“You said you were legal-savvy. Now’s a good time to withdraw that hand of yours,” I whispered.

He did. I thought he was going to send me on my way angrily, but he didn’t.

“Was Steve giving you trouble?” His voice didn’t sound like steel anymore, though it was nowhere near soft.

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “Don’t pretend you care. Don’t even try to be the good guy. You’re as bad as they come, and now that you came…”

His mouth twitched with a smile.

“…it is time to move on. Congratulations on your engagement. She’ll make a beautiful bride.”

Grayson: Jude? Are you still there?

Ava: Maybe he fired her :/

Grayson: Maybe he kidnapped her :O

Ava: Stockholm fantasies much?

Grayson: The guy does look like Theo James’s beefed/baller/macho brother. Him not knowing my name aside, I would let him show me a good time even if I ended up in his trunk at the end of the night.

Ava: You need professional help, Gray. I’m not equipped to deal with your type of crazy.

Grayson: It would be a spacious trunk, too, I bet.

Célian: If you two were to read anything more substantial than the National Enquirer, such as our company’s newsletter from three months ago, you would know that messenger chats on our web software are now publicly available to view by any user in the company.

<Grayson left the chatroom>

<Ava left the chatroom>

<Judith sent a gif of Ross from Friends bumping his fists together>

If there was one thing I’d learned from producing news for over a decade, it was that wars are not measured in words, or declarations, or assumptions. They are defined by results, the number of casualties, and land conquered. The colder they are, the longer they last.

I made my way back from picking up my own dry-cleaning once again on a spring afternoon because Miss Humphry, my assistant’s assistant—who’d blackmailed me into the task with a blow job more than a week ago—was adamant I didn’t deserve her help. She had won the first battle.

Currently, Judith was avoiding me. I was avoiding Lily, and my father was loitering around my newsroom, sending Jude looks that made my skin crawl so violently, I was tempted to shed it completely and dump it on my office floor. I thought things could not get any worse, but I’d obviously underestimated the clusterfuck called my life, because sure enough, Dan—the reporter I’d tasked with getting info about Jude—stood at my office threshold when I returned.

“Are you ready for this?”

I was somewhat surprised to learn he’d spent the last week actually working on this and not drinking his body-weight with the advance I transferred into his account.

I waved for him to close the door and take a seat. “Drop the game show mannerism. I’m not a ’60s housewife.”

“So, Judith Humphry is neck deep in shit and currently trying to swim her way out against the stream. Mother died when she was thirteen; Dad diagnosed with cancer about a year ago.” He rubbed his fingers across his lips, delivering the news dryly while settling into the chair opposite to mine. “When your girl found out about her pops, she quit her prestigious-yet-underpaid internship and took two temp jobs to help with the bills. But obviously, her income still couldn’t cover a mortgage in New fucking York, not to mention the everyday life of a property owner in Brooklyn. Her dad recently stopped going to chemotherapy because they can’t afford it. Their bills are unpaid, their fridge is mostly empty, and they live in Bed Stuy.”

If I’d had a heart, it would’ve slowed, almost to a halt. But as it happened, I didn’t, so all I could manage was despising her a little less for the wallet stunt. My face remained placid, so Dan took it as a cue to continue.

“She had a boyfriend, but he seems to be out of the picture. The day you two disappeared into the Laurent Towers Hotel together—and don’t give me any details, because I sure as hell don’t wanna know—was the last time she was seen at his apartment building, according to the CCTV footage. Your girl is unaware of the fact that said boyfriend, Milton, purchased an engagement ring that he is still keeping in his nightstand drawer. But based on the active ghosting she’s doing every time he calls, it’s safe to say a comeback is not in their cards. By the way, did I use the term ghosting correctly?”

I felt my nostrils flaring, and I wasn’t entirely sure what pissed me off more—the fact that Dan was trying to younger than eighty-five, or that Jude could’ve fucked her boyfriend on the same evening I’d had my dick inside her.

“Continue.”

“As far as her hobbies go, Judith likes reading thrillers while sitting on her porch on Saturday mornings, and she prefers Costa over Starbucks and bagels over tacos. On Sundays, she goes to the New York Public Library and reads everything from Newsweek to The New York Times. She skips the Post every single time, never touches the gossip columns, and munches on Sour Patch Kids when no one is watching.

“She shudders when people dog-ear books, and always stops to listen to buskers. Sometimes she throws money into their instrument cases. She prepares an extra sandwich every morning and gives it to the homeless guy living outside the train station near her house.” He paused, letting out a belch. “Put simply, Jude Humphry is barely existing at this point, moneywise. Even so, she seems to be in good spirits, so if you’re worried about her stealing from her workplace or becoming a double-agent for another broadcasting company, I would say it’s pretty unlikely.”