Chapter 45 Reinstate Iii

• Judge’s [POV]
• It’s three in the morning when I get home. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept much in the past two weeks what with trying to avoid Mercedes. The house is dark, and my footfalls are quiet as I make my way down the hall to my bedroom. I glance at Mercedes’s door like I do every time I walk past it, then open my own, wondering how she is doing. What she’s thinking? How hurt she is by my refusal of her. Especially after what I did. What I took.
• I close the door and switch on the light only to hear a gasp from my bed. I’m not sure who is more surprised, her or me, because Mercedes sits up, squinting into the sudden light, her hair a dark waterfall over her shoulders and her naked breasts.