I shook my head, regarding her through hooded eyes. “This game of yours might cost you your job, so I sure as hell hope you’re enjoying it.”
“Oh, I’m not. Trust me. Now, let’s see.” She made a show of turning to me fully, tapping her lip. “It started with the fact that the entire newsroom saw you leaving with your ex-fiancée a hot second after you’d declared that Jude is your girlfriend, which put her squarely in the position of being the official office joke—the building’s leftover who’s been dumped by the boss. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t like it. Then, sometime last night, it was revealed that there’s an oil spill threatening to kill thousands of mammals and birds. People stayed overnight. Jude didn’t, because she had to take care of her father after working overtime. So don’t worry, I’m sure she caught the Gossip Road rerun of you hanging out with Lily. Gosh…” She slapped a hand over her chest. “What a multitasker. Banging your ex and your life simultaneously.”
I erased the space between us, jerking my chin up to look down at her. She hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know—well, okay, except the oil spill—and I wasn’t an idiot, so obviously, I had a good idea of what it all looked like. Keeping Jude guessing was the plan. Pushing her away—the goal.
But I didn’t like what Kate had insinuated. “I didn’t fuck Lily. Her grandmother died.”
That was not something I could exactly shout from the rooftops. The Davis family was private. Her sisters were adamant about working regular jobs.
“Does Jude know?”
“She will.” I was playing with fire, but the self-fulfilling prophecy wasn’t uncalled for. I didn’t really do girlfriends, and the shit with Chucks was getting to be a bit much.
“You’re not listening, Célian. She’s not going to hear your bullshit. How will you explain hanging at Lily’s apartment building? Attending a birthday party with her? Disappearing on all of us?”
I shouldered past her, and she gasped, taking an evasive step. The impending calamity I’d inserted myself into with eyes wide open was going to come raining down on me. It wasn’t pouring, but we were already at a steady trickle. Shit. I was in deep shit.
“I attended all those functions for her family,” I told Kate, still unable to reach for my office door. “That included Lily’s cousin’s stupid birthday party. I went to her apartment, twice—without her—because I needed to get her fresh clothes and her toiletry shit. We were never in the same vicinity with our clothes off. She tried to hold my hand for half a fucking second at the party, and I bit her head off for it. We’re over, but that doesn’t mean I need to be an ass to her. I wanted to be there for the Davises, because when my life was crumbling and Camille died, they were there for me.”
Lily had been a no-show during those terrible days, but I still remembered the flowers and pastry the family had sent every morning, her mother checking in on me, her grandmother calling me three times a day to make sure I ate and showered and breathed.
Kate turned around, reaching for the door handle. I kept my face blasé. “Good luck explaining it to everyone, Célian. Because let me tell you something—the moment Jude walked into the room, she changed you. It wasn’t profound. It was even gradual, but it was there. In the way you started smiling, the way you softened toward your employees—just a little—and started doing the right thing by yourself and Lily. But standing here?” She shook her head. “I think that man just bailed on us, and it saddens me, because I was looking forward to working with, and befriending, the new Célian.”
She closed the door behind her, and I looked to the glass wall, catching Jude unpacking her lunch and dumping her bag by her chair. She looked up to meet my gaze like I knew she would. We could sense each other from miles away. I arched a come-get-it eyebrow. Her face remained unaffected, like she didn’t actually see me, and she began to roll her earbuds around her iPod, turning her computer on.
Stay calm.
Stay put.
Think it through. This is what you wanted.
Fuck it. I didn’t need to think.
I pushed off my desk, blazing into the newsroom. Everybody was nose deep in work, because evidently we were on the verge of an environmental disaster and nobody had time to be impressed that I had, in fact, gotten my head out of my ass.
I knew now that for the last three days, I’d tried to deny my feelings toward Jude and make them go away.
I went directly to her table and slapped a hand over Kipling, which was open by her keyboard.
She looked up.
“Sir?” There was nothing in that voice. Nothing in her face. No fire crackling in the air between us. It was like she’d been turned off.
“Need you for a minute.”
“I’m right here.”
“Downstairs.”
“Not happening,” she said calmly, with everyone looking now, because that was the essence of Judith Humphry—a goddamn badass in colorful Chucks and a weird, too-grownup suit. “If you need something from me professionally, please say so right now, because I’m about to head into the conference room for an urgent call with NOAA’s public affairs officer.”
Only reason I didn’t clench my jaw was because I knew that shit would snap and break from the force. If she’d been any other employee, I would’ve thrown her ass out of the building with the phone cord and receiver still clutched in her fist. But not Judith. Not after everything we’d been through.
Truth of the matter was, I couldn’t verbally rip her limb from limb, even when she belittled me in public, because I didn’t want to.
Because I cared about her.
I was in love with her.
Jesus fucking Christ. I was, wasn’t I? First she got into my bed, then under my skin, then into my heart. There was no deeper tissue than that, so she stayed there, taking more and more space, until there was no room left inside me. If she cut me open, I would bleed her.
She reared her head back, like I was going to bite her face off. “Will that be all, Mr. Laurent?”
“Yes. Get on that NOAA call and report back.” I took a step away, my head still spinning from the eternal revelation.
I loved Jude.
I’d pushed Jude away.
I could have told her what had been happening at any point during those three days, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want her to know.
I’d wanted her to assume the worst and to give up on me, like everyone else had. My mother was indifferent. My father actively hated me. And my ex-fiancée wanted me the same way you wanted a limited-edition Hermes bag—because I’d look damn good and pricey on her arm.
“Sure thing, sir.”
“Stop calling me sir,” I snapped. My tongue has been inside your ass, for fuck’s sake.
“Yes, sir,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes at me.
You came all over my face with my dick inside your mouth. “Appreciate it, Chucks.”
In love. Fuck me.
With Judith Penelope Humphry from Brooklyn.
Who I’d met on a shitty rainy day after another fight with my father.
Who had stolen my wallet and my cash and my condoms and my heart.
Who’d sneaked into every fiber of my skin, one layer at a time, with her music and contagious laugh and daily moods and dirty Chucks.
I was in love, despite not wanting or agreeing to be.
So I’d pushed her away. If I disappeared, I didn’t have to make a decision. It would be made for me.
A decision to take a chance on someone.
A decision to live again.
A decision to give up LBC, and everything I’d worked for, because power wasn’t enough. Especially if you have no one to share it with.
That’s how I found myself doing the whole flowers-and-chocolate routine when I came to her house that evening. Did people do that anymore? Every romantic idea I had—and granted, I didn’t have many—was taken from stupid rom coms Camille made me watch when I was a teen. Lily had never bothered. She knew sitting me down in front of a Kate Hudson movie was a task akin to getting me to fuck a food grinder.
Maybe chocolate and flowers were a ‘90s thing. Judith was young. Perhaps to a point it made people feel uncomfortable. Ask me if I gave a fuck.