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Then I thought of Juliette.
Not in a clinical way. Not like I should. She wasn’t leverage or a reputation booster or someone with strategic value.
She was chaos and comfort. A woman who didn’t care if I owned half of Miami or bartended part-time in Brickell. She didn’t ask how the foundation was doing. She didn’t want reports. She wanted tequila. Music. Pleasure.
She wanted me—or at least the version I let her have.
And I wanted her, because with Juliette, I didn’t have to be any version of myself. I could justbe.
She was heat in a short sundress, legs for days, and a smirk that told me she always knew more than she was saying. There was something unapologetically alive about her—like she was always dancing just out of reach of consequence. I envied that. The way she moved through life unbothered, unfiltered, like she’d already decided the rules didn’t apply.
Jules didn’t need my name. She never asked for the fancy dinners or the private drivers. She took what she wanted, when she wanted it, including me.
I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering for a beat before typing.
Damian: Want to crash an auction this weekend? I’ll buy you something pretty. If you behave.
I hit send, shoved the phone back in my pocket, and turned toward home.
I’d fix the bankruptcy, find a replacement for Louisa, and spin the next few weeks until Vérité looked bulletproof again.
But first, I needed a weekend with Juliette. Something that didn’t require spin. Or polish.
Just a woman who knew exactly how to take the edge off.
And how to sharpen it all over again.
CHAPTER TWO
Juliette
By the time I made it across the yard and up the wraparound porch of the main house, I was already peeling off my blazer. Coconut Grove was sticky in the spring—lush, beautiful, and smug. The kind of heat that turned your hair wild and your patience thin.
I’d spent the day juggling back-to-back lectures on pigment stability and provenance ethics, followed by two hours deep in Anthony’s gallery records helping verify the paper trail on a bronze bust with suspicious French origins. Rewarding work, but exhausting. Especially when I knew my twin sister, Gabrielle, would be waiting with a bottle of sparkling water, a baby on her hip, and that look that said:You’re saving my life.
She met me at the door, barefoot and glowing.
“You’re a saint,” she said, holding out Julian like an offering from the heavens. “He’s had two bottles, one meltdown, and no nap.”
I took him easily. “My specialty.”
“Still waiting for your billionaire?” she teased, grabbing her keys from the console table.
“Yours is exhausting enough to count for two,” I shot back.
Gabrielle rolled her eyes and kissed Julian on the head. “We won’t be late.”
“You always say that.”
She smirked, halfway out the door already. “Try not to start a revolution while we’re gone.”
“No promises.”
Julian settled faster than expected, drooling on my shoulder and sighing dramatically as if he’d just wrapped up his own lecture tour. I carried him into the living room, careful not to trip over the army of plush toys scattered across the floor.
The space was gorgeous—warm woods, curated chaos, and the priceless painting Gabrille and I inherited from our grandfather hung above the mantel, with a few family photos here and there, and half-folded laundry. It was the kind of home that proclaimed, “We have money,” but whispered, “and a life, too.”
I rocked Julian gently while scrolling through my phone with one hand. A few emails from students awaited me. A reminder about faculty meeting minutes. A flagged message from the dean asking me to recheck my schedule for next semester. I’d get to it. Maybe.