The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: What I Felt

I told Colton I would think about it.

I didn't think about it for one second.

I wanted him to go to bed believing I might, because a man who thinks he's winning stops checking his locks.

He kissed the air beside my cheek and left me alone in the dark kitchen.

I stood there with my glass of water until my hands stopped shaking.

Then I sat down on the back stairs and did the thing I had been doing in secret since Rome.

I opened my phone and watched Colton's award speech.

It was the fourth time.

On the screen he held the gold statue against his tuxedo and thanked his manager, his director and his mother.

Then he ducked his head and let the dimple out.

"And to the girl who drove me to every audition, when I had nothing," he said.

The camera cut to a woman in the third row, in cream-colored silk, crying into her hands.

"Callie."

I looked up.

Jude stood at the top of the stairs in his shirtsleeves, with his hair flattened on one side from my pillow.

"I woke up and you were gone," he said. "The bed was cold."

"Colton was in the kitchen."

His face went still.

I told him all of it, standing up, with the phone dark in my fist.

The retraction, and the apology he wanted me to make, and the two hundred thousand dollars.

"And what did you say?" Jude asked.

"That I'd think about it."

Silence came down the stairwell.

"Are you thinking about it?"

"No."

"You're watching his speech."

"Jude."

"That's the fourth time since Rome," he said, and his voice went quiet and careful.

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