Genuine Lies

much.”
    “I loved them enough to try to keep from hurting them more than I had. Of course I couldn’t fully understand what it must have done to them to have their seventeen-year-old daughter tell them she was pregnant. But they never shouted or berated, they never judged or blamed—unless they blamed themselves. When they asked who the father was, I knew I could never tell them because it would have ripped the wound open further instead of letting it heal.”
    Eve waited a moment. “You’ve never been able to talk about it with anyone?”
    “No.”
    “Talking about it can’t hurt them now, Julia. If there was ever someone who isn’t in the position to judge another woman’s behavior, it’s me.”
    Julia hadn’t expected Eve’s offer or her own pressing need to take her up on it. It was the right time, the right place, and the right woman, Julia realized.
    “He was a lawyer,” Julia began. “Not so surprising. My father took him into the firm right after he passed the bar. He thought Lincoln showed tremendous potential for criminal law. And though my father would never have said it, never even have consciously thought it, he’d always wished for a son— one to sort of carry on the Summers name in the hall of justice.”
    “And this Lincoln fit the bill.”
    “Oh, beautifully. He was ambitious and idealistic at the same time, dedicated, eager. It pleased my father tremendously that his protégé was climbing right up the ladder.”
    “And you,” Eve asked. “You were attracted to ambition and idealism?”
    After a moment’s thought, Julia smiled. “I was just attracted. I did some clerical work for my father during my senior year—after school, evenings, Saturdays. I’d missed him after the divorce, and it was a way to spend more time around him. But I started spending it around Lincoln.”
    She smiled to herself. When she thought back, it was hard to condemn the young girl who had been so hungry for love and romance.
    “He was a striking man—elegant. Tall and blond, always so polished, with this trace of sadness in his eyes.”
    Eve gave a quick laugh. “Nothing seduces a woman quicker than a trace of sadness in the eyes.”
    Julia heard her own laugh with some amazement. Odd, she hadn’t realized that something that had seemed so tragic could have its light side after time had ripened it. “I thought it was Byronic,” Julia said, and laughed again. “And of course it was all the more exciting and dramatic because he was older. Fourteen years older.”
    Eve’s eyes widened. She let out a long, quiet breath before she spoke. “Christ, Julia, you should have been ashamed of yourself, seducing the poor bastard. A girl of seventeen is lethal.”
    “And the first time one comes sniffing around Brandon, I’ll shoot her between the eyes. But … I was in love,” she said airily, and realized the absurdity of it. “He was thisdashing, dedicated, deserving older man—and married,” she added. “Though, of course, his marriage was over.” “Of course,” Eve said dryly.
    “He started asking me to do a little extra work for him. My father had given him his first really important case, and he wanted to be fully prepared. There would be all these long, meaningful looks over cold pizza and lawbooks. Accidental brushes of the hand. Quiet, longing sighs.”
    “Jesus, I’m getting hot.” Eve propped a hand on her chin. “Don’t stop now.”
    “He kissed me in the law library, right over the State vs. Wheelwright.”
    “Romantic fool.”
    “Better than Tara and Manderley combined. Then he was leading me over to the couch—this big, overstuffed couch in burgundy leather. I was telling him that I loved him, and he was telling me that I was beautiful. It didn’t occur to me until later what those differences meant. I loved him, and he thought I was beautiful. Well,” she said as she sipped. “The deed’s been done for less lofty motives.”
    “And the one who does the loving is usually the one to be hurt.”
    “In his way, he paid.” Julia made no objections when Eve refilled their glasses. It felt good, damn good, to sit out in the night, drink a little too much and talk to an understanding woman. “We were lovers for a week on that big, ugly couch. One week in a person’s life is so little, really. Then he told me, very kindly, very honestly that he and his wife were going to make another go of it. I caused one hell of a scene. Scared him to death.”
    “Good for