I was bouncing on the balls of my feet, staring at Célian’s locked office door.
Happiness tasted weird in my mouth—not unpleasant, but surprising all the same. I was so used to worrying, I’d forgotten how it felt to simply be. But this morning had started off with Dad dashing out to his experimental treatment, grabbing the bag with the lunch and snacks I’d made for him (“Forever the worrier, just like your mom,” he’d said as he kissed the crown of my head) on his way to the cab waiting for him downstairs. I’d asked him a thousand times if he was sure they paid for the transportation, and he’d said yes.
It made no sense, but I let it slide. It had filled my heart with hope, even before I got the text message from Phoenix.
My new straight, male BFF said he couldn’t follow up on the lead he’d mentioned to me because he was having a father-son retreat with his dad. I thought it must be weird to have James Townley as your dad, but that was all Phoenix knew. He left me the details he’d received and asked me to go for it and let him know how it went.
Célian arrived at his office at nine o’clock sharp, wearing a navy two-piece wool suit and the usual get-the-fuck-out-of-my-face expression. I had started to get used to his air. Dare I say, it made my lady parts tingle and fist-bump one another.
I squeaked internally when he arrived. He pushed a hand into his pocket and produced his key, unlocking his door.
“Can I help you?” he asked dryly.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” I clapped my hands together.
The first rundown meeting for the show was usually at ten o’clock. I couldn’t wait an entire hour to tell him about the lead I’d just confirmed on the phone, and Kate and Jessica were still out of the office.
He pushed his door open, his face blank. I followed him in, plopping on the seat in front of him. I opened Kipling, my notebook.
“I can’t fuck you here,” he said, tossing his phone on his desk and taking off his blazer.
My head snapped up and my mouth slacked.
He threw two mint gums into his mouth and took a sip of his coffee, going through his morning routine. “But if you want to get dicked tonight, you can come over after work. Separately, of course.”
I nodded, pretending to consider it. I did want to have sex with Célian again. We were as good in the bedroom as we were bad for each other out of it. But for him to assume that’s the reason I was there was downright ridiculous.
“Tell you what—I’ll tell you why I’m really here, you’ll apologize for being an ass, and we can both move on with our lives. Deal?”
He sat down. “Okay, little grasshopper, let’s see what you’ve got.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed my notepad his way, speaking fast. “Phoenix texted me early this morning. He has a huge lead but doesn’t have time to chase it. It’s about—”
“Stop hanging out with Phoenix.” He cut into my words.
I clamped my mouth shut, frowning. What? “Excuse me?”
“You’re excused, because you didn’t know what kind of a douchebag he is. But now that you’re fully informed, drop him. He’s bad news.”
“And you’re good news?” I huffed.
“I’m the best fucking news, have been for two consecutive years, and I have the numbers to back it up.”
Okay. Well. I did kind of step into that one.
I shook my head. “You can’t tell me what to do, and you’re wasting time right now talking about Phoenix when we have a huge headline to chase,” I seethed, snapping my fingers in front of his rather amused face.
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.
“What happened to your sister? How did she…?”
“Judith Humphry?” A pudgy man in a wrinkly, mud-colored suit appeared in front of our table. Célian withdrew his hand from mine and straightened, standing to introduce both of us.
We all sat down, and I wiped my eyes quickly. For the next forty-five minutes, I watched Célian as he grilled the guy like he wasn’t the one doing us a huge favor, but vice versa. I asked a lot of questions, too, but in the end, it was Célian who coaxed him to come speak on air. He was relentless, charming, and extremely convincing. Finn Samson was worried for his job—and rightly so—but Célian spoke to his heart, reminding him of his morals and all the holocaust-surviving pensioners who had lost so much money.
“Speaking up will not get you fired. If anything, it will get you a fat promotion. Anyone touches your position, we’re going to make it such a shit show, the whole nation will back you up. Every network in New York will rally for you, and that’s a fact—and a promise.” Célian handed him his business card.
That was the scariest thing about my boss. He could talk you into donating your organs to science while you were still very much alive. He had the uncanny ability to make you want to please him, even though he didn’t do anything to earn such devotion.
