Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

I tucked the hard copy of Atonement under the loose floor plank beneath my bed. You’d think a brand-new building in Manhattan, with real parquet, wouldn’t have slack tiles, and you would be absolutely correct. The reason it was loose was because I’d ripped it with my bare hands so I’d have somewhere to hide all the legal documents I never wanted anyone to find. A safe was highly predictable. It practically screamed to be opened. But no one was going to unglue the floor pieces under my bed.

I wondered why Arya hadn’t called yet. Or better yet, barged into my office with a machete and every intent of using it on my neck.

I was going to hell, but not before making the most out of my time here on planet Earth. What I was doing to Arya was, for lack of legal terminology, a dick move of gigantic proportions.

The lie grew larger by the day, fed by time, intent, and emotions that had no business getting thrown into the mix. I’d spent my whole life cherry-picking my partners. I had the looks, the aura, the job, and the bank balance to lure anyone into my web. But with Arya, even when I had her, she didn’t truly feel mine, and that was a problem.

Someone knocked on my bedroom door. Riggs’s head, freshly (and wholly) shaven after another successful trip to God knew where, popped in the space between the door and the frame. “Food’s here.”

I waltzed through my bedroom toward the kitchen, where Arsène was unloading take-out boxes full of sashimi. Riggs sat next to Arsène on a stool.

“Back to the subject at hand, before Christian had to go back to his room to listen to his Sinéad O’Connor album while crying over Arya not calling.” Arsène hit ignore on his phone when the name Penny flashed across it, accompanied by a picture of what appeared to be a goddamn supermodel. If I had a penny for every time he rejected a perfectly good Penny, I’d be able to buy this entire building, not just a one-bed apartment. “You have two choices here—either you cut her loose, seeing as you’ve had your fun, and that was the original plan, or you tell her the truth and face the consequences. Dragging this out is volatile.”

“Are you crazy?” I spit out, digging through the containers. “It’s too late to tell her. I’ll be dropped from the case, disbarred, possibly face legal action—no, definitely, considering this trial is a sure goddamn win for me—not to mention I’ll lose her anyway.”

Arsène smirked at me like I was an adorable little puppy who’d just learned how to piss on his potty pad. “Thought you said this was not how it works. That—and this is a direct quote—you didn’t get your law degree from Costco.”

He had me there. But that was before Arya and I had sex. I’d thought I could keep my shit—and my dick—to myself. Watch her suffer and move on with my life.

“Thanks for the I-told-you-so. You’re being real useful right now.” I snapped the wooden chopsticks apart.

“Can you tell her after the trial is over?” Riggs asked, ambling toward my fridge to grab a beer. He looked buff as hell these days, but I knew unlike Arsène and me, he wasn’t one for hitting the gym. Instead, he climbed mountains. Professionally. Had a bunch of companies endorsing his ass. I never understood his fascination with near-death experiences. Life had a 100 percent mortality rate. What was his rush to fall off a goddamn cliff at a 14K elevation?

I shook my head no. “The trial will be over in a few weeks. Besides, even if I tell her after it’s over, she can unveil my identity afterward, which would mean all my work would have been for nothing.”

I’d brushed up on the Rules of Professional Conduct. There was nothing that specifically prevented me from sticking my dick into Arya. But it didn’t look good. And of course, there were those pesky catch-all rules for situations like these. A competent attorney could file a claim alleging my conduct was intended to disrupt the tribunal. And fuck, with my fact pattern, they might just win. Amanda Gispen would have my ass on a platter for ruining her case, and Conrad Roth would too. Either way I looked at it, being with Arya was simply undoable. They were right. I needed to cut her loose. But how could I, after she’d told me she’d tried to write to me? That she thought I’d moved to the other side of the world? That I was the one who’d gotten away?

I’d been so sure she was in on whatever Conrad Roth had done to me, it had never occurred to me he’d fed her a few lies to soften the blow. It twisted me inside out. The revelation she might have not known. Made me lose sleep, cases, and my goddamn mind. All this time—all this rage—and it wasn’t even her fault.

The carefully constructed narrative of my life and my circumstances was a pile of ash at my feet. And I had no one to blame but myself, for jumping to conclusions.

