Page 73 of Divine Temptations

And even though tonight had ended with slammed doors and silence… I made myself a quiet promise:

I was going to help him find his light again.

Even if it broke me a little to try.

Chapter Nine

Julian- Two Weeks Later

My phone buzzed against my cheek.

I groaned. Loudly. Violently. Like a Victorian widow collapsing over a casket.

The screen glowed inches from my face, searing light into my retinas like it had a personal vendetta.

CLAUDIA J.

Get your ass down here. I mean it.

Now.

- CJ @ J&L

I stared at it like maybe, just maybe, I could die in the next thirty seconds and never have to respond.

Another buzz. Another message.

I’m not above sending someone to drag you out by your man bun.

I didn’t have a man bun. Not anymore. I’d hacked it off sometime between the second bottle of cheap hotel pinot noirand the full spiral in my Riverbend Inn bathroom. Somewhere in the fallout zone of Jude’s rejection.

God. Fucking Jude.

Even thinking his name made my stomach twist like I’d swallowed a belt and someone was pulling it tighter. I dropped the phone on the pillow and stared at the ceiling of my shoebox apartment, one arm flung dramatically over my eyes like I was a corpse in a Tennessee Williams play.

Two weeks. Two full weeks of decomposing in this bed.

I hadn’t podcasted. Hadn’t posted. Hadn’t showered. I’d ordered enough Thai delivery to qualify for diplomatic immunity in Bangkok. I was surviving off room-temperature pad see ew and emotional damage.

Because here’s the thing:no one had ever turned me down before.Not like that. Not with that stupid, soft look in his eyes. And not with hands that could’ve taken me apart and a voice that said stop.

And it wasn’t just the rejection—it was who had rejected me.

Jude Brooks. Faith healer. Possible cult leader. Hands like scripture, a smile like temptation, and a whole metaphysical philosophy I couldn’t even begin to untangle. I should’ve seen it coming, right? The spiritually enlightened are always the worst lays. Or at least, the most elusive.

But that night had cracked something in me.

I’d gone back to the Riverbend Inn in a fog, locked the door, and collapsed on the bed. Drank everything in the minibar. Cried a little. Punched a pillow, then rage-wrote a podcast script titled“False Prophets and the Losers Who Want Them”that never saw the light of day.

Then, I got in my rental car and headed back to New York.

And here I was. Two weeks later. Still not okay.

Buzz.

I swear to God, Julian. I know where you live.

That was probably true. Claudia Jameson didn’t mess around.