Jude never got a follow-up on that sex-a-thon invitation from this morning.
After spilling my guts all over her orange Chucks earlier in the afternoon, watching her eyes swim with emotions that had threatened to drown me into despair, I had decided it was in everyone’s best interest if we took the night to reevaluate the clusterfuck known as our office fling.
To say I wasn’t the oversharing type would be the understatement of the millennium. Yet somehow, in that kosher deli that smelled like death and looked like clinical depression, I’d talked about Camille in a way I never had before—not with Maman and not with Kate, and certainly not with my sorry excuse for a fiancée or deadbeat father.
I grabbed my coat and made my way out of my office after we finished the show. Judith was still typing away on her computer, paying her dues as a junior reporter. She actually had the audacity to look pissed again, for a reason beyond my grasp or care. Most women were content to simply spend time with me, in any capacity. Yet Jude got to get fucked, have lunch dates, and have me pay for her fucking life—granted, unbeknownst to her—and she still acted like I was public enemy number one.
After a grueling ratings meeting with the bigwigs earlier today, I’d taken my father aside and explained to him, again, that if he ever touched Jude, I was going to unleash his dirty laundry, one stained panty at a time, and kill the pristine Laurent name he’d been riding all the way to the bank.
Anyway, seeing as pussy wasn’t in the cards for me tonight, I decided to settle for going face to face with a dick.
I’d pay Phoenix fucking Townley a visit.
Phoenix lived in SoHo, which hardly surprised me. It was a great place to find any of your vices, from crack and dope to dead prostitutes. I located his new address in his HR file and took an Uber straight to his house.
He opened the door on the third knock, wearing nothing but white briefs. His blond curls fell on his forehead, his face flush with the humidity that knocked New York on its pale ass on the verge of every summer. He no longer looked like a kid, and it bothered me that he’d continued aging, while Camille stayed frozen, and that Judith might see him in that light—as a man, and not a bad-looking one at that.
“Cel.” He greeted me with no particular tone to his voice, like my presence on his doorstep was ordinary.
He left the door open, turning around and ambling back to his couch in a silent invitation. The apartment was small, new, and hip. And yes, I died a little using the word hip, even if just in my mind. I strolled directly to the red-bricked, trendy kitchen with intentions of fixing myself a drink. But the cupboards were full of bullshit ramen noodles. I opened the fridge and found nothing but root beer, pink lemonade, and nyloned wet cat food. Not a drop of alcohol in sight.
“Just because you’re a pussy doesn’t mean you need to eat like one.” I slammed his fridge shut, groaning.
“There’s a stray under my building that I feed. Lost souls connect to one another in a quiet way. If you’re looking for booze, hate to break it to you, but I quit.” He freefell to his couch with a thud, slouching and flipping channels on his TV. Was he expecting a medal? A bright sticker? Or maybe just for me to not punch him in the face.
Phoenix settled on BBC America. I hated that he wasn’t stupid. It made hating him more difficult.
“Mouthwash?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Pot?” Everyone had fucking pot, even my fifty-seven-year-old Eastern European housekeeper, who also had a crucifix the size of my bathroom dangling on her meaty neck.
“Quit everything,” he said. “The alcohol, the drugs—”
“The whores?” I cut in, swiveling around and cracking open a can of root beer. I took a sip, decided it tasted like rotten anus, and dumped it in his sink.
Last time we’d had an actual conversation was when he’d tried to convince me to talk to my father about sending him packing to the Middle East. I’d said I’d try, and I sort of had, but in all honesty, I wasn’t convinced he deserved my sister. Also, I had no power over my father, especially when it came to Cam. He’d barely let me hang out with my own sister when we were kids, deeming me the troublemaker and her his princess.
The time we’d seen each other before that, Phoenix and I hadn’t really done much talking. I saw Camille upset after the entire doped-whore incident and had decided to rearrange the attributes of his face. A broken nose and three cuts in his eyebrows later, Phoenix had a pretty clear idea of my feelings toward him.
Consequently, he knew this was not a social call.
He shook his head, staring at the ceiling, his hands tucked under his head. “I never touched the prostitute. We scored some drugs together, yeah, but she was half-naked because she was an idiot and tried to seduce me. I never cheated on your sister. I was a fucked-up boyfriend, sure, but I never wronged her.”
“I’m sensing I should somehow be impressed by this revelation.” I yanked his fridge open again, this time trying the sugar-free, organic pink lemonade.
Spat it out.
Maybe sober life is punishment enough for Townley Jr.
“Not everything is a battle of words and power, Cel.”