As for Arya, the woman had been lied to by every man she even remotely cared about. It made me feel shitty, but not shitty enough to ruin my whole life to do right by her.

“Great. In that case, dump Arya and move on with your life,” Arsène said, in the same sensible tone he might use to suggest diversifying my investment portfolio.

I tossed a piece of raw tuna into my mouth. “Fine. I don’t even have to do that. All I need to do is never call her again, since she sure as hell never calls me.”

Riggs smiled behind the rim of his beer bottle. “And that obviously doesn’t bother you at all.”

Prick.

Arya didn’t call the next day.

Or the one after it.

I dissected our latest interaction.

The way she’d confided about Nicky. The pain in her voice. The crinkles in her eyes.

It seemed like she genuinely cared. Then again, as established, Arya was a pretty good actress when she wanted to be.

My suspicion that she hadn’t noticed the missing book had evaporated. There was no way something like that could have escaped a woman like Arya. Meanwhile, Atonement burned a hole through the wood of my bedroom parquet. I refused to read it. Doing so was admitting defeat, in a strange way.

I kept telling myself it was a good thing that Arya hadn’t called. I could always send her the book via courier and get this shit over with. I couldn’t see her again. Any more time spent with her brought her closer to the truth. And even if it didn’t—what was the point? I’d wanted to get her out of my system. I had. Case closed.

The trial was going well.

My career plate was full.

So why was I still hungry?

One week had passed.

I went to the gym and the Brewtherhood. She was never there. She didn’t show up in court either. I was beginning to regret the temporary mercy I’d shown her by warning her off the case.

The woman wouldn’t budge. Was it pride or self-preservation? Either way, it earned her more of my admiration.

There was a perfectly good chance I could have carried on like this for another month or so. I was a competitive bastard, just like her. We always made everything a game to be won. Even as kids. But one day, while I was hitting the weight section at the gym, I noticed her on one of the flat TV screens. She was a guest on a morning show.

She looked like a dream. So much so, the first few seconds, I didn’t even decipher what she was saying. Just bathed in the fact I’d had her underneath me, not too long ago, writhing and begging for more.

She wore an off-shoulder dress with a fitted bodice and butterflies on it. I dropped the weights I was holding and strode to the TV so I could hear her better. The hostess, a woman whose age could be anywhere from thirty-eight to fifty-nine with a blonde bob and a lot of fake tanner, asked her about the PR crisis a certain British royal couple was facing. Arya answered all the questions thoroughly and professionally. I wondered what had inspired her to go on TV in the first place, but then when her interview was over, the hostess plugged Brand Brigade and couldn’t stop gushing about it, proclaiming that she was one of their very happy clients.

Free publicity. Mystery solved.

That same day, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of Atonement. They only had the one with the film poster on the cover, white paper instead of crème. But that was sufficient for what I needed. I tore a page from the book, dabbed it in tea, and let it sit to dry on my office window for a few hours before tucking it into an envelope along with a small note.

I have something of yours. If you want to see this book alive, follow my steps and don’t try to go to the police.

Step 1: Meet me at the Hayden Planetarium tonight at six thirty.

Don’t be late.

—C

I picked up the phone on my desk, pressing the button to call my secretary.

“I need you to send something across town. Now.”

At six twenty, I spotted Arya outside the planetarium. She stopped pacing, showered in a pool of icy blue lights reflecting from the building behind her.

In the movies, and maybe even in the books Arya was so fond of, the heroine always looked uncertain and demure, waiting for her beau to arrive. Not so with Arya Roth. The little hellion was on the phone, pacing back and forth, telling whoever was on the other end that she’d make a Birkin bag out of his skin if he didn’t find her the reporter who’d leaked that juicy item about one of her clients. I stood on the sidelines, taking her in, and it finally dawned on me why I couldn’t stay away—because we were frighteningly alike.

Fighters. Bloodthirsty. We’d been born into different circumstances, but our essence was the same. We were both in the business of getting down and dirty for the things we cared about. Claws out, at a second’s notice.