When we left the deli, I was still disoriented from Célian’s dazzling show of authority. And I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to rock the boat. I hadn’t expected him to open up the way he had before Samson showed up, and I didn’t want to push him for more. Célian Laurent was like a flower. To enjoy his full bloom, I needed to bide my time. I was also embarrassed for taking his hand and crying a second before we’d met an interviewee. So much for keeping it cool and professional.
The cab ride was completely silent, and when we were about two blocks from LBC, the traffic got so bad Célian ordered the driver to pull to the curb and let us walk the rest of the way.
“Are you sure?”
“Do I look like a person who is unsure of anything he does?”
“Okay, man, okay.”
Guess we’d be walking the rest of the way. Célian’s eyes were set dead on the street ahead of us, and his face was murderous when he said, “She was upset and ran straight into traffic. Got hit by a bus in front of my own eyes.”
I coughed on a bitter lump of agony, choking back a sob I dared not release. Oh my God. His sister. Camille. He stopped. So did I. People brushed past us, muttering profanity, the lights and faces blurring into nothing. All I could see was him.
“We’d had a fight.”
“What were you fighting about?” Every single word I uttered was cocked and ready to create an explosion. I wasn’t normally like this with Célian, but I wasn’t scared of him. I was terrified for him. I hadn’t known he harbored so much pain.
We resumed our walk to the next traffic light. He stared at his huge hands. “Camille was my baby sister, talented as hell and seriously fucking beautiful, inside and out. You remind me of her in the way you’re passionate about a story. Only she had the same feeling for fashion.”
That curved my mouth in a smile. I believed him. Célian looked like a god among men. There was no reason to think Camille would be anything less than striking, not to mention ambitious and highly intelligent.
“Camille only had one problem, and that was her boyfriend.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
The light turned green, and he seemed in a hurry to get to the office. I had to practically jog to keep up with his pace.
“Because the bastard’s name was Phoenix Townley.”
I sucked in a breath. Phoenix represented a tragedy bigger than he could shoulder.
“Camille and Phoenix had a bit of an illicit affair at work. I didn’t particularly like it. Then again, I hardly gave a fuck about who she was fucking as long as she was safe. My father, on the other hand, lost his shit. Cam and Phoenix were young and volatile, not to mention they once did very unprofessional things against her office door that I will never be able to erase from my memory—and trust me, I’ve tried to forget those sounds.” He cringed visibly. “If there’s one thing my father and I were in agreement about—and it’s not a stretch when I say it was literally just one thing—it was that Camille and Phoenix weren’t a good match. Phoenix was reckless as hell, and she was a good apple he wanted to take a bite from and throw in the trash. He was a damn good reporter, despite the fact that his daddy got him the position, but he also liked crack and whores, two things that didn’t mix well with the fact that he was dating my baby sister.”
Jesus Christ. Phoenix had done a lot of growing up during the time he was away. I knew that, because there was no way the man I knew today was a drug addict.
“I’m not even sure why the fuck I’m telling you this.” Célian ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head, exasperated. “But I’m halfway through, so I better finish. My father decided to send Phoenix off to the Middle East. You can never run out of action there. I tried to convince him not to play God, because that shit is dangerous—doesn’t matter what the cause is. Camille was livid, even after Phoenix was gone and my father told her about the crack and the whores, trying to convince her to forget him. As he put it, Phoenix had clearly chosen his work over her, so there was nothing to lament. But she was lovesick. Or maybe she was just sick, but she loved Phoenix, and Mathias didn’t respect that.”
We now stood in front of LBC’s building, neither of us making a move to go inside. There was a finality about stepping back into the realm of the office, where we’d have to remain professional, that we didn’t seem to want to face.
My lower lip trembled, and I felt my nostrils moisten. I wanted to cry so badly, but I kept myself strong for him.
“What did you tell her?” I asked. “What made her run into the street?”
“After he’d been gone a few months, she decided to go visit him. They’d been secretly talking and were going to meet in Istanbul. She sold it to Mathias as a business trip. She’d write a piece about the thriving fashion industry in Turkey. She told me she wanted to marry Phoenix, that she couldn’t sleep or eat or shit without thinking about him. She’d lost so much weight. She said he’d been clean for a while, that they were going to give it another shot, that Mathias and I didn’t know the whole story. In that moment I felt so filthy about what my father had done that I decided to tell the truth. I told her Phoenix had never had any doubts about her, but that Mathias had kicked him out of her life, shipped him away, and I hadn’t tried hard enough to stop him—probably none of us could stop him.”