He was the only person to call me that, and I’d never understood why. We weren’t close, before or after he’d dated Camille.
“You know, I tried to call you several times after she died,” he told me. “I couldn’t stop going over the last thing I said to her, the last thing she said to me, when we were about to meet in Turkey.”
I rubbed my jaw, moving it from side to side. I’d come here to warn him that my stay-the-fuck-away-from-Judith warning for Mathias extended to him. But somehow, we were now talking about Camille. It was the second time today I’d had to share her memory with someone else.
Not to be a sappy shit, but I really did miss my sister every single minute. She was the only thing that had resembled normal in my family. With Cam, things had been simple.
I loved her, and she’d loved me.
I’d had her back, and she’d had mine.
Mathias had fucked up, and I’d failed her, and then I’d chosen to tell her the truth when she was standing on the edge of the fucking street, like an idiot.
“Say it,” I spat.
I wanted to have that piece of Cam, too—a new piece that would make her feel alive, even if just for a second.
Phoenix sat forward on the couch, his elbows propped on his knees. He clutched his head, staring down at the floor.
“I told her I was clean, that I’d changed, and that I was crazy about her ass. She believed me. We talked about Istanbul, and she said she was going to wait for me until I came back from the Middle East, no matter when it was. Do you know what I said to her after that?”
He looked up to me, his eyes shimmering. I shook my head. I understood love as a concept, but every time people started talking like Phoenix, I automatically assumed they were reciting a Sarah Jessica Parker movie. It didn’t seem real.
“I told her I’d never wanted to give her up, that what we had wasn’t simple, but it was real. That I needed her. That I didn’t know if we could work it out, but I would damn well try my best.” He looked up at me. “I knew your dad had a bounty on my head, but I didn’t care.”
I filled in the rest in my head. And then Camille had talked to me and found out why Phoenix really left—that they were Romeo and Juliet. That they stood no chance, because their families—my family—would never let them be together.
He reached out to me, and I froze. If hugging it out was his way of getting over his feud, he was obviously still doing drugs. Then I looked down and noticed the tattoo: Camille laughing back at me—a familiar smile with too much teeth and the eye wrinkles that upset her every time she looked into a magnifying mirror but I thought only made her prettier.
“Why did you come here, Cel? I can’t bring her back, and you don’t want to patch things up between us.” He wiped his nose on his bare bicep.
“I didn’t come here for Camille. I came here because if I find you going anywhere near Judith Humphry, I will bash your head against the first available surface and get rid of the evidence in a way that would make it impossible to find you.”
I knew what I’d just said could bite me so hard in the ass, I would have nowhere left to shit from. Still, I couldn’t help myself.
Phoenix stood, walked over to his open-plan kitchen, and poured himself some of the nasty lemonade. “That’s for Jude to decide.”
Had she told him about her father? About her debt? About her life? I inspected him with a frown as he swiveled to face me and continued.
“Jude is building a network of friends at work. I’m glad to be one of them. You, the Laurents, hold so much power that you sometimes forget you’re not real monarchs. People—your employees—are not your servants. Look at what happened to your father. He’s done everything he could to try to control me, and his staff, and even you. Where is he now? After multiple heart attacks, he’s professionally irrelevant. You’re the one calling the shots at LBC, and your mother—his divorcée—is the one controlling the board. He has nothing left. To maintain power, you have to distribute it, too.
“I won’t let the Laurents dictate my relationships with people anymore,” he added after a moment. “Just look at the state of your family. You hardly know what you’re doing.”
He wasn’t wrong. Regardless of Lily, I knew very well that I had nothing to offer Jude. I didn’t do love. I sucked hard at relationships, and harder at feelings. She deserved a lot more than me—something I would never admit out loud, but knew very well deep down. A decent man would take a step back and give her a chance to meet someone who could be there for her.
I wasn’t a decent man, though.
Not to Judith, and definitely not to Phoenix.
In one move I cornered him against his fridge, clamping my hand over his neck and squeezing until my knuckles whitened. My face was relaxed, my pulse steady, but the way Phoenix’s eyes bulged told me I looked the way I felt: lethal and beyond repair. I never used physical violence to get places. In fact, the last time I’d had my hands on someone, it was him, because of Cam. But Phoenix really needed to know Jude was off-limits.
“I will say this again, Townley, and this time, pay careful attention, because I wouldn’t mind throwing both you and your father’s ass out on the street. You messed things up with my sister, and you do not get a second chance with my employee. You want to sit in Judith’s friend zone? You’re welcome to rot there. But if you so much as touch one of her blond locks, brush your hand over her skin, it’s game over for you. And I’m not the king.”
