by Shen, LJ
“You can answer it if you need to.” Don’t cry.
“I don’t need to.”
“I will never understand your relationship with her.”
“That makes the two of us.”
So end it! I wanted to scream. His phone started dancing on the blanket again. I rose on my forearms, as he sent the call to voicemail once again.
“I want to go home.”
“Chucks…”
His phone began to vibrate for the third time. Célian muttered, “Jesus Christ” and shoved it in the duffel bag, zipping it shut and throwing it against the tree.
He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. “Hey, hey…”
I stood and began to clean everything up. He didn’t say anything else until we’d arrived at his building. I continued toward the train station, and he groaned, easily catching up with my steps.
“Let me get your ass home.”
“Leave me alone, Célian.” I stopped. Hot anger bubbled and sizzled behind my ribcage. “Huh? How about that? How about stop doing this thing where you treat me like I mean something, only to go and marry someone else? Because it doesn’t matter that you don’t love her, or touch her. If anything, it is much, much worse. You’re not giving up on us—whatever we are—for some great love. You’re canceling it for some sick need to get back at your father. And yes, falling into Milton’s arms would have been wrong, but wrapping your arms around Lily is nothing short of disastrous. So don’t you dare lecture me.”
“The asshole fucked my fi—”
“Yes. I heard. Many, many times. So what if he did?” I cut him off, balling my hands into fists. “Him doing something wrong doesn’t give you the right to do something even worse.” I pushed his chest. Jesus Christ—what was I doing?
Jesus, filing his nails: “Using my name to excuse yourself of bad behavior, as per usual.”
“He was the one who sent Phoenix to Syria. He was the one who insisted we keep it from her and keep them apart. But somehow her death is my fault?” he yelled in my face, as if I was the one accusing him. “Fuck. That.”
“Stop the blame game, Célian. Every relationship you touch wilts. Every connection you make perishes. I don’t want to burn. I want to flourish. I deserve to bloom.”
I turned around again, heading for the station. This time he grabbed my wrist so hard I thought he was going to yank my arm off. I think he realized it, too, by the way he withdrew his hand quickly and gathered me into a hug—a hug I wanted to reject but chose to drown in, a hug I knew would catch me the right way if I ever fell, from a man who’d made no promises to be there when I needed him.
I wrapped my arms around his body, he buried his face in my hair, and for a few long seconds, we didn’t say anything. Every bad feeling was crushed between our pressing chests.
“Weren’t you the one who said you can’t fall in love?” he sneered after a few beats, cocking his head sideways. “What happened to that?”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“I care.” He took a step back, slapping his fist over his chest. “I should have been spending time with your father today. Instead, I took you on a goddamn date,” he spat the word out like it was poisonous.
I couldn’t even deal with the idea of him hanging out with my dad on a regular basis. When did that start happening?
“Know when the last time I took someone on a date was? Sixteen. Pretty sure I did that for a hand job. Since then, I don’t have to try. I’ve never tried.”
I snorted, too aware of the fact that an audience had gathered around us. “Should I feel special right now?”
His jaw locked, and his eyes darkened, like he’d remembered who he was. Who I was. “At least have the decency to be honest with yourself, Chucks. You don’t want me to care. You want me, period.”
I turned around and gave him the one thing he did not unrightfully yet claim.
My back.
“All I’m saying is he’s like a half-priced facelift in an unregistered clinic in Eastern Europe. I would still do it, even knowing it’s deadly.” Grayson tossed a piece of Romaine lettuce into his mouth and chewed loudly.
We were sitting at Le Coq Tail on our lunch break—me, him, Ava, and Phoenix. It had been a few days since my failed date—or whatever that was—with Célian, and in a moment of weakness I’d decided to confide in my close friends about the affair. Although, suffice it to say, they’d already had a pretty good idea.
“Trust me, girl, we can all see Célian’s appeal.” Ava sucked hard on the straw swimming in her glass of Diet Coke. “But consider it your official intervention. After we got a first-row seat to the shitshow called your relationship, I can honestly say you need to put a lid on that thing before your crazy starts to simmer.”
I bumped my fists together twice, Friends-style. “I’m not crazy.”
I was seventy-percent sure of that statement.
Ava clucked her tongue. “Neither was Lily. I think it’s something about the Laurent dick. They make their women unbalanced. I heard Célian’s mother is not the sanest, either.”
“We’re casual.” I tried another tactic.
Gray pouted and rolled his eyes. “Is that why he casually claimed your ass a la Khal Drogo saving his princess from an army of savages when you had lunch on our floor last week? Admit it. You got your boss pussy-spelled.”
“That’s not a word,” Phoenix pointed out, pointing his sandwich at Grayson. “But it damn straight should be.”
“What do you think?” I turned to Phoenix.
I knew Célian had paid him a visit the other day, and I knew he’d ordered him to stay away from me, beyond platonically. A part of me was furious with Célian, and another hoped what I thought he couldn’t admit to himself: that I wasn’t the only person falling around here, and he, too, didn’t have a parachute to save him from the plunge.
It’s just sex.
It’s just a distraction.
You can’t fall in love.
