Chapter 7

Jude stared at the aggressive woman blocking his path. He took a deep breath, forcing the violent rage back down his throat. His icy gaze bypassed Sharon and locked directly onto Blaire, silently demanding she fix this disaster.

Blaire's scalp prickled under his stare. She scrambled out from behind her mother's arm, her voice stammering in panic. "Mom, wait, misunderstanding! This is... this is my roommate, Jude."

Sharon's eyes widened. She slowly looked Jude up and down, her gaze lingering critically on his mud-splattered shoes and his loosened, damp tie. She let out a loud, disdainful scoff. "So, this is him."

Drawing on years of elite upbringing, Jude forced his facial muscles to relax into a stiff, robotic mask of politeness. "Hello. I am Jude."

Blaire dropped to her knees, snatched her keys off the floor, and shoved them into the door lock. She pushed the door open, desperate to escape the suffocating tension of the hallway. "Come in, come in!"

The moment Sharon stepped inside, she transformed into a health inspector. She ran her finger along the top of the cheap IKEA TV stand, checking for dust. She looked at the basic furniture and sneered openly.

Jude stood rigidly in the entryway. He toed off his ruined leather shoes. His skin crawled. He wanted nothing more than to stand under a boiling hot shower for an hour, but he was trapped. He watched the mother-daughter duo with cold, calculating eyes.

Sharon sat down heavily on the sofa. She crossed her arms and aimed her interrogation directly at Jude. "Blaire tells me you're in sales. How much do you actually bring home a month?"

Jude walked over to the single armchair and sat down. Even in this cheap apartment, with a ruined suit, he crossed his long legs with the inherent dominance of a king on a throne. "Base salary plus commission. It barely covers the mortgage."

Sharon's lip curled in absolute disgust. "You're paying a mortgage on a dump with no working elevator? Your financial situation is pathetic. How do you plan to support a family?"

Blaire, who was pouring water in the kitchen, heard the insult. Her stomach dropped. She rushed out, holding a glass of water, trying to extinguish the fire. "Mom, stop! We are just roommates! We split everything fifty-fifty!"

Sharon glared at her daughter. "Even as a roommate, it's unacceptable. You lie down with dogs, you get fleas. Don't let a loser like this drag you down."

Jude's hands gripped the armrests of his chair. His knuckles turned bone-white. The veins on the back of his hands bulged. In his entire thirty years of life, no one had ever dared call him a loser.

To shut the woman up and end the torture, Jude fired back, his voice dripping with frost. "You don't need to worry. I have absolutely zero inappropriate thoughts about your daughter."

That sentence was the wrong move. Sharon took it as a direct insult to Blaire's worth. She exploded, launching into a rapid-fire verbal assault, tearing into Jude's attitude and lack of manners. Jude fired back with cold, clipped logic.

Blaire was trapped in the crossfire, her anxiety spiking so high she felt dizzy. "Dinner is ready!" she yelled, desperately cutting off the argument.

The three of them relocated to the tiny dining table. The atmosphere was toxic. Sharon picked at the deli meat Blaire had bought, complaining about the sodium. Jude mechanically chewed a piece of lettuce, staring blankly at the wall.

Desperate to smooth things over, Blaire stood up and hurried into the kitchen to grab the clam chowder she had just heated on the stove.

She grabbed the hot ceramic bowl. As she pivoted back toward the dining area, her heel caught a slick patch of water she had spilled earlier near the sink.

Blaire let out a sharp, terrified gasp. Her feet flew out from under her. Her center of gravity collapsed, and she pitched forward, falling directly toward Jude's chair.

Jude saw the shadow falling toward him. The alarm bells in his brain shrieked. His haphephobia flared with violent intensity.

He reacted purely on survival instinct, shoving his chair backward to escape the physical contact.

But the dining area was too small. The back of his chair hit the wall. He was trapped.

Blaire hit the floor hard. The bowl tipped forward in her hands.

A massive wave of scalding hot, thick clam chowder splashed directly onto Jude's chest, soaking his pristine white shirt and ruining his trousers.

Blaire's wrist slammed against the sharp corner of the table. A blinding flash of pain shot up her arm. Tears instantly sprang to her eyes.

Jude shot up from his chair like he had been electrocuted. He looked down at his chest. The thick, creamy soup clung to his skin, radiating a sickening, fishy smell. His germaphobia and touch-aversion collided in a catastrophic mental breakdown.

He looked down at Blaire, who was crumpled on the floor, clutching her wrist. There was no pity in his eyes. There was only pure, unadulterated disgust.

In his mind, this was the ultimate gold-digger move. A fake fall to force physical intimacy and play the victim.

Jude's jaw locked. His voice was a lethal, vibrating hiss. "Your pathetic attempts to seduce me are absolutely disgusting."