Page 32 of Perfect Satisfaction

Once.

Now, I know better.

It’s been months since she walked away—the woman I thought would be my guiding light. The only thing keeping me warm at night is knowing I scooped someone. I’m feeding the venom in my blood by capitalizing on someone’s pleasure or pain by writing about it.

Especially if I can find a way to send a poisonous dart in my wife’s direction.

“Ah, sweetheart. Knowing you, loving you, changed me. I’m afraid you wouldn’t recognize me if we met all over again. Back then, what I felt for you—” I stop speaking and take a sip of the liquor, letting the burn set fire to the feelings that arise. “Well, that doesn’t matter. Right? What I had to offer was nothing in comparison to what you’re being given.” My lips twist cruelly.

One story.

And my wife wouldn’t give me a chance to explain.

“You tore out of my life so fast, I’m surprised the city didn’t have reports of flames burning the highway when you fled. But I damn sure learned one lesson after the great Ursula Moore departed my life. Don’t let anyone catch you unexpectedly by the balls.”

The man in the reflection smirks back at me as I see myself in the glass surrounding my office overlooking the Manhattan skyline. It’s a lesson I’ve put to use more than I care to admit over the last few months as I’ve dodged more persistent lawsuits with relative ease.

Particularly as they pertain to my wife and her “family.”

Pressing my head against the cool glass, I contemplate what I wrote along with the picture. Tonight’s scoop might get me sued. It might cause me to make a lifelong enemy. Neither can be helped. It also makes me incredibly sad—not that anyone would believe that even if I looked them straight in the eyes and told them with my hand resting on a stack of Bibles.

I lift the tumbler of bourbon to my lips and momentarily rethink the article scheduled to appear on my website at 12:01 a.m. I still have a few minutes to press a series of commands to kill the story that’s about to run. Instead, I toast the air and murmur, “Sorry, Danielle. But next to death, cheating celebs is the best thing I can post that’s bound to get site views related to a celebrity.”

Still, I feel more than a twinge when I recall staring at the picture of Brendan Blake with his arms wrapped around my wife tucked closely in his arms. She had a glass of champagne in her hand and was beaming up at him.

Bitch.

I know Dani is a friend of Liza’s. I hope she doesn’t feel what my friend did or look the same way over Ursula’s actions.

Heartbroken.

Sobbing.

Her face filled with devastation.

Fuck. The memory of the grief etched on Liza’s face when I showed her the photos of Ursula and Joshua makes me want to delete the photo I uploaded to be posted on StellaNova, except I know there’s no mercy in either her business or mine. “Fuck it. It’s what everyone expects of us.”

My desk phone pings—the distinctive sound indicating someone’s calling me from within the office. I activate the speaker. “Yeah?”

“News is hitting the websites Brendan Blake was atThe Golden Ladytonight. Are you certain you want to wait?” my number two, Hastings, asks.

“Are we being scooped by anyone?” My glass hits the desk with a snap.

Hastings bellows out a laugh. “Are you kidding? Ronan, we got the shot of the century.”

“I know.” Anger and resentment surge through me that someone outside of myself and Liza knows my feelings about Ursula, but tonight I’ll regain some of these riotous emotions.

I ignore my grief. After all, grief is never satisfied. No matter how much you try to fake your way through life.

Hastings’s laughter has ebbed to a residual chuckle. “I still can’t believe it. Who would have thought Brendan Blake was stepping out on his wife? I mean, she’s Danielle Fucking Madison.”

“I know who the hell she is.”

“You’re going to make a mint selling that photo to every syndicate.”

The drink in my stomach churns unexpectedly. Coolly, I remind him, “Or we might be facing a massive lawsuit. Let’s not forget who represents—represented—her.”

Even as Hastings dismisses the idea, I tap a few keys to pull up the website of Danielle’s lawyers—LLF, LLC. I’ve had my run-ins with Carys Burke-Lennan. She and her brother—a partner in the firm—might be billionaires and appear in as many tabloids as not, but no one can say they’re lounging on their yacht counting the pot of gold they earned the old-fashioned way by inheriting it at the untimely death of both of their parents.