Only once Coop left my office did I allow myself to shrink into my seat.

What had I done? Accepted this impossible mission—no pun intended—to bring down a powerful man who'd evaded the law and justice for many, many years?

Me, a newcomer to the French branch, thinking she could waltz in here, win the job of my dreams, get the girl, and eliminate an enemy to the company in one fell swoop?

Who the fuck did I think I was?

Panic riddled through me as I glared at my computer screen, my credentials still waiting to be entered. I hadn't logged into anything while Coop was there, and my arms were too sore and shaky to try lifting them.

I needed food now that I knew I wasn't getting fired, and a strong cup of coffee.

As I slithered out of my office, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Giselle: I'll come by at ten-thirty for lessons, as usual.

I scoffed, so focused on glowering at her text that I nearly bumped into Louis, from marketing. He smiled, I apologized, and I stopped to lean against a wall to send a response.

Lucy: You go silent all weekend, don't warn me that Coop wants to talk to me, and I find them in my office when I arrive today, and you expect me to let you in to resume lessons as normal? No!

I cringed at my explosion, but she needed to be aware how I felt; how she'd hurt me.

I couldn't stop myself from adding more. All weekend she'd left me to stew and charge up with fear, and she thought she could barge back in as if nothing had happened?

Lucy: Also, thanks for the warning that Coop was in on your plans to take Dean down. Would have loved the heads' up. A bit of honesty, for once? Postpone lessons for now, I'm not in the mood.

She started responding several times—I saw the ellipses at the bottom of my screen—but ended up only giving my message a thumbs up. I translated that as bitter acceptance, but I didn't care; I was the one who'd been wronged here, not her.

She lied to me. Had she told me Coop was part of this plot, I'd have been fine with it—after meeting them in person, of course. The more of us there were to dismantle Dean's empire, the better; why would she not see that? Why would she not trust me with this information?

I was ready to risk it all—my career and livelihood truly at stake—but she hadn't seen the need to give me all the information. With Coop in the mix, someone with more access, more information, we had larger chances of winning against Dean.

I didn't want to work with Giselle anymore.

The next day, she texted me again, asking about lessons.

Lucy: No, I'm still not ready to deal with you and your betrayal.

Again, she didn't answer, not even an emoji response this time. I winced at the knowledge that I was probably hurting her with my bluntness, but I was too busy to focus on that.

I had a takedown to initiate.

In my downtime, I studied the documents she'd given me. All of Dean's misdoings, complaints filed against him, bad ratings and reviews from other peers and directors. She'd dropped them off for me Monday night, after-hours. I assumed she was staying over time in some attempt to make up for her mistakes.

Or maybe Dean was forcing her. I hadn't bumped into him in a while, for which I was grateful. Looking him in the eye all while knowing I was plotting against him would make me too jittery to take seriously, and he'd see right through me.

I still couldn't get over how neglectful we'd been, Giselle and me. We'd been doing so well, taking our sexual appetites home instead of succumbing to the hunger at the office. Even with everyone gone for the night, we knew it was risky; yet the excitement from finding documents to incriminate Dean had gotten the best of us.

I couldn't fathom that she'd lied to me. Hid the truth about already being in the process of bringing Dean down. Never warned me we had additional help in all this and wouldn't be alone in facing Dean.

On Wednesday, she emailed me instead of texting, asking if I needed help with going over the documents, and whether I wanted to get back into French. The tone of her email was dire; depressed, I'd say. It was odd for her—though she wasn't ever cheery, she never came off as down in the dumps, either. The professional format of this message was sad, sorry.

It made my heart hurt and something clogged up in my throat.

Had I been too hard on her? Judged too harshly? She must have had her reasons for leaving me in the dark. Without knowing them, it was wrong of me to be so cold to her, wasn't it?

In my response email, I remained vague. I told her I'd get back to her about French lessons, and that I'd keep her apprised of anything I found in the documents that we could fully use to our advantage. While we'd agreed to disrupt Dean's upcoming presentation, we hadn't actually agreed on what we'd be using to do so.

