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  My father looked smug in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting on a yacht—hopefully somewhere with Sudanese pirates—his curly white chest hair peeking out of his collar, a cigar between his teeth, and a giggling woman in his lap. Maman kept her mouth pursed as he coughed out the details of the string of deals he wanted to sign, laying out all the millions the network was going to make.

  The rest of the board ate it up the minute they heard the magic word revenue.

  “LBC is a business like any other. It’s not a nonprofit organization.”—Bigwig 1

  “And the fact that the main show is performing just as well despite the cut in staff means the extra employees weren’t necessary.”—Bigwig 2

  “No, it means that my remaining employees are breaking their backs to maintain the level of accuracy and quality our viewers are used to so you can treat your third wives to a new set of tits,” I stated matter-of-factly, pushing my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t punch the screen.

  “My son is quite the romantic,” my father snorted around his cigar. “He’s a fine newsman, and a very bad businessman. Just look at his recent choices. Did you know he recently broke off his engagement to the beautiful Lily Davis, heiress to Newsflash Corp, because he fell in love with a junior reporter? From Brooklyn, no less.”

  Now I pierced through the fabric of my pockets and tore my slacks. Fuck if I knew how he’d gained this information, but my top guess was it had come from Lily herself. I didn’t know where she’d gotten this information, but I was certain we had a mole, because the chances of Judith opening her mouth and talking about us to anyone who wasn’t Ava and Gary were nonexistent.

  A quick glance at her face confirmed she was Team #MaimMathias. She paled like the moon, standing up and excusing herself from the room.

  My mother refocused her attention on the screen.

  “You’re being absurd, Mathias.” Her red-lipsticked mouth puckered.

  “Am I, my darling Iris? I married you and took half of what you have.” He laughed evilly. “Clearly absurd is not the word you’re looking for. May I suggest harsh?”

  “If suggestions were your strong suit, you wouldn’t be held by the balls by your son.” I rolled up my sleeves, getting tired of his little charade.

  Maman reddened quietly next to me.

  “The last thing you want is for me to really go after you, Father Dearest. As for the deals—they’re going to ruin our reputation and bulldoze over all the hard work we’ve done. We might as well publicly endorse kids drinking and teens catching STDs. By the time LBC dies, you won’t be in charge anymore, and I’ll be the one expected to provide the answers.”

  Mathias fingered an invisible goatee, pretending to mull over my last statement. “What do you say, fellas? You’re the bigwigs. My son, on top of being a romantic, also hates money. Should we or should we not take the deals?”

  My mother waved her manicured hand.

  “I think we should pass on the deals and add more interns to the newsroom to maintain the current ratings.”

  “I’m with Mathias on this one, Iris. My apologies.”—Bigwig 1

  “Me too.”—Bigwig 2

  “Me three.”—Bigwig 3

  I slapped the laptop shut before my mother could answer, then threw it across the room. It crashed against the wall, fell to the floor, and broke in half. My mother sat back in her cushioned couch. Her chin wrinkled, like she was about to cry.

  “Don’t say anything,” I warned.

  “If you want to fix this, you need to talk to Lily.”

  Fuck you, Maman.

  She reached for another cigarette, blowing the smoke to the side. I stood up and paced, running my fingers through my hair.

  “Swallow your pride. Take her back. Judith is a nice girl, but there will be a lot of Judiths walking in and out of your life. There’s only one Lily who can save you. Protect your mother’s network.”

  “My mother’s network?” I spat, laughing incredulously. “Where the fuck have you been for the last decade, Maman? Even before you moved to Florida, you didn’t give two shits about LBC. You only attended board meetings, and even that was half-heartedly and solely for the chance of screwing Dad over somehow. You could have managed it yourself, but you chose to give it to some incompetent asshole because working is not your jam. I spend ten hours a day in the newsroom. I live it. I breathe it. I eat it. But when I make one decision that has nothing to do with it, it’s suddenly an issue. This network is not yours more than it is mine. Just because Lily was born into the right family doesn’t mean she’s right for me. And that bullshit where you marry someone without standing up to their fucking face? I had a front-row seat to that scenario at home, and I’m sure I’m not spoiling it for you when I say it ended badly. One last thing—Judith is not, in fact, disposable,” I noted. “But I know a few people who are.”

