Page 57 of His Cowboy Heart

I wanted to say that the fucking bitch obviously didn’t have room for her own son because she was too focused on herself but instead, I asked, “How old were you?”

“Six, I think.” Jules let out an ugly laugh. “I actually believed her. I spent years waiting for the day my father would come get me. I even started reading books about real estate development and business in my early teens. I couldn’t wait to show him how much I already knew about the business my family was in.”

“He never showed, did he?”

“Sometimes he stopped by long enough to deal with issues related to the house or the staff, but every time I asked him when he’d start teaching me the business, he’d just say ‘soon’ and then he’d disappear again. He always sent me this weird smile when I followed him to the door to say goodbye. Like he knew something I didn’t. Something humorous.”

“Who took care of you?” I asked uneasily because I had a feeling I already knew what he was going to say.

“There wasn’t any one person in particular who watched out for me when I was younger. A few of the maids would take turns making sure I got off to school on time in the mornings and that I ate when I was supposed to. I kept thinking of them as my temporary mother until the day when my own mother would make that call telling me she was on her way to get me and I should pack my stuff.” Jules laughed again. “I kept a suitcase packed with extra clothes and hid it in my closet. I’d even picked out which stuffed animals I’d take if there wasn’t enough room in the car to take them all.”

“Jules, I’m so sor?—”

“Don’t be,” Jules responded, his voice flat. If we’d been having this same conversation in a place where we hadn’t been able to touch each other, I probably would have bought his disinterest in the relationship he’d had with his parents.

“I had it better than most kids,” Jules continued. “It took me a while to figure that out, though. The older I got, the more entitled I behaved. I learned what having a lot of money meant, and based on where I lived and the fact that I was driven to school in a Bentley with my own chauffeur, I had way more freedom than any of the other kids at school did. They’d complain about their folks taking this or that away from them as punishment, or wanting but not being able to get the latest gadgets or shoes.”

“And you had all those things,” I offered.

“Not at first. I had no idea what my family was worth. Turned out that most of the stuff I got for special holidays and my birthday came from the staff with money from their own pockets. All the toys and stuff was from them. I also had an endless supply of books from my father’s library and a bunch of financial magazines that appeared like clockwork every month.” Jules paused before chuckling. “I thought my father was leaving the magazines as a surprise for me—like he wanted me to learn all the stuff in them so I’d be ready to join the business. Funny thing was that I had no clue what the family business even did. The magazines made no sense to me whatsoever at first but when I used my computer to start looking up all the terms and concepts, they started to make a little sense. I kept every one of those stupid magazines and spent hours every night reading them over and over. By the time I was old enough to drive, I knew more about stocks and hedge funds than any kid my age needed to know.”

When Jules fell silent, I kept my mouth shut and focused on trying to relax him again by caressing his back with large, slow circles while gently massaging his muscles at the same time. It wasn’t until he turned his head to look at me that I felt a measure of relief. Jules crossed his arms on my chest so he could rest his head on them while he watched me.

“We had such different lives, huh?” he asked.

“From the outside, yeah. But I think on the inside, we felt a lot of the same things. I at least had Frank to set me on the right path.”

“That’s what my Uncle Ray did,” Jules responded. “I’d met him a few times when I was a kid. As I got older and started getting in trouble at school or when I threw one of my wild, anything goes parties and the cops ended up getting calls from the pissed-off neighbors who lived in the apartment beneath mine, Ray was the one who fixed things.”

“Sounds like you were quite the little rebel,” I said.

Jules smiled. A genuine smile. “I tried to be, but only after being a saint didn’t work. I didn’t have many friends at school when I was little—I guess I really didn’t know how to make any. Turned out living people didn’t act like my stuffed animals.”

This time, I was the one laughing. “I’m sure that was quite the eye opener.”

“It was. When I heard kids talking about all the money their parents let them spend on stuff, I asked the butler, Alistair, if I had any money.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “You had a butler. A real, live, ‘the butler did it’ butler?”

Jules nodded. “Yep. I didn’t know what his job was besides opening and closing the front door. I also wasn’t sure what all the staff were for when I was little. I figured they were like fairy godmothers… they were there to watch over me. I guess I was right because that’s what they did. I don’t think he was supposed to tell me, but Alistar explained that I had a lot of it in what he called a trust. All I had to do was ask for whatever amount I wanted and I got it.”

“So your Uncle Ray was the one who got you out of trouble,” I urged as I moved my hand from Jules’s back and began toying with a stray lock of hair that had just enough curl to it that the strands refused to be tamed when I tried to tuck them behind his ear.

“I don’t know why he showed so much interest in me, especially as I got older. He had his own son, so there was no reason for him to do things my father should have done. He’d take me and Miles to baseball games. We’d go to the park and explore or just toss a ball or frisbee back and forth. Miles didn’t like me from the start, and he had no interest in doing stuff with his dad as we got older. Uncle Ray had lost his wife, Miles’s mother, when Miles was a little kid. She was hit by a car that ran a red light while she was crossing the street. Anyway, Ray liked to do other stuff besides sports. He’d take me to the opera, Broadway plays and musicals, and my favorite, the ballet. I loved how graceful the dancers were. Their outfits, their makeup—I couldn’t get enough. That was when my interest in the family business all but disappeared. Videos of ballet performances replaced the financial magazines. Then I discovered all these videos of people explaining how to put on makeup. It wasn’t just girls doing it; guys were too. I guess from there I just naturally got interested in fashion.”

“Did your uncle give you a hard time about it or did you keep it a secret?”

“I never kept secrets from Uncle Ray. I think I was too naïve. I figured if those ballet guys could wear makeup, then I could too. And the male models strutting colorful, sometimes even bizarre-looking clothing—that was normal too. They were so confident.”

“And those things made you feel confident,” I offered.

“Yes, but it was more than that. I felt like… me. I didn’t know that others didn’t see it the same way. A few beatdowns in school was all it took to educate me.” Jules let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if Uncle Ray hadn’t been there. He taught me the stuff I needed to know about life… the stuff I should have known about by then. It wasn’t even the business stuff. Uncle Ray was a good man and he proved it with everything he did. He took me with him to volunteer in shelters for the homeless, for teens who’d been rejected by their parents had no place to go, places that provided safe havens for women who were being abused by a partner or loved one. He didn’t just throw money at them and claim he was a philanthropist. Hediddonate money, but he was in the trenches as well.”

“He showed you the ugly side of life as well as the beautiful side.”

Jules nodded. “Funny thing was that the closer to Ray that I got, the closer Miles got to my father. It was like Miles and I had been switched at birth. Miles wanted power and money. He was at my father’s side when the business went public. My father sold thousands of his own shares in the business so he could rake in more and more money with the intent to buy even more properties. Uncle Ray didn’t.”

“So your uncle wasn’t really interested in the business,” I suggested.

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