by Shen, LJ
Lily had finally had the audacity to tuck her shirt into her skirt, roll the latter down her bare thighs and wipe her lips, running like a headless chicken across the room. She’d reached out, about to throw herself at me.
“Get anywhere near me and your life, reputation, and social circle, as you know them, will cease to exist.” I’d sipped my drink, crossing my legs.
She’d halted in place, collapsing onto the carpeted floor. My father had chuckled, taking his time to zip himself up. I remembered thinking no son should see his father’s penis at that age, unless it was because he needed to give him a bath because he was too sick to do it himself.
“Son,” he’d finally greeted.
I’d smiled, thinking, Not anymore. And maybe not ever.
“Cela aurait dû être toi sous ce bus et non ta soeur” he’d said. It should have been you under that bus, not your sister. But his tone had been kind, apologetic—like he’d been pleading Lily’s case. Bastard.
I’d answered him in French. “You know, Papa, I wish that too, every single day. And I know why you do. Because the minute I get the chance, I’ll ruin you. Completely.”
After Jude and I reached the second floor and destroyed the video, we went back to the terrace shared another drink with our colleagues, blissfully ignoring each other—another thing about her that made my dick happy. She wasn’t clingy or needy or even particularly interested in claiming me or my attention. She did her own thing. Like me, she simply had needs that needed to be met. Call me a saint, but I was happy to take one (or six) for the team.
When it was time to go home, most people shared an Uber, others opted to walk, and many just cabbed it and saved the receipts for expense purposes. I didn’t want Jude to take the subway back home this late, but I didn’t want to offer her a ride, either. It wasn’t worth the aftermath of endless gossip and possible false assumptions on her end. I barely looked my staff in the face, let alone offered them a ride. This led me to resort to asking a rather pathetic favor of Kate, who, for an unknown reason, had decided to get here in a car.
“First things first, thanks for the pussy breath.” She took a pull of her beer and a step away from me.
“Figured you’d appreciate it,” I deadpanned, unblinking. “You need to give Judith a ride.”
“We live in NoHo. She lives in Brooklyn,” she stated matter-of-factly, as if logic had any place in my decision.
I couldn’t care less if she lived on the moon, and the way I unclasped her fingers from her drink, downed it, and discarded it in the trash communicated that perfectly to her. Kate shook her head, poking my chest. “Fine. But you should really dump the lollipop in a wig.”
“The lollipop in a wig has a pedigree and a ten-percent share of my company.”
Besides, Lily was hardly a factor. Even if I were officially single, I still wouldn’t openly court an employee. Not that I wanted to court Judith.
“Funny, I didn’t peg you for a man who’d allow someone to have him by the balls.”
“I wouldn’t allow Lily to suck them, let alone hold them,” I quipped. “My tolerating her is strictly business.”
“Then you’re a very bad businessman, because she has leverage over you.”
Shooing Kate away with a wave, I got back to entertaining my investors and colleagues, but not before ordering her to never mention her favor for me to Jude. The feisty little fou didn’t do weakness or vulnerability, which made breaking her in bed so much more fun.
A few minutes later I watched them make their way to the exit and tossed my head back, knocking down another drink. I realized I hadn’t thought of Camille the entire evening.
A sharp pain sliced through my gut, and I let it bleed agony, because I deserved it.
Because I was a bastard, and everyone knew it.
Camille.
Maman.
Mathias.
Lily.
Jude.
Kate.
And anyone who’d ever worked with me.
The Warrior knew that, our juices still smeared on his gladiator boot.
Even the silent walls of the art room knew, and the security tape we’d stomped on and hidden in the bottom of the security room’s trash.
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 eye
s 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.
