I was a fool. An idiot. I was the other woman, who’d just gotten dumped very publicly, and as per usual—without notice.
I was able to hear them clearly through the open door.
“Can we go now? I don’t want to wait another minute,” she whined, smoothing his shirt with her palms. The act looked so natural on them. Like they’d done it a thousand times before.
They probably have, Jude.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
I snuck into the room next to his office before he could see me. The last thing I wanted was a public showdown with a side of Korean-drama-worthy catfight. Already LBC was in deep trouble, and everybody looked at me like I’d screwed my way into the Laurents’ royal family. No reason to give them even more ammo against me. Besides, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I flipped up my phone and shot him a quick message.
Jude: Everything okay?
I went to my desk and switched on my monitor, ignoring the nausea that slammed into me out of nowhere. The room, which was spinning at the corners of my vision, was also eerily silent, and I knew why. If Célian was right about one thing, it was the fact that he’d never forced me into anything. I’d willingly slept with him. In my desperate, sad haze, I had even initiated this affair. I’d made my bed, and the fact that it now crawled with slimy creatures, eating at my reputation and feelings, was my fault and my fault only.
He answered at noon, long after he’d left the office.
Célian: Something came up.
Jude: Elaborate?
Célian: Family.
Of course. Lily was family.
And of course, I was the mistake he’d left behind.
Célian didn’t come to work the next day, or the day after.
The rumor mill was in full swing, with Mathias poking his head down from the top floor and hanging out in the newsroom like it was his second house. He tapped Kate on the shoulder and made suggestions, walked up to Elijah and shot him orders, and tried to coax Jessica into having lunch with him. It was clear he was trying to screw with us as much as he could before Célian came back, which made me believe he knew something we didn’t—maybe that his son had gotten back with his ex-fiancée.
It was a disaster in the making, and I had VIP tickets. On the flip side, he did ignore me the best he could, and I tried to disappear into my monitor and not lift my head from the keyboard until it was time to go home.
When I had a second to breathe, I ran to the fifth floor to Ava or Grayson’s desk. Phoenix, who was a freelancer, didn’t have to show up at work every day, but he did because I was in breakdown mode.
“You don’t know what’s happening yet,” he tried to reason with me.
“What’s to know? The Laurents do what they want to do.”
“Exactly. And he doesn’t want to do Lily. Hasn’t for a while now.”
“He wants his network, and that’s what he’ll get. I’ll be a blip in his history. Nothing but a stain.”
“Stain!” Grayson huffed, slapping his desk. “I hope you tarnished his whole life.”
According to Gray, Célian had been seen going in and out of Lily’s apartment building twice in the last forty-eight hours. At this point, I’d stopped trying to communicate with him and had gotten the general idea. The message had finally hit home.
I was disposable. Maybe not a one-night stand, but definitely a short-term one. I was past my expiration date, thrown aside for Lily to take over. He was patching things up with her family and spending time with her.
Phoenix, of all people, remained impartial.
“Célian Laurent is every bad thing under the sun, but he is not a pussy. If he wanted to get back with Lily, he would have given it to you straight.”
Grayson filed his nails, rolling his eyes. “Then I guess he gave it to her gay when he kept mum on his engagement the night they met.”
“He didn’t think he’d see her again,” Ava pointed out.
“But then he found out they were working together,” Gray stressed, unwilling to give Célian any slack. I couldn’t blame him. He’d been working here for four years, and Célian still didn’t know his name. “Plenty of time to clear things up.”
“It didn’t make any difference. They weren’t together, and he was trying to set boundaries with an employee, seeing as his father is a first-class douche with blurred lines when it comes to female coworkers,” Phoenix shot back, picking at his takeout with a set of seriously short chopsticks.
“Why are you defending him?” I blinked. “He’s been nothing but horrible to you.”
Phoenix shrugged. “Because he’s sorry.”
“About what?” Ava asked.
“About everything. About what happened to Camille. About keeping us apart. The guilt practically pours from his face when he passes me in the corridor. He knows he screwed up, and he wasn’t even the one doing the real damage. I don’t like him—not even close—but then again…” He dropped his takeout box in the trash can, even though it was still half full. He shook his head, knotting his fingers behind his neck on a sigh. “Camille loved him. He protected her fiercely. He gave her the love and guidance their parents didn’t. And I refuse to believe that’s the same man who pulls shit like this.”