Chapter 18: : Chapter 17

I dragged my suitcase up the stairs to my apartment, letting out a feral groan. Why had I packed my entire room before I left for Florida? Oh, that’s right. Because I’d wanted to dazzle my emotionally stunted boss by showing off my alluring wardrobe, consisting of eighty-year-old librarian’s conservative dresses and an unhealthy amount of Chucks.

Célian had offered to help me with the suitcase, but I’d politely declined, and I guess he was relieved. He knew Dad still thought I was with Milton. As much as my dad liked him, he would punch both of us in our reproductive organs if he thought I was two-timing my long-term boyfriend.

Our Floridian getaway had taken a sour turn after we’d left his mother’s place. The stone-skipping and record-shopping was replaced by the usual dark fuck-a-thon in which we were lost in a tornado of feelings and numbness. We’d walked the main street in heavy silence before Célian had dragged me into a Cuban dance club. We’d watched other people dance and grind into one another while we drank tequila.

“Your father seems to think you fell in love with me.” I’d tried to laugh it off.

He’d pressed his thumb to my lower lip and pushed it down, licking the inside of it. “My father thinks women should stay in the kitchen and global warming is a hoax. Let’s try not to take him too seriously.”

“Célian…”

“I don’t hate you, Judith,” he’d said. “And that’s more than I can say about the rest of the world right now.”

We’d stumbled back to our hotel suite and had enough sex to repopulate an entire continent—if that was how sex worked. It was angry and sad and intimate. It felt like we’d risen together in the air and evaporated somewhere else safer, better. But in the back of my mind, I still remembered that I was an obstacle to Célian.

That all of his professional issues could disappear if I stepped out of the picture.

He could marry Lily. Or at least stay engaged forever.

He could save LBC.

He could have everything he’d worked for, for many, many years, and still be the detached bastard who picked up strangers at bars to satisfy his physical cravings.

Uncomplicated. Straightforward.

Just the way he liked it.

That Sunday afternoon, I pushed the door to my apartment open and froze on the threshold, my heart dropping to the pit of my stomach. My suitcase fell to the floor with a thud My father was sitting at the dining table, having what appeared to be a pleasant conversation with Milton over my favorite Manhattan donuts and cups of coffee. My ex-boyfriend laughed wholeheartedly and pushed something over the table, and that’s when I noticed they were playing Scrabble.

“Oh, there you are!” Milton clapped and swiveled his body toward me in his chair, his face glowing with a genuine smile.

He looked handsome in a polo shirt and new haircut, but in a generic way. Not only did he not hold a candle to Célian, he didn’t even hold a damp match. Not that beauty had anything to do with the fact that my room service breakfast was threatening to come up my throat for another puke-fest. The other thing Milton ate Célian’s dust at was being faithful—even when we weren’t technically together.

“Hello.” I threw my keys into the ugly bowl Mrs. Hawthorne had given us by the front door, looking between them. Dad put his letters down and turned in his seat.

“JoJo! Milton told me all about your weekend in the Hamptons. You shouldn’t have gone straight back to the office when you returned. You could have at least come back here and dropped the suitcase.”

Milton grinned sadistically, arranging his letters on the board in front of him. “Deceiver. D-e-c-e-i-v-e-r,” he spelled the word out loud. Goose pimples ran down my arms, making the little hairs stand on end.

“That’s a good one.” My father clapped. “Smart as a whip, son.”

“Thank you, sir. Baby, can I offer you a heart with a hole?” He grabbed a heart-shaped donut from the open white box on the table, motioning for me to take it. He referred to me as , even though I’d spent the weekend doing very grown-up things with someone else, and he knew it. Milton had also known when to come here, which set off the alarms in all of my internal systems. My mouth dried up.

“It’s okay. I really my mouth while I was on vacation.”

The smile on my lips felt like clay. I hadn’t been planning to tell Dad about Célian when I came back anymore. After the disastrous conference call, I’d felt like I was walking on a tight rope, about to fall from grace and into the arms of heartbreak.

I knew what would set my lover free of his father’s claws. But it hurt like hell, the concept of letting him go so he could save the one thing he loved.

But wasn’t that the essence of caring for someone else? Hurting so they wouldn’t have to?