You’ve never fallen in love.
Phoenix bit the inside of his cheek.
“Are you high?” Ava asked. “Phoenix and Célian hate each other.”
But Phoenix looked up and told me point blank, “I think you’re his atonement. He wants to save you, but you’re the one who needs to save him.”
I did a double take, placing my roast beef sandwich on my plate.
He looked serious. “I’ve known Célian for a few years now—since before I started working at LBC. I’ve seen him and Lily together—even when they were really together.” He lifted his chin, his voice cracking. “Célian looks at you the way I looked at Camille, like he would burn the world for you. Just because he doesn’t want to recognize it doesn’t make it any less true. If the rumors surrounding him and his family are correct…” He averted his gaze to Ava and Gray, and that’s when I knew he knew about Lily and Célian’s father, probably through James Townley, who had his hand and ears everywhere in the LBC building. “Then Célian’s trust in people is nonexistent, and rightly so. He is calloused, distrustful, and hardened, but he is also screwed, and he knows it.”
“He’s never going to leave Lily, is he?” I rubbed my forehead, feeling a looming headache pushing at the back of my nose.
“He might.” “No.” “Yes.” The three of them spoke in unison.
And that’s when I chose to laugh, instead of cry.
That day I made sure I avoided Célian in the newsroom. He was business as usual, taking Elijah and a few other men to lunch and then disappearing in and out of the sixtieth floor for meetings all day. When I got back home, I threw some chicken nuggets in the oven and took a box of mac and cheese out of the cupboard. I was in no mood to fix myself something fresh. Dad, however, had been eating a lot healthier since the experimental program had begun. They sent him special meals to complement his treatment. I untied my rain jacket and threw it on the couch after I started hot water on the stovetop, kicking my shoes into the hallway.
“Dad?�
� I called.
I checked the living room, bathroom, and then his bedroom. He wasn’t there. Groaning in frustration, I texted him: Where R U? When will you learn to give a girl a heads up when you’re gone? I’m worried.
And selfish, I inwardly bit out. Having Dad around was convenient. I could coddle him all I liked, essentially forgetting about Célian and his looming wedding. My phone flashed with a text message immediately.
Dad: Sorry! At Mrs. Hawthorne’s. Please feel free to come upstairs. She made cherry pie.
I shook my head, laughing to myself. Could my father be falling in love at the same time I was falling apart?
Could his sick body experience something my healthy one couldn’t feel?
Have fun, and send her my love.
Dad: Will do, sweetie. Maybe she can make some more pie this weekend and we can invite Milton?
I decided that there was enough heartbreak to go around between all of us, so I kept the lie alive, though it nearly killed me.
I’d like that, Dad. A lot.
As far as I was concerned, crazy had a smell.
It was flowery body lotion and Chanel No. 5. And it diminished my appetite the minute it crawled into my nostrils through the open door of my office.
The day had been shitty to begin with. Judith was working hard on giving me the best fucking leads to land on my desk in the past year, while simultaneously avoiding me.
I wanted to marry Lily slightly less than I wanted to fuck a cactus on live television. I knew it would bring a lot of joy to my father to know I’d given up on world domination and Newsflash Corp, and that Maman would be terribly disappointed—not because she wanted grandchildren, but because she’d have loved for me to become the next Richard Branson. Regardless, I did deserve the media mogul throne. But even I had limits.
And they were currently being tested. The unbearably sweet scent was followed by a loud thump.
“Where is sheeeee?” a manic screech pierced the silence of the entire floor.
I looked up from my laptop and found my fiancée standing atop a desk in the newsroom, clad in one of her horrendously expensive wrap mini dresses and Louboutin heels. Always red. Always black. Lily didn’t have moods; she had obsessions with looking rich.
She grabbed a monitor and crashed it on the floor, sending Jessica and Elijah jumping backward with a shriek. Kate stood from her seat and galloped in Lily’s direction. I stood and made my way to the newsroom, looking for Jude. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Good. Lily wasn’t above starting a cat fight, but if I had to put my money on a winner, it would be Judith.
“Lily,” Kate said with calm authority, “if you want to leave this place without a security escort and handcuffs, I’d strongly suggest you remove yourself from the desk and stop breaking things.”
“Shut up, bitch. For all I know it’s you he’s having an affair with.” Lily sniffed, pointing her long fake nail at Kate.
I marched into the room and stopped at the desk she stood on. The rest of my newsroom stared up at Lily like she was Moses delivering the Ten Commandments, but she didn’t seem to notice me, perhaps because she was more occupied with having a public meltdown.
“So you think Célian is having an affair?” Kate tapped her lips, musing.
“I know he is! Someone has been coming to his building. I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Oh, Lordy,” Kate chirped.
Coincidentally or not, the desk Lily stood on belonged to Judith. I didn’t know how Jude would react if she found out her monitor had been smashed by this chick, but I was going to guess Lily wouldn’t be the only one screaming in this room.
“Lily, you’re embarrassing yourself, but more importantly, you’re an embarrassment to me. Get down immediately,” I commanded, snapping my fingers at her.
