The following days were agonizingly slow and almost painful. Each new dawn reminding her of the dreadful decision she was about to make. They had completely avoided each other after the incident with Tim.
They had finished the European shows, and were getting ready to go back to Korea. That was the final leg of their Nostalgia tour.
While the boys had a week to chill and rest before heading back, Julie and her team were getting ready to head back. They unfortunately did not have the luxury to be vacationing at the moment, plus they had work to get back to. Julie had ignored the tons of messages Justin had sent, she had screened his calls and avoided him as much as possible.
She had left Paris and returned to LA.
She was truly happy and relieved to be united with her daughter.
Too bad, Tim had returned earlier and had tried relentlessly to get in touch with Cole. Fortunately for him, Cole granted him the audience he had been asking for. He wasted no time in spilling every thing he knew concerning Julie and Justin to Cole. Cole was not having it and had threatened to sue him if he had no proof to back up his claims. What aggravated him the most was when Tim mentioned that justin might be the father to Julie’s daughter. Cole had demanded him to leave his office then, he had even threatened to call security on him. Try as hard as he might, he had a slight nagging feeling that there might be some truths in what tim had said. He was so disturbed that he could not concentrate on work the rest of the morning. His restlessness and curiosity got the best of him and before he knew it he was on his way to the security room to check the CCTV footages. He asked the operator to pull up footages from the month MID arrived for tour preparation. He asked for some privacy as he looked the footages from their office floor, especially the studio. He did see that Justin made quite numerous trips to julie’s office. His suspicions arose then. He quickly deleted the clips. He was going to have a long talk with Julie. Good thing she was back from tour. He looked forward to seeing her the next day. He was even more embittered because she had once turned him down.
Julie unaware of the current situation and thinking it was all over had arrived to work that morning a bit ecstatic. Even though she was still a bit scared of what Tim might do or say. She had contemplated calling him and begging to keep everything he had heard a secret. But she thought about it, begging him would mean that she was admitting to everything. And that would give room for blackmail. She had to be very careful with tim, he was like a ticking time bomb right now and any little thing might make him go off. She tucked him away in one corner of her mind, she needed to focus on work for now.
She was glad Mendy was present and as supportive as ever. She had barely settled down when Cole called for her. She did not think anything of it, perhaps he wanted to enquire about the trip.
When she walked in to his office, she could tell by his demeanor and the condescending look in his eyes that something was wrong.
‘ you sent for me’ she said.
‘ I have always thought highly of you Adams. Your competence has been one of the things that I have always admired. But I guess, we can never really people well enough.’
Julie was confused, what had happened.
‘ what business do you have with the MID dude’
‘ excuse me’
‘ you heard me. Some guy waltzed in here, making some accusations against you that I thought were rather ridiculous. I decided to do some checks myself, and I found out that there was some truths to it. I checked CCTV footages and I saw that you both were quite close.’
Julie froze.
‘ tell me the truth Adams. That guy is threatening to talk to the press. And I can not have someone from my team ruin the company’s reputation’
‘ I was able to get rid of the footages here, but when the news or rumor gets out, there is going to be a lot of investigations and search for evidence. Who knows, there might be video evidences in other places that you might have met ‘
She saw that he was looking at her as though he was expecting her to refute his claims. Unfortunately, she did not have it in her to lie or fight anymore. This was it, finally.
‘ this is funny, really. I guess I really am a bad liar.’ She chuckled drily.
‘ I can’t even keep up with my lies’
Cole waited, watching her closely.
‘ I have never confessed this to anyone, but…. I love him’
She held back a sob.
‘I love him, and we did have a thing.’ The tears dropped.
‘ I don’t regret anything I had with him, I just regret that I have to let him go just so we don’t ruin everything we have worked for and the lives of those around us. So don’t worry, I will turn in my resignation as soon as I leave here.’
‘ I am disappointed, julie’ cole said bitterly.
‘ I know’ she said.
‘ I am afraid I will have to reach out to Tim…I am sure you know him. We will try to reach an agreement with him and perhaps a settlement’
‘ poor Tim, did he mention that justin is the father of my child’
Cole paused and stared at her as though he was scared of her answer and he already knew it. The expression on his face amused Julie.
‘that is very true’ Julie answered.
‘and, you can reach whatever agreement you want with Tim, but this is my life and I am going to take care of my problems my way’
‘ what do you plan to do’
‘ something I should have done a long time ago’
‘ and what is that’
‘ thank you for your understanding, I will forward my resignation letter to your email’
‘Julie, don’t do something that you would regret’
‘ I already regret not doing a lot of things’
She left his office, a satisfied smile on her face.
She was not going to let Tim beat her with blackmail. No one was going to take or dictate her life and freedom and nobody was going to ruin her daughter’s life.
She quickly went back to her office, typed her resignation letter and sent it to Cole. She was going to come back for her things later, as she had some other pressing things to attend to.
As she got in her car, she sent Justin a text.
‘THE RITZ HOTEL’
That was the name of the hotel they had stayed in in Paris.