The next morning, Blaire woke up before the sun. She tiptoed into the kitchen, quickly slapping together two ham and cheese sandwiches. She left one on the kitchen table wrapped in a paper towel, grabbed her purse, and practically ran out the door to avoid the awkwardness of seeing Jude.

An hour later, Jude stepped out of the master bedroom, fully dressed in a sharp suit. He spotted the cheap, squished sandwich on the table. His nose wrinkled in disgust. But his stomach gave a loud, hollow growl. Driven by hunger, he picked it up and took a hesitant bite. The flavor exploded on his tongue. He finished it in three bites.

While driving to the Brewer Group headquarters, his grandmother called again, relentlessly probing about their sleeping arrangements. Jude gripped the steering wheel, his voice dripping with ice. "I am testing her character. Nothing is happening."

By noon, Blaire was exhausted, organizing heavy racks of autumn coats at the Manhattan boutique where she worked. Her phone screen lit up. A voice message from Sharon.

Blaire tapped play. Sharon's shrill, aggressive voice pierced her eardrum. "Blaire! I want proof of this new 'roommate' of yours. Right now! For all I know, you've been brainwashed into a pyramid scheme!"

Panic seized Blaire's chest. She ducked into an empty fitting room, her fingers trembling as she scrolled through her camera roll. She found the photo she had secretly snapped at City Hall-just Jude's broad back as he stood at the counter. She hit send.

Less than a second later, her phone rang. Sharon was calling.

"You think I'm an idiot?" Sharon screamed through the receiver. "A picture of a back? Did you just download this off the internet to shut me up?"

"Mom, no!" Blaire lied frantically, her heart racing. "He's just... really busy with work. He hates taking pictures."

Sharon let out a loud, mocking snort. "Fine. I finish my shift at five. I am coming to that Queens address tonight for a surprise inspection. Do not try to hide him!"

The call disconnected. Blaire broke out in a cold sweat. She frantically typed a text to Jude: SOS! My mom is coming to inspect the apartment tonight! Please don't blow our cover!

Miles away, in the glass-walled penthouse boardroom of the Brewer Group, Jude sat at the head of a massive mahogany table. A terrified executive was presenting quarterly losses. Jude's phone buzzed on the table.

He glanced down at Blaire's message. A cold, cynical smirk twisted his lips. Here we go, he thought. The whole family is in on the scam. He typed back a single, dismissive letter: K.

By 6:00 PM, a miserable, freezing drizzle began to fall over New York. Traffic ground to a dead halt.

Blaire clutched a plastic bag of hot deli food to her chest, sprinting the last block to the Queens apartment building. Her lungs burned.

As she reached the entrance, she stopped dead in her tracks. Sharon was standing under a large umbrella in the pouring rain, her eyes scanning the dilapidated brick building like a hawk looking for prey.

Blaire forced a smile and jogged up to her. Sharon immediately launched into a brutal critique of the neighborhood's lack of security and the trash on the sidewalk.

At that exact moment, Jude's beat-up Toyota squeezed into a tight spot down the street.

Jude stepped out of the car. His custom-made Italian leather shoe landed squarely in a deep, hidden puddle. Muddy water splashed violently up his shin, soaking his expensive trousers. His face instantly darkened into a mask of pure, murderous rage.

He stomped toward the building entrance. He reached into his pocket for the keys, and his hand froze. In his rush this morning, he had left the apartment keys on the kitchen table next to the sandwich.

Jude sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, fighting the urge to punch the brick wall. He grabbed the handle of the lobby door. The lock was broken. It pulled open with a pathetic squeak.

He walked into the lobby and pressed the elevator button. Nothing happened. He looked up. A piece of lined notebook paper was taped to the metal doors: Elevator Out of Order.

Jude Brewer, a billionaire who owned half the skyscrapers in the city, was now facing the ultimate degradation: a five-story walk-up.

He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. He started up the dark, narrow, mold-smelling stairwell. With every step, his thigh muscles burned, and his hatred for Blaire multiplied exponentially.

Meanwhile, Blaire and Sharon had reached the third-floor landing. Blaire was frantically digging through her purse for her keys.

Heavy, aggressive footsteps echoed up the concrete stairwell. Sharon snapped her head toward the sound, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Jude crested the stairs. He was panting heavily. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, his tie was yanked loose, and his eyes were blazing with a terrifying, homicidal fury.

He stopped on the landing. His eyes locked onto Blaire. The air in the hallway instantly froze.

Blaire stared at his disheveled, terrifying appearance. Her hands shook violently. The keys slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against the concrete floor.

Sharon stepped forward, throwing her arm out to shield Blaire like a protective mother hen. She glared at this massive, angry man.

