Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

The next morning, I flicked my wrist and glanced at my watch, rearranging my skirt over my thighs for the millionth time. It was half past ten, and I was about to stand up and leave the restaurant where I was supposed to meet the potential client and Jillian.

The fact the client hadn’t come was bad enough. Purely unprofessional. But what irked me was that Jillian hadn’t shown up. Hadn’t even answered any of my calls. Just sent me a quick text saying something had come up and that she would love to hear all about the meeting when I came to the office afterward.

We must bag this one, Ari. She’s big $$$.

Well, heavy pockets or not, this Goodie woman wasn’t showing up.

I was waving for the waiter to get me the check when Mrs. Goodie finally made her grand entrance. More like barged into the tiny restaurant in an explosion of colors and laughter. She was talking on her phone, waving the hostess away when she tried to ask her if she was joining a party or needed a table.

She was, for lack of a better description, human Technicolor.

“. . . gotta run, honey. We should totally catch up while I’m in the city. Totally. Oops, here’s my date for the morning.” Mrs. Goodie waved at me with the tips of her fingernails, smiling brightly. “Gotta run. Yes. Tomorrow sounds good. I’ll have my PA talk to yours. Can’t wait to see you. Muah!”

She plopped on the seat in front of me, sighing as she grabbed my water glass and chugged the entire thing in one gulp. “As if I’m ever going to see that two-faced bitch again. Can you believe it? I stopped trying to figure out why people who hate me seek my company. The line between love and hate is fine indeed, but there’s no need to straddle it.”

I stared at her blankly.

“Oh!” She laughed, shaking her head as she flagged the waiter. I was pretty sure she blew a complete random a kiss. “I was late, wasn’t I? My apologies. I forgot how bad traffic is in the city.”

“No problem,” I said blandly, reminding myself that I’d screwed up several deals these past few months and that I owed Jillian this account.

The waiter arrived with the check, and Mrs. Goodie scolded him. “Why, I haven’t even had your pastry platter! Bring it immediately. It’s the best thing this town has to offer. And coffee. Lots of coffee. Irish coffee! It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

“In Saint Petersburg,” I supplied helpfully, figuring she’d do what she wanted to do anyway, including getting hammered first thing in the morning. I snapped my napkin over my lap, making myself comfortable.

Mrs. Goodie cocked her head sideways and smiled. “You’re a brainiac,” she observed.

“I don’t know about that, but I like to think of myself as well read.”

“No wonder he is so crazy about you,” she muttered, tugging at her colorful beach dress to cool down from the journey here.

I frowned. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Goodie?”

“Please, call me Alice.” She laughed, patting my hand across the table. “And it’s not Goodie. It’s Gudinski.”

The last name rang a bell, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “What do you mean by ‘he’s crazy about you’? Who is?”

The earth tilted beneath me just then. I sucked in a breath. A weird combination of jealousy, fury, and gratitude filled me. The latter, I suspected, was simply because I was sitting in front of a person who was close to Nicky. Alice must’ve seen the war waging within me by the look on my face, because she burst out in a loud, unladylike cackle, and suddenly, I knew exactly what Nicky had seen in this woman.

“Oh, bless your little heart, Arya, don’t be scared. I don’t bite. Christian told me you might not agree to see me if you knew who I was, so Jillian and I had to give you a little nudge.” She gave me a wink, peppering the gesture with a shoulder shimmy.

“And you still thought it would be a good idea?” I could kill Jillian for the way she’d schemed behind my back twice in a row this week.

Alice gave me a kind smile. “Absolutely. I was quite the stubborn woman myself when I was your age, but my late husband wore me down. I’m so glad he did, because otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, dining in a fancy restaurant in New York in the middle of the morning.”

“I’m sorry you lost him.” I dropped my voice.

She gave her (fantastic) hair a toss. A few years ago, I would have looked at this woman and thought to myself, I want her to be my mother. Now, after everything Beatrice and I had been through, I only wanted someone like Alice as a friend.

“You know, it was only after I lost him that I realized how grateful I am for everything I had. It put everything in perspective. Life is uncertain, Arya. Love is not. Love is the concrete beneath your feet. It’s the anchor when you’re in the eye of a storm. Tossing love away because of a few complications is unheard of. This is what I came here to tell you, actually.”

She reached for my hand, clasping it firmly. “When I heard about you and Nicky, I couldn’t just sit by and let you two miss the chance at love again. I want you to know he loves you. He’s always loved you. He hated that he loved you, but he did it anyway, because it was stronger than him. Over the years, I’ve watched as he fought it. As he struggled to understand why he couldn’t fall in love with anyone else. Your name always came up. Every single time. He thought you scarred him. But the truth is, you just never left his mind. His heart. You know him, Arya.” She spoke softly, dropping her voice. “You know better than I do what kind of person he is. He’s made a few mistakes, sure, the biggest of them not telling you who he was. But he would also give up the world for a second chance with you. Please reconsider.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I’d already thought about it. That I wanted Nicky just as much as he wanted me. And Christian too. I wanted who he’d been and who he’d become. Each day spent without him felt like a terrible waste. But Alice beat me to it, standing up and taking a step back.

