would I.”

“And she’s pretending to be pregnant—why, to hurt him?” I look at the couple arguing again and add, “Is that why I’m here?” I think out loud, “To hurt Sean?”

“No.” Julia’s denial draws my attention to her. “This was my fault. I made her choose between me and my brother, because I was mad at her.” She looks at her bare feet as she confesses, “Sean’s her only weak spot. So I told him Ashleigh was having an affair with Wayne, and she’s pregnant with his child.” She shakes her head. “I never expected her to choose me. They've been like this ever since, and now I don’t know how to fix it.”