Page 53 of All Mixed Up

Damn it.

Time to grab the fry stealer by his mayo dish.

And yes, I really yanked the bowl away in order to fully snag Milo’s attention. “Okay, look,” I leveled. “You know I’ll get it together by show time, okay?” To prove the point, I broke off the end of a fry, tossed it into the air, then smoothly caught it in my mouth. Yeah, I was nearly a pro at the fried food version of nothing-but-net.

The move never failed to impress—until now. Milo merely shrugged, his version of a two-star review.

Okay, back to suspecting reverse psychology. Big time.

I really didn’t buy the guy’s casual mien for a second but let him take the lead on this thing. “Of course I know that,” he stated. “But it’s not show time I’m here about, Juls.”

“But you’re here about something.”

He didn’t shift. Instead, he laid out the dots and now expected me to make the connections for for myself. There was genuine concern on his handsome face, beyond just the surface attendance and numbers shit. That ruled out anything alarming about Mom. He wouldn’t be playing about that shit.

Crap, crap, crap.

That left only one subject open.

Lucien.

But I really had sworn Gigi, Leese, and Greer to top secrecy—and had made damn sure not to mention Lucien by name to Arista today. Even if she’d spilled in full to Milo, there was no defined way he’d put together his own dots on—

At that moment, my logic finally kicked in.

Dragging me to a single, awful, unnerving conclusion.

Milo Proust was my boss.

Milo Proust was my damn boss.

But technically…so was Lucien.

I drilled a mental glower at my brain’s peanut gallery. Then shot off the couch before Milo could see the full extent of my furious blush. “I don’t believe this.”

“Well, that makes you a party of one.” The man continued chomping on the fries as if we were merely sampling one of Claude’s new creations.

I couldn’t help peeking over my shoulder. “Wh-what does that mean?”

He shrugged one broad shoulder beneath his stunning Prada three-piece. “Only that the saying must be true, about being blind to the blessings on your own doorstep.” He pushed away the fries in favor of a more assertive pose, his elbows parked on his knees. “And Juliette, my friend, the gift basket on your stoop right now is pretty damn obvious.”

I pivoted around a little more. “What…basket?”

He waited a long moment. Seemed to deliberate what he said next. Finally gave up his inner battle and asserted, “The one with the gift tag about Lucien Paget being in love with you.”

Thank God I was so close to my dressing table. My knees buckled, plunking me into the chair as if I’d finished six glasses of vino at lunch instead of three. My spinning head lived up to that special momentum. “He…” But I couldn’t get out the rest of the confusion—because it wasn’t confusion. “Yeah.” My eyes squeezed shut as I admitted it. “You’re…you’re right.”

Milo’s exhalation seemed etched with a little victory, despite the somenity of his reply. “All right. And do you love him too?”

I kept my eyes shut. Simply let the tears spill from them, coursing down my cheeks. After the better part of a minute I stretched a hand out, curving my fingers around the edge of the vanity. I gripped the thing like a life raft in a storm. Wasn’t it? My head was a tempest of conflict. My gut was a sea of heartache. I saw no secure land anywhere, not even when thinking of home and Mom. I’d never not longed for the waters of the Hudson, the bustle of midtown, the grandeur and icons of the Manhattan skyline. Now, I was disconnected from it. Lost. I didn’t know what to do but hold on and pray the chaos passed soon.

“I know I can’t imagine my life without him.”

“Then why did you tell him you couldn’t stay here with him?”

And there it was.

The six trillion-dollar question.