I let go of his neck, and he gasped, crouching down and gripping his throat.
“I’m the goddamn God in this place. Fair warning: you’ve already proven to be a sinner, and no amount of Hail Marys is going to wipe clean the debt you have with me.”
I dashed out of his apartment, thinking tonight couldn’t possibly get much worse.
But of course, I was wrong.
Because Lily was waiting for me at my apartment building, ready to prove it.
Lily had lost her key privileges the day I caught her with my father’s dick in her mouth. Not an overreaction on my part, I think everyone would agree.
That was also the day I’d broken off our engagement, and even when she came crawling back, dangling Newsflash Corp in my face, I’d never bothered to return the spare key. Since my building employed enough security and receptionists to open a mall, Lily couldn’t waltz in and wait at my door. The staff knew people who came to visit regularly: Maman, Kate, and Elijah, a producer and fellow Yankees fan from work. For Lily, my instructions were clear and simple: if I wasn’t around, she was to wait in the lobby.
Which was why I found her coiled around a glass of champagne, wrapped in a black satin mini dress, and flipping through a magazine at the golden marble bar in my building’s lounge.
The minute I walked through the skyscraper’s revolving door, she shot to her feet and flung herself at me. Seeing as we hadn’t spoken since she’d left the gala without me last weekend, I was mildly surprised to see we were still on friendly terms. My surprise was not warranted, I discovered, when Lily stopped a few inches from me and raised her hand to slap me across the face. I stopped her, grabbing her wrist and lowering her arm.
“Lily,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Fiancé.” She spat out the word. “We need to talk.”
“Talking doesn’t require you to touch me. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out. You spend most of your days gossiping with your friends like it’s an Olympic sport.”
She pouted in defeat, then wiped strands of her hair from her face. I headed to the elevator, not really giving a shit if she followed. She did. In the elevator, she turned around and tried to rub her crotch against my thigh. I took a step back, tsking.
“You lost your cock rights long ago.”
“Fuck you, Célian.”
“In your dreams. And even there, only from behind so I don’t have to look at your face.” I smiled politely, checking my Rolex. There was nowhere in particular I needed to be, but I decided to give her exactly ten minutes to tell me what the fuck she was doing here. What can I say? I was feeling generous.
When we got to my apartment, I finally fixed myself that long-awaited drink while Lily paced back and forth in my living room. Everything was made out of sleek black granite and oak paneling, with sterile-looking, minimal white furniture. The Japanese interior designer who’d come here had asked what I wanted to convey when I moved in. I’d told her “nothing.” She thought I was being literal.
Now my apartment looks exactly like my heart. Hollow.
I’d been living here for the past three years and had only fucked one woman in this place. It was Lily, and it’d been over a year since that happened. Other than that, I mostly used my place for sleep.
“Talk,” I ordered, and the minute I did, Lily’s mouth opened and the words flew from it like she’d been waiting for my permission for years.
“Look, I get it, okay? I screwed up, Célian. Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t understand the gravity of my mistake? Of messing with your dad while you were grieving your sister?”
Camille and Lily were the same age—three years my junior, which made her twenty-nine—and had attended the same private schools in Manhattan. They weren’t friends. Barely acquaintances. My sister wrote journals, went to poetry nights, and was obsessed with autobiographies about high-end fashion designers, while Lily was focused on partying, boys, and diets. They had nothing in common, and even though Camille had never said it in so many words, I knew that before I came into the picture, Lily had been harassing her to set us up when she wasn’t mini-bullying her in the high school halls for her goodie two-shoes ways.
So, Lily mentioning my sister dampened my already pissy mood.
“But trust me when I say it didn’t come out of left field, Célian. Even when we were a functioning couple, you looked at me, but never really saw me. You merely let me crawl into your bed and attended my family functions so you could get ahead with your merger plan. I wanted to get your attention at any cost. It was stupid, I know, and I regret it, but this has gone too far now. I want you back. I want us back.”
“I want a Ferrari and a month-long vacation in the Caribbean.” And Judith’s mouth around my cock.
Lily flung her arms in the air. “You could get all of those things! So why can’t I get you? I will be good. Faithful. We’ve been together for so many years, Célian. Don’t let this ruin us.”
“No.”
“I’ll let you keep your side pieces. I know they’re nothing but sex. I don’t mind. I’m willing to share…”
“Still a no.”
I placed my glass on the metallic mini bar, and when I turned around, I found her undressing like her satin number was on fire. The heap of fabric fell to the floor, and she tried to wrap her leg around my waist, losing her balance when I took a step back. She reached to grab my hand for balance and fell flat on her ass. I looked down at her, noticing that she hadn’t worn a bra or panties under her dress. I picked up her clothing and threw it at her.
