After the Kiss (Sex, Love & Stiletto 1)

But the pain wouldn’t stop. It just kept growing and growing until it felt like it would swallow her. And even as her pride demanded that she get up off the floor of Kelli Kearns’s foyer, a small dry sob slipped out.

Then a second, and a third.

A soft female hand settled on her arm, and Julie glanced up into Kelli’s face, which looked almost as ravaged as Julie felt. Kelli whispered, “I’m sorry,” and then Julie began crying for real, big, racking sobs that felt like they would never end.

Because nothing said things were over like your worst enemy feeling sorry for you.

And when Kelli crouched beside her, letting Julie sob on her shoulder, Julie knew things were worse than over.

They were utterly, irrevocably hopeless.

Chapter Eighteen

Julie wouldn’t talk about it.

Not to Grace.

Not to Riley.

Not to the dozens of friends and acquaintances who had been calling nonstop with a morbid combination of curiosity and sympathy. Grace had even gone so far as to reach out to Julie’s aunt and uncle to let them know what was going on, and they had phoned, but Julie had dodged those calls too.

And she certainly hadn’t given the time of day to the handful of reporters panting for her side of the story.

Because her side of the story was so not for sale. Not ever again.

Still, Julie’s attempted avoidance of the issue hadn’t stopped the society pages from blasting the whole sordid affair. Making matters worse was the way the tabloids had glamorized the entire thing.

Instead of painting Julie as a heartless tramp, they’d dug up every picture they could find of a smiling Julie in designer cocktail dresses, stilettos, and glossy lips. These pictures were laid alongside pictures of an unsmiling Mitchell in subdued suits on his way to work.

She should have been pleased with the spin. It wasn’t a case of the man-eater crushing the wronged boyfriend. It was Manhattan’s favorite party girl outsmarting a Wall Street dud.

Instead she felt like crap.

Mitchell’s side of the story had never made it to publication. Julie had refused to look at the Tribune the day after her and Mitchell’s showdown, but Julie and Grace had told her that Allen Carsons’s part two had never been published. Julie figured Mitchell had threatened a libel suit, but she didn’t know for sure. Didn’t really care.

Yet, despite the ongoing drama, Julie had refused to say a word about it. Hadn’t confided in Grace. Hadn’t moaned to Riley. Hadn’t told her family, hadn’t bought a diary, hadn’t babbled to strangers on the subway.

Hadn’t called Mitchell.

But there was one person who wasn’t going to accept Julie’s silence on the matter for much longer.

Camille.

Her boss had set up a one-on-one meeting and had made no secret about the agenda. August’s story outline had been due on Monday. Julie hadn’t turned in so much as a Post-it note.

It was time to pony up.

With an anxious glance at her watch, Julie grabbed her notebook and braced herself for the inevitable interrogation. She made her way to Camille’s office, barely noticing that nobody called out to her. Coworkers who had once demanded her company avoided eye contact. Laughter and chatter turned to feigned concentration on their monitors as she walked by.

She didn’t blame them. She felt dull, listless, and irritable. And while a part of her longed to fix a s

mile on her face and fake her sparkle, the other part of her was tired of putting on the show.

She felt like she didn’t have a single genuine sparkle left.

Camille was on the phone when Julie knocked, but she waved Julie in with an impatient hand.

Julie sat and waited, and for the first time in weeks, she felt like laughing at the incredibly awful full circle she’d just completed. Just a couple of months ago she’d sat in this very office, in this very chair, on top of the world, so damned sure of her life.