  Now it was my mother’s turn to stand up and throw her hands in the air. “All we ever wanted is for you and your sister to be happy. Don’t give me this holier-than-thou attitude. If I may recall, you’re not innocent, either.”

  I kicked her precious sofa’s frame. The price tag fell, and I took sick pleasure in how symbolic that felt. “Yeah, you made us very fucking happy. Especially the part where Dad sent Camille’s boyfriend to a goddamn war zone to keep him away from her because his blood wasn’t blue enough, then proceeded to fuck my girlfriend. All while you were standing on the sidelines doing what, exactly? Finding more hot, young ass my age? Really, you two should host a talk show on how to raise kids. Or, you know, on how to kill them.”

  She blinked at me, cupping her mouth with the hand that held the cigarette. “I thought you were the one who sent Phoenix away.”

  I turned around, glaring at her. “Huh?”

  She rubbed the side of her forehead, looking around for an imaginary person to explain everything to her. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Lost. She looked lost.

  “When I asked Mathias what happened, he said you sent Phoenix to Syria, and that he would never forgive himself for letting you get away with it.

  “I was mad, Célian, so mad. I divorced him solely for not standing his ground, but I couldn’t divorce you. You’re my baby. I tried so very hard not to hold it against you. I love you so much. I always will, but I didn’t know why you needed to interfere with Camille’s life like that. You and Camille…you were different. I called you Célian because you were like the moon to me. You shone bright in the darkest time of my life. I gave Camille her name because she was virginal, unblemished. She was always so different from us. A free spirit. She loved who she loved and didn’t care about the consequences. That’s what made her different.”

  No, I wanted to correct. That’s what made her good.

  Camille had been happier than the rest of us. Her smile had been contagious. I’d used to tug at her braids and call her sunshine, because her face was round and full of cheeks and always bright. Because I was the moon.

  I shook my head. “He lied. He’s always lied. Why would you ever believe him? Only reason I let him do that was because I figured if I could play house with Lily Davis, she could find another charming fuckboy to piss her daddy off. When I realized she was miserable and told her the truth, she ran into the street.”

  “I thought she was mad at you.”

  “No. She was mad at Mathias.”

  “Then why do you always think it was your fault?” She plopped on the sofa, holding her head in her hands.

  “Because I should have told her somewhere else. Because I should have fought Mathias. Because I fucking failed her.”

  There was a coffee table and an ocean between us, and I realized I hadn’t given Jude the entire truth when she’d asked about my relationship with my mother. In all honesty, I had no relationship to speak of with either of my parents. Truth was, I no longer had a sister, or a fiancée. I was no less lonely than she was.

  “You never loved Lily,” my mother’s voice softened, and her eyes followed suit.

&
nbsp; I shook my head. A year ago I’d cared for her—in some fucked-up way. But to say I didn’t love her now was like saying I disliked eating shit-smeared rocks. A real under-fucking-statement.

  Maman nodded. “Can you save LBC?”

  “Not at the price of being unhappy for the rest of my life.” I tilted my chin up. All the fucked-up mannerisms of a heartless prick had been picked up at home anyway, so she could hardly blame me for them.

  Heart attacks at fifty.

  Nameless girls in bikinis every weekend.

  An ex-wife who would love to see me in a casket.

  Yeah, no thank you. I didn’t want my father’s life. I’d take shitty pasta and a Yankee game in a two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment every day of the week over life in a lonely, sixteen-million-dollar penthouse.

  However, watching my family’s business die was going to make me unhappy. I was headed straight into misery no matter which path I chose.

  Maman stood up, walked cautiously toward me, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed my cheek, her lips halting at my ear.

  “You’re nothing like Mathias,” she whispered, “I promise you.”

  No shit.