“Then how about a walk?” Milton perked up like a doting grandmother. “The weather is nice. We haven’t taken a stroll in your neighborhood in a while.”

Whatever. Getting him out of here wasn’t a bad idea. I hitched a shoulder. “Sure. Let me get freshened up.”

After a quick bathroom stop, during which I stared in the mirror and promised myself I wasn’t, in fact, going to throttle my ex-boyfriend, I walked out and kissed my father goodbye.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I assured him.

. Not . The devil was in the details, and I hoped my own mini Satan overheard it while he waved goodbye to my father.

Milton and I stepped out of the building and took a right turn toward the main road, as we had many times before. I waited for him to talk, because I wasn’t entirely sure of the extent of his knowledge about my love life.

“You’re welcome for that save.” He jerked his thumb behind his shoulder.

I pretended to wipe my forehead. “Thanks, Captain Save-a-Bitch. Would you like me to sew you a costume? What’s your superpower, dicking your way up the company ladder?”

He knocked his shoulder against mine, smiling. “That’s rich from a girl who was about to lose her house five minutes ago and miraculously found a man to pay her debt in exchange for sexual favors.”

How the hell did he know? I choked on my saliva, coughing as he continued to saunter beside me.

“

,” he said, plucking a wad of leaves from the trees bowing over us.

I cringed. I hated when he did that. It was a big fuck-you to nature.

“Your dad told me all about the book. It makes sense now, Jude—that you thought it was your destiny, that you didn’t let me in. You were the sweetest, warmest girlfriend I’ve ever had, but there was always something off about us. I always craved you a little more than you wanted me. And it always drove me crazy. Elise was…Elise. She made me feel like a big fucking deal, ya know? Smart, funny, young. All the things that didn’t exactly impress you. Suddenly I was resentful that you weren’t the person to tell me all those things.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way, but this sounds a lot like an excuse, and cheating is not something you resort to. It’s something you decide to do.” I kicked a little stone on the sidewalk. Milton didn’t look down to check the color of my Chucks. He didn’t care.

“And that’s why I’m here,” he continued. “To tell you I get it. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, Jude. So, so sorry. But it’s time for us to move on. Look, I know how having an affair with Célian Laurent must make you feel invincible. I’ve been there with Elise, too. It’s powerful, right? Makes you think you’re on top of your game. You’re desired by a force of nature, an authority, and you get all the affirmation you need. But it’s not real, baby. What you and I have—that’s real. We sowed our oats, and now it’s time to come back. To us.”

I stopped in my tracks. He stilled beside me, slanting his head sideways, half-smiling, half-squinting at the sun.

“Wait. Who told you this?” My voice was a too-full cup of coffee, held by a fragile hand, spilling at the edges.

“JoJo, it’s not important.”

“You lost the right to deem what’s important to me the day you stuck your dick in someone else.”

He frowned and took a step back, and when he blinked, his expression changed. It was like he saw for the first time who I really was, and he didn’t like the view.

“Are you kidding me here? This is what you’re focusing on? After you came back from a weekend of fucking with your boss—the director of news at LBC, no less—not only am I willing to take you back, but I also cover for your ass and play Scrabble with your goddamn father.”

“First of all—” I raised my index finger. “He is not my father. Just my father. My sweet, caring dad, and playing Scrabble with him is hardly a burden. Second of all—” I pointed the same finger at him. “Nobody asked to cover for me. I haven’t committed a crime. I just wanted to spare my dad the worry of knowing I broke up with you. And thirdly—” I poked his chest, and he stumbled backward, his eyes widening in disbelief. “This conversation is over unless you tell me how you know about my alleged relationship with my boss.”

“Between making dirty headlines, maybe Mr. Laurent should teach you that revealing sources is a big no-no in our industry.” Milton recovered, smirking devilishly.

“We don’t make dirty headlines.” I scowled.

“You’re about to.” Milton’s ears pinked, as they did when adrenaline ran through him.

Was he threatening me?

He scrubbed his jaw, turned around, and punched the red-brick fencepost behind him. “Motherfucker! Have you lost your mind, Jude? Célian Laurent is not your boyfriend. He’s not even your friend. He is your well-heeled boss, and you, baby…” He shook his head, chuckling. “You’re wearing Chucks. He’ll marry the Davis girl, like the entire elite society of New York expects him to. I’m offering you security. I can make you an honest woman. I cheated. You cheated. Let’s call it even and move on.”