But as I said it, I realized that it wasn’t true. Lily did not embarrass me. In fact, she’d stopped triggering any type of emotion in me, and world domination just wasn’t quite enough to suffer her presence, even if only on paper.
We were a match made in Manhattan royalty heaven, but in the end, we’d put each other through hell. And in this very moment, I was done. If that meant that I was going to be a little less rich and a little less ruthless, I was willing to make that sacrifice to get rid of this pest.
Because even Lily’s dear family wasn’t enough anymore.
They weren’t mine. They’d never be mine.
“Who is she, Célian?” She stomped her foot on Judith’s notebook, denting the pages and creating a hole right in the middle.
My teeth slammed together, locking my jaw so a curse wouldn’t come out.
“Do you love her? Do you?” she whined.
I took my phone out, done with her games.
“You’d call security on your fiancée?” She raised her arms in wonder and her lack of panties showed. She was naked underneath the dress, no doubt for me.
“On the fucking pope, if he interfered with my staff’s work. Last chance before you spend the next few hours in jail,” I said dryly.
People behind me chuckled and whispered. I hated that we were a spectacle, but I liked that she’d played right into my hands. She’d just provided me with a golden opportunity to dump her ass with little to no social consequences, and Judith wouldn’t think it was about her.
Because it wasn’t.
Judith was just a fuck.
A brilliant fuck, but nonetheless a disposable one.
Lily lowered herself with a groan, sliding her ass to the desk and scooting down. She landed on her heels with a whimper and ran toward me, throwing her arms over my neck and weeping into my shirt.
“Why, Célian? I thought we were getting better, and now I have to hear that my fiancé is taking a new girl places? That she visits his building?”
I should have been disturbed by the amount of information Lily was privy to, but after all, her entire life consisted of sitting around in coffee shops and gossiping. For all I knew, she had socialite friends living in my building.
I retrieved Jude’s notebook and pocketed it. “Apologize to Kate and get into my office.”
Kate stood behind Lily and shook her head, telling me I shouldn’t let her get away with it.
“But she hates me.” Lily stomped her feet, whining.
“Can’t deny that.” Kate lifted her hands in surrender, and everyone laughed.
I looked around the human circle that had formed around us and realized everyone in it looked at Kate with love and Lily with sheer disgust.
As far as they were concerned, she was a spoiled little bitch. And as far as they were concerned, I endorsed that kind of behavior. I would berate someone for days for making a grammatical error in a news report, yet I was choosing to marry someone who thought yass was a word?
“Inside my office, right now,” I murmured through gritted teeth.
We turned and made our way to the hallway, and that’s when I saw Judith standing at the entrance of the newsroom, still clutching her phone to her ear. She was on a call, probably something Syria related. We were running a primetime special about it this weekend, and she’d been working extra hard to get all the numbers and statistics.
Her eyes ping-ponged between me and Lily for about ten seconds before she took a step aside and let us through.
Lily scowled at her, then barked, “What the hell are you looking at? You’re the prime suspect, bitch.”
“Huh?” Judith’s eyebrows shot up. She ended her call and tucked her phone into her pocket. “What is she talking about?”
“I’m talking about the woman who’s been keeping my fiancé up all nigh—”
But she never got to finish that sentence, because I pulled her into an embrace like she was an animal in captivity, slapping my hand over her mouth and dragging her into my office.
Judith turned a nice shade of tomato red, her eyes widening in alarm.
“Back to work, Humphry,” I barked.
“Yes, sir,” she said, but her voice
flatlined, delivering the news that I was in even deeper shit than I’d previously thought.
In my office, Lily threw her body over the couch and began to sob.
“It’s the blond girl, isn’t it? She looks like a homewrecker. All sweet and pretty with her please-save-me cheap outfit. And Converse. Who wears fucking Converse with a dress?”
Judith Humphry does, and it makes me so hard I’m pretty sure the rest my body turns anemic.
“Shut up,” I ordered, bracing myself against my desk and staring her down.
I swear the teenaged version of her I’d dated over a decade ago had been sane. Shallow, but sane. Then again, when you’re a teenager, you’re not looking for a great intellectual opponent. Her ass and agreeable nature had been enough to keep me satiated for the first decade of our relationship.
“You know I can find out with little to no effort, right?” She perked up on the black leather couch, sniffing again. Her mascara ran down her cheeks in thick streaks, and it made her look like Alice Cooper, not to mention that her dress was more appropriate for a Vegas strip club than a newsroom. She unwrapped said dress, flashing me her tits and pink pussy.
“That won’t be necessary, and neither will strip teasing,” I deadpanned.
Her eyes brightened. “Does that mean you’re getting rid of her?”
“Not her. You,” I said simply.
We stared at each other for a few seconds while she digested this information, her face transforming from agonized to amused. Did she not understand English? Why was she so smug?
“You can’t break up with me. What about Newsflash Corp?”
“I’ll live without it. Getting rid of you is top priority. Put some clothes on.”
She stood up and shoved my chest, not moving me an inch—partly because I was braced against the desk, but also because I was quite literally twice her size. I wondered if she realized the right-hand wall of my office was made of glass, then remembered that she gave very little shit about who saw her naked.