He pursed his lips into a ruthless smirk. “Go on.”
“The president of Trust State, Arnie Hammond, is going to announce that he’s stepping down from his position this evening.” I snatched Kipling back from him, flipping through it urgently as I spoke. Trust State was one of the biggest insurance companies in the country. “Not many people know about it yet, and it’s only a speculation. However, it is happening, and the reason is rather scandalous. Remember how Trust State filed a huge lawsuit against Germany thirty years ago?”
“They represented holocaust survivors who weren’t eligible for compensation. And their families.” Célian nodded, finally focusing on what mattered. “It was a huge deal. Gained a lot of publicity and new clients after that.”
“Well, apparently, Hammond pocketed a lot of that money, and an internal investigation just blew that case to the sky.” I licked my lips, feeling every cell in my body dancing in excitement. “I contacted the source Phoenix gave me. He’s high up in the Trust State food chain. I’m going to meet him this afternoon.”
“Is he going on the record?” Célian’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline.
“Uh, yeah, but he wants to remain anonymous.”
Célian frowned. “Fuck that. A faceless source is like a cuntless whore.”
“Thanks for the analogy. And that’s not going to happen. He’ll lose his job.”
“Not necessarily. I’m coming with you,” Célian said.
“No, thank you.”
“It wasn’t an offer, Judith. You’re good, but still learning. I’m a veteran. And this is not about stroking your precious little ego. This is about scoring the best story we can get and giving it to our viewers before everyone else. There’s no I in team.”
“There is in Tim,” I grumbled, though I knew he was right.
He smirked. “Annoyingly adorable. Almost tempted to let you suck my cock right here in the office.”
I rolled my eyes, stood up, gathered my things, and exited.
“And delicious,” he called to my back.
I didn’t turn around, but I did stop at the door and smile to myself, thinking rather sadly, and screwed.
My source, Finn Samson, was late.
We were sitting at a kosher deli on a side road slicing Canal Street. The scent of moth balls and stale bread floated around the room. Célian had ordered a coffee and a bullet, because he couldn’t stand the stench. He’d only gotten one of his two requests. The good thing about the place was it was dead, but still a friendly territory. This meeting was too delicate for a Starbucks.
I tapped my fingers over the table, chewing on my lower lip and looking around. Célian stared at me, bluntly, and instead of feeling awkward, I soaked it up, drinking his attention like fine wine.
A part of me was embarrassed that Samson hadn’t arrived yet. I knew Célian was impatient. This made me want to distract him. I tapped my side of the table a thousand times.
He looked under our table at my Chucks. Orange. “Stimulation, sensation, and heat,” he commented. “Even you know I’m going to fuck you tonight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
“You clearly just did. If this was twenty questions, you’d already have a disadvantage.”
I pretended to examine my nails while giving him the finger. It made him chuckle, and his voice danced in the pit of my stomach.
Are you sure about the love thing, Mom? Because if we miscalculated this, I’m in deep, deep trouble.
“Go ahead, Humphry.”
“What happened a year ago? Grayson said something happened that made you guys exile Couture to a different floor. I know it’s around the same time you and your fiancée…”
He stiffened in his seat for a second, then relaxed, throwing an arm over the back of his chair. “My sister died.”
My eyes met his across the table. I wanted to take his hand and comfort him, but he didn’t look like he needed any comforting. He’d said it methodically, like he was reciting someone else’s story.
“She was Couture’s editor in chief. Was in charge of Gary and Ava.”
“Grayson,” I corrected.
“Whatever. After what happened, Mathias and I couldn’t really look at them without remembering…”
“Her,” I finished for him.
He nodded, taking a sip of his coffee and looking outside to the quiet side street. An older Asian woman crouched down to pet an even older dog. Its owner smiled at her petulantly, but kept texting with the hand that wasn’t holding the leash. The world seemed so cold all of a sudden, and hugging Célian became a physical need—a necessity, rather than an act of affection.
“It was my fault.” He cleared his throat, flipping his wrist to check his Rolex. I’d never seen him like this before—opening up while completely shutting down. His eyes were anywhere but on me, but the rest of his face was tense and strong.
He didn’t want to break.
But something told me the version of him I knew was already beyond cracked.
“How?” I whispered, trying to coax him with my eyes, which he couldn’t even meet.
“That’s why everything is a complete clusterfuck, Judith. It was my fault. Suffice it to say I killed her—much like I killed my parents’ relationship. And then it’s come to all this because my father finally decided he’d had enough and retaliated—stuck his cock in my fiancée’s mouth three days after the funeral. Apparently all it took to bed my fiancée was a Parisian weekend and a broken fiancé who didn’t want to fuck her because he was too depressed to scrape himself off of the bed that weekend.”
I bit down on the curse that threatened to slip out of my mouth.
“I broke off the engagement at first. Up until then, Lily and I had been a real couple. But then I figured, part of why Mathias did that was because he was getting weaker. He’d had several heart attacks, and he knew he was going to pass the president’s seat to me. He couldn’t stomach the idea of me doing a better job than him, making more money. At the same time, my father has never been a newsman. He’s just a businessman who got very lucky. He knew the merger between LBC and Newsflash Corp would make me an unstoppable force, so killing my engagement and shitting all over my career plans was the perfect two-birds-one-stone scenario for him.
“For that reason alone, I agreed to take Lily back, but in a very different capacity. Come August, we will get married, and I will inherit most of her family’s business. First technically, and then when her father steps down from his official duties, also officially. She will have nothing but a personal trainer to fuck and an empty existence to maintain, with one miserable thing going for her—she will be married to the asshole all her preppy Manhattan friends had wanted when we were growing up.”
Tears shimmered in my eyes, and I didn’t want to blink, knowing they would freefall the minute I let them. So this was why he was marrying Lily. To spite his dad. To spite himself. To take what he thought he deserved from a horrible situation.
My crucial teenage years had come and gone without a mother. I’d almost resented her, in a selfish, weird way—like she’d had a hand in not being alive anymore, like she could have fought a little harder against her disease. But I’d never known how it would feel not to be wanted by my parents. They’d always loved me, and hard. They weren’t rich or powerful or even mystifying in the way the Laurents were. But they’d made me feel so important. It always felt like it was us against the world. Even now, with Dad being sick, we had a bond that defied death—the type in which I felt treasured, even by those who weren’t alive.
I grabbed Célian’s hand and brought it to my face, kissing his palm like Phoenix had done to me. Intimately. Devastatingly. Warmly. We were out in the open, and it was downright outrageous, but he didn’t pull away. He stared at me, a little confused, his mouth parting. Some of the menace left his face, and that was worth the embarrassment of doing something I shouldn’t have.