Chapter 8: : Chapter 7

Going into Chucks’s apartment wasn’t the most constructive thing to do, considering the little fixation I was developing.

I could smell her skin, the undertone of her vanilla scent, and her ginger-and-jasmine shampoo on every piece of furniture in her tiny apartment. The place screamed Judith. Her personality jumped out of every corner of the rooms.

I saw her in the cider-scented candles lined up neatly on the mantel like soldiers and in the framed pictures from her graduation—her hugging her father with a huge smile on her face and kissing someone I assumed was Milton, the brainless dick. She was in the curtains that were drawn open, inviting the sun to pour into the room, and in the small, organized stack of newspapers and books on the coffee table, as well as the ring stain of a mug beside them that told me her favorite pastime. And in the unlikely picture hanging above the TV, of a girl reaching up to a heart-shaped balloon, watching it drift skyward and away from her.

“Her mother bought that picture,” her father told me. “It doesn’t go with anything around the house, but neither of us has the guts to take it down.”

He stopped by the picture, staring at it. I grimaced, knowing how it felt to keep everything while you waited for your dead loved one to miraculously reappear. Grief was pathetic. That’s why I didn’t let myself dwell on it.

“Don’t know if your daughter is not brave enough to do anything,” I said with disdain.

Her father considered that for a moment. “Perhaps was not the right word. Jude is just very good at remembering. And loving.”

Robert Humphry was an impressive man.

Strong, silent, and polite—the no-bullshit type. I would be jealous of Judith if it wasn’t totally fucked up. Her father was a standup guy, and I wondered what kind of person I would be if I’d had someone to look up to.

Rob knew his daughter better than I did, so he agreed that keeping our arrangement a secret was in everyone’s best interest. Lying to her wasn’t ideal, but we both knew that if Judith found out I was helping them by paying her father’s way into an experimental treatment program for people with advanced cancer, she would throw a fit, accept the offer nonetheless, then let it eat at her conscience.

I’d had Dan find the experimental program, because I didn’t want Brianna to know anything about Jude she hadn’t volunteered herself. Since Robert wasn’t doing incredibly bad for someone with stage three cancer, he was easily accepted into the trial—after a large donation to the clinic.

Getting help from me was going to mess with Jude’s sense of integrity. She was fiercely independent, and I didn’t want this gesture to have the aftertaste of quick fucks and sardonic office whips. Besides, it wasn’t solely about Judith. I wasn’t a heartless prick. Helping Robert was my way to atone for what had happened to Camille.

I’d taken a life, what was the harm in trying to save one?

Robert didn’t ask me many things that weren’t related to the treatment he would be provided. He didn’t ask me, for instance, my motivations for helping his daughter in the first place. And so I spared him the story of our first meeting, in which an hour after I’d bought her drinks, my tongue was already rimming her crack while my fingers plunged into her pink, soaking wet pussy. I didn’t normally eat ass, but hers was too sweet to pass. At any rate, I did not consider it a compliment worth mentioning to her ill father.

We arranged that a cab would pick him up twice a week for the treatment, all expenses paid by me. As far as Jude was concerned, this was an experiment he’d been offered by the insurance company they were now a client of through her employment at LBC, free of charge. It wasn’t farfetched, and this way she wouldn’t have to worry about paying me back or think I was expecting something in return.

This was not about getting my cock sucked, although, truth be told, based on the way she’d looked at me the evening I hung out with Emilie last week, it hardly seemed she’d mind paying in that dubious currency.

After we talked shop, Rob and I ended up chatting for another hour. It wasn’t like I had a ton of things to do on a Sunday when I wasn’t in Florida visiting Maman. It turned out we had a lot in common. We both thought Shake Shack was overrated, that the Rockefeller Christmas Tree should be illegal (or alternatively, that tourists should be illegal. But one or the other had to go for the sake of the city’s citizens’ sanity), and that the Yankees were the best thing to ever happen to our NYC.

On the subway, making my way back to Manhattan, I sorted through my inbox on my phone. An email popped in from my father, and everybody in the office was CCed.

It was a reminder for an invitation to a gala in the Laurent Towers Hotel next weekend. The original invitations had been sent weeks ago. Of all things, we were celebrating the #MeToo movement, raising money to be donated to several women’s shelters across the country. LBC had put the spotlight on #MeToo, relentlessly chasing stories about sexual assault and gender discrimination since the movement had exploded. My father prided himself on taking a stand, while at the same time taking advantage of his position to coax women into his bed. The list of former and current employees he’d slept with was longer than , and just as disturbing. His moving Judith to our floor was a blunt way of trying to get both into her dress and under my skin.

