Julie didn’t know what she expected from Michael. After his fixation on her taking her medication and she’d not missed him calling Stephen or speaking with Beck when she wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d been trying to convince Stephen to let him have a copy of her contract. She could see where this was heading. He was trying to break his prenuptial contract to get some of her money. Of course, it did not satisfy him with all his wealth. He needed to pad it more with her hard-earned money. Michael couldn’t give her any of his money, but he could take hers from her. If she gave him permission to talk to her psychiatrist, he could use what he learns to claim she couldn’t manage her own finances. He’d have control of her money and she’d see none of it and be working to pay for his fees to administer her money. Immediately, Julie felt guilty about only thinking this. The car stopped in front of an imposing brick building with low-key sign
Julie knew she shouldn’t have followed Michael in. The excuse she told herself was, she could always leave. When she entered the Quiet Corner, Julie found it was exactly that. The space wasn’t overly warm or overly lit. The music wasn’t blaring, and the décor wasn’t over the top. They didn’t squeeze a ton of people into a tiny space and expect them to deal with the loud conversations and excessive food smells. Julie felt like she could suddenly breathe. Nobody approached them aggressively. Instead, the Matre’d stood back and waited for them to approach him. “Hello, reservation for Barron.” Michael strolled up to the man. He informed them of their reservation, while Julie hung back a little, not wanting to be pompous or demanding. “Yes sir. If you will follow me. The table is ready. If you have questions, please ask. When you are ready to order, we’ve printed the information on how to send your order on the menus. To call for help or ask questions,
Julie finally stood in the bathroom. She just needed a break from Michael. Confused by a situation with two potential explanations, she struggled to think clearly, knowing only one could be correct. Why did this have to happen now? She had deadlines to make. Mike, her editor, needed the manuscript she was still working on. Michael’s constant presence at home made it challenging to focus on work. Sure, he worked from home once in a blue moon before this. Now he was always at home. He wanted to date. Even get to know her. Why did she not see this coming? How did it come into being? Then his admission that he loved her. Nothing fit his character. His latest confession was he’d been treating his personal life with the same philosophy that he managed his business life and that he’d been wrong to do this. When had he admitted he did anything wrong? The man could deny anything and everything. Michael could justify why he committed murder and make a jury believe it wa
Michael couldn’t believe she’d asked that question. Julie didn’t turn things back onto him. She didn’t give as good as she got. No, he saw Julie as a doormat for him and his asshole attitude toward women. A bloody doormat for his muddy feet. A perfect doormat, clean of everything, but the sins he reaped on her. He couldn’t admit this to anyone, let alone Julie. He wanted her to stay. Admitting to this would have her leaving as soon as she could. “Michael, I know your true identity, and this isn’t it. You’re the pot who calls the silver tea kettle black. Instead of addressing your pain, you lash out, and you go to great lengths to achieve success, just to receive a small amount of praise and recognition. But you don’t look for personal connection or search for love. You don’t let anyone care and if they do, you beat them down. The Michael I know doesn’t let love enter the conversation because he’s afraid there won’t be any for him. That’s the Michael I know.”
Michael could see she was fine physically, but she only stared at her food and didn’t respond to him. “I’m texting Beckett now. You must be able to hear me. That’s not the problem, is it? You can hear me, I know you can, but you’re having problems processing everything. Damn it. All I want to do is scream at you until you respond.” Michael pulled his phone out and messaged Beckett. He needed to know what went wrong and how to fix it. [Beckett, I’m out with Julie. I’m not sure what triggered it. But she’s sitting here staring at her food and she won’t talk. She’s not even moving, just sitting there. I might have shocked her or something.] Beckett didn’t take long to respond. [Try touching her arm, get her attention. You might have sent her into her thoughts. Sometimes she does that when she feels overwhelmed. This is one of the worse types of ADHD paralysis. Normally, she’ll do something but what she’s avoiding. It sounds like she feel
Julie felt exhausted from their evening out. Michael’s words were shocking to her. She didn’t miss what he said. Julie struggled with all the directions his words could go. Now she could see he truly meant what he said. It wasn’t a trick; he wanted this. Michael wanted to stay married to her. This blew away Julie, leaving her feeling unsure about how she felt, and it’s the only way she could describe how she felt. She knew she couldn’t leave like she wanted to and forgive him for everything. So, how did she go about it? In stages? In increments over time? How long did she withhold her full forgiveness? She thought on it and paused. What had she withheld? It didn’t feel right punishing him because it made her no better than him. Is it possible for her to follow his desires without taking action of any sort or uttering a word? She did it out of fear. Julie wanted to avoid making things worse. He threatened to ruin her, to punish her, and he did that
“You didn’t? Really? I saved the evidence, and my lawyer taught me how to record its origin. If we went to court, my lawyer would send it to yours during the examination or discovery of evidence.” Julie couldn’t understand why he’d deny sending it. But it had come from his phone, she’d checked it out.” “When did this happen?” Michael’s voice took on a cold, hurtful tone, but Julie knew she wasn’t its target. “Several times when you were messing around at parties. The next morning, I’d discover a video with a message encouraging me to leave. Or another message mentioned you’d live your life how you liked.” “I sent nothing. I want to see them, Julie. Someone pretended to be me and clearly stolen my phone. Did you ever respond to these messages?” Julie knew if he’d sent them, he’d have known she hadn’t. Without wanting to, Julie’s hope rose that he hadn’t cheated as much as they’d led her to believe. But he’d cheated before, and she knew it. Could
“I don’t believe I’ll be doing that anymore. Because I’ve realized something I failed to consider. You aren’t like the others. I’ve seen people accuse you of doing things that angered me in the past. I took their word without verifying their evidence. Now you’re telling me you have evidence of things I sent you, that I didn’t send you, and you’re willing to use it against me in a divorce that will not happen.” Michael pondered how the evening had transformed from a first date to discuss divorce proceedings. He desperately wanted to fix this. Now he had someone impersonating him to his wife. “Fine. I will show you one video and you could figure out if it happened. I received this the morning of January first this year.” Julie came back onto the balcony with her photo and handed him the evidence. When the video played, he saw himself in a bathroom with his pants around his ankles, driving into a woman. Initially unsure of her identity, the person who recorded th