Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

I didn’t want to fly out to Florida in the middle of the week. It had nothing to do with the mounting pile of work I had waiting for me at the office or the two puzzled partners who couldn’t understand why my first move had been to fire one of their most promising associates. I knew Claire wouldn’t try and pull the sexual harassment card against me, mainly because we were both ultracautious, calculated people, and she knew I’d saved all the messages she had sent me in the past in which she’d been begging me to bed her. Dragging me or the firm through court would detonate the one thing Claire valued above all else—her pride.

Plus, I had notified HR about it when we’d first started.

I didn’t like the idea of leaving New York when things between Arya and myself were unsettled. But as Arsène and Riggs had pointed out when I’d told them about my conversation with Arya, this sort of shit was beyond their pay grade, and I needed a woman’s touch to figure out where I was headed from here.

Alice Gudinski lived in a sprawling Palm Beach condo. Arsène, Riggs, and I visited her occasionally, especially during the holidays, but the past couple of years had been hectic work-wise, so I’d dropped the ball.

I’d made us a reservation for a seafood restaurant with an ocean view.

Of course, I was also ten minutes late, coming straight from the airport.

Alice waited for me on the veranda, which overlooked the sunset. She wore a kimono and was cradling a Bloody Mary the size of a champagne bucket.

“Ah, my favorite toy boy without benefits.” She kissed both my cheeks, then my nose and my ear. Alice looked radiant and not a day over forty. To an outsider, it wasn’t far fetched that we were a couple. A dashing toy boy whose millionaire girlfriend had bought him a little Realtor office on the beach. Only I knew she’d never take a lover after losing Henry. “You look decadent.”

“You look lovely, as always.” I dropped a kiss to the crown of her head before helping her to her seat and lounging opposite to her. A waitress dashed to us with a glass of sherry on cue, no doubt having gotten prior instructions from Bossy Alice.

“Shame Arsène and Riggs couldn’t make it.” She sipped her Bloody Mary, the orange-and-pink sunset burning the sky her backdrop.

“Riggs is currently in England, taking pictures for an article about beached whales, and Arsène quit civilization sometime after his college graduation. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“You’re my favorite, anyway. The other two are just the side pieces.” Alice took another sip, winking. “But you don’t suffer from too much free time, either, which leads me to believe this is not only a social call. How can I help you?”

She saw through my bullshit from fifty yards away. It surprised me I didn’t see Alice more often. And angered me too. Because during my Andrew Dexter years and then my Harvard years, I used to spend as much time with her as possible. She’d been my lifeline, providing me with direction and advice, explaining to me the ins and outs of high society. Helping me blend in with the rest of them.

“I intend to change that and make sure there will be a lot of social calls in the future for us,” I informed her, waving for the waitress to come and take our order.

Alice shook her head, laughing. “Oh, silly boy. I’ve already placed the order for us. You really think I’m going to let some Manhattan punk tell me what the catch of the day is?”

“You’ve been in Palm Beach for less than two years,” I pointed out.

“Nevertheless.” She patted her coiffed hair. “At any rate, where were we? Oh yes. You’re in trouble. Is it Traurig or Cromwell? I bet it’s Cromwell, that old sod. He is suffering from some serious youth envy.”

Alice’s late husband was a corporate lawyer, so she knew a thing or two about firm politics.

The food arrived. More specifically—half the goddamn ocean’s creatures. Alice had a healthy appetite for a woman of her physique.

“It’s not about work.” I speared a scallop swimming in olive oil, butter, and oregano with my fork and brought it to my mouth.

“Your investment portfolio?”

“No.”

“Are you finally selling and moving to DUMBO? You could get more bang for your buck there.”

I shook my head.

“Well, what is it, then?”

“Arya,” I said. “Arya Roth.”

Forty minutes and five entrées later, Alice was up to speed with my Arya situation. She’d known about Arya from when I was seventeen, but not about the recent development in our story.

Alice sat back, nursing a fruity cocktail, nodding gravely.