I’d blow his cover in a second if it wasn’t for the fact that at this point, he was recovering from his fourth heart attack, newly divorced, and too tired to fight back. I liked my wars fair and didn’t need another death on my conscience. I was waiting for him to quietly step down from his position so I could assume it and cut my ties with him permanently.

I RSVPed to the stupid event and bounced my foot, looking up for a distraction. The woman in front of me—late twenties, good looking in a corporate-wallflower, champagne-blond kind of way—smiled at me from behind her hardcover Oprah’s Book Club novel. I didn’t smile back. I wasn’t looking for a hookup for hookup’s sake. I wasn’t a player—whatever the fuck that meant—and, unlike some, I didn’t treat fucking as a national sport.

My one-night stand with Judith had been one of a handful. I usually spaced them out to every other month or so—just enough to keep my sexual appetite and libido sated without having to worry about my dick falling off from an unknown disease. At any rate, I’d fucked Jude not too long ago, and would be going for round two soon, if it was up to me.

The woman tucked her book into her bag, got up from her seat, and walked toward the doors, waiting for them to open. She shot me another look, this time wistful.

“Taken?” she mouthed.

I nodded.

“All the good ones are.” She stepped outside.

I should have thought about Lily when I confirmed my status. She did, after all, walk around with a ring that cost considerably more than Judith’s apartment—a family heirloom that should have been given to Camille.

But all I could think of was the girl who’d yelled at me last week at the bar, then sought me out with her green-brown eyes and wouldn’t let go of my goddamn thoughts, long after I got back to my apartment.

And into my shower, where I’d fisted my cock and imagined her smart mouth wrapped around it as I came all over my dirty blond tiles.

The hashtags #CharityGala and #MeToo stared back at me from the cream banner as I entered the event, celebrated on the massive rooftop terrace of the Laurent Towers Hotel. Sleek pink and peach carpets, roses spilling from sculptures like rivers, and long tables covered in velvet black tablecloths—no matter how much money my father was going to raise here, it wouldn’t cover half of what this evening had cost.

I wore a tux and a scowl, Lily trailing alongside me in her gold chiffon dress that managed to have too much fabric yet still expose the better half of her tits. Not that I cared. I knew Lily was screwing around, too. I wasn’t a hypocrite, and I was about as possessive of her as I was of the piece of human turd I’d nearly stepped on as I walked into work yesterday morning, exiting the train. I didn’t want to bring her, but even I recognized that we needed to show some kind of united front. Plus, it was a good opportunity for me to check in on her family, most of whom I actually liked quite a bit.

“Your parents okay?” Our arms were locked together, but I stared straight ahead.

“They miss you.” She couldn’t even answer a simple yes-or-no question.

“Your sisters?” I ignored her pleading tone. I missed them, too. But spending time with them like nothing had happened was impossible.

“Yes, Scarlett and Grace are doing all right.”

“And Madelyn?” There was a lot of estrogen in her family. Her father was surrounded by three daughters, a mother, and a wife.

“My grandmother is peachy. She really wants you to visit her. Said she’ll even make your favorite pie.”

“I might,” I rasped, meaning it. Madelyn Davis was a fucking rock star.

The minute Lily and I entered the room, I began to search for Judith with my eyes like a thirteen year old who’s just discovered his cock. It wasn’t intentional, but primal nonetheless. I wanted to see what she was wearing, how she’d done her makeup, and who she was with. My educated guess was Gary and Ava. She seemed to be spending a lot of time with them, even though she’d formed strong relationships with Kate, Jessica, and Brianna, too.

Lily did the annoying thing she tended to do on the rare occasions we were out in public, and tugged at my sleeve to make sure I was no more than three inches away from her. We were exchanging pleasantries with a bunch of regular guests on the show—a prosecutor, two judges, and a former producer of a competing network. My father ambled toward us, armed with a date who looked fresh out of high school, his laughter sending uncomfortable chills down my spine. She wore an Oscar De La Renta number and beamed like he’d just picked the stars from the skies and rested them in her palm.

