"Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that she is the owner of the apartment on Madison Avenue? Again, the one you made me miss vacation for."
Jules sat there chewing on her thumb as she waited for me to continue.
"She looks sad, Jules, and thin. She was jumpy, and I noticed a hint of a bruise on her cheek," I whispered, the thought of how she got it filling me with an unsettling feeling.
"What did she say when she saw you?"
"Not much. She asked me questions about the business, when I branched out."
"Let me guess, you were your normal charming self, weren't you?"
"Hey, I just told her the truth."
"So you were a prick instead?" Jules questioned. When I didn't answer, she swallowed hard and kept questioning me. "Is she married?"
"Well, her answer to that was 'not technically,' whatever that means."
Julie thoughtfor a moment and looked at me. "Perhaps it's a fresh separation? You know, the wound is still open." She shrugged.
"Perhaps. It was simply weird. It was like she got pissed at me when I mentioned her husband."
"She sounds like someone has hurt her. Did you talk about anything else?"
"Nothing major. She told me that her grandfather just passed, so that could be it. She was close to him when we were younger."
"Maybe."
I stood up and reached into my jeans pocket, debating on showing her the item I carried around with me. It only took me a second, and I unpinned the pin and dropped the ring onto my desktop.
"What is that?" Julie asked, reaching for the mess of string, while I walked over to the coffeemaker to pour us the last two cups of coffee in the pot.
"Thatis the ring I proposed to Jess with all those years ago."
I glanced over and watched as she picked up the ring and looked at it and then looked to me. "You mean you've carried this in your pocket all this time?"
I dropped two spoonfuls of sugar into my mug and stirred it, then carried them over to the desk, setting one in front of Julie. I took a seat and nodded. "Yep, ever since she left it sitting in the palm of my hand."
"Why?"
I shrugged. "I guess because I hoped that one day she would come back and claim it."
I was sure I sounded pathetic to my sister. Hell, I sounded pathetic even to myself.
Chapter 10
Jessica
The rain had woken me early this morning, and now I padded across the plush carpet in my bare feet carrying a hot cup of coffee and sat down on the couch. I grabbed my phone and refreshed my email before I got ready to meet Kate for lunch.
It surprised me to see two new emails appear in my inbox. The first was from Hunter Malone, letting me know that half of the funds were transferred and were now in my account. The second was from Ben, the subject line titled “quote.” My stomach turned as I opened it. I wasdisappointed that he had said nothing, but just attached the quote, but upon second thought, it surprised me he had even sent it.
The look of shock on his face when I had opened the door and he had seen me for the first time was still fresh in my mind. At first, things were super awkward, but as I had watched him work, I figured that perhaps I could hire him for the job. Then as time wore on and we talked, he became cold and short-tempered.
I looked over the quote he had sent, noticing that it was significantly higher than the others. Frustrated, I put my phone down. I would have Kate look these over with me during lunch. I was sure she would help me decide. We were meeting at Blush. I wasn't overly thrilled about meeting in public, since we were only going over construction quotes. She could have just as easily come here for coffee. I got up, drank down the last of my coffee, and headed to the bathroom for a shower.
I sat with my face in the menu, trying to decide what to eat for lunch. Kate sat there sipping on her Bellini, deeply sighing at the fact that in twenty minutes I still hadn't decided. With the next loud exhale, I shut my menu and looked over at her. "Sorry, I'm just not all that hungry for weird food."
Kate let out a loud laugh. "Okay,how about we just order a bunch of tapas and share then?"