  I dragged my suitcase up the stairs to my apartment, letting out a feral groan. Why had I packed my entire room before I left for Florida? Oh, that’s right. Because I’d wanted to dazzle my emotionally stunted boss by showing off my alluring wardrobe, consisting of eighty-year-old librarian’s conservative dresses and an unhealthy amount of Chucks.

  Célian had offered to help me with the suitcase, but I’d politely declined, and I guess he was relieved. He knew Dad still thought I was with Milton. As much as my dad liked him, he would punch both of us in our reproductive organs if he thought I was two-timing my long-term boyfriend.

  Our Floridian getaway had taken a sour turn after we’d left his mother’s place. The stone-skipping and record-shopping was replaced by the usual dark fuck-a-thon in which we were lost in a tornado of feelings and numbness. We’d walked the main street in heavy silence before Célian had dragged me into a Cuban dance club. We’d watched other people dance and grind into one another while we drank tequila.

  “Your father seems to think you fell in love with me.” I’d tried to laugh it off.

  He’d pressed his thumb to my lower lip and pushed it down, licking the inside of it. “My father thinks women should stay in the kitchen and global warming is a hoax. Let’s try not to take him too seriously.”

  “Célian…”

  “I don’t hate you, Judith,” he’d said. “And that’s more than I can say about the rest of the world right now.”

  We’d stumbled back to our hotel suite and had enough sex to repopulate an entire continent—if that was how sex worked. It was angry and sad and intimate. It felt like we’d risen together in the air and evaporated somewhere else safer, better. But in the back of my mind, I still remembered that I was an obstacle to Célian.

  That all of his professional issues could disappear if I stepped out of the picture.

  He could marry Lily. Or at least stay engaged forever.

  He could save LBC.

  He could have everything he’d worked for, for many, many years, and still be the detached bastard who picked up strangers at bars to satisfy his physical cravings.

  Uncomplicated. Straightforward. Simple. Just the way he liked it.

  That Sunday afternoon, I pushed the door to my apartment open and froze on the threshold, my heart dropping to the pit of my stomach. My suitcase fell to the floor with a thud. No.

  My father was sitting at the dining table, having what appeared to be a pleasant conversation with Milton over my favorite Manhattan donuts and cups of coffee. My ex-boyfriend laughed wholeheartedly and pushed something over the table, and that’s when I noticed they were playing Scrabble.

  Fan-freaking-tastic.

  “Oh, there you are!” Milton clapped and swiveled his body toward me in his chair, his face glowing with a genuine smile.

  He looked handsome in a polo shirt and new haircut, but in a generic way. Not only did he not hold a candle to Célian, he didn’t even hold a damp match. Not that beauty had anything to do with the fact that my room service breakfast was threatening to come up my throat for another puke-fest. The other thing Milton ate Célian’s dust at was being faithful—even when we weren’t technically together.

  “Hello.” I threw my keys into the ugly bowl Mrs. Hawthorne had given us by the front door, looking between them. Dad put his letters down and turned in his seat.

  “JoJo! Milton told me all about your weekend in the Hamptons. You shouldn’t have gone straight back to the office when you returned. You could have at least come back here and dropped the suitcase.”

  Milton grinned sadistically, arranging his letters on the board in front of him. “Deceiver. D-e-c-e-i-v-e-r,” he spelled the word out loud. Goose pimples ran down my arms, making the little hairs stand on end.

  “That’s a good one.” My father clapped. “Smart as a whip, son.”

  “Thank you, sir. Baby, can I offer you a heart with a hole?” He grabbed a heart-shaped donut from the open white box on the table, motioning for me to take it. He referred to me as baby, even though I’d spent the weekend doing very grown-up things with someone else, and he knew it. Milton had also known when to come here, which set off the alarms in all of my internal systems. My mouth dried up.

  This is bad.

  “It’s okay. I really stuffed my mouth while I was on vacation.”

  The smile on my lips felt like clay. I hadn’t been planning to tell Dad about Célian when I came back anymore. After the disastrous conference call, I’d felt like I was walking on a tight rope, about to fall from grace and into the arms of heartbreak.