Question was—how much did Arya still care about her father? I had no way of finding out and wasn’t naive enough to ask her directly.

I resumed my brisk walk toward her. She turned on her heel, then stopped when she saw me, her pupils dilating at my appearance.

“I have to go, Neil. Keep me posted.”

She tossed her phone back into her bag, launching toward me.

“Where’s my book, Miller?” she barked, in full ballbuster mode.

I stopped a good few feet in front of her, enjoying her gaze on me. “That’s it? No hello, how have you been?”

“I don’t care how you’ve been. All I care about is that you stole my book.”

“And I’ll give it back to you,” I replied evenly. “If you play your cards right.”

“With a page missing.” She pulled the page I’d sent her earlier today from her purse, waving it in my face. Trying hard not to laugh, I produced something from my own briefcase. The new copy of Atonement I’d purchased, which was missing the page.

“The original is safe and sound.”

Arya put a hand to her chest, sagging visibly. “Good. I thought I needed to murder you. Life in prison seemed highly unappealing and yet completely necessary for the past few hours. Although I’d like to stress you are still a horrendous person for ripping any book, for any reason.”

“Even if that reason was to get a reaction out of you?”

“Especially so.”

“I missed you, Ms. Roth.”

“Oh, put a lid on it, Miller.”

We walked into the planetarium. She didn’t ask why I’d had her meet me here. She didn’t have to. It was clear from the moment we strode into the Nature of Color exhibition.

“You know, animals are known to use color to camouflage themselves,” I noted. We walked past a stark white wall, our shadows reflecting off it in all the colors of the rainbow. Around us, kids danced to their own shadows, while their parents watched a flat-screen explaining the exhibition.

“They use it to attract mates too.” Arya clutched the jacket she was holding to her chest. “Your point?”

We stopped in front of a video of a bright white flower opening up at nighttime, staring at it. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”

“Why do I have a feeling there’s something you want to say to me, yet you never really say it?” She turned to cock her head.

Because there is.

Because I am.

Because if I’m the one who got away, how come you cannot even recognize me when I stand less than a foot away from you?

But I just smiled, handing her the second note. I’d written them in advance, which, it had to be said, was out of character for me. My main form of seduction thus far, in the rare times I went to any minimal lengths to pursue someone, was to buy them dinner. She smoothed it over in her palm, shooting me a frown.

Step 2: Introduce me to your favorite street food.

Her eyes met mine, full of sudden benevolence I doubted she was truly capable of. The princess with the Chanel purse and $500 haircut, who’d never known hunger and desperation in her life.

“Whatever happened to you and me not being able to date one another? This feels just a few kisses shy of spooning slash coadopting a French bulldog called Argus.”

“First of all, I would never adopt a dog. Quote me on that. If I wanted someone to ruin my apartment, I’d get your interior designer. No offense.”

“None taken. I could give a crap and a half about what you think about my apartment.”

Actually, it was more like half a crap, but obviously, I didn’t want to offend.

“Second, I am, above all, a gentleman. Third, the only thing remotely romantic about tonight is the fact we’re both going to get laid at the end of it.”

Arya shook her head, but at least she had the integrity not to contradict me. We both knew where this was headed. How tangled we were in this web of desire.

And then we were on the stairs of the New York Public Library, eating waffles filled with chocolate fudge, Nutella, and cookie spread.

We probably looked perfect. The image of a textbook urban date. Two dashing thirtysomethings sharing dessert at the feet of one of the finest establishments in America. A sugarcoated lie.

“How did you not die of a heart attack by now?” I asked after three bites. I hadn’t consumed anything remotely as artery clogging since I’d hit thirty and realized that in order to keep my current shape, I had to start watching what I ate.

Arya tapped her plastic fork over her lower lip, pretending to consider this. “Wishful thinking, Mr. Miller?”

“We can stop pretending we hate each other. All evidence points to the contrary.”

“Never really bought into the whole diet fads. When I want to eat something—I do.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’m reckless.”

I snorted a chuckle. “A reckless woman would’ve called me a minute after she found out her book was missing. When did you realize, by the way?”

“About half a second after I opened my eyes.” She licked her lips. “Give or take.”

