But as I said it, I realized that it wasn’t true. Lily did not embarrass me. In fact, she’d stopped triggering any type of emotion in me, and world domination just wasn’t quite enough to suffer her presence, even if only on paper.
We were a match made in Manhattan royalty heaven, but in the end, we’d put each other through hell. And in this very moment, I was done. If that meant that I was going to be a little less rich and a little less ruthless, I was willing to make that sacrifice to get rid of this pest.
Because even Lily’s dear family wasn’t enough anymore.
They weren’t mine. They’d never be mine.
“Who is she, Célian?” She stomped her foot on Judith’s notebook, denting the pages and creating a hole right in the middle.
My teeth slammed together, locking my jaw so a curse wouldn’t come out.
“Do you love her? Do you?” she whined.
I took my phone out, done with her games.
“You’d call security on your fiancée?” She raised her arms in wonder and her lack of panties showed. She was naked underneath the dress, no doubt for me.
“On the fucking pope, if he interfered with my staff’s work. Last chance before you spend the next few hours in jail,” I said dryly.
People behind me chuckled and whispered. I hated that we were a spectacle, but I liked that she’d played right into my hands. She’d just provided me with a golden opportunity to dump her ass with little to no social consequences, and Judith wouldn’t think it was about her.
Because it wasn’t.
Judith was just a fuck.
A brilliant fuck, but nonetheless a disposable one.
Lily lowered herself with a groan, sliding her ass to the desk and scooting down. She landed on her heels with a whimper and ran toward me, throwing her arms over my neck and weeping into my shirt.
“Why, Célian? I thought we were getting better, and now I have to hear that my fiancé is taking a new girl places? That she visits his building?”
I should have been disturbed by the amount of information Lily was privy to, but after all, her entire life consisted of sitting around in coffee shops and gossiping. For all I knew, she had socialite friends living in my building.
I retrieved Jude’s notebook and pocketed it. “Apologize to Kate and get into my office.”
Kate stood behind Lily and shook her head, telling me I shouldn’t let her get away with it.
“But she hates me.” Lily stomped her feet, whining.
“Can’t deny that.” Kate lifted her hands in surrender, and everyone laughed.
I looked around the human circle that had formed around us and realized everyone in it looked at Kate with love and Lily with sheer disgust.
As far as they were concerned, she was a spoiled little bitch. And as far as they were concerned, I endorsed that kind of behavior. I would berate someone for days for making a grammatical error in a news report, yet I was choosing to marry someone who thought yass was a word?
“Inside my office, right now,” I murmured through gritted teeth.
We turned and made our way to the hallway, and that’s when I saw Judith standing at the entrance of the newsroom, still clutching her phone to her ear. She was on a call, probably something Syria related. We were running a primetime special about it this weekend, and she’d been working extra hard to get all the numbers and statistics.
Her eyes ping-ponged between me and Lily for about ten seconds before she took a step aside and let us through.
Lily scowled at her, then barked, “What the hell are you looking at? You’re the prime suspect, bitch.”
“Huh?” Judith’s eyebrows shot up. She ended her call and tucked her phone into her pocket. “What is she talking about?”
“I’m talking about the woman who’s been keeping my fiancé up all nigh—”
But she never got to finish that sentence, because I pulled her into an embrace like she was an animal in captivity, slapping my hand over her mouth and dragging her into my office.
Judith turned a nice shade of tomato red, her eyes widening in alarm.
“Back to work, Humphry,” I barked.
“Yes, sir,” she said, but her voice flatlined, delivering the news that I was in even deeper shit than I’d previously thought.
In my office, Lily threw her body over the couch and began to sob.
“It’s the blond girl, isn’t it? She looks like a homewrecker. All sweet and pretty with her please-save-me cheap outfit. And Converse. Who wears fucking Converse with a dress?”
Judith Humphry does, and it makes me so hard I’m pretty sure the rest my body turns anemic.
“Shut up,” I ordered, bracing myself against my desk and staring her down.
I swear the teenaged version of her I’d dated over a decade ago had been sane. Shallow, but sane. Then again, when you’re a teenager, you’re not looking for a great intellectual opponent. Her ass and agreeable nature had been enough to keep me satiated for the first decade of our relationship.