That night, I met with Pierre for drinks at Le Maudit. It had become a sort of hang-out for us, and when I walked in the waiters already knew to bring me a glass of rosé.

Pierre had requested to meet up to drown his sorrows. He and his boyfriend had officially broken up, and though he'd initiated it, he had regrets and questions and needed to bounce some ideas off me.

I was in a lower state of mind, myself. What happened with Giselle kind of felt like a break-up, too, though we were never a couple.

So Pierre and I drowned our sorrows together, bounding back and forth between our mutual problems and trying to fix them.

"I think you should hear her out," he said, after my fiftieth complaint about Giselle lying to me. "Give her a chance to explain her reasoning."

I sipped on my drink and winced as I realized I'd arrived at the final drop. I'd promised myself no more than two glasses; I'd reached my limit. "Yeah, you're right, and I know it, but my pride..."

"Don't let it get in the way," he said, setting a hand on my wrist; his touch was warm. "That's what I did with Daniel, and it's part of what broke us. I don't know what you're pursuing with Giselle, if anything, but if you care about her at all...give her a chance." He sneered into his cup. "Don't do what I did."

I thought of his comments all the way home. And in the shower. Then in bed as I tossed and turned, missing Giselle's arms around me. Missing her body that fit perfectly behind mine, or between my legs, or on top of me. Missing her sugar and spice scent that lingered in my nostrils for hours after she left.

I missed her. And I needed her. And despite her betrayal, I realized Pierre was correct—it was time to listen to her apology, if she had one.

All the postponing and avoiding had made a dent in my French learning, so I used that excuse to summon her to my office the next day.

She agreed to meet me at our usual time, and while I waited for her to show up, I paced. Pondering.

How to approach this? Scold her first, listen later? Listen first, acknowledge her, then decide if I wanted to punish her?

Upon her entrance, I made up my mind. The light bags under her eyes, the shrug of her shoulders, and the drab black and white suit she'd worn made me see she wasn't handling our argument well.

I chose to go easy on her, for now. "Thanks for coming. I'm getting rusty." I pointed at some documents delivered to me earlier from Regina; a majority of them in French. I'd been able to read through some areas and get the jist of what had been typed up, but for the most part, the phrases stumped me.

I did need Giselle's skills.

"No problem," she said, picking up the papers, studying them. Up close, I noticed her eyes were watery, her makeup not as impeccable as usual. "When you don't practice it constantly, especially in the beginning, it fades."

I had been learning some things from Pierre, but most of what he taught me was slang and unusable in this setting. "Well, it's fading."

She continued to scan the documents, pretending to concentrate. I caught her gaze slipping to me a few times as I silently typed up a report on my computer. I didn't acknowledge her, still unsure how to begin the conversation we needed to have—

But Giselle, ever the bold, spontaneous one, had decided on her own course of action.

"I'm sorry," she said, dropping the papers onto the desk, glancing at me with her wide, honey-shaded eyes. "I'm so sorry, okay?" She sniffled, and I bit the insides of my cheeks to stay in my seat and not rush to her side. "Coop and I...our agreement was never set in stone, so I didn't want to give you false hope by disclosing it."

I nodded, lips pursed. "You still should have." I peered towards the door—she'd shut it. Good. "With everything going on between us, the risks we've been taking, it was the least you could have done."

"I know." She lowered her chin, took a deep breath, and looked back up. "Things got out of hand. The plan to take him down, but you and me, too. I didn't...I didn't expect it to go this far. And I didn't expect Coop to show up here unannounced."

I cocked my head. "Do you not know them well?"

"Not well enough," she said, then scoffed. "We shared a common enemy. We shared...a lot of grievances against Dean. We met randomly at an event last year; a celebration for an employee who worked both here and at the London office. Coop saw that I worked for Dean and came up to me, and we started talking, and...well, we bonded." She saw me scowl at her and she shook her head furiously. "Not like that! They and I, we haven't..."