“But you didn’t have a hand in doing it,” I said softly.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I couldn’t stop Mathias. His hatred for the Townleys knows no bound. If you think I’m a hateful fucker, you’ve seen nothing yet.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Townley is actually loved and respected? Because his son didn’t ruin his marriage? The fuck should I know? To me, they’re just another champagne-and caviar-eating family LBC needs to feed.”
Célian bowed his head. His face was stoic, but his eyes bled pain. He looked like The Warrior, shredded into ribbons and tough as steel.
“The moment I confessed, she bolted. The hurt and rage I saw in her eyes… I ran after her when I saw her under the bus’s wheels. Dragged her out. At first I thought she was okay. There was no blood or anything. She died eight hours later of internal bleeding. My father can’t look me in the face anymore because I told her the truth, and I don’t exactly blame him. If it wasn’t for the other shit between us, I would actually understand.”
Silence hung in the air. I wanted to hug him, but knew better than to try. So I did the next best thing, the thing my mom used to do whenever I cried, which wasn’t that often. She’d kiss the tips of her fingers and press them against my heart.
He scowled. “The fuck you doing, Brooklyn girl?”
“Kissing your pain away,” I whispered, not wondering, even for a second, how he knew where I lived, “Manhattan prince.”
He turned around and headed for the building silently, and I followed suit. The entire elevator ride upstairs, I thought about Phoenix. About what it must be like for Célian to see him around after what happened. About the tattoo on Phoenix’s forearm, of the smiling girl. Of Camille. And how he, too, was still dealing with the aftermath of her death. About how it must feel for Célian to spend time with his father here every day, or even look at his fiancée’s face. August. My mind reeled. He said they were getting married in August. Less than three months away.
The elevator dinged, and we both rushed out. I didn’t dare look at his face after all he’d shared, after how he’d opened up to me. Then it occurred to me that my boss didn’t know anything about my personal life—not about Dad, not about Mom, and certainly not about Milton. I arrived at my desk, sat back, and stared at nothing for half an hour.
A message from Grayson in our company’s chatroom snapped me out of my reverie.
Grayson: Reminding you to call your insurance like you asked me to.
Grayson: Another friendly reminder: I’m not your PA.
Grayson: Mr. Laurent, I know you’re probably reading this, so let me just say I admire the suit you’re in today. Not that I’m checking you out. And not that you don’t normally deliver in the fashion sense. How do you undo a message? God, if you can’t send me an Abercrombie and Fitch model as a boyfriend, at least send me filters.
Oh, yes. I’d told Grayson I had an insurance issue so I wouldn’t forget. I’d lied.
I took my phone out and dialed the collection agency to talk about different payment plans. Now that I had a real job, I needed to start working through our debt.
I gave the representative on the other end of the line my name and details, then asked if she needed my credit card number. It was going to suck to see the money finally coming into my bank account just evaporating right back out.
She snapped her gum in my ear, her voice lethargic. “No need, ma’am. Says here the account’s been settled.”
I blinked, staring at all the yellows and oranges and reds on my screen, not really deciphering her words. “Excuse me?”
She sighed. “Says here a payment has been made. You no longer owe us anything, ma’am. Anything else you need help with today?”
I raised my head and looked into the conference room, where Célian sat with Mathias and a bunch of guys in suits he referred to as bigwigs. They were probably discussing money issues and ratings. Those were the meetings the staff wasn’t invited to. I’d once heard Mathias shouting at Célian that he was sheltering us from the bad stuff, and Célian had laughed and retorted, “As your son, let me assure you, you have a lot to learn about protecting what’s yours. Take a fucking seat, old man.” Célian was talking to one of the suits animatedly, then he smiled his patronizing smile and patted the back of his hand like he was the most adorable idiot he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Could he?
Did he…?
Mathias stared at him with a disdain that chilled my bones. All the other men and women in the room stared at him intently, listening to every word he said.
No.
Célian was too brutal, too callous to do something like this.
Besides, how would he even know?
Then, as if sensing my gaze, his face angled toward mine and he shot me a look I couldn’t decode. Anger? Annoyance? Desire? All three?
“Ma’am? Ma’am, is there anything else I can do for you today?”
I shook my head and got back to the woman on the phone. “No, everything is perfectly clear. Thank you very much.”