“Why Atonement?” I asked again. “Out of all the books in the world, you chose this. Why not Austen? Or Hemingway? Woolf, or Fitzgerald, or even Steinbeck?”

“Guilt.” She pressed her lips together, squinting at the darkness in front of her. “Atonement is about guilt. A small act of thoughtlessness made by a child, and how it threw so many lives off the rails. I guess . . . I mean, I suppose . . .” She frowned again, two sharp lines forming between her eyebrows. “I don’t know. I guess the more I grew up, the more that book grew with me. Each time I read it, I’d find another layer I could relate to.”

“Does this have something to do with the one who got away?” I asked tentatively. I was treading too close to the truth. I no longer recognized myself around her.

Arya straightened her spine, jerked from a thought that shook her. “Why am I here, Christian?” She dropped her fork into her half-eaten waffle, turning to me. “You wanted to sleep with me, and you did. You left without a note, without a text, without a call—but with the one thing you expected would make me crawl back to you. What kind of game are you playing? You’re hot one moment, cold another. Tender, then moody. I don’t know if you are my enemy or my friend. You keep skating in and out between the territories. I cannot figure you out, and if I’m being completely honest, I’m reaching the point where the mystery outweighs the allure.”

I took her waffle and carried both our take-out dishes to a nearby trash can, where I disposed of them to buy time. When I returned, I sat next to her. Her fingers were wrapped around a take-out tea.

“I’m not done with you,” I confessed. “I wish I was, but I’m not.”

“You go about things like a fourteen-year-old.”

Because that’s the age I was when you discarded me.

“In that case, how about we start over tonight? The trial will be over in a few short weeks. If we keep things under wraps, it could work. We can enjoy each other in the meantime, then go our separate ways.”

Arya considered this. I kept my smile casual. She had all the power. She could say no, turn her back on me, and go her merry way. But I would never stop desiring her. I’d taken the first, the second, and the third step. I kept seeking her out.

“Fine,” she said, finally. This was my cue to take out my final note. I passed it over to her.

“Another one?” Her eyebrows jumped to her hairline, but she still took it.

“Last one,” I said, watching her face as she unfolded it.

Step 3: Have sex with me at a library.

This time when she looked back at me, there was no amusement in her eyes. “Are you insane?”

“It’s a possibility,” I admitted.

“I mean, let’s start with the obvious—the library is currently closed.”

Tucking my hand into my peacoat’s pocket, I took out a key to one of the side doors. “Problem solved. What else?”

Arya’s eyes flared. “How?”

“I know someone who knows someone who may or may not work here.”

And I paid him a lot of money to make this happen, I refrained from adding.

“Well, the next reason why it’s insane is because it’s illegal.”

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“Yup. It’s going to sound like a double-spread scandal in a tabloid.” She flashed me a don’t-be-cute glare. “We might get caught.”

“We won’t.” I stood up. “Trust me. I have a two-hundred-million-dollar case and a partnership on the line. I’m not going to throw it all away for a fuck, no matter how fun and dirty.”

But now that I’d said it out loud, the weight of the stupidity of this act pressed against my sternum. That made Arya perk up instantly. She shot up to her feet too. Perhaps the sheer possibility of my screwing up my career cheered her up.

“Sounds like a challenge to me.”

Yeah. No perhaps about it. Definitely.

We walked around the building until I found the door I was looking for, turned the key in its hole, and pushed it open. It was pitch black inside. The warmth of the library paired with the scent of old pages, worn leather, and oak slammed into both of us. Arya’s hand found mine. I squeezed her hard and led her into the study room.

“You know, I’ve lived in this city my whole life, and I’ve never visited the rare book division,” I heard Arya say behind my back. I couldn’t show it to her today, since we needed a key for that, too, but it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I’d make it happen. That I’d take her there. Only I couldn’t take her there. Being seen with her in public in broad daylight would be disastrous. The kiss of death to our careers—not to mention her nearly nonexistent relationship with her family. We could only exist in the dark, two thieves of pleasure.

The study room was never ending. All the table lamps were turned off. In the dark, it looked almost like a deserted factory. Of ideas and dreams and potential. I tugged at Arya’s hand to come inside, feeling fourteen again.

