A persistent knocking echoes down my hall, again and again, over and over.
Smirking, I roll my eyes and step out of bed. It’s probably Jude and he’s probably going to surprise me with something … breakfast in bed maybe? An early morning romp?
I bet he missed me last night.
I missed him.
We got home so late last night and we were so exhausted, we both decided to sleep in our own beds.
“I’m coming,” I shout as I shuffle down the hall. A grin grows across my face as I reach the door and squint through the peephole. Only it disappears the second I see who’s standing on the other side.
It isn’t Jude.
Running back to my room, I grab a robe from my bathroom and cover my silky sheer pajamas before heading back.
A second later, I clear my throat and greet my ex-husband’s assistant.
“Marissa, what are you doing here?” I ask, and I mean that in the most literal of ways. I don’t know how she got my address unless Hunter gave it to her. “Did he send you here?”
“Can I come in?” she asks, worrying her full lower lip that looks even bigger than it was last time I saw her. Something about her looks different, and I realize she’s dressed down today, leggings and a casual top, and her face is void of her signature caked-on Instagram-worthy look. She’s absolutely stunning this way, so natural, but I won’t tell her that. Once upon a time, we were friends and I convinced Hunter to hire her. But after the divorce, I never heard from her again.
Mulling it over, I release a held breath before stepping out of the way.
“I tried to stop by yesterday, but you weren’t home,” she says, a lanky arm resting on her hip as she stares at my floor. This isn’t Marissa. I’ve never known her to be uneasy or uncomfortable, and I’ve witnessed her spending time around some of the biggest names in music without batting a mink eyelash.
“I’m so confused,” I say, arms crossed. “Why are you here?”
“You might want to sit down,” she says.
“If this is about Hunter, honestly, I don’t care,” I say. “I’m happy and I’ve moved on.”
Her immense, round eyes flick into mine. “It’s about that.”
“About what?” I imagine him having me followed out of spite, just to check up on me, and I imagine him seeing me with Jude and growing insanely jealous because Jude is exactly the kind of guy who would bring Hunter’s biggest insecurities to the surface.
“His name is Jude, right?” she asks.
I knew it. He’s having me tailed.
“A couple months ago, this guy came in wanting to drop off a demo,” she says. “Happens all the time, but this time Hunter was standing out there. He saw him and brought him back to his office for a meeting. That never happens. You know that. It’s just not how it works.”
“All right.” I cling to her every word.
“Anyway, they were talking and he must have hit the intercom button or something because I could hear everything on my headset, and normally I’d disconnect, but at first, I couldn’t believe what he was saying.”
“What? What was he saying, Marissa?”
“He told Jude,” she says, pulling in a deep breath. “He told him that if he could get you to marry him, he’d give him a record deal and some cash. A lot of cash.”
I think I’m going to be sick.
Ambling toward the living room, I brace myself on the back of a chair.
“Please don’t tell them I told you,” she says. “I signed a non-disclosure with Blue Stream, and I don’t want to lose my job, but I just thought you should know that you’ve been set up.”
The room spins and I manage to find my way into the chair. Eyes closed tight, I imagine all of these moments with Jude … the fountain … the elevator … Brooklyn … the kiss … the jog … the week in West Virginia … all the sweet and wonderful things he said … the way he looked at me like I meant something to him, truly meant something.
“I’m so sorry, Love,” she says, coming to my side and placing her hand on my shoulder.
I don’t even cry. There isn’t so much as a hint of tears brimming in my eyes.
In fact, I feel nothing.
No. I take it back. I feel like a fool.
“How do I know this isn’t a setup?” I ask. I imagine Hunter having me followed, seeing that I’m happy, and then trying to sabotage that. The day the judge ruled in favor of the alimony request, I’d never seen such rage flash in his eyes as he glowered across the courtroom at me. But I only saw it for a moment before my attorney shielded me and his attorney got him the hell out of there.
Marissa shrugs. “I can’t prove anything. I only know what I heard.”
It all seemed so real, felt so real.
“Hunter set him up with apartment close to you. Bought him new clothes. Gave him a credit card and a phone,” she says.
An image of Jude in glasses and a suit fills my mind first. Whenever he was dressed up, he was always so proper, so mysterious. But when he started coming around in jeans and mussed-up hair, he’d let loose a little more. And it makes sense if he’s a musician, because he took me to that Sound Underground place to hear some up-and-coming band.
It all makes sense to me now, why there were two very different sides of Jude Warner.
“Please don’t tell them I told you,” Marissa asks again, hands clasped.
I lift a hand, my head beginning to throb. “I won’t say anything.”
“Jude came by a few weeks ago,” she says. “I didn’t hear the conversation that time, but he had this look on his face when he left … I don’t even know how to describe it other than he looked … worried? But maybe I was reading into it.”
The room won’t stop spinning every time I close my eyes, so I try and focus on the gold paperweight resting on a stack of books on my coffee table. I need to concentrate on something that means nothing to me, something incapable of ripping my beating heart clean out of my chest.
“Do you want some water or something?” she asks. “You look like you’re going to throw up.”
Waving her away, I feel a spasm deep in my belly. “Can you just … can you leave, please?”
I’ve heard enough.
Marissa says nothing as she trots toward the door and shows herself out, and the moment the door slams behind her, I run to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of my stomach.
Reaching for a towel, I dab at my mouth, the very mouth Jude kissed a million and one times over the past month, and I begin to retch again. Only this time, my stomach is empty. Much like the hole that now resides in the space that once held my heart.
The faint sound of my phone vibrating across my nightstand somehow manages to steal my attention, and I stumble out of the bathroom to grab it.
But I stop cold when I see the name on the screen.
“Are you up?” his text reads.
Falling for him was so easy, so effortless. Now I know that was only because he was doing a job. He was being paid to make me like him. He was paid to be perfect and to say all the right things.
Disgusted doesn’t begin to cover the way I feel about Jude now.
Another text comes through, “Let me know when you get up. Or just head over. I’ll leave the door open for you.”