  I knew what would set my lover free of his father’s claws. But it hurt like hell, the concept of letting him go so he could save the one thing he loved.

  But wasn’t that the essence of caring for someone else? Hurting so they wouldn’t have to?

  “Then how about a walk?” Milton perked up like a doting grandmother. “The weather is nice. We haven’t taken a stroll in your neighborhood in a while.”

  That’s because you decided to screw your boss while I was busy running around Manhattan looking for a job.

  Whatever. Getting him out of here wasn’t a bad idea. I hitched a shoulder. “Sure. Let me get freshened up.”

  After a quick bathroom stop, during which I stared in the mirror and promised myself I wasn’t, in fact, going to throttle my ex-boyfriend, I walked out and kissed my father goodbye.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I assured him. I. Not we. The devil was in the details, and I hoped my own mini Satan overheard it while he waved goodbye to my father.

  Milton and I stepped out of the building and took a right turn toward the main road, as we had many times before. I waited for him to talk, because I wasn’t entirely sure of the extent of his knowledge about my love life.

  “You’re welcome for that save.” He jerked his thumb behind his shoulder.

  I pretended to wipe my forehead. “Thanks, Captain Save-a-Bitch. Would you like me to sew you a costume? What’s your superpower, dicking your way up the company ladder?”

  He knocked his shoulder against mine, smiling. “That’s rich from a girl who was about to lose her house five minutes ago and miraculously found a man to pay her debt in exchange for sexual favors.”

  How the hell did he know? I choked on my saliva, coughing as he continued to saunter beside me.

  “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” he said, plucking a wad of leaves from the trees bowing over us.

  I cringed. I hated when he did that. It was a big fuck-you to nature.

  “Your dad told me all about the book. It makes sense now, Jude—that you thought it was your destiny, that you didn’t let me in. You were the sweetest, warmest girlfriend I’ve ever had, but there was always something off about us. I always craved you a little more than you wanted me. And it always drove me craz
y. Elise was…Elise. She made me feel like a big fucking deal, ya know? Smart, funny, young. All the things that didn’t exactly impress you. Suddenly I was resentful that you weren’t the person to tell me all those things.”

  “I’m sorry you felt that way, but this sounds a lot like an excuse, and cheating is not something you resort to. It’s something you decide to do.” I kicked a little stone on the sidewalk. Milton didn’t look down to check the color of my Chucks. He didn’t care.

  “And that’s why I’m here,” he continued. “To tell you I get it. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, Jude. So, so sorry. But it’s time for us to move on. Look, I know how having an affair with Célian Laurent must make you feel invincible. I’ve been there with Elise, too. It’s powerful, right? Makes you think you’re on top of your game. You’re desired by a force of nature, an authority, and you get all the affirmation you need. But it’s not real, baby. What you and I have—that’s real. We sewed our oats, and now it’s time to come back. To us.”

  I stopped in my tracks. He stilled beside me, slanting his head sideways, half-smiling, half-squinting at the sun.

  “Wait. Who told you this?” My voice was a too-full cup of coffee, held by a fragile hand, spilling at the edges.

  “JoJo, it’s not important.”

  “You lost the right to deem what’s important to me the day you stuck your dick in someone else.”

  He frowned and took a step back, and when he blinked, his expression changed. It was like he saw for the first time who I really was, and he didn’t like the view.

  “Are you kidding me here? This is what you’re focusing on? After you came back from a weekend of fucking with your boss—the director of news at LBC, no less—not only am I willing to take you back, but I also cover for your ass and play Scrabble with your goddamn father.”

  “First of all—” I raised my index finger. “He is not my goddamn father. Just my father. My sweet, caring dad, and playing Scrabble with him is hardly a burden. Second of all—” I pointed the same finger at him. “Nobody asked you to cover for me. I haven’t committed a crime. I just wanted to spare my dad the worry of knowing I broke up with you. And thirdly—” I poked his chest, and he stumbled backward, his eyes widening in disbelief. “This conversation is over unless you tell me how you know about my alleged relationship with my boss.”