Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

There was a medical term for what I was being right now.

Pathetic.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t medical, but it sure as hell was the current situation I was dealing with.

Though I didn’t appear that way, sitting next to Dad at the pretrial hearing. I looked presentable in a gray wool dress and high heels, my hair pinned into a french twist. But I felt like a fool, my heart twirling in my chest, because I knew he would be here.

Silver-spooned princess.

I was starting to imagine things now too.

It was bad enough Christian had been at the Brewtherhood the other day. What were the chances that the place Jilly and I had wanted to try for so long was his hole-in-the-wall? Now I had to watch as he destroyed the only real family I had left.

I squeezed Dad’s damp hand. He’d aged a decade in a month. Ever since news about the lawsuit had broken, he’d been hardly sleeping or eating. Last week, I’d taken him to a psychiatrist. She’d prescribed him Ambien and another pill that was supposed to raise his serotonin levels. So far neither had helped.

“Hey. Don’t worry. Terrance and Louie are the best in the business.” I brushed the back of his hand. He turned to look at me, red eyed.

“The second best in the business. Amanda hiring Miller makes no sense. I heard he’s not even accepting new clients.”

“He saw a huge case and took it.” I scanned the room. I’d never been in a courtroom before, so I had nothing to compare this one to, but the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse struck me as swanky. Downright theatrical, even. Red velvet curtains with gold tassels; never-ending, spiraling marble stairways; mahogany stands; and church-like pews that would be filled to the brim with journalists, photographers, and courthouse staff as soon as the actual trial began. For now, it was just the judge, the defendant, the plaintiff, and their teams.

I felt Christian Miller before I saw him. The back of my neck prickled with a hot sensation, and my whole body came alive, tingly everywhere. My hand quivered inside Dad’s. Guilt washed over me.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. Maybe a joke here and there—nothing sexual.” Dad stared down at our entwined hands. “With Amanda. It’s wrong to make an example out of me. I want this to be over, Arya.”

“It will be, soon.”

“Thank God I have you, sweetheart. Your mother is—”

“Useless?” I cut into his words. “I know.”

Christian, Amanda, and Claire appeared in my periphery. I didn’t dare look at him, but I saw the way he carried himself: sharklike, wry, and unruffled. His hair was freshly cut, his dark suit pressed, his tie a shade darker than his blue eyes. He sucked the attention out of everything else in the room.

Judge Lopez’s eyes lit when he saw Christian. It was obvious they knew each other.

“Saw you on the golf course this weekend, Counselor. Did Jack Nicklaus give you private lessons?”

“Your Honor, not to be humble, but I played against Traurig. You’ll see better swings at a school’s playground.”

I could tell Dad, Louie, and Terrance didn’t like that Christian was chummy with the judge by the way they shifted in their seats, scribbled notes on their legal pads, and sweated buckets. Dad released my hand from his and massaged his temples. I swiveled to look at him. “Everything okay?”

He nodded but didn’t answer.

A few minutes later, when Louie and Christian moved to talking about voir dire and juror selection, it was obvious Christian had come more prepared and ready. Claire shot him adoring looks, and a pang of jealousy sliced through me. It was perfectly obvious they were sleeping together and that she was in love with him.

It was also perfectly obvious I needed to stop drooling over the lawyer who wanted to destroy my father.

The rest of the hearing was a blur. The two parties discussed dates and how long the trial was expected to last—four to six weeks. I spent the time mainly studying Christian, wondering why on earth he seemed familiar.

“See something you like?” Dad’s voice broke me out of my daydream.

I straightened in my seat, clearing my throat. “Would like to push off a cliff, more like.”

It wasn’t anything about his looks. I’d never met a man so beautiful. Rather, there was something about his eyes. The way he cracked his knuckles when he spoke and that boyish, bashful grin he let loose when he thought no one was looking and was writing down notes for himself.

When all was done and dealt with for the day, Christian, Amanda, and Claire dashed out first. Dad, Louie, and Terrance loitered behind. Dad’s mouth was pressed in a thin line. I produced a bottle of water, handing it to him. “This means nothing. So Judge Lopez knows Miller. It was expected. He’s a litigator, after all.”

“Put a lid on it, Arya. This wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for you.” Dad brushed my shoulder as he advanced toward the door, Louie and Terrance at his heel. I followed him, frowning. Insert record scratch.

What in the hell?

“Excuse me?”

This was the first time my father had ever been anything other than adoring to me, and the sting of his words caught me off balance.

“This whole charade is a long middle finger in our direction. A way to prove a point. To take us Roths down.”

“Well, okay, but how does it have anything to do with me?” We glided through the halls of the courthouse, toward the exit. He stopped, turning to face me.

“You aggravated Mr. Miller every step of the way during mediation. You were begging for a reaction. And you indeed got it in the form of my having to stand trial for this.”

“You blame me?” I stubbed my finger into my chest.