I rolled my eyes. "They told me. I wasn't scowling at you for that." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I wish you'd told me sooner. All this time I thought of Coop as a competitor for my position, when we should have been rallying together to get rid of Dean. And, oh!" I let out a fake gasp. "You were already doing that. It should have been disclosed."

"I'm aware of how poorly I handled things," Giselle said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And if I could re-do them, I'd do them differently. Coop was...is...an important ally, and I intended to work with both of you to make double sure Dean would be out of the picture."

"I have a hunch we would have both agreed to that, had you told us." My fists tightened; we were going around in circles of apologies and regrets and frustration, with no end in sight. "I guess what bothered me the most was that you lied. It made me question everything that's happened between us...made me wonder if you were ever genuine. If you seduced me and slept with me for help getting rid of your boss."

Giselle shot up from her chair, looking ready to hop over the desk and grab me. "Absolutely not."

I didn't move but raised my eyebrows. "You didn't use me?"

"No," she grimaced, squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them suddenly, "because I...I care about you, Lucy. My loyalty is to you now, because...I have feelings for you. And feelings, well...yes, I know it's been mostly physical between us so far, but something more has developed, and I..."

Despite my reservations, I stood up and joined her on the other side of the desk, placing my index finger against her lips. The contact made me shudder; it'd been far too long since I'd touched her, even as innocently as this.

"I get it." I pressed a hand to her cheek, reveling in the smoothness of her skin. She was warm, heating up the longer I stared at her, kept my hand on her. "I have feelings, too. It took all this for me to realize it, but...I really missed you."

As much as I wanted to kiss her, we'd both taken far too many risks already and knew better. The glance we exchanged—suffused with hot lust and a deep craving—was enough to express what we wanted to do.

I returned to my seat as she lowered back into hers. "I forgive you," I said to her, my heart pounding. "And I don't forgive easily, but...you're too adorable and I can't stand to see you so upset."

"I'm disappointed in myself." She sucked her lips in and batted her lashes as if to prevent tears. "Meaning I'll do anything to make it up to you."

I smirked. "Oh, I can think of a few things, but that'll be for later. For now...what do we do? What's the next step?"

She shook herself back into seriousness. "Coop talked to you, you said?" I nodded. "What did they say?"

"They're on our side, still. Promised not to denounce us, denounce me, as long as I continued with our ploy to take Dean down."

She chewed on her lower lip and peeped at the papers on my desk. "I have doubts now. With the way they showed up...we had agreements, and they haven't been holding up their end of things. Maybe they traveled here to give me what I'd been waiting for in person, but..."

"Which was what?" I moved my mouse to stop my computer screen from turning off.

"They've been...greedy. Not providing me with all the resources they'd promised." She slid a hand over her icy blonde curls and sighed. "Text messages, emails exchanged between them and Dean, things like that. They delayed our process, being a bit flighty, which was why I got so irritated and burst in here to ask for your help, that day. Because Coop was being evasive."

"Hmm." I picked up a pen and tapped it gently to my mouth. "Were they being flighty because of Dean? Striving to get more information but coming up on a dead-end? Since they were involved with Dean—they told me—and Dean was a douche, so perhaps...Coop was scared. Had to back off a little. They should have warned you, of course, but that might explain it."

Giselle puffed out a breath and deflated in the chair. "That could be it. But still...I'm scared, Lucy. I want Dean gone, but if things go wrong...I could lose my job, which means my family loses everything. Dean would block me from finding a position anywhere else in the city, I know it."

I reached across the desk, beckoning her hand, and squeezed it. "Then we'd better make sure I get this position, so I can ensure no one ever fires you, huh?"

I meant every word. Not only was I vying to be the president of LeRouge for myself—I was doing it for Giselle, to protect her from Dean.

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