“Please don’t tell me you hid my book somewhere in here.” She glanced around the room, which was framed with shelves laden with books.

I let out a metallic laugh. “I’m not that sadistic.”

“Debatable.” She walked over to one of the shelves, checking out the books. I watched her. I always watched her. Her hair—the only untamed thing about her appearance—curled around her face like an angel’s. I wondered if she’d taste as sweet, as sinful, as lovely, if I had her openly. If I could parade her around. Take her to company events. If her belly swelled with my offspring inside it. I wondered if my obsession with her stemmed from pure vengeance or something more. A sense of entitlement, of ownership, after everything she’d put me through.

“Christian?” she asked, and I realized that in my stupor, I hadn’t noticed she was talking to me. I shook my head slightly. It always disoriented me when she called me that.

“Yes?”

“Did you listen to anything I said?” She smiled, hugging a book to her chest as she advanced toward me, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Not one word,” I admitted. “I was preoccupied.”

“With what?”

“Envisioning my hands on your ass as I take you from behind right on this table.”

She sashayed to me, one hand lazily caressing the long wooden table by her side. When she reached me, she handed me a book.

“Open it randomly and read me a paragraph.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked.”

“That’s your selling point? Because you asked?”

She gave me a blank stare.

I laughed. “Okay, then.”

For the first time—I had this feeling she was onto me. That she knew who I was. Because fourteen-year-old Arya had known damn well that fourteen-year-old Nicholai would do anything within his power at her order. I took the book, flipping the pages, my eyes still holding hers. Very well. We were going to play it like that. I stopped at a random page, my eyes gliding over the text that stuck out to me. I read it out loud. It was about women being poisonous.

I turned the book around. First Love by Ivan Turgenev.

“Why did you pick this book?” I asked.

“Why did you pick this paragraph?” she quipped back, not missing a beat.

“I didn’t.”

“Neither did I.” She smiled. “I just wanted to see if you’d play my games too.”

I put the book aside, gliding toward her. She took a step back.

“I always seem to be in the market for whatever the hell you’re offering.”

She took another step back. Only a few feet from one of the tables. “Why is that, Christian? You don’t strike me as a big romantic.”

I took a step forward. “I’m not.”

“Why, then?” She retreated one last time, the backs of her legs hitting the table, and stopped. I grinned, eating the space between us with one final step.

“Because, unfortunately, Ms. Roth, no one else will do.”

Pinning her to the table by pressing my hands on either side of her thighs, I lowered my head to hers, my mouth pressing against her warm lips. She opened for me, tasting of powdered sugar and Nutella and peppermint tea. Of poison and destruction and inevitability. She pressed one hand against my chest, the other one circling my shoulder, her nails scraping at my hair. I groaned into our kiss, thinking she might pull me away, when her hand descended my abs, down to the button of my dress pants. My erection was impossible to manage, my cock standing to attention between us, waiting to be acknowledged.

Her hand slid down to cup it through my pants. I could no longer kiss her and concentrate at the same time, so I dropped my head to the side of her neck, covering every inch of it with lazy kisses. My body wrenched and spasmed to see what she’d do next.

Arya grabbed me by the dick—and balls—and jerked me forward, until there was no more space between us. I almost came on impact. And then she was gone, the space where her neck had been just a moment ago cold. I looked left and right, confused. I found her on her knees in front of me, undoing my button and zipper.

Okay. Okay.

I smoothed away her wild hair from her face. Not affectionately, I told myself, but so that I could get a better view of her lips wrapped around my dick. Said dick sprang free just as I managed to lean forward, lighting one of the lamps on the table behind her back.

Arya didn’t look up at me shyly, or even seductively, the way women did a second before taking your cock in their mouths. She grabbed me, then gave my cock a thorough lick, base to tip, rolling her tongue around the crown for good measure. I let out a low hiss, looking away. It was too much. The sight of her pleasuring me.

As if reading my mind, Arya chose that moment to try and take most of me in. She grabbed the part she couldn’t get to, closer to the root, in her hand and began pumping. I was willing to sign over the remainder of my life to her and everything I valued, including Arsène and Riggs, if it meant making her never stop.

