the deal. I managed to pull it off somehow. I got enough money to pay for this place," I said as I glanced around the room before meeting Nikolai's eyes again. "I was able to pay off all my student loan debt and I have enough money in the bank to last a while. Cliff was so impressed with what I’d managed to do that he made me senior account executive. No entry-level job," I said with a smile.
"Amazing," Nikolai said softly, his dark eyes holding mine. He leaned down long enough to kiss me gently before pulling back and saying, "So that's why you're in such a high-level position at such a young age."
Since he didn't really need an answer, I didn't say anything. I couldn't tear my eyes from his. I was still in a complete state of shock that the man was even here in bed with me. And that we were talking about things that lovers talked about, not just two guys who’d hooked up. After a moment I said, "Cliff took me under his wing after that and then, I don't know, I guess we just became friends."
"Why not put the rumors about your relationship with him to rest?" Nikolai asked.
"How?" I asked him. "When has denying a rumor ever resolved it? How do you prove something that isn't true? Cliff told me a long time ago that people will believe what they want to believe. He doesn't care what they say about him in the press. He warned me that I would be a target the more we were seen together, but I didn't care. The trade-off is worth it.”
Nikolai studied me for so long that it began to make me nervous, but I kept quiet. As much as part of me wanted to see where this whole thing was going, I wouldn't let it cost me the only relationship I had in my life. If he had some notion about me severing my friendship with Cliff or expected me to waste time trying to quell the rumor, he wasn’t the guy I thought he was.
As I lay beneath Nikolai, unsure what his next move would be, I prepared myself for the ultimatum. Or even just his swift departure. I’d definitely given him enough ammunition to use against me.
But despite my insistence that I would respect his decision, I found myself unable to entirely release his arm. The best I could do was loosen my grip on him so he wouldn't feel like I was holding on to him. But there was no departure, no escape. There were no words either. When Nikolai's response came, it stole my breath because he leaned down and sealed his mouth over mine. There was no teasing or softness in the kiss. It was Nikolai taking what he wanted and for whatever reason, what he wanted was me. All the shit I'd thrown at him in the past twenty-four hours and he was still here with me.
He still wanted me.
The real me.
The real Jude who shouldn't have been enough for him but somehow was.
Chapter 23
flipped
How had I gotten so much wrong about the man beneath me?
It was a question that had been on a silent loop in my head for the past several minutes as the complete picture of Jude had emerged. I’d pegged him as a spoiled, entitled, rich asshole whose only concern had been the next deal and all the money to be made from it. But I'd been wrong on every single level.
None of what he had done had been about money. Nothing he did now seemed to be about it, either. In my heart, I knew the deals he worked on weren’t really about turning a profit. They were Jude's way of proving his value. It was his way of saying “Fuck you” to the people who’d thought he would never be anything because of the severe behavioral and learning challenges he’d faced as a child.
I’d been one of the assholes who'd judged him, just in a different way.
I thought back to the day I'd accused him of valuing what was on his computer screen more than his own life. I'd been so angry that the man refused to focus on anything but his work, but it had never occurred to me that he couldn't focus on anything else. From everything he'd told me, the combination of Jude's dyslexia along with whatever level of ADHD he hadn't outgrown meant he likely had to use