“You’re obviously fascinated with him.”

“Because I answered him back?” I felt my eyebrows hitting my hairline in surprise.

“Because you’ve always had a taste for troublemakers, and I’ve always been the one who needed to clean up after you.”

Oh. Oh. This was richer than his bank account. I reared my head back to avoid the flecks of saliva flying from his mouth. I hadn’t been myself that day at Christian’s office, no doubt, but Christian had come in cocked and loaded to go to trial, and that had nothing to do with my behavior.

“First of all, I’m glad you rewrote history in the years when I worked my way through forgiving you for what happened. Second, I’m going to go ahead and chalk this conversation up to the fact that you haven’t slept in three weeks and live solely on coffee and prescription pills.” I took out a napkin from my bag and handed it to him. He grabbed it, dabbing at the saliva coating his lower lip.

We got out of the courthouse and slipped straight into his waiting Escalade.

“Where am I dropping you off, Ari?” Dad’s driver, Jose, called from the driver’s seat, while Louie and Terrance gave Dad the bottom line of what had happened today in hushed voices.

I gave Jose my work address and turned my attention back to Dad. “Christian Miller has a bone to pick with you. Nothing could’ve changed his mind.”

“Why?” Dad cut both Louie and Terrance off, his eyes nailing me to the window. “Why am I his hill to die on? He sees cases far worse than mine on a daily basis. All I did was give Amanda a few pats and sniff around for an affair,” he spit out.

“You gave her a few pats?” I was dizzy with anger.

He added with an eye roll, “Allegedly. For Chrissakes, Arya. Allegedly.”

“Adding the word allegedly doesn’t make you innocent,” I pointed out. “Are you innocent?”

“Of course I am!” He threw his arms in the air. “Even if there were a few gray lines, a consensual affair is not akin to sexual harassment. It’s not like your mother ever gave me the time of day.”

“You keep contradicting yourself.” Even as I said it, though, I knew I wasn’t going to dig into the family’s skeleton closet for fear I’d be buried in bones. “Have you or have you not had an affair with Amanda Gispen? Did you or did you not touch her inappropriately?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Dad snapped.

“We’re going in circles,” I mumbled, closing my eyes.

“Feel free to get off at any time.”

I tried to take his words at face value. But Dad did have a point.

Christian Miller wanted to rip my family apart, and I was beginning to worry he had a good reason to want to do it.

After Jose dropped me off at work, Jillian and I got into a meeting with a potential new client. I screwed it six ways to Sunday. Jillian very nearly kicked me out of there—through the window—and I couldn’t even blame her. The CEO of Bi’s Kneads, a bakery chain that was becoming a publicly traded company, left our office underwhelmed after I stuttered my way through the presentation. It was obvious we weren’t getting the contract.

“I’m so sorry,” I told Jillian as we got out of the conference room, standing in our open-plan, exposed-brick office. “I should’ve come more prepared. I went over our presentation this morning, but my brain turned to mush after the hearing.”

Jillian waved her hand, tired and annoyed. “It’s fine. You had a really long day. How was Mr. Prick?”

“Still a prick.”

“Did you try and murder him today?”

“Only telepathically.”

“Proud of you.” She sighed, giving me a sympathetic look. “And your dad?”

“Acting like a teenager and making very little sense.”

“He’s under a lot of stress,” she pointed out.

I proceeded to my desk and powered up my laptop. I laced my fingers together and stretched before typing Christian’s name into the search engine. I’d done it before, when I’d first realized he would represent Amanda. But this time, I didn’t get into his LinkedIn page or his professional profile at his firm. I went straight to his social media. There wasn’t much there. Just one forgotten Facebook page that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the Stone Age. I double-clicked on a picture of a younger version of Christian, smiling to the camera with the two men who’d been with him during trivia night.

I scrolled through his profile, but there was nothing other than people congratulating him on several promotions and tagging him in company pictures. The only person who seemed to be liking most of his pictures consistently was a woman named Alice, but she had no profile photo. An ex? An admirer? I was sure Claire wasn’t happy about Alice’s existence.

The last thing he’d been tagged in was a post from seven months ago by a guy named Julius Longoria. There wasn’t a picture, just a check-in at a glitzy gym downtown. The post read: Here to sweat!

Drumming my fingers on my desk, I contemplated my next move. Going to his gym was crazy. Then again, I’d never claimed to be within the lines of sanity. He’d thought I was a stalker before, when we’d bumped into each other randomly at the Brewtherhood. This would pretty much confirm all his Fatal Attraction theories about me, and then some.

On the other hand, there was something about Christian Miller that didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something felt . . . off. It was worth looking into, seeing as he held Dad’s future in his hands. Besides, what if I found Christian hitting on a cute trainer or doing something sleazy himself?

Then there was Claire. I suspected he was sleeping with her too. Wasn’t there a no-fraternization policy for people who worked in the same chain of command? This was worth looking into.

