I couldn’t really articulate a response to that. I got why James hadn’t been able to tell me he was my father. At the same time, I thought he was probably exaggerating the level of remorse he’d experienced. He was still newly married to a woman half his age and had dumped his previous wife because he’d wanted to go on a Celebrity Big Brother-like adventure. Still. James was self-absorbed and egotistical, but he wasn’t a goddamn bastard like Mathias.

I blinked at him, checking my watch. “Safe to say it’s too late for you to tuck me into bed. You realize I’m going straight to my mother with this, correct?”

My loyalty was to no one but Judith and myself at this point. And it didn’t escape me that I’d just put Jude’s name before my own.

James rubbed his face. “She can’t hurt me more than the hidden truth did.”

Tou-fucking-ché.

I jerked my chin toward him. “You hired Dan. Tell me everything about how this came to be.”

James didn’t spare one detail.

He said he’d had a feeling Mathias was beginning to shit on our quality in a bid to damage the network a second before he disappeared off the radar. He needed to tend to his health, and he seemed to know he didn’t have much longer on the president throne. Hoping to counteract this, James had had the same feeling I did—that Dan was motivated by money and could be a good free agent. James also confessed that with Phoenix back in town and my engagement crumbling, he wanted to make sure I was protected against Mathias.

“Precisely,” I said. “But all the shit Dan discovered still doesn’t cover my ass against Mathias. You gave me nothing but hearsay.”

James’s eyes darkened, and he suddenly looked much older than his days. “We can let others do the job for us. Just send it to the different networks,” he suggested. “Let the problem fix itself. He’ll have to step down.”

I appreciated it, him trying to help me out. But there was no need.

I shook my head. “LBC would take an even greater hit if we do that.”

“But we can’t just let Mathias get away with it.” Jude squeezed my hand. A sweet gesture from my greatest sin.

I turned toward her, a smirk maneuvering its way across my face. “We won’t.”

Then I became homeless.

I’d terminated my lease effective Sunday, the day I was supposed to fly out to Los Angeles. Only it was technically Monday morning now, and I was nowhere near the west coast. That meant I had to spend the night somewhere, and fortunately that place was Judith’s Brooklyn apartment.

To my cock’s disappointment, I slept on the couch. But it was still better than sleeping in a million-star hotel or at the Laurent Towers, which I couldn’t even look at after I’d learned what I had about Mathias not being my father.

I wasn’t the one who’d cheated on him.

Yet I was the one who’d taken most of his wrath.

In the morning, Judith made her father a shake from what looked like sewer water, puke, and misery, and slid a bowl of cereal my way. It wasn’t even a brand. It was poured right out of a six-pound industrial box with a Costco logo.

“Cavities and diabetes. Breakfast of champions,” I muttered into the bowl as I took a spoonful.

“My apologies. Our room service doesn’t work on Mondays.” Jude took a seat next to her dad and patted his veiny hand.

I fucking loved this girl. What she lacked in funds she made up for with love.

“That’s fine.” I waved her off. “I can be in charge of breakfast when we move in together.”

Utensils clattered on plates, and Rob’s eyes ping-ponged between us. There was a lot of amusement in them.

Jude studied me, trying to gauge whether I was kidding or not.

I wasn’t.

“I’m not a breakfast person,” she said. “And yes, I know it’s the most important meal of the day.”

My eyes slid down her midriff and stopped where the table covered her. I smiled. “No, it isn’t.”

“You’re awful.” She hid her smile behind her coffee mug.

“And you’re going to let me pick your Chucks today,” I retorted.

Robert laughed. “Can you hear it?”

“Hear what?” Her cheeks were doing this hamster thing, where she stifled a laugh and looked too cute doing so.

It was sickening, really, how I felt about her. I would find the word embarrassing fitting if I didn’t own up to that shit.

“Your chests humming. You’re happy, kids.” Rob took a sip of his shake, grimacing. “The happiest you’ve ever been.”

A little while later we took the train to work, both staring at her dove white Chucks. My pick. I wanted a clean slate. A fresh start.

“You know, you can still take the job in Los Angeles.” She flipped Kipling absentmindedly, staring at it as she spoke. “LBC is falling apart, and I don’t expect these revelations to change your commitment to your new job.”

“My only commitment is to the company I need to inherit, and to the only girl who’s capable of calling me out on my bullshit. Not in that order.”

She looked up. “And who would that be?”

I twisted the collar of her shirt into a ball and jerked her to me in a kiss, not giving a fuck that everybody was watching. Or that we were standing up, clasped between dozens of sweaty, exasperated people starting their Monday. Not caring about anything but her. Our lips touched, and my cock was a second away from shouting Hallelujah. Her mouth was soft and warm and mine, and her body melted against my own in a way that could only mean one thing.