"Who the hell are you?" Sharon demanded, her voice echoing in the stairwell. "Why are you following my daughter?"

Jude's face turned the color of a thundercloud.

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."

The word disgusting hung in the air, a physical blow that struck Blaire squarely in the chest. The blood drained from her face. She forgot about the throbbing pain in her wrist, staring up at him in total shock.

Sharon let out an ear-piercing shriek. She shoved her chair back, rushed around the table, and hauled Blaire off the floor. She pointed a trembling, furious finger at Jude's back. "What kind of a man are you? ! She tripped! You didn't even try to catch her!"

Jude didn't hear a word. He spun around, his chest heaving, and practically sprinted into the master bedroom. The door slammed shut with a violent BANG that rattled the picture frames on the wall.

Seconds later, the sound of the shower turning on full blast echoed through the thin walls. Inside the bathroom, Jude violently ripped the ruined shirt and trousers off his body, throwing the contaminated garments into the farthest corner of the tiled floor. He stepped under the showerhead and turned the scalding water on full blast. He scrubbed at his bare chest and legs with a rough loofah, tearing at his own skin until it was raw and bright red, desperate to wash away the phantom sensation of the spill.

In the living room, Blaire swallowed the massive lump of humiliation in her throat. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and dropped to her knees, frantically wiping up the spilled soup.

Sharon hovered over her, inspecting Blaire's swelling wrist. "Pack your bags right now," Sharon demanded, her voice shaking with rage. "You are coming home with me. I am not leaving you in this apartment with that psycho."

Blaire's heart pounded. If she went home, the relentless blind dates would start again tomorrow. She scrubbed the floor harder. "I can't, Mom. I signed a strict lease. If I break it, I lose thousands of dollars."

Sharon argued, pleaded, and yelled, but Blaire locked her jaw and refused to budge. Finally, at ten o'clock at night, exhausted and furious, Sharon grabbed her purse and stormed out of the apartment.

Blaire slumped against the front door after locking it. She listened to the water still running in the master bathroom. A deep, bitter anger began to replace her humiliation.

Half an hour later, the bathroom door finally opened. Jude walked out wearing a thick terrycloth bathrobe. His wet hair dripped onto his forehead. His eyes immediately locked onto Blaire, who was throwing the last of the paper towels into the trash.

Blaire straightened her spine. She met his cold glare with equal ferocity. "Let me make this perfectly clear," she said, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "I did not try to seduce you. It was an accident. If my presence disgusts you that much, we can tear up the contract right now."

Jude stopped wiping his hair. Tearing up the contract meant his grandmother would immediately resume her matchmaking terror. He sneered, his upper lip curling. "Reel in your temper. Don't forget, you were the one desperate to play this game."

Blaire gasped, her chest tight with indignation. She pointed a shaking finger toward the guest room. "Fine. Then to make sure you never feel 'seduced' again, we sleep in separate rooms. Make sure to lock the door tonight.!"

They returned to their respective rooms and did not speak to each other again that night.

At 2:00 AM, the lock on the master bedroom clicked open.

Jude stepped out into the dark living room. He hadn't eaten anything since the sandwich that morning, and his stomach was cramping. He headed for the kitchen to get water.

As he passed Blair's room, he peeked through a crack in the door.

He stopped. Blaire was curled up, her teeth visibly chattering, her face pale from the freezing temperature.

Jude's hand tightened around his empty water glass. He remembered how fiercely she had defended him against her mother's insults earlier, and how stubbornly she had fought back against him.

He frowned deeply. A brief, irritating flash of human decency pierced through his armor.

He turned around, walked back into his bedroom, and pulled a heavy, incredibly expensive cashmere blanket from his closet. He walked silently back to the room.

He leaned over, his movements stiff and awkward, and draped the heavy cashmere over her shivering body.

As he pulled his hands back, Blaire felt the sudden, enveloping warmth. Still deep in her miserable sleep, she let out a soft sigh and instinctively nuzzled her face upward, seeking the heat.

Her soft, warm cheek brushed directly against the back of Jude's hand.

Jude's entire body paralyzed. His brain instantly triggered the highest level of threat response. He braced his core, waiting for the suffocating panic, the violent urge to vomit, the sensation of his skin crawling off his bones.

One second passed. Two seconds.

Nothing.

There was no panic. There was no nausea. There was only the soft, warm friction of her skin against his knuckles.

Jude's pupils dilated massively. His heart slammed against his ribs like a sledgehammer. He stared at his hand, then down at the sleeping woman, his mind short-circuiting.

He yanked his hand back as if he had been burned, stumbling two steps backward until his spine hit the kitchen island. He gripped the marble counter, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide with absolute, earth-shattering shock.

How is this possible?