Dirty Headlines

I was hoping she’d get to the point before I had to kill my way through half of New York. Especially Milton. That guy was so high on my shit list, I doubted it was safe for us to be in the same state.

“But then I found out that’s not what she meant. It was right before we left for Florida. That day my father told me she was actually referring to a book. See, I’d never told him what Mom said. I didn’t want to tarnish how perfect she was in his eyes. Because I love him, and when you love someone, you want to protect them, no matter the cost. And I can’t afford to be with you, Célian, because I love you. But in order to learn how to love, you first need to learn how to live, and hating your parents, running around with your ex-fiancée, and playing power games is just not the way. I deserve more.”

I would tell her I loved her right now if I thought she would believe me. But why would she? I’d acted like an ass for months. Fuck, I wouldn’t believe me, either.

“Give me a chance.”

She shook her head. “No can do.”

“Judith…”

“Don’t do this.” Her eyes pleaded. I said nothing to that. “You will only prove what I just said—that it’s all about you. If you care about me at all, let me go.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Hoping like hell it wasn’t some test I was failing, I ran a hand through my hair, then slammed the chocolate and flowers against her corridor’s wall. Pitted glossy cherries and chocolate smeared down the side of her door.

And they say the French are romantic.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

I found the habit of repeating oneself unappealing. But that was because I was never out of sorts and clueless. I was now, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Should we revisit this subject next week? Next month? Next year?” Was I even going to survive that kind of time?

“No, Célian. I don’t think we should.”

The door closed in my face. Gently, but firmly, like everything else she did.

I hung my head and shook it, staring at the floor.

She had a Game of Thrones “Hold the Door” mat.

And I fucking let her go. Because she did deserve more.

The heart is a lonely hunter.

My heart was a lonely hunter.

Everything hurt.

I’d always thought I was doomed by not being able to fall in love, but once I did fall, I wished I hadn’t. Now it hurt when I breathed, when I walked the hallways at work, and each time in between, when I caught sight of the person with a sharp suit and even sharper tongue moving past me, firing orders at Brianna or bantering with Elijah and Kate.

Eight weeks had passed. Four weeks after he’d shown up at my doorstep with flowers and chocolate, Célian had invited everyone into the conference room and announced that he’d taken a position at a competing network in Los Angeles and would only be staying for another month.

After he made that announcement, he’d shot me a look, searching my face. Whatever he found there made him ask me to stay after the meeting was over so we could talk about it.

I’d wanted to, badly, but I knew nothing had changed.

I wasn’t going to move to Los Angeles, and we couldn’t even make it work when we lived in the same city. So there was just no way we could pull it off if he lived across the country.

Besides, I still loved him more than he was capable of ever loving me back, and an unbalanced relationship was a doomed one.

“Sir, I have a lot of work. I’d really rather not.” My fingers had twitched under the desk.

His bottom-of-the-iceberg blue eyes had run down my body to see my shoes. I’d worn generic black flats. I couldn’t bring myself to show him how I felt every day. It felt too intimate, now that he knew what each color meant.

I’d also refused to unfold the little Post-it notes he’d started shoving into my desk drawer about a month after everything blew up. It wasn’t every day, but whenever I found one, my mood would turn sour.

Even so, I knew he was not seeing Lily anymore, and that was official. The wedding venue had been canceled, Ava and Gray had reported to me excitedly one day, and after losing her beloved grandmother and her fiancé in the same month, Lily had decided to check into a Utah-based rehab center to treat her addiction to alcohol.

Ava and Grayson were obsessed with my post-Célian life. They seemed to know every single detail I wasn’t privy to—like how Milton had been fired from The Thinking Man and was now working as a researcher at some local newspaper nobody had heard of. Or how Célian was packing his things and getting ready to move away. I couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing Célian every day, but I also knew I didn’t have it in me to be hurt by him again.