Page 163 of His Good Girl

She froze.

I squeezed once.

“You hurt me,” I said. “You did. We are not skipping that chapter. But you are also my best friend. And they hurt you too.”

Her mouth trembled.

“So, we are going to be smarter than they think we are,” I said. “We are going to write down everything. We are going to figure out what they wanted from you, what they already had, what they still don’t know, and why they needed you in the first place. Then we are going to decide what to do with that.”

“And Callum?”

“I’ll tell him,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation.

Jules narrowed her eyes through tears. “Before or after?”

I looked down at the blank page.

“Avery.”

“Before it matters.”

“That is such a Callum answer, I want to throw something.”

“Fine. I’ll tell him before I do anything irreversible.”

“Better, but still suspicious.”

“It’s the best I can offer while emotionally compromised.”

She let out a shaky breath, then looked at the notebook. For a moment, I thought she would refuse. Then she reached for the second pen.

“Write Becca at the top,” she said.

I did.

The name looked small on the page for someone that had done so much damage.

Jules leaned forward, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “She called first from a blocked number, but the texts started after. I think the email came before the second call. She had this way of saying things like she was doing me a favor.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Corporate mafia with moisturizer.”

I smiled despite myself. “There’s my girl.”

Jules flinched at the phrase, and I almost apologized.

Then she smiled weakly. “Careful. That line belongs to your morally complicated billionaire now.”

“He can share.”

“Can he?”

“No.”

We laughed again, softer this time, and I grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

Then we got to work. The apartment darkened all around us as the hours passed. Jules’s mascara dried in dark smudges under her eyes. Somewhere between the second and third pages of notes, she stopped shaking. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth, I stopped feeling like an illegally photographedthingand started feeling like a person holding a spotlight.