Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

“Honey.” Jillian put her hand over mine that morning at work, when I told her about Christian giving me a key to his apartment and mentioned that oh, by the way, I’d also been sleeping with him throughout my father’s trial. You know, that old thang. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding offensive and brash, so let me just be both for a second—on a scale of one to ten for crazy, when one is completely normal and ten is Christopher Walken in an award-winning movie, you’re currently sitting at twelve. What were you thinking? The man is about to detonate your father’s bank account and take an entire hedge fund company down with him.” She leaned forward on my desk, reaching to check my temperature. I was grateful Whitley and Hailey weren’t at the office yet. Jillian and I were early birds.

“My father had it coming.” I clicked the pen in my hand rapidly, pulling away from her. “He sent dick pics to an intern and asked his former secretary if she’d blow him for a hundred grand. And fired Amanda for the great sin of not wanting to sleep with him. His bank account is the least of my concerns now.”

“Jesus, Daddy Conrad. I did not see that one coming.”

“Yeah. Neither did I.”

Jillian slid off my desk with a sigh, making her way to her seat. “All I’m saying is that you had a weird feeling when you met this guy, and your instincts have yet to fail you. I’m not defending your father’s actions. I’ve seen firsthand how you wanted to tear the skin from your own flesh when you found out about his wrongdoings. I’m just not sure starting a relationship with the man who is holding Conrad accountable is recommended. Or advisable. Or, you know, sane.”

The truth was, I wasn’t sure either. But Christian had made me feel what no other man had managed to in years, so it was worth a shot. I’d spent years refusing to get close to men.

Maybe it was time to put a little trust in someone.

I was lying atop Aaron’s grave when the final verdict came down. Curled into myself like a shrimp against the cold rock, my hair splayed like the roots of the weeping willow across the tombstone. Minutes before the text arrived, I’d been wondering, idly, what Aaron would be like if he were still alive.

I knew I’d inherited my mother’s personality—taciturn, indifferent, with a prudish air—but also my father’s voracious hunger for life. The need to sink my teeth into the universe like it was a juicy chunk of pomegranate, crimson beads trickling down my chin.

Would Aaron have been more of a dreamer or a realist? Would he have inherited Mother’s fine blonde hair or my father’s dark mane? Would we have ever double-dated? Shared secret handshakes? Or bittersweet memories of scraped knees and melting ice cream and cartwheels under sweltering summer sun . . .

Would my mother have been different? Happier? More present in my life? Would she have been able to stand up to my father?

And Nicky, would he still be here? After all, Aaron would have been the kind of protective brother who never would have let me coax Nicky into kissing me. Would Ruslana be here too?

A ping in my pocket snapped me out of my musings.

Dad: We lost. I’ve lost two hundred million dollars. Your boyfriend looks happy. I suppose now that it’s all over, he can buy you all the pretty things your heart desires. You always were a disappointment, Arya. But I never thought you were a traitor, too.

A scream lodged inside my throat. I swallowed it down, dialing my father’s number. He sent me straight to voice mail. I called him again. He deserved a piece of my mind. A third time. Then a fourth. Still nothing. I withdrew my phone from my ear, frowning.

A disappointment. A traitor.

How did my father know about me and Christian? With quivering fingers, I typed both my and Christian’s names into my phone’s search bar. I assumed Christian hadn’t publicly declared our relationship in court, which meant whatever had been publicized about us was common knowledge. Sure enough, the first result in the search bar took me to a local news website covering Manhattan’s nightlife, where a picture of Christian and me standing under the waterfall tunnel, my hand pressed against his chest, was displayed.

Rothless Betrayal: How Arya Roth Turned against Her Father . . . and Fell in Love with His Enemy.

By: Cindi Harris-Stone

It appears that pampered socialite slash PR consultant Arya Roth, 32, daughter of shamed hedge fund tycoon Conrad Roth, 66, who is currently on trial for sexual harassment, is sleeping well at night ahead of her father’s impending doomsday. The beauty was seen canoodling with none other than sought-after bachelor and top litigator Christian Miller, 32, who also happens to represent her father’s accusers. The pair were seen on Tuesday embracing one another in Manhattan.

Canoodling.

The word was a big, fat red sign.

The one Christian had used to describe what we shouldn’t be doing. I hadn’t heard this word in eons before he had said it, and now it was here, on the page. This, in itself, wasn’t prime evidence. But coupled with the fact he definitely had a motive and interest in leaking this item, it made my blood run cold.

He’d tipped them off. He must have. The night I’d placed my trust at his feet, he’d gone ahead and stomped all over it.