“Get out.”
“I want to get pregnant.”
“There are plenty of men who will be willing to fuck you. I can call you an Uber to the nearest bar. Try not to catch an STD while you’re at it. It’s touch-and-go when you don’t use protection.”
“You’re my future husband. I want you to get me pregnant.”
She was still sitting on the floor, her thighs spread, her pussy staring at me, and I was morbidly bored by this act. Lily had done this every few months since we’d announced our engagement was back on. Normally I ignored her. But tonight, after a disastrous meeting with the bigwigs, a weird encounter with Jude, and talking to Phoenix fucking Townley, I wanted to minimize my contact with her crazy ass.
“Put your clothes on,” I repeated verbally, swiveling to get another drink. My back was to her as I poured scotch into a crystal glass and stared down at the liquid.
Thin arms wrapped around my torso, and Lily’s body made a second appearance, draping around me like an octopus. How many limbs did this woman have? I shook her off again.
“Have you lost your mind?” I turned around, pushing her away. I’d been candid with her from the beginning when I’d agreed to take her back. The chances of us being intimate again weren’t much better than me spontaneously joining the circus.
If she wanted kids, she was welcome to have them with someone else.
If she wanted sex, she was welcome to fuck around.
If she wanted both, she could move one of her one-night stands into the three-story refurbished house her father had purchased for us ahead of the wedding. Because I sure as hell wasn’t going to be found anywhere near it.
“Don’t pretend like you’re immune to sex, Célian. That’s what we do. We’re a mess, but we’re a hot mess.” She slid down to her knees and started fumbling with my zipper. I stared at her in disbelief, swatting her hand away like she was a nagging fly. Someone here was a hot mess, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.
“Are you drunk?” I asked, point blank.
“Drunk enough that you can’t kick me out of here,” she sneered, licking her red-glossed lips.
She underestimated my dislike for her. Because twenty minutes later, she was already tucked inside a cab, me sitting beside her and staring out the window.
“You can’t take me to my apartment. There’s no way to tell what I’ll do to myself. I’m depressed. My fiancé doesn’t want to touch me!” she wailed, sniffling and puffing her hair in the rearview mirror. Our driver, a young Indian man in a Manchester United shirt, rubbed his face with his hand, shaking his head. He had a picture of a woman—his wife, I assumed—and two small boys dangling from a keychain on the rearview mirror. They were all smiling, wearing cricket gear.
I wondered if he wanted my Rolex and three-grand suit like I wanted his normalcy and family life, and if that shit mattered. At all.
“I’m not taking you to your apartment. I’m taking you to your parents’.”
I didn’t believe for one second that Lily would hurt herself—this chick would cold-bloodedly kill a puppy before letting someone who wasn’t a professional cut her bangs—but I wasn’t one to take chances, either. If she was feeling suicidal, her parents could take care of it. I’d been a very doting boyfriend while she went through her dramatic phases, prior to the moment she’d decided to give head to the man who’d created me.
Lily kicked her feet against the driver’s seat. He winced.
“Ugh! I don’t want to go there,” she hiccupped. So fucking drunk. “It’s depressing. My mother cries all the time, and my grandmother looks like a mess. Besides, my sisters are bitches.”
Her sisters, Scarlett and Grace, were a nurse and a physical therapist—both decent women who’d opted out of the media life. Unfortunately for Lily, they frowned upon the lifestyle she led, in which her only contribution to society was having a fine ass and tipping service providers well. She was the only person in her family who didn’t hold a job. Lily claimed there was no need. She was busy planning a wedding, a bachelorette party, and a honeymoon. I wasn’t entirely sure who she was going to take the honeymoon with, but we both knew I’d board a spaceship with a one-way ticket to the sun before getting on a plane with her. At least I hoped we did.
“Your sisters don’t live at home, and what do you mean your mother is crying? Is Madelyn okay?”
Lily tucked her chin and fiddled with her fingers. She looked guilty, and that worried me, because this girl had the moral compass of a human-trafficking pimp.
“Lily?”
My fiancée shot the driver a dirty look through the rearview mirror, asking him not to judge her without realizing she was ten minutes too late. “Scar and Gracie moved in two weeks ago because Grams is not feeling very well.”
I dropped my arm to my side. “What do you fucking mean, not feeling well?”