Any leverage I could get on him would work in my favor at this stage, and all was fair in love and war.

“I know that look on your face.” Jillian tsked across the room, typing something on her laptop. “Whatever you are up to, Ari, drop it. It’s got disaster written all over it.”

But the seed had been planted.

Christian Miller was going to get another surprise visit.

Solstices was a three-floor gym on Columbus Avenue, fitted with a spa, indoor pool, hair salon, and wax parlor. Basically, you could walk in there looking like the cover of the Enquirer and come out looking like the cover of Sports Illustrated.

I signed up for a trial month and paid an obscene amount of money for the pleasure.

Contrary to popular belief, I’d done a lot of penny counting along the years. Came with the territory of becoming financially independent at age eighteen (excluding college tuition, which my parents had paid for). I enjoyed fancy brands and shopped for them at discounted second- and thirdhand stores, but I didn’t enjoy splashing money unnecessarily.

I arrived at Solstices both in the morning and in the evening to try and catch Christian, hitting the treadmills and keeping an eye out for him. By the third day, I figured I might as well get a real workout while I was doing my detective work and brought my bikini and a swim cap.

Since swimming was the only workout I could actually tolerate, I hit the indoor pool. It brought memories from when I was younger, with Nicky.

The first two laps were excruciating. My lungs burned, and I swallowed some water. By the third lap, I got into the rhythm of things. On my tenth lap, I broke the water when I reached the edge of the pool, taking a greedy breath, letting waterdrops slip into my mouth. I was delirious with exhaustion.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

My head snapped up, and I was met with Christian Miller in the flesh. He was wearing swim trunks, his Adonis six-pack on full display. The dusting of hair on his chest glistened. That was how I knew he’d been swimming right beside me this whole time when I hadn’t been paying attention.

“Am I not allowed to attend the gym either?” I propped one arm over the edge of the pool, ripping the swim cap from my head with a satisfying thwap. “Why don’t you just email me a list of places I can and cannot go to in the city?”

Christian readjusted the waistband of his trunks. His V cut gave Joe Manganiello a run for his money. “That’s actually not a bad idea. I’ll get my secretary on that.”

“Let’s see how that works out for you.” I braced myself on the edge, pulled out of the water, and sauntered to the bench where I’d left my towel and flip-flops. Christian followed me, sneaking a peek at my legs as I wrapped the towel around myself.

“Are you saying you haven’t come here because of me?” He folded his arms over his chest.

I let out a snort, like the idea itself was preposterous. “Believe it or not, Mr. Miller, the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

He watched me pat myself dry. “Do you swim often?”

Huh. No verbal sparring. Maybe he’d come down with something.

“Just started again. You?”

“Every day since I was twelve.”

I could tell. He had the sinewy, long, and lean body of a swimmer. His muscles were defined but not bulging.

“It’s a healthy sport,” I said. Great. Now I sounded like my grandmother. Next, I’d give him a granola-cookie recipe.

“Yes,” he replied flatly, not letting me off the hook.

“I missed swimming.” More meaningless words from yours truly.

Christian began circling me like a shark, a smirk playing on his lips. “Why are you here, Roth? Really, now. What’s your game?”

“Something about you feels familiar.” I secured the towel around myself, turning to look at him. “And I intend to find out what it is. Other than that, I’m just enjoying my new daily workout routine.”

His blue eyes held mine in a vise grip. For the first time, I could see something that wasn’t hate or disdain in them. There was curiosity, with a dash of hope thrown in. I felt like I was missing something. Like we were having two different conversations about two different things. Most of all, I thought what we were doing was wrong somehow. Forbidden.

“Are you saying we know each other, Ms. Roth?” he asked, very slowly, almost like he was clueing me in on something.

“I’m saying the pieces of the puzzle aren’t adding up, and I’m not going to give up until I get the full picture.”

“Tell me, Ms. Roth. What’s going to happen if you lose this case?”

“I don’t lose,” I said quickly, too quickly. Because not wanting to lose was a better incentive than actually asking myself the million-dollar question—whether Dad was guilty or not.

There was a beat. The silence hung in the humid, hot air like a sword over a neck.

“Meet me in the wet sauna in twenty minutes.” The words ripped out from his mouth, like he was fighting them. He turned and stalked away. I watched his triangle back, sensing I’d seen it before. Touched it, even. But it couldn’t be. I’d remember a man like that if I’d gone to bed with him. The only other person who’d ever made me feel quite so desperate for something I could never define was long gone. Nicky had died, and even after I’d been told that he’d died, I still vainly looked for him every now and then.

But Christian was here, and Christian was different. Callous and cunning, miles away from the sweet, surly boy who’d stolen my heart.

I was going to do what I needed to do to protect the only man in my life who cared.

Even if it meant dying on the sword of my principles.