Jillian’s name flashed on my screen. I sent her to voice mail, calling Christian instead. I didn’t know at what point, exactly, I’d gotten up and begun moving, but I had. I found my way out of the graveyard in a haze. I reached Christian’s voice mail. I called again. Then again. After the sixth time—I was wandering around the streets of Park Avenue, with no direction or plan—I called his office’s landline, my neck and cheeks burning with rage and humiliation. No one had ever wronged me so profoundly. So maliciously.

“Hello?” A cheerful voice invaded my ear. I recognized it belonged to Claire, the associate who was working with Christian on my father’s case. Even though she was the last person I wanted to talk to, I wasn’t in a position to be picky.

“Hi, Claire. I’m looking for Christian. I was wondering if you could put him through?”

In the background, I heard cheers, chatter, and the sound of a champagne bottle popping. The office was celebrating, no doubt the huge success that was Christian and Claire’s case. A rush of self-loathing filled me. How could I have been so stupid?

“May I ask who’s calling?” Claire purred. I could practically envision her feline smile. I stopped walking, digging my fingers into my eye sockets.

“Arya. Arya Roth.”

There was a pause. I could hear Christian in the distance, laughing. People congratulated him in turns. The scream lodged in my throat rolled an inch upward, toward my mouth.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Roth.” Claire’s voice turned cold. “He’s not available right now. May I suggest you make an appointment to speak to him? You can call his secretary. Same number, but her extension is seven-oh-three.”

“Look, I—”

She hung up.

I stared at my phone. For the first time, I truly felt unhinged. I couldn’t anticipate my next move or trust myself not to do something I would regret. Overflowing with rage, I yanked out the key Christian had given me for his apartment—shortly before getting in my pants again—and called an Uber.

Why had he given me the key, anyway? Oh, but the answer was clear—to taunt me. To make me look for my book. To watch me sweat for it. I’d always been a game to him.

Well, guess what, I was going to get the book that he’d stolen from me. Even if I had to rip his entire preppy apartment to shreds. I would not leave without it. And his only chance to pry that book out of my hands would be if I had to smack him with it on my way out.

The entire journey to Christian’s house, I read through the headlines on my phone.

Dick Move: How Conrad Roth Lost Everything because of That Pic.

Court Orders Wall Street Tycoon to Pay 200 Mil!

Roth in Hell, Conrad!

The media was having a field day. At first, I skimmed through each article to see if my name was mentioned in any of them. Once I realized I was mentioned in virtually all of them, I stopped checking. Media-management expert. Ha! Christian had just handed me my ass in that department, and he’d done a brilliant job at portraying me as an idiot. Jillian continued calling and texting, and so did my mother, whose worst fear had come to life—she was now broke and penthouseless. After such public humiliation, I should hope also newly single.

The Uber stopped in front of Christian’s place. I darted out, passing the receptionist and doorman briskly—appearing as if this were my natural habitat—and made my way up to the apartment. I unlocked the door and stepped in. His scent immediately seeped into my system, taking root. Shaved wood, fine leather, and male. Only it no longer brought me pleasure. Now, I wanted to purge it from my system.

If I were a handsome, highly intelligent sociopath, where would I hide a book?

I tried the kitchen drawers first, yanking them open one after the other, flipping their contents to the floor. Utensils flew out, spilling on the expensive parquet. I then moved to the cabinets, emptying them, too, then ripped the couch pillows from their base, unzipping the cases to see if the book was inside one of them.

Moving on to the stylish, meticulously organized pantry, I dragged my arms across the shelves. Condiments, protein powder, and spices rolled down to the floor. I flipped furniture upside down, emptied the cabinets of all the work files he kept at home, and—fine, this was a bonus—shattered some delicate china that didn’t necessarily need to be broken. When I was completely certain the book couldn’t be found in the living room, I moved to his bedroom. I started off by ripping some of his designer suits, not because I thought I’d find Atonement inside them but because I considered the act highly therapeutic. Afterward, I stripped his bed of the sheets, which still smelled like us, and looked in his nightstand drawers and even under the bed.

I’d swung my body back up, about to proceed to his en suite bathroom, when something compelled me to look back down. I frowned when I noticed the bump on his parquet. A slightly jagged floor tile, oddly out of place. This seemed completely out of character for Christian, who lived and breathed perfection.

Bingo.

I stretched my arm under his bed, using my fingernails to pry the tile open. My nail polish chipped, but the more I inched the tile out from its neighbors, the more I knew I was onto something.

