Another piece of my fucking heart.

Another song on her playlist I’d never be able to listen to without thinking of her.

I’d had my phone off all day—I wanted to do this without interruption—and I finally turned it back on and shoved it in my pocket. I grabbed my jacket, throwing one last look at the place that had once been my kingdom, the place I thought I’d have my fucking retirement party, and shook my head.

I turned around, closed the door, and bumped into something small and hot.

Judith.

She shoved a file to my chest, pointing at me.

“First things first, next time you take my father out of the house, you let me know by text or a phone call. Agreed?”

I blinked rapidly. Was I imagining things now? Because that kind of shit needed to be checked and medicated. I arched an eyebrow.

“You do realize Los Angeles is not around the block, right? I won’t be seeing much of him anytime soon.”

Still an asshole. But hell if she didn’t like it.

“There’s a special place in hell for you.” She shoved her delicate finger in my face.

Would it be too much if I bit the tip? Probably.

I smirked. “Not surprised. I have a rock star realtor. What are you doing here on a Sunday, Chucks?”

“Saving your ass.” She unplastered the file from my chest and walked over to her station in the newsroom.

I followed. Her ass looked fantastic, as always, but that wasn’t what made me smile until I’d almost cut my face in half.

She laid all the docs on her desk, yet wouldn’t let me peek into the file. I eyed her curiously, not sure what her deal was, but intrigued nonetheless. More than anything, I liked that she was talking to me again, and wasn’t planning on fucking it up.

“Prepare to have your mind blown,” she said.

“Is this an invitation for a hookup? Because I find it hard to believe anything but your cunt can evoke such—or any—emotion in me.”

I left the romantic stuff for the notes I’d written her. I still couldn’t bring myself to say any of it out loud, but I wanted to. Badly.

She shook her head and smiled, sliding Polaroid pictures my way. Of my father dining at a restaurant with the channel’s bigwigs.

I raised an eyebrow. “How did you get those?”

“James Townley.”

“And how did he get those?”

“He hired Dan, who works here, to run an investigation on Mathias.”

“So did I,” I shot back. “So?”

She shrugged. “Townley paid double.”

“That fucker Dan.” I sucked in a breath.

Jude put her hand on mine and squeezed. “Not at all. He’s brilliant. He took you both as clients because you had the same goal: bring Mathias down.”

I leaned my hip against her desk and browsed through the images. There were more in her file, but this wouldn’t cut it. “That’s all nice and dandy, but what the fuck am I looking at? My father having lunch with the investors without me? I can use it for nothing, other than maybe research for making voodoo dolls.”

Jude slid a bunch of documents from the file toward me. “Read the highlighted areas. There’s a lot of fluff, profanity, and chauvinism to weed through, but in the end, you’ll find the conversation quite interesting. Especially the revelations in this transcript of the original recording.”

“This is all recorded?” I picked up the papers, eyeing her.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I still won’t be able to use it in court.”

I was testing her, treading carefully over my own secret—a secret I didn’t want to make known yet so Judith wouldn’t feel pressured into anything. My heart beat so fast I thought it was going to burn a hole in my chest.

She waved her hand in the documents’ direction. “Just read it, Célian.”

I started skimming through the text, hitting the highlighted parts:

M.L: “…ridiculously easy. I knew he was there, so I pulled out the CCTV footage and found the girl—Judith something. I made sure the right arrangements had been made and sure enough, the Judith girl got called for a job interview at LBC, although there was a mix-up and she somehow ended up in another department. I rectified the situation right away, though.”

M.L: “…it was a long shot, but my son is not as calculating as I am. I figured it was worth a try. And it worked. He got attached so easily, and discarded his fiancée completely. Now, we need to decide what we’re doing with LBC…”

M.L: “…I’m pulling out the ads slowly, though we will need to think of ways to terminate the contract completely. My lawyers are working on finding a legal loophole.”

I set the papers down, sitting on the edge of her desk and lacing my fingers nonchalantly. So Mathias had planned it all along. My meeting Jude, my falling in love with her, giving up on the Davis family—every single thing. And I’d walked right into his trap. Well, almost.

I didn’t make the mistake of asking Jude if she’d known about it. Of course she hadn’t. Instead, I focused on how to deal with this shit.

“We’ve both been set up,” I said.

She put a hand on my shoulder, and I resisted the urge to pull her into me and bury my face in her hair. Judith had this touch that made shit go away. Bad shit. She must have known I thought it—maybe I even said it out loud—because she took a few steps back and swallowed. It was the kind of swallow that said that there was something more, and I wasn’t necessarily going to like it.