Chapter 18
“He had built himself from ruin. Stone by stone. Lie by lie.”—The Count of Monte Cristo
JUDE
The observatory sits above the main event space, hidden behind a winding staircase most people don't even notice. The higher we climb, the quieter it gets. The music below becomes nothing more than a dull pulse vibrating through the floorboards.
The dome overhead is open.
Stars spill across the sky.
For a second I forget why we're here.
Forget the list.
Forget my father.
Forget prison.
Forget all of it and hold her. I don’t remember her being so small in my arms, I suddenly want to protect her and keep her safe from the nightmares I’ve already experienced, not because she isn’t capable on her own but because she shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.
The city stretches beneath us in a sea of lights while the telescope points toward a moon so bright it almost looks fake.
"Well." She shoves her hands into my pockets, maybe to stay warm. "This feels significantly less criminal than I imagined, and dare I say also scandalous?"
I laugh, loving that she’s comfortable enough to keep her hands warm. “It’s because you’re not naked yet.”
She jerks back. “I missed that laugh.”
“Me too,” I admit.
“So, Mr. Mastermind villain, what next? I take it we’re up here trying our best to get caught?” She looks around. “Are you thinking the birds will report on us first or the stars?”
“Very funny. Also, they have loads of cameras and people sneak away up here all the time, try not to get a ticket for indecent exposure though, yeah?”
“Yup.” She backs away from me and stretches her arms over her head.
I choke out a laugh. “Are you, are you stretching?”
“Yes! I’m preparing! I’m not flexible, Jude, and it shows.”
“What the hell kind of sexual gymnastics do you think we’re going to be doing that you need to be flexible. For the record I’m not complaining, it’s more of a question also will there be a demonstration?”
She smacks me on the stomach. “I’m serious, I don’t want to look awkward.”
“It’s me, why would it be awkward.”
“Because days ago, you would have kissed me then broken my heart.”
“And today?” I cross my arms. “What makes today any different?”
“Today I realized I never really had it back anyways. You took it with you, you still have it, so breaking really isn’t in my control or my hands.”
It’s like she punched me in the stomach. “You can’t say things like that to me and expect me not to want you.”
“The goal is for you to want me. And others to see.”
“I was going to attempt not to feel.” I say dumbly. “But that was a lie.”
“Glad you can admit it.”
“Is there too much, you think…” I swallow hard. “Too much damage between us?”
“Yes.” She crosses her arms again. “But right now, I'm not going to think about that.”
“Good.”
I reach for her before I can stop myself.
One hand slides around the back of her neck and I pull her toward me.
For one suspended second she just stares at me.
Then I kiss her.
Not carefully.
Not strategically.
Not because we're trying to catch whoever is behind the Dean's List.
I kiss her because for seven years I've imagined what it would feel like to know she was alive, to hear her laugh again, to argue with her, to hate her properly.
Nobody ever warned me that seeing her again would be worse.
That wanting her would be worse.
Her breath catches against my mouth.
My entire body goes tight.
And then she's kissing me back.
The world tilts.
The observatory disappears.
The stars disappear.
The list.
The revenge.
The lies.
All of it.
Gone.
Her fingers thread into my hair, tugging just hard enough to make my pulse slam against my throat. I make a rough sound I don't recognize as my own and pull her closer.
Too close.
Not close enough.
She steps into me and suddenly I'm the one losing ground.
I back her against the railing, my hand sliding to her waist as if I'm terrified she'll disappear if I let go.
Maybe I am.
Maybe that's the problem.
Because the second she melts against me, every plan I've spent years building starts cracking at the foundation.
I deepen the kiss.
Slow this time.
Learning her, remembering her small sighs. I brush my thumb against her jaw and nearly come undone when she sighs against my mouth and tugs on my hair. She tastes exactly like every memory I’ve spent seven years trying to kill.
I pull back just enough to look at her.
Big mistake. Massive actually. Her cheeks are flushed a bright pink, lips swollen, and her eyes, God her eyes, it’s like she’s mirroring exactly how I feel—wrecked.
I rest my forehead against hers and let out a shaky laugh.
“Tell me,” I say roughly. “Tell me this doesn't feel like a disaster.”
“It absolutely feels like a disaster.”
“Good.” I stop her with another kiss and another, then pull back. I’m done. I’m owned.
We break apart briefly, or I come up for air while she tugs my hair and digs her hands in against my scalp.
It feels amazing as I press her up against the railing lifting her leg and wrapping it around myself.
My hands inch up her skirt until my fingers find her thong, I shove it to the side.
I wasn’t going to go this far but I can’t help myself.
I need to touch her feel her. She lets out a gasp when I tug the small piece of material free sliding it down her leg and putting it in my pocket. “You won’t need this.”