“First of all, let me just say I can’t believe it has taken you so long to find her.” Her eyes glittered happily.

I scowled. Had she not heard anything I’d said? “I didn’t find her. It was a coincidence.”

“There is no such thing as coincidence. Only divine intervention. And it was clear from when you were seventeen that your heart belonged to that girl, along with the rest of your body. You wandered around aimlessly for long enough, but unfortunately, people—especially young people—really do need to experience things in the flesh for the thought to finally sink in.”

Ignoring the fact she’d known all along something I had just found out this month, my love for Arya, I skipped to the bottom line. “What do I do?”

“Well,” Alice laughed, “you did mess up.”

“I know,” I bit out, losing patience.

“Spectacularly so.”

“If I wanted to hear how incredibly inept I am as a boyfriend, I could go to Arsène, Riggs, or—even better—to Arya herself. I came here because I need advice. How do I make her see nothing else matters? Just her?”

Alice smiled a closemouthed smile that told me that the answer was inside the question. She seemed to be having a jolly good time watching me squirm.

“What? What?” I barked.

“Repeat your words again, please, Christian.”

I frowned. “How do I make her see nothing else matters?”

“Yes.” She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Exactly.”

“That’s not an answer,” I groaned. “How drunk are you, woman?”

She sucked the cherry on her swizzle stick into her mouth. “The answer is yes again.”

I was about to take her back home and nurse her back into sobriety until I got my answer, when it struck me. The meaning of her suggestion. My eyebrows shot up. Alice shimmied her shoulders, excited that I finally got it.

“After all this time?” I groaned.

“After all this time.”

“You sure there’s no other way?”

“You just took everything this girl had. The father she adored and considered to be both her parents.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but she cut me off. “Please don’t tell me he deserved it. I know that. But she didn’t, until you dragged the truth into light. Now she is forced to look at the smudged picture of her life. Because of you. Not only that, but you lied to her. Lied to her even after you slept with her. Even when she mustered the courage to ask you not to lie to her. So yes, sacrifices will have to be made, and they’ll have to mean something to you. If you don’t lose anything, you can’t gain anything, honey.”

I dropped my head forward, raising my hand with my credit card for the waitress when she brought us the check.

“Excuse me, Alice, while I catch a red-eye back to Manhattan to fire myself.”

“If this is some kind of joke, I’m not getting it; please explain it to me.” Traurig stared at me like I’d barged into his office wearing Julia Roberts’s questionable hooker garments from Pretty Woman. Cromwell sat beside him, stone faced. “First you fire Claire without our consent—without even consulting us—and now you’re handing us your resignation?”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself so short, kiddo.” I smiled, sitting on the other side of the desk, feeling perfectly okay with the fact they’d be scraping the gold letters off my door after a little under three days. “You seem to be getting everything just fine. Yes, you understood correctly. I resign. Effective immediately.”

“But . . . why?” Traurig spluttered, throwing his arms in the air with open exasperation.

“The list is long, but I’ll give you the bullet points: I should’ve been made partner three years ago; I’m overworked and undervalued; Cromwell is an asshole—no offense, mate”—I winked at a whitening Cromwell before returning my gaze to Traurig—“and you’re not much better. You made me jump through hoops and enjoyed seeing me sweat for it. And for a while, I played by your rules. Until it stopped being worth it. Which happened approximately”—I glanced at my wristwatch—“three days ago.”

“You’re dumping your entire career into the can,” Traurig warned.

“I told you the boy was trouble from the get-go,” Cromwell spit out, slanting his eyes in Traurig’s direction, moving his hand as if he were conjuring a spirit. “He is jumping ship and going somewhere else. Where to, kid? Tell us now.” Cromwell stuck his index finger on the table between us, like I owed him something.

I yawned. When was the last time I’d dropped my manners and acted like the Hunts Point rascal that I was? Almost two decades ago, I bet. It felt good, though.

“Even if I had another job waiting, you would be the last person I’d answer to, Cromwell. You’ve been jerking me around since day one, and you barely even come to the office. I’d be glad to see you dirtying up your hands a little with some real work, now that I’m gone.”