The one thing I always loved about Lily was her family. Hell, I’d started dating her solely for the fact that her grandmother was always there, with a homemade pie and crazy stories about the guys-and-dolls era of New York. My entire senior year had been spent stuffing my face with Madelyn’s cherry pie and listening to Broadway gossip from the fifties, then stuffing my face with Lily’s pussy and hearing her moan my name like a prayer.
Up until a year ago, I’d taken Madelyn out to Broadway every other month. We’d watch a show, go to a small Italian place, and talk about the news. Her late husband had incorporated Newsflash Corp. It made me a first-class asshole that I’d cut the tradition short when Lily and I broke up. Even after we were back together with our new arrangement, I couldn’t face Madelyn, knowing I lived a lie—one in which I fucked over her family and what her husband had worked for to get ahead in the game. I didn’t offer her granddaughter love. I merely offered her a semi-tolerable relationship.
Lily averted her gaze to the window, blinking away tears.
“She’s…been drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s really old, baby. Ninety-something, or whatever. She had a good life. She lived with us the entire time after my granddad died.”
“Any particular reason I’m just finding out about this now?” I always asked Lily about Madelyn and her parents. Always. Six months ago, when Madelyn was admitted to the hospital with chest pain, I’d rushed in and stayed by her side all night because Lily’s parents were abroad and her sisters lived on the outskirts and couldn’t make it. Of course Lily had been too busy partying.
“I thought if you knew the only thing to keep you with me other than Newsflash Corp was gone, you’d…” Lily wiped her tears quickly, before they ruined her mascara. “She was your favorite. I didn’t know how you’d react, and I didn’t want to know, either.”
“Is. She’s still alive.”
“Not for long, baby. I’m sorry, but there’s no way she’ll make it to our wedding.”
The cab came to a stop in front of her parents’ Park Avenue building. I shoved my hand into my pocket, producing my wallet and plucking out a chunk of notes. I slapped the cash in the driver’s hand and told him to wait under the building. Lily stared at me, a slow grin spreading on her face.
“If I’d known that’s what it takes to get you into my place…”
“Shut up, Lily. I need to say goodbye to Madelyn. This is not about you.”
Half an hour later, I was back in the cab, my mood hitting an all-time low. Madelyn wasn’t awake. Lily’s parents—while happy to see me—were also wondering where the fuck I’d been for the past few months. Things were tense and awkward. They no longer felt like the family I never had, and why would they? I hadn’t bothered to pick up their calls in months.
By marrying Lily, sticking it to my father, and finalizing the merger, I was not only ruining my own life, I was ruining theirs, too. And that was something I’d yet to consider.
I gave the driver a Brooklyn address I had no business visiting, and asked him to roll the windows down so I could breathe in unrecycled air.
A little while later we stopped in front of Judith’s building. Her living room window was wide open, like I’d known it would be. Jude’s entire personality was inviting. Her generosity and kindness said come in, and I wanted to stomp into her territory and conquer every inch of her life. I sat in the cab and stared into her window, realizing I was acting like a creep, and not giving half a shit. The cheap yellow lightbulb of her foyer flickered, and because she was living on the ground floor, I could see that there was a small table set for dinner, with a salad bowl, pasta, and garlic bread. Basic, but I knew it would taste better than the bluefin tuna sushi I was going to have for dinner.
“Sir?” The driver cleared his throat.
I slapped some more money into his hand without taking note of how much it was.
“A few more minutes.”
I’m way past creeper and treading into restraining-order territory.
“Of course.”
You should probably pick up the phone and fucking report it, man. I would. In a heartbeat.
Five minutes later, Robert walked into the dining room, easing slowly into his chair. He still looked fragile and older than his years, but he had a smile on his face. Less than a minute later, Judith appeared wearing a blue and white Yankees hoodie and tiny high-waist shorts. Her legs were tan, muscular, and glorious. She was laughing and mounding pasta onto her dad’s plate. He coughed and she stopped laughing, walked over to his seat, and rubbed his back.
He caught her hand in his, looked up. They shared a smile.
His lips moved. “I’m okay, JoJo. Really. I’m fine.”
She cracked two beers and poured them into tall glasses, her lips moving, smiling. She was singing.
I looked away, because I didn’t expect to feel the way I did—like I wanted her and envied her and pitied her.
Wanted her because she was tailor-made for me.
Envied her because she had a real family, or whatever was left of it.
And pitied her because I couldn’t quite let go, and I didn’t do love. Only hate and anger and revenge.
One thing was for sure, Judith Humphry and Lily Davis weren’t cut from the same cloth, and I wanted to wear only one of them.
One girl disarmed me, the other fucked me up, and over.
One girl was loyal, the other shallow and empty.
One claimed she was mine, but it was the other I wanted to own.
