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I laugh without any humor. “I’m not a billionaire. But if I was, I still wouldn’t give you a penny. You clearly don’t know the value of money or what it means to work hard for it. But you’re about to find out. Get the fuck out.”

He shakes his head. “I’ll tell everyone. Her job. I’ll go to the papers. I’ll make you sorry.”

I roll my eyes. “You can leave on your own, or I’ll call the police and have them escort you out.”

He sneers at me. “What, afraid you’ll break a fingernail?”

“No. Just not stupid.” If I lay a finger on him, he’ll go to the police. Sue me for battery. I’m not taking the bait. “If you leave now, I’ll let you put on your shoes and take whatever you can carry with you. If I have to call the police, we’ll sit here together while we wait for them, and I won’t let you touch anything in this apartment. Besides the crime of blackmail, I’m sure you’re in violation of your parole terms. So when they get here, they will certainly arrest you, and you’ll be carried out in just what you’ve got on now.”

He glances down at his pasty bare chest, boxer shorts, and bare feet.

“Either way you’re leaving. What will it be? I don’t have all fucking day.”

He grabs his T-shirt and slips it on. He stomps around the living room until he finds his shoes in the rubble of garbage he’s managed to compile in just a week. He glares at me while he stoops and hops around to put them on. “I’m going straight toThe Sun. They’ll pay what you wouldn’t. Then I’m going to her job, and I’ll tell them what she’s done.”

“And I don’t see whyThe Sunwould be interested in a story about a woman who was a youth offender and turned her life around. But go ahead. Shout it from the mountaintops, we do not care. But I’ll tell you what: You aren’t getting so much as bus fare from either of us, ever again. Hurry the fuck up,” I snap when he starts glancing around.

“I need my travel card.”

“Hear that?” I ask, and he looks at me and actually cranes his neck in my direction.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s exactly how much I care about what you need. Buy a new bus pass.”

He turns pained eyes on me. “I’m skint, man. I had debts to pay with that money she gave me. I don’t have anything.”

“Sell that nice new phone or those stupid shoes you’re wearing. I do not care how you do it, or where you go next. Just that you’re gone.”

“Jules wouldn’t?—”

I move so my face is close enough for him to see the truth of what I’m about to say in my eyes. “Don’t you ever utter her name again. Don’t even think about her. Forget she exists and be lucky that I care more about her than I do about giving you what you deserve. And if you ever, ever come near her again, you won’t see me coming, but I will. And I’ll make you wish you’d never heard the name Juliana Quist. You have five seconds to decide what happens next.”

I pull out my phone, dial 999, and start counting.

“Asshole,” he shouts as he grabs his phone and a backpack off the couch and darts out the door.

“Damn right I am.”

CHAPTER 34

THE BOYFRIEND EXPERIENCE

Jules

Conrad runspast me so fast I don’t think he realizes I’m there. Omar asked me to wait outside, but I couldn’t help it. The doors are as thin as the walls, and I heard every delicious word he said.

He comes out a few seconds behind Conrad and stops short. His brows snap together, and he frowns. “I thought you were waiting outside.”

“I still am, technically.”

He shakes his head, but he’s smiling again. “All’s well that ends well. Come on. Let’s go home.” He grabs my hand and leads us down the stairs to the street level entrance.

“You were extra growly in there.”

He laughs. “Is growly a word?” He opens my car door and taps my ass before he runs to his side.

“It’s a word. And it was hot. Like foreplay hot.”