Eventually, the curtains close for good, and the lights around us shift to a standard level—slowly ushering the audience and me back to the real world. The crowd is dispersing little by little when I feel a presence beside me. I don’t have to turn my head to know it’s Juliette.
“So, what did you think?” I hear her ask.
I swallow down a sudden lump in my throat. “It’s a hit. The reviews are going to be everything we hoped for.”
“You know, I’m actually starting to believe that, too.” She pauses, then quietly adds, “We did it, kid.”
The endearment that I typically love so much cuts through me in a sloppy, sickening slice. I let myself feel all of it as I turn to Juliette, in no way trying to hide the betrayal and hurt that’s splayed across my face. “Phillip told me everything. He told me how you bribed him to spend time with me. How you both used fun little personal facts to trick and manipulate me.” Juliette’s smile falls, a line of fear crossing her typically confident face. She says nothing.
“How could you do that to me?” I press.
She focuses on the stage, seeming unsure and still not looking at me when she answers, “It was stupid. At first it was because we weren’t getting anywhere in the dating project, and I figured he could help to move things along—but then it turned into something else, and I don’t know, I should have called it off.”
“Yeah, youshouldhave called it off. In what world is it okay for you to have an actor feed me lies? What if I actually started to like him, Juliette? What if I slept with him?”
“That was never going to happen,” she says, quickly turning back around. “I’ve known Phillip and his family forever, and he would never do anything untoward. I gave him explicit instructions that he was only supposed to catch your interest.” I know she believes what she’s saying, but I also see a flare of genuine concern—of her second-guessing herself. “He didn’t try anything, did he? Because I will kill him if he made you feel at all uncomfortable.”
“No, he didn’t try anything,” I assure her. “But what ifIdecided to make a move on him? How would you know what went on behind closed doors?”
She looks away again briefly, rubbing her face with both hands and shaking her head. “Because I’m not blind, Winnie. I know you have something going on with Liam and have for almost our entire trip.”
I don’t say anything, a little thrown to actually hear her say the words out loud. Juliette takes a deep breath as she moves a small step forward.
“I’m not mad at you, and I regret what I did with Phillip. It was a mistake, and I’m willing to forget the whole Liam business.”
“You’rewilling to forget?” I ask disbelievingly. “Wait, are you expecting me to apologize about that? Because you flat-out demanded I stay away from him without giving any thought to what he or I wanted. I had every right to see Liam.”
“I understand that now,” she says. “But I also think that in a small way, I had the right, as your employer, to ask you to follow a certain code of ethics when it comes to my family.”
“What happens between Liam and me is none of your business.”
“But that’s what you don’t get!” she suddenly says, her eyes becoming a little wild. “I couldn’t just stand by and let her win. Do you think that on top of her taking absolutely everything that I loved away from me, I was going to let her have you, too? No. You mean too much to me, and I wasn’t willing to lose you.”
“I...what are you even talking about?”
Juliette sighs and looks to the side, pushing her hair off her face when she turns to me again. “Isabelle. Isabelle doesn’t get to ruin this aspect of my life. I won’t let her.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I say, utterly confused.
“If you fell in love with Liam, what do you think would happen? Do you think he would pick up and move to New York and leave his family and work behind? No. You would end up moving here. You would choose this life. Isabelle would have her perfect job, her perfect family, and then she’d have you. She would get everything. Again.”
“Juliette, this isn’t about some sisterly rivalry between you and Isabelle. This is about you violating my trust when I have dedicated the last five years of my life to you. I’ve put my own dreams and projects on the back burner to makeyourwork better. To make yourlifebetter. I didn’t even finish my play in time to enter the contest. I could have, but I chose to give you a chance at happiness instead.”
“How do you figure that? I thought you loved working onThe Lights of Trafalgar.”
“I did,” I tell her. “But I should have spent my last day writing, and instead I spent hours in the car so I could find Paul foryou!”
Juliette freezes. The gravity of my words washes over us both.
“What do you mean, you found Paul?”
I try to put on my bravest face, fully conscious that what I’m about to say next is possibly going to split our world in two. “I got his last name from the stationery I found in the studio. In the letter he wrote to you, asking you to forgive him.”
Juliette only continues to stare at me. Her breath seems to catch as she turns back to the stage. When she looks at me again, her eyes are glassy. “I see,” she says quietly. “And I’m supposed to be the only manipulative one here, right?”
Her accusation slithers inside me with reptilian slickness. Coiling tight in my stomach until I’m breathless.
“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you,” I explain. “I just wanted to help you. Paul still thinks about you all the time. He told me so. I know he wants to see you again, and if you give him the chance, you can at the very least get closure, if not something even better. He wrote me this note to give to you.”
