AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I swallow the scotch in my glass as I force myself to remember what followed. As I remember when he asked me if I had known the truth. If I had known that he was a bastard.
I didn’t have to say a word for him to see the answer on my face. And he just stared at me for such a long time before smiling that smile that I saw again last night. He hugged me. And he buried the knife that would have sliced his cake in my back.
A knock on my door startles me. I am jarred from my reverie, grateful and shaken at once.
“Judge.”
Fuck.
I clear my throat and stand. “Enter.”
Santiago opens the door, and for a moment, we remain facing one another in uneasy silence. I think of Mercedes. Of her beneath me. Of what I did.
“You’re working late,” he says. “I stopped by the house, but they told me you were here.”
“I had to finish some things. Come in.”
He does, closes the door behind him, and glances over the surface of my desk. “My sister’s friends.” He picks up the paper where Solana Lavigne and Georgie fucking Beaumont have taken out a full-page ad in a local paper asking if anyone’s seen her. They know her as Mercedes Rosa at least. A slight difference from her real name. Enough to keep out of IVI? We’ll see.
I hand him a scotch and take my seat behind my desk. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How?”
“Leave it to me.”
“That’s the thing, Judge.” He swirls his scotch in his glass. “Something’s gotten back to me, and I know the fucking rumor mill those Society ladies can be. But I need to make sure it’s not true.”
I clear my throat. Wait.
“You were seen kissing my sister the night of the party.”
“Ah. Well, it wasn’t quite like that. Mercedes was upset when I dragged her out of there. And her friends were watching.”
“Go on.” He drinks a sip of his scotch.
“She is impulsive.”
He snorts. “Always has been. Too emotional for her own good. The kiss?” His posture is casual, but his gaze intense, and he doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“She kissed me just as we reached the vehicle. I wasn’t expecting it, so there was a moment when I can see how it may have been perceived as us kissing, but I can assure you it wasn’t that. Those women were clearly relishing Mercedes’s… predicament, and she decided to show them up.”
He nods.
“So she kissed me in an effort to do exactly what’s happened. Stir up the rumor mill to her advantage.”
“So you didn’t kiss her back?”
“No.”
“And you explained it would not happen again.”
“Yes.”
He studies me. “Is there anything between you two? You need to tell me now if there is.”
“I know my duty, Santiago.” Fuck. God. I’m a piece of shit. “Mercedes is a beautiful, alluring woman, no doubt, but I know the rules.”
“Good. She cannot be compromised.”