“Célian, Lily, such a handsome .” He tapped my back in a fatherly way and proceeded to hug Lily and kiss both her cheeks. She winced in his arms, struggling for a steady breath, and took a step back.

“Mr. Laurent.”

“Please, call me Matt,” he chuckled, spraying his fake-ass smile around everyone like a skunk’s fart.

“Yes. After all, you do know him rather well.” I glanced at my Rolex, then resumed my efforts searching for Jude. I was sure Lily noticed, but couldn’t find it in me to care. Her throat bobbed, and she turned crimson next to me.

“This is Chardonnay.” Dad introduced us to his date.

I smiled coldly. “Hello. How’s spring break treating you, Chardonnay?”

“Célian!” Lily and Mathias scowled in unison.

“I’m sorry, that was impolite of me. Spring break is over, right? Finals are probably killing you. Let me guess, you’re in cheer? Love Harry Styles? Think is an adaptation of the bible?”

There was more sulking and complaining, but everything muted into the background the minute I spotted her among the sea of puffy black and white dresses and big hairdos. Wearing a knee-length, powder blue dress and that inconspicuous expression that seemed to speak the secret language of my dick, she looked like Cinderella after a good fuck, her butterscotch hair twisted up with stray locks ribboning down her neck and cheeks.

My mouth had curved with a satisfied smirk at how beautiful and elegant she looked, yet so unassuming, her beauty humble and clean, when my eyes traveled to the person she was talking to.

I knew he was back in the States. His time in Syria and Israel had made him tanner, seemingly taller, and more lean and muscular. He carried himself with even more confidence than before. He said he’d come back to spend some time with his family, but as far as I was concerned, it was a great excuse for him to take a part-time job at LBC and spend the rest of the time reminding me I had a hole in my heart the size of his fist. Phoenix wore a blue tux (douchebag), and whatever he said to Judith, she found funny, because she shoved his chest playfully, as if he was misbehaving.

Lily was telling me something in the background, but unless it was warning me that the place was on fire, I couldn’t have cared less. I knew I had no right to barge into Jude and Phoenix’s conversation and make a scene. To show up with my fiancée in tow and claim someone else’s time would be an especially douchey move, even by my very low standards.

“Champagne?” One of the servers slid a tray in our direction. Lily took two and handed me one, gluing her side-tit to my arm.

“I think they make a good couple.” She followed my line of vision.

I ignored her, throwing back the champagne like a shot, and walked over to Kate, disposing of the glass on a table on my way. Lily followed me, like a hot-piss stench at Times Square station. Kate, who had her back to me, turned around with a smile. I hugged her and her wife, Delilah. Kate’s rubicund hair was spiky, and her dress seemed extra black, somehow. She offered Lily a frosty look, which the latter didn’t even bother to return.

“Me Too, huh?” She rolled her eyes.

Kate was by far one of the most outspoken feminists I knew. This entire evening was a big fuck-you from my father to everyone around him.

I crooked an eyebrow. “I don’t make the rules. I just follow them. For now.”

We’d spent ten minutes talking about work, with Lily clinging to my arm like the floor would otherwise swallow her whole, when Kate puffed on a celery stick and said, “And where’s Mathias, Célian?”

“Why would I care where my fa—” I started, my eyes already darting to the spot where they’d last seen Jude, and found him talking to her, his hand on her lower back.

On.

Her.

Fucking.

Back.

A heavy rock churned inside my stomach. My fists curled beside my body while I sliced through the crowd, galloping toward them without even distinguishing what was going on around me. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I was about to yank him away from her by the back of his collar and plant a fist in his face.

The only thing that stopped me as I got there was realizing that was exactly what he wanted—me losing control over a woman who wasn’t Lily in order to create a scene. So I joined them, my smile oh-so-polite as I grabbed the cigar my father was puffing all over her face and nonchalantly dropped it into a half-full glass of champagne.

“Mind if I butt in?”

“I do, actually,” Mathias said, his eyes raking over Lily, who finally stood a few feet away, knowing better than to join us. She stayed the hell away from my father whenever possible after what happened. She knew acknowledging his existence was playing with the kind of fire that could burn down forests and incinerate our prestigious engagement.

“Well, life’s tough. Better get used to it. How are you doing tonight, Humphry?”

“Great.” She gave me a panicky, what-the-hell-are-you-doing look, cradling her champagne.