I stood up, starting to make my way to the door.

“We’ll rehire Claire. Just so you know,” Traurig said behind my back. I stopped. Turned around. Saw the shit-eating grin on his face. “Is that it?” he asked. “You had an affair with the little, cute thing, and it got out of control? Now you’re cutting your losses in case she comes for you? Slaps you with a sexual harassment lawsuit of her own?”

He was so off the mark it took everything in me not to laugh.

“Miss Lesavoy got fired because she betrayed my professional and personal confidence. If you want a rat in your company, which I assume you do, since you’re both rodents, I strongly encourage you to reoffer her the position.”

With that, I slammed the door in their faces.

And damn, it felt good.

I waited for Arya outside her office building that evening. Not accustomed to acting like a puppy or feeling like one, my ego took its first bruise in years.

Fine, it was more of a cut than a bruise.

Okay. My ego was completely decapitated. Served the jerk right. It’d gotten me into plenty of trouble over the years.

“Shall I remind you I’m going to get you disbarred if you don’t leave me alone?” Arya complained as soon as she set foot out of the door, skipping the pleasantries. She wore a red leather pencil skirt paired with a smart white blouse and looked like heaven on earth. It was a wonder how I’d ever let her out of my bed in the first place.

I caught up with her easily as she made her way to the subway. “Disbar me,” I said flatly, my shoulder brushing hers.

She made an exasperated sound, shaking her head. “Leave me alone.”

“Have your parents spoken to you since the trial?” I asked.

Another sulk. “Like you care.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. She stopped, turning sharply to face me, throwing my hand off, fire blazing in her eyes.

“I do.” I stubbed my chest with my finger. “Care. Every single day, I try to talk to you. So don’t tell me I don’t care, Arya, when it’s entirely possible I’m the only asshole who does in your life.”

“I don’t want you to care.” Her voice broke. “That’s the point. I told you I’ll get you disbarred if you don’t leave me alone because no part of me wants you in my life.”

“No part?” I repeated.

She shook her head. “None at all.”

“Liar.” I took a step forward, cupping her cheeks in my hands. “I quit.”

Her green eyes widened, taking over her face. “You quit?” she echoed.

“Yes.” I rested my forehead against hers, breathing her in for a second. “I gave up the partnership. Told them to go screw themselves. But not before firing Claire for what she did to us. I may be a bastard orphan, but honey, so are you. I wish you weren’t. I wish your parents would’ve been there for you the way you deserved. I’m here, though, and I’m going to try my best to be enough.”

And then it just came out. Poured out of me.

“I love you, Arya Roth. I’ve loved you the entire time. From that first day at the cemetery, when we were kids. When everything around us was dead, and you were so alive I wanted to swallow you whole. When you put that little stone on Aaron’s grave so he’d know you came to visit. I loved you that day, for your heart, and every day after that. I never stopped loving you. Even when I hated you. Especially when I hated you, in fact. It was agonizing, thinking you’d forgotten about me. Because Arya? There hadn’t been a minute in my life when I hadn’t thought about you.”

There was a moment—a fraction of it, anyway—when I thought she was going to concede. Finally cave in to that thing between us. But then Arya stepped backward, readjusting the strap of her shoulder bag, her head tipped up defiantly. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“Being partly responsible for your decision to quit. Because it doesn’t change anything.”

She wasn’t partly responsible. She was wholly responsible. But there was no point in pointing that out, because now that I’d quit, I knew I should’ve done that years ago. Regardless of her. When you do something right, you feel it in your bones.

“Yes, it does.” I smiled. “It changes one fundamental thing, Arya.”

“And that is?”

“Now I can chase you however much I like. Because your dad’s case means jack shit to me, and you know damn well I don’t give that much of a crap about getting disbarred, seeing as I just quit. It’s on, Ari. I will win you.”

“I’m not a prize.”

I turned around and walked away. “No, you’re not. You’re everything.”