“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
To Vanessa Serrano and Vanessa Villegas, and to (virtual) hugs and (real) gratitude
“Promiscuous”—Nelly Furtado and Timbaland.
“How Soon is Now?”—The Smiths
“Le Chemin”—Kyo feat. Sita
“Makes Me Wonder”—Maroon 5
“Anybody Seen My Baby”—The Rolling Stones
“Bloodstream”—Stateless
“Hey Jude”—The Beatles
“Down”—Jason Walker
“Moi Lolita”—Alizée
Célian Laurent.
Manhattan royalty.
Notorious playboy.
Heir to a media empire.
…And my new boss.
I could have impressed him, if not for last month’s unforgettable one-night stand.
I left it with more than orgasms and a pleasant memory—namely, his wallet.
Now he’s staring me down like I’m the dirt under his Italian loafers, and I’m supposed to take it.
But the thing about being Judith “Jude” Humphry is I have nothing to lose.
Brooklyn girl.
Infamously quirky.
Heir to a stack of medical bills and a tattered couch.
When he looks at me from across the room, I see the glint in his eyes, and that makes us rivals.
He knows it.
So do I.
Every day in the newsroom is a battle.
Every night in his bed, war.
But it’s my heart at stake, and I fear I’ll be raising the white flag.
On her deathbed, my mother said the heart is a lonely hunter.
“Organs, Jude, are like people. They need company, a backup to rely on. That’s why we have lungs, tonsils, hands, legs, fingers, toes, eyes, nostrils, teeth, and lips. Only the heart works alone. Like Atlas, it carries the weight of our existence on its shoulders quietly, only rebelling when disturbed by love.”
She said a lonely heart—such as my lonely heart—would never fall in love, and so far, she wasn’t wrong.
Maybe that’s why tonight happened.
Maybe that’s why I’d stopped trying.
Creamy sheets tangled around my legs like roots as I slipped out of the king-sized bed in the swanky hotel room I’d been occupying for the last several hours. I rose from the plush mattress, my back to the stranger I’d met this afternoon.
If I stole a glance at him, my conscience would kick in and I’d never go through with it.
I was choosing his cash over my integrity.
Cash I very much needed.
Cash that was going to pay my electricity bill and fill prescriptions for Dad this month.
I tiptoed across the room to his dress pants on the floor, feeling hollow in all the places he’d filled in the previous hours. This was the first time I’d stolen anything, and the finality of the situation made me want to throw up. I wasn’t a thief. Yet I was about to wrong this perfect stranger. And I wasn’t even going to touch the one-night-stand issue for fear my head would explode all over the lush carpet. I didn’t normally do one-night stands.
But I wasn’t myself tonight.
I’d woken this morning to the sound of my mailbox collapsing from the weight of the letters and bills crammed into it. Then I’d failed a job interview so miserably, they’d cut the meeting short to watch a Yankees game. (When I’d pointed out there was no game—because, yes, I was that desperate—they’d explained it was a rerun.)
Defeated, I’d stumbled my way through the cruel streets of Manhattan, the early-spring rain loud and punishing. I’d figured the best course of action would be to slip into my boyfriend Milton’s condo to dry off. I had the key, and he was probably at work, polishing his piece about immigration healthcare. He worked for The Thinking Man, one of the most prestigious magazines in New York. To say I was proud would be the understatement of the century.
The rest of the afternoon played out like a bad movie piled with clichés and reeking of bad luck. I’d pushed Milton’s door open, shaking the raindrops from my jacket and hair. First, low, guttural moans seeped into my ears. The unmistakable visual followed immediately after:
Milton’s editor, Elise, whom I’d met once before for drinks, bent over one side of the couch we’d picked out together at my favorite flea market, as he relentlessly pounded into her.
Thrust.
Thrust.
Thrust.
Thrust!
“The heart is a lonely, cruel hunter.”
I’d felt mine shooting an arrow of poison straight to Milton’s glistening chest, then heard it crack, threatening to split in two.
We’d been together for five years. Met at Columbia University. He was the son of a retired NBC anchor. I was on full scholarship. The only reason we hadn’t lived together was because Dad was sick and I didn’t want to leave his side. But that didn’t stop Milton and me from crocheting our plans into the same colors and patterns, entwining our lives one dream at a time.
Visit Africa.
Get assigned to the Middle East.
Watch the sunset in Key West.
Eat one perfect macaron in Paris.
Our bucket list was etched in a notebook I’d keenly named Kipling, and it was burning a hole through my bag right now.
I hadn’t meant to throw up on Milton’s doorstep, but it was not a big surprise, considering what I’d just walked into. The bastard had skidded on my breakfast as he chased me down the hall, but I’d pushed the emergency stairway door open and taken the stairs two at a time. Milton had been very much naked, with a condom still dangling from his half-mast dick, and at some point he’d decided bursting into the street in his birthday suit was not a good plan.