I cheated?

I bit my tongue so hard the metallic taste of blood rolled inside my mouth.

“Can I ask you for something, Milton?”

He leaned against the fence, his tense expression unknotting into a forgiving smile. “Baby, of course.”

“Stay away from me. And I do mean for good. Even if you hadn’t cheated on me—which you did, several times, I still wouldn’t take you back. My relationship with Célian Laurent—if it even exists—is none of your business, never will be. But just for the record, everything I did or didn’t do with other people was well after I caught you giving your boss an item that’s above your paygrade. And before you even think of threatening me by telling my father the truth, don’t worry—I will tell him myself. Right now, in fact. As for the rest of the world—I don’t care. This is not goodbye. This is bad-bye. The bye that ends on a sour note, with us cutting ties completely.”

I turned around and walked home, not bothering to look back and see his reaction. I walked in the door, and Dad was in the shower. The fact that he was feeling well enough to have one on his own without me in the house made butterflies stretch their wings inside my chest. I marched over to the Scrabble on the table—they were mid-game when we’d left—and changed the letters from deceiver to and smiled.

Life is full of surprises.

There were good surprises, like finding out Jude’s pussy tasted like honeydew and was tighter than my fist. There were also bad surprises, like finding my ex standing inside my apartment, my spare keys dangling from her fingers in triumph, completely naked.

I dropped my suitcase and cracked my neck, walking straight to the bar. Luckily, we’d broken things off before I’d had the chance to become a full-blown alcoholic. Lily certainly looked better behind the mist of hard liquor.

“Are you officially a nudist? I haven’t seen you with clothes on in a while,” I pondered, unbuttoning the first two buttons of my shirt.

“You’re funny,” she hissed in what I assumed was meant to be a seductive way.

“And you’re naked. For a rich girl, you could sure use a new wardrobe. How did you get my keys?”

Part of me wanted to know, and the other dreaded killing the person who’d given them to her—not that there was a long list to choose from. But if it was someone from the management, they could kiss their job goodbye.

“Your father let me into your sister’s apartment. She had a spare key, and when the concierge saw me with it, I told him we got back together.”

Something dropped somewhere in the room, but fuck if I knew what it was. Maybe my heart. I heard the thud of it meeting the floor.

Camille was the only person I’d let into my apartment freely, and her place was still standing vacant, because none of us had the guts to touch it. Lily had been inside it. Moving things.

things. Breathing the same air Camille had. Anger bubbled beneath my skin, and I clutched the glass so hard I heard it cracking softly.

I stared down as small rivers of blood began paving their way inside my palm.

“What do you want?”

“I told your father about your affair with the little blond bitch. He’s really happy for you.”

“Bet he is, and she’s not a bitch. If you need a point of reference about who is, just look in the mirror. I’ll ask again, before I call security to escort your ass out of here, butt naked. Why. Are. You. Here?”

“I want us to get back together,” she said after a beat of silence.

I didn’t even have it in me to laugh. Whatever she was smoking, that shit was made solely of rat poison, laundry detergent, and laxatives.

“No. Anything else?”

“I have a case,” she said. “Hear me out.”

I turned around to face her. The first drip of blood from my cut palm hit my loafer. I ignored it. “A case? Do you even know how to spell the word?”

She took a step toward me. Funny, for all her nakedness, Lily never forgot to keep her red-soled heels on. I raised a hand, letting her know there was an invisible line between us, and it was not to be crossed. She leaned a hip against my TV stand, unfazed by my bloody palm.

“I had a long chat with your old man.” She licked her upper lip.

Interesting choice of words from a woman who’d let him give her mouth-to-mouth with his dick. I raised an eyebrow.

“He was away this weekend, but he sent someone to open Camille’s apartment for me. We ended up having quite the lengthy conversation, in which he made some interesting points. The first one being that you are exploiting your employee by sleeping with her. And before you say it’s consensual, please try and think of how it would look in the eyes of every single competing network, that the person who pushed the #MeToo movement—that would be you, Célian—is not only sleeping with his reporter, but has actually…” She gasped theatrically, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Paid all of her debt off. And yes, I went through your trash to find your bank statements—for a man who advocates to save the environment, you should really go paperless—and it was worth it.”

