Page 160 of His Good Girl

She made a sound that hurt to hear. “I’m sorry,” she cried out. “I amso sorry. I know that’s not enough. I know it doesn’t fix it. I know I betrayed you. I know! I know.”

I wanted to stay angry. Anger made me feel less like the world had peeled me open and let strangers inventory my softest places. If I stayed angry, Jules could be on one side of the room and I could be on the other, and the wound would have a name.

Betrayal.

But she was sitting on my couch crying over photographs someone had used against her. She had betrayed me, yes. She had also been cornered. Both things were true, and I hated that truth more than anything. I hated the people who were doing this to us. All of us.

“Did you send them anything?” I asked.

“No.”

“Screenshots? Texts? Photos of me?”

“No.” She shook her head frantically. “No. Never. I answered questions. That’s all. I didn’t send them your messages. I didn’t send photos. I didn’t—” Her voice broke. “I swear, Avery. I swear on our friendship, if that still means anything.”

“It does.”

Jules stared at me and I stared back. My eyes filled again, which was inconvenient because I had intended to look stern for at least another four minutes.

“It still means something. I’m furious with you. I don’t know how not to be furious with you yet, but it means something.”

She covered her mouth, fresh tears spilling over her fingers. I sat down beside her again, leaving space between us at first. She did not reach for me. She let the space exist, which was perhaps the first smart thing either of us had done all evening.

“I forgive you,” I whispered.

Her whole face crumpled.

“But not in a cute way,” I added, because otherwise both of us would drown. “Not in an everything’s fine, let’s braid each other’s hair kind of way. I forgive you because I love you and because I know what it is to be scared. I forgive you because whoever did this wanted to make us turn on each other, and I am not giving corporate Voldemort the satisfaction of that.”

A sob escaped her. It sounded dangerously close to a laugh.

“But I’m still hurt,” I stated emphatically.

“I know.”

“And you’re going to tell me everything.”

“Yes.”

“Every call. Every text. Every email. Every exact word you remember. Every number. Every fake name. Every time they contacted you. Everything you told them and everything they told you.”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. Anything. Everything.”

“And then you’re going to give it to Callum. He will be angry. He has a right to be. So do I.”

“I know.”

“But he’ll understand blackmail.”

“He’s a billionaire. Does he understand anything under eight figures?”

“He understood me.”

Jules looked at me then, eyes red, face open in a way I rarely saw because she usually kept several sharp objects and jokes between herself and real sincerity.

“You love him,” she said.

I looked down at my hands.