“And the story notes? I suppose that was Justin’s idea too?”

Kelli started to look fidgety. “That wasn’t planned either. It’s just that you came in and caught us, and you looked so damned smug and righteous about the whole thing. But the thing that really got me was how disbelieving you were. As though you couldn’t believe someone would prefer me to you. And I picked up your story notes to hand them to you, but you ran out, and I just—”

Julie held up a hand. “Okay, I get it. You hated my guts and the opportunity was dropped in your lap. But what about this?” Julie pulled the newspaper out of her purse and waved it in Kelli’s face. “What possible excuse is there? You completely ratted me out. Destroyed my story.”

You destroyed my life. But she wouldn’t give Kelli-with-an-i that kind of satisfaction.

“And to Allen Carsons of all people? Do you have any idea what Camille will do if she finds out?”

“I’ll be fired,” Kelli said, biting her lip.

Julie snorted. “That’ll be the least of your worries. Your name will be blacklisted in this city. What could possibly be worth the risk?”

Kelli opened her mouth. Shut it again.

And then, to Julie’s great surprise, the younger woman promptly burst into tears. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I just . . . you really should have given up the story, Julie. You weren’t qualified. I was. If you’d been focused on the magazine instead of yourself . . .”

“I know,” Julie said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re right.”

Kelli stopped crying abruptly, her mouth gaping. “Seriously? You agree.”

“Yes, I agree,” Julie snapped. “And up until this little bomb in the Tribune, I was planning to tell Camille that the story was yours.”

Kelli sucked in a breath. “You were?”

“Yup. I was,” Julie snarled, stuffing the paper in her purse. “But, see, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t write about Mitchell. He’s too important to me. But I will keep my article. I don’t know what the hell I’ll write about, but I’ll make something up.”

“You’re doing that just to spite me.”

Julie’s anger spiked. “Thanks to you, the entire city thinks I’m a soulless whore! Do you have any idea what Mitchell will say when he finds out?”

I’ll lose him.

Kelli’s expression turned nasty. Well . . . nastier. “You know,” she said, with a faux-thoughtful tap of a finger against her lips, “somehow I don’t think he’ll care one way or the other.”

Ignore her. She’s trying to get under your skin. But it was as though Kelli had her skinny finger on the pulse of Julie’s insecurities. So she bit the bait.

“Why wouldn’t he care?” she asked carefully. “You don’t even know him.”

Kelli gave a slow smile. “Not personally, no. But I know friends of his.”

“And?” Julie wanted nothing more than to slap the smug grin from Kelli’s face, but first she had to know.

“We’ll see,” Kelli said, taking a half step closer. “You know that part two that Mr. Carsons referenced in his article? That too was my scoop.”

Julie thought back to the wording in the paper: Her prey had his own nefarious reasons for letting himself fall into her disingenuous web.

“What are you talking about?” Julie said, hating that her voice had gone shaky.

Kelli gave her a look of sham sympathy. “You didn’t know? Honey, turns out at the very time you were hatching a plan to reel the man in, he was making a bet that he could make a fling out of you. He and my boyfriend made a bet that Mitchell couldn’t have a flirtatious, meaningless short-term roll in the hay with Manhattan’s favorite girl toy.”

“No,” Julie whispered.

But the word didn’t stop the barrage of mental pictures. The first date, when he hadn’t bothered to ask her out for a second. The emotional detachment. The resistance to movie night. Even the obsession with baseball fit the bill.

“Yup,” Kelli said, checking her fingernails. “He didn’t even agree to it at first because you weren’t his type. But then he decided to f**k you over for Yankees tickets.”

“You’re lying.”

“Actually, she’s not.”

Julie froze in shock at the familiar voice. Kelli, she noted, didn’t look the least bit surprised.

It couldn’t be.

She turned.

It was.

But why was Mitchell here in Kelli’s house? Her eyes flicked to the overgrown frat boy next to him and the pieces fell into place.

The guy with short brown hair was Kelli’s boyfriend. The one who’d proposed the bet to Mitchell. A bet Mitchell had accepted.

And why was Mitchell here today? To collect?

Her eyes searched his face, silently begging him to deny everything. But his eyes were icy, betraying nothing.

“Mitchell?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Very slowly he lifted his arm, and Julie’s eyes dropped to his left hand.

Where he was holding the New York Tribune.

Chapter Seventeen

Julie couldn’t tear her eyes away from the paper. She was too late.

Feeling as though her heart would explode, she forced her eyes up to his. She was braced for his anger. Braced for his hurt. But what she saw was so much worse. Anger she could have defused; hurt she could have soothed. Instead he was completely devoid of emotion, showing nothing but stone-cold indifference.

He was done with her.

Julie heard a small keening noise and realized it had come from her own throat. “You read it,” she said needlessly.

“Yes, Julie, I read it.” His voice was dangerously soft.

“Mitchell—”

“You used me for a f**king story!”

She pressed her lips together, willing herself not to fall to her knees and beg. “You used me for a bet,” she said softly. “Can’t we—”

“It’s not the same thing,” he said with a disgusted look.

The arrogant dismissal in his tone ignited something dangerous in the pit of her stomach. Kelli and her dead-behind-the-eyes boyfriend completely faded from view as she focused on the only thing that mattered.

Mitchell.

Julie moved closer, trying to keep her voice calm. “Now hold on just a second, Wall Street. I’d say we both did a number on each other. I am sorry about what I did—so sorry—but how is my offense worse than yours?”

He looked incredulous. “Nobody would have known about my stupid bet!”

Kelli’s boyfriend made a nervous noise, and Mitchell cut him a death glare. “Almost nobody. But your little game would have been splashed on newsstands all over the country!”

“So it’s okay to play with someone’s heart if the audience is small, but it’s not okay if it’s public knowledge?”

“It’s a little more than public knowledge, Julie. Stiletto is the largest women’s magazine in the country, as you’ve reminded me a half dozen times.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have used your name,” she said, exasperated by his drama.

It was the wrong thing to say. And hardly the point. But he was being so damned sanctimonious and power-trippy that it just slipped out.

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself as you fall asleep next to me every night? That you’d just change my name and everything would be okay?”

“Of course not, but Mitchell, can’t we just talk about this? Maybe alone?”

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s not much to talk about. You’re two steps away from a prostitute, except instead of money on the dresser, you want magazine fame, and instead of serving up sex, you serve up vapid little smiles. Oh, no, wait—you serve up sex too.”

Julie’s arms wrapped around her middle as though he’d punched her in the stomach. She’d known this confrontation would hurt, but she hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected cruelty. His jaw twitched as if in regret, but he didn’t take back his words.

Neither had she missed that she’d been the only one so far to deliver anything close to an apology. She clung to her anger as a way of staving off the hurt and inched closer, her eyes locked on his.