Mathias stared at me like he was about to do something he was going to regret, so I entered his personal space with two fluid steps, whispering in his ear, “I could blow up your entire party by telling them you shoved your cock in my fiancée’s mouth while she was in a very compromising position, filling in as your temporary secretary because you had to fire your old one, who’d fucked you long enough to expect more than the average New York salary. But I won’t have to do that tonight, will I, Father? You will step back and get the hell away from Judith Humphry like I asked you to. Because the next time I have to remind you to stay away, I won’t be nice, and won’t be annoyed. She’ll be scared. For life.”

I took a step back and watched the color drain from his face. For a second, I thought he was going to have another heart attack. Then he tipped his head goodbye to Judith and scurried away, looking like a ghost of himself. We both watched him join his date. I knew that if I took my time, Lily would approach us, now that Mathias was gone.

“He’s trying to hit on you,” I told Jude, too pissed to look her in the eye without snapping further.

“That’s his business, not yours,” she said evenly, placing her delicate glass of champagne on a table behind her. The spring air was crisp and chilly, and her whole body blossomed into goosebumps under that dress.

“Stop playing nice with him.”

“No stop butting into my relationships with other people, Célian. You have no right.”

I suppose it wasn’t a good time to tell her that Phoenix Townley—who’d wandered out on the terrace mere minutes ago, probably to snort a line—was a douchebag who got sent away to the Middle East after he was caught shooting heroin with a crackwhore in his Chelsea apartment.

The last and only other time we’d been in this hotel together, Chucks and I were on much friendlier terms. Frankly, I was fed up with this entire bullshit situation where all we did was fight. We were on the same page. Both our lives were hot messes. And we could make each other forget. I brushed my arm against her shoulder while we people-watched the fancy guests, our colleagues laughing, dancing, and drinking away their long working week.

“Inappropriate physical contact?

,” she taunted, but the smile on her lips was pure mischief.

“Miss Humphry, please utter the entire sentence—

, so I’ll really have an incentive not to do the things I want to do to you.”

She said nothing, fingering the thin gold necklace resting against her clavicles.

Then she whispered, “Touch me how?”

I smirked. “You’re not very good at following directions, are you? I refuse to land my ass in hot water, even for a good lay.”

“Hot water with your company or with your date?” she snapped.

“My date is fake, but my commitment to my network is real.”

She considered it, chewing on her lip. “It won’t get you in trouble.”

“That won’t hold up in court. Say it explicitly. Use your words. I. Want. It.”

“I don’t know what means.”

I shook my head, taking a side-step away from her.

She weighed the situation, still playing with her necklace. I caught a glimpse of Kate talking to Lily, and knew she would never initiate a conversation with Lily in a million years. She’d done it for me.

A forty-six-year-old lesbian who thought white, upper-class men were Satan was my wingman. I think I wanted that on my fucking tombstone.

Jude swallowed. “I want you to do to me…no matter what it means. So, what do you want to do to me?”

“Well, Humphry, I really want to finger your ass,” I said conversationally, smiling to a colleague when he saluted my way and nodding at him courteously as I smoothed my ironed dress shirt. “While eating your pussy until every drop of your cum is on my tongue.”

I could see her throat bobbing in my peripheral vision, and damn if it didn’t make my cock twitch. I needed to get out of here before it became very apparent that I was talking dirty to my employee, while sporting a hard-on that could very well tear through my briefs and tux, and at this rate, perhaps even bend solid steel.

“You have a fiancée,” she murmured.

“A fiancée. Don’t pretend you don’t know that. Our relationship is a joke, and we only half-bother to hide it.”

Jude and I were still pretending to talk shop casually when I slipped my hand back to touch hers on the table she had braced herself against. The tip of my little finger curled against hers. I’d forgotten how good she felt, and that infuriated me, because not many things felt good these days.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What do you want me to do? Kiss you in front of all these people? I will. Granted, we’ll both get in trouble, but I will.”

“You wouldn’t…”

I spun around toward her and pressed a hand against the small of her back, drawing her close. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice pitching high.

I shoved my hand into my pocket, producing one of two cards I always had on me when I was in the Laurent Towers Hotel.

“Fifteenth floor,” I said. “Swipe it on the elevator screen or the door won’t open. Ten minutes. We don’t need to be here when my father talks about workplace fraternization.”

I slipped into the crowd and disappeared before Lily could find me.

And before I lost my mind.