With a snap and a clunk, followed by a ragged sigh escaping from my mouth, Christian’s secret place was exposed. I patted the space under the tile, unable to peer into it from my angle. My heart dipped with disappointment when I felt a manila envelope. I removed it nonetheless, in case there was something else hiding under it. Indeed, there was. I could feel it. The delicious, firm thickness of a hardcover. I pulled it out, feeling childishly relieved, even after everything that had happened today, because I’d finally found it.

Grabbing it, I rolled away from the bed and hugged it to my chest before opening the book in the middle and giving it a hearty sniff.

Briony. Robbie. Cecilia. Paul. My good old friends.

It took me a few minutes to bring my heart rate down. After which I glanced back at the manila envelope sitting not a few feet from me, staring back at me curiously. I’d gotten what I’d come here for. That much was true. But there was still a need in me, a seed of desperation, which bloomed into vengeance, demanded to get its pound of flesh. Getting back what was legally mine wasn’t enough. Christian had had leverage over me since the moment we’d met. He always dangled something over my head. My father’s trial. The book. The mystery that was him. Normally, I would never betray a person in such a way. Normally. But nothing about my relationship with Christian was normal.

Carefully, I reached for the manila envelope, dragging it across the pristine floor toward me. I sat up, propping my back against his nightstand, and pulled the thick stack of papers inside it out.

In the Superior Court of Middlesex County

State of Massachusetts

Civil Action

In re the Name Change of: Nicholai Ruslan Ivanov

Case Number: 190482873983

PETITION TO CHANGE NAME OF ADULT

The petitioner respectfully moves this Court to change his name from Nicholai Ruslan Ivanov to Christian George Miller.

A yelp escaped my mouth. Nothing could prepare me for the pain I felt in that moment. Like someone had reached into my chest, breaking my rib cage in the process, and clawed my heart out, twisting it ruthlessly in their fist.

Christian was Nicholai.

Nicholai was Christian.

Nicky wasn’t dead. He’d been here all along. Lurking in the shadows, planning his grand revenge for what my family had done to him, no doubt. The trial. The sentence. The conquest. The girl who’d turned into a woman, who’d turned into a tool.

Me.

I put together the jagged pieces. The way he’d spoken about my father . . . the hunger with which he’d fought for the case . . .

That first time I’d met him at the elevator and had that peculiar feeling. The air had been loaded with many more feelings than any two strangers could ever evoke in one another.

That strange notion in my stomach that I’d always known him, that he was somehow engraved into my skin, wasn’t a false alarm. He knew who I was and had kept his identity from me.

The man I’d put my trust in had broken my heart. Twice.

And in the process, he’d also managed to strip my family of everything it owned, lie to the world about who he was, and out us as an item.

Middlesex, Massachusetts. Christian had changed his name while he’d attended undergrad at Harvard University, or right before. Had he planned this all along? Becoming a lawyer so he could bring my father down, and me with him? Had he sought out Amanda himself?

I was too curious to fall apart. I’d have time for that later, once I left this man’s apartment. I continued rummaging through the folders in the manila envelope instead. All the paperwork for the change of name from Nicholai to Christian, his old and current passports, and the death certificate for Ruslana Ivanova.

Ruslana had died.

That was news to me. Then again, everything about this situation was. Now it all made sense. Why Christian had leaked our relationship to the press, and with perfect timing too. Right after my father’s trial. He’d killed two birds—or Roths—with one stone. He’d just never taken one thing into consideration—that I was going to find out his secret.

I took pictures of the damning documents of the name change with my phone, making sure they were clear and in focus. Then I grabbed my book and dashed out of his apartment.

My knee-jerk reaction was to take it to my father. To show him the evidence against Christian and start working toward an appeal, now that it was clear that Christian never should have worked on the case. He knew my family too well and had a vendetta against us. I slid into a taxi and was about to utter my parents’ address when I realized I didn’t want to do that either.

True, Christian was an asshole of gigantic proportions, but so was my father. Ultimately, they were as bad as each other. I wanted to use the information I had against Christian to ruin him, but not necessarily in the most straightforward way, in which my father got off the hook too.

Conrad Roth definitely deserved to be stripped of his reputation, money, and social standing. He’d done horrible things to people and used his power against helpless women.

I needed to think about it, long and hard. To come up with a plan.

“Miss? Excuse me? Yoo-hoo?” The cabdriver waved his fingers in the direction of the rearview mirror. “Not that it ain’t nice to sit here and watch you talking to yourself, but where to?”

I gave him my apartment address.

I was going to ruin Nicky. But in my own Ari way.