“My stomach is fine now.”
“Howler said Josie was so sick, he nearly had to take her in for an IV.” I could hear the stress in his voice. “Let me call the doctor.”
Opening my eyes again, I tried to soothe him. “Please don’t worry. I’m fine now. Really. No more nausea.”
Groaning, he nudged me over. Kicking off his shoes, he lay down beside me and pulled my head to his chest. With a contented exhale, I cuddled him, which was a hundred times better than his pillow.
“You’re going to be late getting back to court,” I reluctantly mumbled after a few minutes. I didn’t want him to go, was already dreading it. But his job was important.
“I adjourned until tomorrow,” he announced, kissing the top of my head while squeezing his massive arms around me.
“Judge—”
“I’m not leaving you when you’re sick, Elli,” he growled, cutting off my halfhearted protest.
“But I’m not,” I tried to argue.
“You’re so exhausted, you can’t even complain with your eyes open. That never happens. You’ve gotten sick maybe five times in your life. And I’m not even exaggerating. All of those instances, you ended up in the hospital. I’m not leaving when the chances of that happening this time are high.”
“Fine.” Snuggling closer, I let him have his way. “I think it’s just from a lack of sleep lately. Someone doesn’t let me get enough of it.”
I felt his smile against my brow. “Who woke up whom last night with their mouth wrapped around whose cock?”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor. I must plead the Fifth.”
His sexy laugh vibrated in my ear. “Sleep now, my Elli.”
He didn’t get an argument out of me, and I fell straight back to sleep.
Hours later, my stomach was what woke me again. This time in hunger. Opening my eyes, I took a moment to orient myself. Judge’s steady heartbeat was under my ear, his breathing even as he slept peacefully. One of his arms was like a band around my back, holding me to him possessively.
Pressing a kiss to his chest, I carefully crawled out from under him. Standing, I looked back down at the sleeping man, my heart melting at how carefree he appeared.
Sensing I wasn’t in bed with him, he rolled, causing the phone in his pants pocket to poke out. He’d fallen asleep with all his clothes on except for shoes.
Pulling it from his pocket, I started to place it on the wireless charger beside the bed. My finger must have grazed the screen because it lit up, showing a text message that was time-stamped 2:37 that afternoon. It was nearly seven now. We’d slept all day.
I wasn’t going to read the message, but I caught sight of my name and became curious. Plugging in his security code, which was a combination of Lyla’s and my birth dates, I clicked on the missed text.
Harold: Everything is set. When does Ellianna take the LSAT?
What was set? And why did this Harold guy need to know when I was supposed to take the LSAT?
If everything had gone according to plan, I would have taken the test two weeks before, right after I was expecting to return to California. But since my life had gotten tossed upside down at the beginning of the summer, I’d canceled.
By making the choice to stay local, I’d decided to postpone the LSAT exam for a month or so to give myself more time to study and adjust to the new school.
Confused by the message, I scrolled up to the original text.
As I read, I felt something in my heart crack open.
“No,” I whispered in disbelief.
What I was reading wasn’t true.
It couldn’t be.
Because if it was, Judge had…
No!
It was a misunderstanding.
He wouldn’t do something like that to me.
He just wouldn’t.
But the more I read, the more I realized that maybe he could have, and the conversation I’d had with Rita in the women’s bathroom that morning began to make so much sense.
My hands began to tremble so badly the phone slipped through my fingers. Angry, frustrated tears blurred my vision, and I took several steps back from the bed.
Pain on a level I wasn’t even aware existed ricocheted inside me, bouncing throughout my body until every inch of me ached.
From the many texts between Judge and Harold, I’d been accepted to Georgetown with a full ride. Law school was a given, as long as my LSAT scores were on par.
But I’d been accepted long before my senior year of college.
I gulped back a sob, willing myself not to fall apart. But that was impossible.
Because Judge had shattered me.
He’d crushed my dream of going to Georgetown. He was why I’d been rejected. Had my confidence destroyed. Been made to think I wasn’t good enough.
They were going to offer me all four years with a full scholarship.
But he was the one who had forced them to tell me I wasn’t worthy.
No wonder he’d made up the scholarships and hid them from me. It was blood money to ease his conscience after ensuring all my dreams of going to Georgetown were crushed into dust.
I must have made a sound, Judge rolled over, his arm searching for me before he even opened his eyes. Lifting his head when he didn’t touch me, he glanced around with a frown. “Baby?”
Another strangled, agonized sound left my throat, and he jerked upright in bed, his gaze zeroing in on me. “Elli, baby, are you feeling sick again?”
All I could do was stare at him through tear-filled eyes. Denial continued to plague me, but in my gut, I knew—I fucking knew—it was the truth.
“Wh-why?” I sobbed.
He moved as gracefully as a panther, his big body unfolding from the bed effortlessly. When he stood, his foot landed on his phone, and he bent to pick it up. The screen was still lit up with the many, many texts between him and his good ol’ pal Harold.
Even with my vision compromised by tears, I saw the color drain from his face. Eyes pleading with me, he stepped forward. “Baby, let me explain.”
“I was accepted to Georgetown years ago.” It was a statement, no need to ask the question when that correspondence had told me all I needed to know.
“Yes,” he confirmed in a tight voice. “You were.”
“And you called in a favor to keep me out.”
His chest lifted and fell rapidly, almost as if he were struggling to breathe. “Yes.”
My fingers curled into fists so hard, I felt the sting when my nails pierced my palms. “Bastard!”
Chapter 32
Judge
Ellianna was the one who’d been sick earlier, but I was the one who was about to puke now.
Her whimper had pulled me from a deep sleep. I knew all the sounds she made and what they meant. It hadn’t been the same sweet sound she made when she was wordlessly begging me for more. It wasn’t even the sound she made when she’d gotten a paper cut on her thumb two weeks before.
Nothing about this new sound told me she was enjoying how she felt. And it wasn’t the same sound she made when she had an injury that I needed to play doctor and kiss better.
My Elli was in distress.
Along with the tears in her eyes, that garbled “why?” would have folded me in half if I’d been standing. And then I saw what was on my phone, and everything turned upside down.