“Jude,” She moans my name and reaches for my belt while I try to angle her leg better so I can give her what she wants—scratch that, what I want. I can feel her slick heat, so close, one more inch and I can make her feel good, one more slide of my hand.
A throat clears.
We jerk apart.
Axel is standing in the doorway with a half empty champagne glass. “Was just going on a stakeout for a place to hook up. Didn’t the sign say off limits? Pretty sure the sign downstairs said this area was closed."
Lilah groans. "Oh, thank God it's you."
"That is an incredibly concerning thing to say." Axel points out.
I immediately start fixing her hair, her dress, her smudged lipstick.
Axel points at us. “Question.”
“No.” I interject.
“I haven’t even asked yet!” He says loudly, then points again. "You two trying to start a rumor that professors are sleeping with students because if so the current optics are aggressively terrible."
Lilah chokes.
I let out a laugh.
Axel looks between us with a smirk, then up at the stars, then back at us. “Hmm, interesting.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “Higher stakes than I thought.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
"Nothing." He just keeps smiling. "Just wasn't expecting either of you to actually commit to the bit, you know?"
My eyes narrow. “The bit.”
"Yeah."
Axel gestures vaguely.
"The fake relationship between you two because we all know you’re not dating you were ready to kill each other less than forty-eight hours ago, so what gives? Trying to throw people for a loop? Hide from the many undergrads?"
I say nothing.
Lilah just shrugs. If he knew it was for The Dean’s List and about my mom he’d want to involve himself and I wasn’t sure I could trust him yet.
Back in the day he’d been at the funeral with me but he’d looked up to my dad like he was his hero and while I loved him, money made people do crazy things.
"Unless it isn't fake anymore." He says in a teasing tone.
Silence.
Complete silence while Lilah looks away from us like she couldn’t be more fascinated by the room we’re in. She stares at the telescope, the walls. “Oh look, the moon.”
I clear my throat. “Be annoying elsewhere Axel.”
"You're annoying."
"I know." Axel shrugs. "I'm just saying, seven years of hatred, prison, your mother's death, a revenge plan worthy of a psychopath..." He shrugs. “And what? All it takes is one kiss? Pussy? I don’t get it.”
I rage.
I don’t see anything. I simply lunge for him and start hitting. “What the fuck did you say?”
He smiles through the blood on his teeth. “That all you got?”
“Fuck you!”
I grab his shirt and slam him against the wall. For a second all I can see is red.
The prison walls.
My mother's grave.
Lilah standing in court.
Every sleepless night.
Every damn year.
Every second I spent convincing myself I hated her enough to survive it.
Seven years. Seven years. Seven long years.
"Jude!" Lilah screams, but her voice barely registers above the roaring in my ears and the rage in my soul.
Hands grab at my arm. I hear Charlie.
Charlie.
Lilah.
Both trying to pull me back.
I shrug them off.
"Jude, stop!"
Axel wipes blood from his mouth. The bastard is still smiling. Because he knows. He knows exactly why I'm angry. Not because he's wrong. Because he's right.
Guilt crashes into me so hard I nearly choke on it. The room suddenly feels too small.
Too loud.
Too full.
I take a step back.
Then another.
I can't look at Lilah.
Can't look at any of them.
"Don't follow me." The words come out harsher than I intend. I turn and I walk. I’m numb, but I need to leave, get away from Lilah from Axel from everything. It’s the same feeling I had before when I got out of prison, the need to escape. The need to run, to get out, to solve nothing despite knowing that my mom would never commit suicide. Her and dad had been fighting more she said she’d tell me when she had more information.
“It’s a burden a child should never have to bear.”
“And you do?” I said.
“It’s my job to protect you even if it means from your own father. He said he was done with all of this. It’s so much worse than I could imagine.”
And that was it, our last conversation. She was gone the very next day.
The last thing I see is Lilah’s face as I numbly walk, the last thing I think of is her kiss and every reason I had to pursue her, to get revenge, and I come up completely blank like I’ve lost the plot of the story, lost my mission, because I no longer recognize who I am anymore.
My revenge has always been a sort of armor I put on every day, every night, and she pulled away at that and made me see that maybe, just maybe I was looking at things wrong and now I don’t know what to do.
I’m vulnerable and I’m afraid every enemy can see it.
Forget The Dean’s List, right now I’m more concerned that I’ve messed up too bad.
I hurt her.
But I will only ever hurt her.
I’ll get close and then I’ll snap. I know it, because Axels right, it’s been seven years of hatred, one kiss doesn’t erase her testimony and it doesn’t erase the nights in prison where I cried myself to sleep or screamed for my dead mom until my throat was hoarse.
Too much time had passed.
Too much damage.
Too much blood in the water.
We were never meant to be friends why the hell did I think we could be something more?
The only solution is to bring down the monster.
The only solution is to become one.