“Arya.” I thrust my hand into her hair, caressing her, unable to stop myself from looking at her. “This feels so good.”

She didn’t answer, not even with a small moan, and now I craved her words even more than I did my dick inside her mouth. Also, I was pretty sure I was going to come like a fourteen-year-old if she continued for twenty more seconds, and I wanted to spare myself from that particular form of humiliation. With that in mind, I used the collar of her dress to tug her back up to her feet, filling her mouth with my tongue in a messy, hot kiss.

“We’re such a train wreck.” Her breath tickled my chin, my tongue, as she roamed my body with her hands. Clutching my ass. Rolling her fingers over my back, my shoulders, my collarbone. “This is going to end badly.”

I grabbed her by the waist, turned her around, and flipped up her dress. Again, while Arya was all Sex and the City, her underwear was definitely Jane the Virgin.

“Maternity undies again?” I tugged them aside, not even bothering with sliding them down. Life was too short and so forth.

“I’ll have you know it’s one hundred percent cotton and very good for my pH balance.”

The laugh this elicited in me made my bones rattle. “Arya, you are fantastic.”

“And you’re not wearing a condom. Make it happen.”

I dutifully put one on as she waited for me in a perfect r position, drumming her fingernails on the table.

With that, I pressed home, the side of her undies’ elastics pressing against my cock.

This is how I want to die.

Watching Arya’s back as she took me from behind was enough to kill me. Yet I pulled out, then in again, thrusting inside her. It was good and deep, but I managed to last longer than last time. Because I didn’t have Arya’s face right in front of me, reminding me who I was doing this with. I circled my arm around her waist and played with her clit, licking the shell of her ear. She let out little pants of pleasure that made me forget my names. Previous and current.

“I’m going to come.” She sucked in a breath. I had no time to shower her with words of encouragement. She broke into shivers, tightening around me as she let out a hiss, every muscle in her body clenching against me. I pumped faster, harder, seeking my own release. I found it seconds later and stayed deep inside her, relishing every moment before it was gone.

“Well, that was certainly what the doctor ordered.” Arya straightened, rearranging her panties and pushing her dress down. “Now, Christian, it’s time to give me my book.” She reapplied her lipstick in front of a small mirror, all business again. I threw away the condom and tucked my dick back in my pants, still sporting a semi. Maybe that was how it was always going to play out with Arya and me, until the trial was over.

“Absolutely. How about you come pick it up tomorrow night? I can’t promise you waffles—I still need to get into my suits—but I can make my famous chicken breast and quinoa. Maybe even throw in a glass of wine, if you’ll be nice.”

I was expecting violence from her, no less. After all, I was still holding her book hostage. But instead of calling me all the things I deserved to be called—a scammer, a liar, and a fuckboy—she simply smiled.

“Know what? You can keep it for as long as we entertain each other. What’s a few more weeks in the grand scheme of things? As long as we have certain rules.”

“Lay ’em out for me.” I smoothed my jacket, leaning against the opposite desk from her. She dropped the little mirror and lipstick back into her bag.

“Number one—no going anywhere in public together. Too risky. Number two—no meeting each other’s families, friends, and colleagues, keeping everything completely separate.”

“Agreed. Number three—no L words. Either of them,” I added.

“There are two of them?”

“Like is a word too.”

She nodded, her expression matter of fact. “And number four—if one of us meets someone else, the other will step aside without any guilt trips or trying to convince the other to change their mind. This is supposed to be temporary, after all.”

I felt like I wanted to punch something, preferably the faceless asshole who was going to steal my precious moments with her. Nevertheless, I conceded. “Fair. Anything else?”

“Yes, in fact.” Arya cleared her throat. “On the day the trial ends, so will our relationship. We will not have an official breakup conversation. Those are messy and entirely unnecessary. I will simply expect to see my precious hard copy of Atonement back in my mailbox, carefully wrapped, whole and safe.”

She offered me her hand. We shook on it. That gave me at least two more weeks of Arya.

And that was all I needed.