A satisfied grin graced her lips. “So what do we have here? A boss sleeping with his poor employee and paying her way out of trouble. To make matters worse, she’s been promoted from the shitty beauty blog to the newsroom, and then promoted as a reporter. You actually someone to make room for her. Oopsie daisy—Steve is my mom’s best friend’s son. He told me all about how you looked at her when you had your meeting.”

Should have known Steve had a few more fuckups in his disaster bag before he left my newsroom. He had a face begging to be punched, and I’d let him walk away with his nose intact. I had no one to blame but myself, really. I ran my red-tainted fingers over my jaw.

“I’m sure that’s how people are going to see it.” She clucked her tongue, stretching, and she was naked, too naked. I wanted to cover her up with something. A casket, maybe. Lily would look damn good in it.

“I don’t care how people will see it. I employ Judith Humphry because she is a gifted, hard-working reporter, and I fuck her because she is an excellent lay. Those two have nothing to do with each another.” I was downplaying my entire with Jude, but I didn’t want Lily to pin this breakup on my employee. It wasn’t fair to Judith, and it was far from being the truth.

“Is she worth everything you’ve ever worked for?” She pinched her lower lip between her fingers nervously.

The thought struck me like lightning. Judith was worthy, and I hated that her value kept going the more the people around me were letting me . She was hardworking, funny, quirky, and sex on Chucks. She kept up with my sharp tongue, and gave it to me just as good. She brought donuts to work when she knew her colleagues were facing a long, challenging day, and sneaked mini Jack Daniels bottles to Brianna in times I was particularly shitty. When Jessica needed help with her workload, Jude always volunteered, but never made a fuss about it or made sure that I knew. She was so fucking graceful and unassuming, and I knew that even if I lost LBC tomorrow, got kicked out of my apartment, stripped out of my inheritance, and sued for every penny I’d ever earned, it still wouldn’t change my value in her eyes. And was invaluable.

“Leave,” I snapped, picking up Lily’s dress from my floor, deliberately using my bloody hand to stain her precious Prada number. “And this time, just so we’re on the same page, if you come back here, I will make sure to slap a restraining order on your ass. It won’t be pretty, seeing as you’ll have to move away from Manhattan, and you can hardly find your way in fucking Bloomingdales. Am I clear?”

“I’ll take this story to all the press. Too many people already know.” She threw herself at me, her fists raining down on my chest. I pushed her away with my dripping palm, hoping to fuck her type of crazy wasn’t contagious.

“You go do that, Lily. But put some clothes on first. You know, to make an impression.”

“Why are you fighting us?”

“Why are you fighting to save us?

ceased to exist a long time ago. You’re going in circles. We haven’t been together in over a year.”

Her eyes darted down. “I thought it was going to change. I thought you’d calm down and realize we were compatible after the wedding.”

Christ. That was her thought process? To think I’d almost married a genius.

“You thought wrong.”

Two minutes later, I slammed the door in her face (after she put some clothes on, thank fuck) and fished my phone out of my pocket to text Judith.

Célian: Lily knows.

Jude: So does Milton. He was here when I came home. I’m telling my dad the truth about breaking up with him tonight. We need a game plan.

Célian: George Michael.

Jude: ?

Célian: George Michael is our plan. We’re coming out.

Jude: Did you just make a Grayson joke?

Célian: Is that Gary’s real name?

Jude:

Célian: At any rate, Lily is threatening to blackmail me by claiming I’m harassing you. Am I fucking you against your will, Miss Humphry?

Jude: No. But I don’t want the stigma of being “that girl” at work.

Célian: What stigma is that? We’re not getting married. We’re fucking each other casually and consensually. No one is getting promoted anytime soon.

Jude: Right.

I wanted to diminish the weight she had in my world, knowing it could very well crush me if I wasn’t careful.

I hated how the thought of coming clean and telling everyone we were together secretly appealed to me, even though it was about to kill my reputation and make Judith’s life twenty times harder at work.

Most of all, I hated that I was going to hurt her.

Not because she deserved it, but because I didn’t know how not to.