Page 145 of Velvet Corruption

“He’s right, mi amor. Do it.”

Ruby groaned, but did as we told her. Once she was out of earshot, Julian sat on the edge of the bed. “I assume we have a little time until Alek gets here. Why was there a work truck leaving the house this morning? They were pulling out as we pulled in.”

Fuck. The window.

“I…uh,” I said, looking away from him. “I got home by myself. Blacked out. I must’ve thrown something through the window. I wanted to fix it before Rosie got here.”

“You blacked out?”

“I did celebratory shots,” I replied, too quickly. “By myself. Like an idiot.”

He shook his head as he looked at me. “And no one else was here?”

“Yes,” I said. “No one.”

“You have clearly just fucked someone on this bed.”

I had to do my best to keep my breathing steady. “I, uh,” I tried to buy myself sometime. “I’ve been crushing on the window guy since I saw him working on the neighbor’s house. I, uh, got drunk last night and called him.”

“So nothing happened to the window?”

“No, I threw a rock through it. I was drunk. Couldn’t think of an excuse.”

“So you called his company? In the middle of the night?”

“No, his phone. I had his phone from before. I told him I broke a window. Look, it wasn’t my best moment. I just won the election. I let it get to me. Overwhelm me.”

Julian cocked his head. “Whose house were they working on when you met him?”

I blinked. “What? Oh, I’m not—not super sure. Mrs. Souter’s, maybe? I can’t remember.”

“Right. Okay,” Julian said after a beat. “I’m just going to go get the rest of Rosie’s things out of the car then I’ll get going. I have court today so I should go prepare. Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes. Fine. Alek and I will take her out to breakfast. What’s going on?”

“Same bullshit, different day,” Julian sighed. “The client is claiming the IP should revert under the termination clause, but there’s no surviving obligations in the merger agreement. The defendant’s a multinational, risk-averse, wanted a clean settlement. But my guy insists on litigation. Says it’s about optics.”

I grimaced. “Oh, you hate those guys. Does that mean it’s not about the money?”

“No, it’s always about the money. But he thinks the PR play is worth more than the actual claim. I tried to walk him back, but no dice. So now I’m stuck pretending that this isn’t a complete waste of court resources for the next few weeks, if I’m lucky. Could be months. Hopefully not years.”

I cocked my head. “I thought you said we were taking Rosie for breakfast. What changed?”

Julian just looked at me. Really looked at me. Then his gaze dropped—to my neck.

My stomach twisted.

And then he sighed.

“It seems like you had a horrible night. You looked like you were about to sob when Rosie greeted you. I’ve only ever seen you have that look on your face that time Rosie crashed her bike in Medellin. When we thought…”

He trailed off, shaking his head.

I swallowed hard, the memory still sharp in my mind. “She was fine.”

“She had a fractured skull, Ruby. We didn’t know if she was going to recover.”

“Yes, but she was fine.”

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