“No.” She raised her hand to stop me. “Don’t tell me. Tell him.”

Suddenly, he was there. Alive and beautiful and heartbreakingly not mine. He wore jeans and a white shirt. Every nerve in my body was on alert, pushing me to jump on him in tears.

The waiter approached with the pastry platter. Alice shooed him away. “Seriously? Can’t you see that they’re having a moment? Put that on the bar; I’ll take care of these puppies in a second.”

I made a mental note to never, ever come back to this place again. My food was so going to get spit on.

Alice nudged Nicky in my direction before turning around and swaggering toward the bar. He took the seat in front of me. My hands shook. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been mad at him for anything. This man who had been through so much because of me. For me. Who’d made so many sacrifices in his life while I’d lived in my ivory tower, nestled in designer everything and my own privilege.

“I get it now,” he said, sounding somber and a little contemplative. Christian produced something from the leather briefcase he carried and dropped it on the table between us. A copy of Atonement. The spine wrinkled to death, the edges tattered from usage.

“The book,” he explained. “I read it. Twice, actually. Back to back yesterday. By the time I was done, Jillian told me you’d already left work.”

“I see Jillian has been doing a lot of legwork behind the scenes,” I muttered.

“Well”—Christian flashed a lopsided grin—“she knew it’s either her doing some legwork or you kicking me to the curb.”

“Did you like it?” I swallowed. “The book, I mean.”

Of course you meant the book. What else would he think you meant? Jillian’s legs?

He shook his head gravely. “No.”

My soul felt heavy and soggy and full of dark things.

“I fucking loved it. I’d watched the movie before—our library scene made Keira Knightley and James McAvoy look like amateurs, by the way—but hadn’t read the book until now. It made me understand you. The book is about class, guilt, and the loss of innocence. All the things that we experienced together. That bound us. But there’s one thing I don’t understand.” His bluest-blue eyes bore into mine, and the fine hair on the back of my neck stood on end. He parked his elbows on the table, leaning forward. “How can you not forgive me when you know Cecilia and Robbie needed to end up together? You are tampering with your own happy ending, Arya. And I won’t have that. This is unacceptable. Not just for me but for you.”

Tears covered my eyes. For the first time in my life, I cried publicly, and I didn’t even care. I, the great Arya Roth, symbol of independence and feminism. “You fool,” I groaned, pained. “You absolute, complete idiot. I’ve always loved you. Always been obsessed with you. I coaxed you into kissing me, for crying out loud.” I was laughing and crying now simultaneously, always a good look. “Every step of the way, I was the one to initiate things between us. The only reason why I didn’t run after you to Belarus when we were fourteen was because I was too embarrassed. I thought I was pestering you. I was mortified after what Conrad had done. Even then, I couldn’t stay away. Not all the way. I kept writing and hoping and praying.”

We still had that stupid table between us. I wanted to pick it up and hurl it across the room like the Hulk. Every moment not spent in his arms was a waste.

The restaurant rumbled. We both glanced at Alice, who was talking the barista’s ear off at the bar, licking the spoon of the tart she was devouring.

“So. I met your sugar mama.” I grinned.

“Arya.” Christian made a face full of regret. “The last thing I want to talk about right now is my sugar mama. Come here. I want to show you something.”

He led me out of the restaurant. We held hands. I’d never realized how right it felt. My palm in his. How perfectly we fit together. The street was bustling with the usual mix of traffic, tourists, and businesspeople. Christian tugged me into an alleyway, tucked in a corner between two buildings.

“Well, this is romantic.” I eyed the industrial trash can next to us. “And private.”

He laughed. “I like private. Last time I tried to kiss you out of my comfort zone, your father kicked my ass.”

“No chance of that happening again.” I smiled.

He held my face in his hands like I was precious. Like I was his. “No.” He shook his head, his nose brushing mine with each movement. “Because I will never let anything tear us apart again. Not ever.”

“I love you, Nicky.”

“I love you, Cecilia.” He dived down for a kiss. I swatted his chest and felt his laughter rumble beneath his hard pecs.

“Don’t ever call me someone else’s name when we kiss.”

“Same goes to you. It’s Christian now.”

“I thought you didn’t like me calling you Christian.”

The pieces of the puzzle had clicked together. The way he’d looked at me when we’d first tumbled into bed together. When I’d called him by his new name and he’d shriveled back.

Christian shook his head. “That was before you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That I’m reborn.”

That was when Christian Miller kissed me again.

And this time, I knew, no one was going to take him away from me.