Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways)

Present

The satisfying clinks of my Louboutins snapping over the rich marble floor reverberated through the walls of the Van Der Hout building on Madison Avenue. A cold smile touched my lips when I reached the receptionist.

“Cromwell and Traurig?” My fingernail, the same scarlet shade as the bottom of my heels, tapped over her desk impatiently after I handed her my ID. I couldn’t believe I was wasting my time on this.

The receptionist handed me a visitor badge and my ID back, and I slipped both into my purse.

“That’d be floor thirty-three, ma’am, which requires access control. Please hold while I get someone to escort you.”

“No need to call someone down, Sand. I’m on my way up.” A baritone so low and deep it slithered into my veins boomed behind my back.

“Hey, boss,” the receptionist squeaked, her professional demeanor melting like ice cream on hot asphalt. “New suit? Gray is definitely your color.”

Curious and a little put off by the flirt-fest, I turned around and came face to face with one of the most attractive men to grace planet Earth—past, present, and future. A carved Greek god in an Armani suit. Dimpled chin and eyes the color of a kingfisher. A walking, talking bottle of premium DNA, and if that wasn’t enough, he oozed enough testosterone to drown a baseball field. I didn’t even know if he was classically beautiful. It looked like his nose had been moved back into place unprofessionally after being broken, and his jawline was a little too square. But he reeked of confidence and money, two forms of kryptonite in Manhattan’s oversaturated dating pool. Despite myself, I felt my cheeks flushing. When was the last time I’d blushed? Probably when I was a preteen.

“Ready to see the Van Der Hout from the inside?” His tone light, his face impassive.

“I could go a lifetime without seeing the inside of this building, but fate brought me here.”

“Did it bring you to a specific floor?” His good mood was unwavering.

“Cromwell and Traurig,” I clipped out.

“With pleasure.” He flashed me a row of pearly whites. He was a good ol’ rich boy. I recognized them from miles away. The cigars. The golf. The Daddy-will-get-me-out-of-everything smirk.

As we waited for the elevator to arrive, I ran a hand over my dress, chastising myself for checking if this random stranger had a wedding band (he did not). I had bigger fish to fry. Mainly, the fact I was going into Dad’s first—and hopefully last—mediation meeting regarding his sexual harassment case.

Sexual harassment! What a joke. Dad was hot tempered, but he would never hurt a woman. He was merciless at his job, no doubt about it, but he wasn’t a sleazy Harvey Weinstein type. The kind of man to slip a hand under a woman’s skirt or ogle her cleavage. I’d been around the corporate block and could recognize predators before they opened their mouths to take a bite. Dad didn’t tick any of the corrupt-boss boxes. He wasn’t overly nice, never tried to charm his way in and out of social circles, and kept his hands to himself. His female employees adored him openly, oftentimes praising him for his devotion to me. He was his secretary’s son’s godfather, for crying out loud.

Hot Stranger and I both watched the red numbers on the screen above the elevator descending. I tapped my foot.

Twenty-two . . . twenty-one . . . twenty . . .

Was this man really the receptionist’s boss? That would make him the building manager, if not owner. He looked young. Early to midthirties. But seasoned too. With the flippant, tranquil air of someone who knew what he was doing. Old money opened doors to new opportunities; I was the first person to admit that. Just to be on the safe side, I decided to ask if he had anything to do with Cromwell & Traurig.

“Are you a partner at the firm?” There was no way Amanda had hired an associate.

His slightly crooked smirk widened half an inch. “No.”

I let out a relieved sigh. “Good.”

“Why?”

“I hate lawyers.”

“Me too.” His eyes flickered to his Patek Philippe watch.

Silence descended over us. He didn’t feel like a stranger. Not exactly. Standing next to him, I could swear my body recognized his.

“Terrible weather,” I commented. The rain hadn’t stopped for three days straight.

“I think it was Steinbeck who said the climate in New York is a scandal. New to the city?” His tone was airy yet undistinguishable. My instincts told me to watch out. My ovaries told them to shut up.

“Hardly.” I patted the chignon at the nape of my neck for stray flyaways. “You’d think I’d get used to it after so many years. You’d be wrong.”

“Ever thought of moving?”

I shook my head. “My parents and business are here.” And so was Aaron. I still visited him more often than I liked to admit. “What about you?”

“Lived here on and off my entire life.”

“Final verdict?”

“New York is like a fickle lover. You know you deserve better. Doesn’t stop you from sticking around.”

“You can always leave,” I pointed out.

“I could.” He adjusted his maroon tie. “But I’m not a fan of quitting.”

“Me either.”

The elevator pinged open. He stepped aside, motioning for me to get in first. I did. He swiped an electronic key over a pad and pressed the thirty-third button. We both stared at the chrome doors, our reflection twinkling back at us.

“Here for a consultation?” he asked. I had a feeling I was getting his undivided attention, but I also knew he was not flirting with me.

“Not exactly.” I examined my hot-red nails. “I’m here in the capacity of a PR consultant.”

“What fire are you extinguishing today?”

“A blazing building. Sexual harassment settlement.”

He tucked his phone back in his pocket, unbuttoning his peacoat. “Know what they say about big blazes.”

“Takes big hoses to get them under control?” I curved an eyebrow.

His smirk widened. My thighs informed me they were sold on this man and had no qualms about running off with him to Paris. I usually chose my lovers with the same pragmatism I chose my clothes in the morning and always went for the average-looking, gallant type. The ones low on drama. But this guy? He looked like a piñata full of crazy ex-girlfriends, rich-boy fetishes, and mommy issues.

“Sharp tongue.” He gave me a once-over.

“You should see my claws.” I batted my eyelashes. “It’s going to be swift and painless.”

The man turned around and looked at me. His teal eyes turned glacial, like a frosted-over lake. There was something in them. Something I recognized in myself too. Stubbornness born from bitter disappointment with the world.

“Is that so?”

I stood a little straighter. “I’m not going to let it turn into a media circus. There’s too much on the line.”

There was no way Amanda Gispen truly thought she had a case. She was obviously after Dad’s money. We were going to send her away with a hefty check and ironclad NDA and pretend it had never happened. It wasn’t Dad’s fault he’d hired someone who’d chosen to go this route when he’d fired her. Now it was all about minimizing the publicity this case was going to get. Luckily, Gispen’s lawyer, this Christian Miller guy, hadn’t brought any attention to the lawsuit. Yet. A calculated move on his part, no doubt.

“I’m sorry.” His smile turned from pleasant to downright chilling. This was when I realized his teeth were pointy. That the bottom front two were overlapping. A small imperfection that highlighted his otherwise-ravishing features. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Arya Roth.” I turned to him, the pressure against my sternum becoming more prominent. My body tingled with danger. “And you?”

“Christian Miller.” He took my hand in his, giving it a confident squeeze. “Lovely to make acquaintances with you, Ms. Roth.”

My breath was knocked out of my lungs. I recognized a disaster when I saw one, and looking at Christian’s shrewd smirk, I knew for a fact I’d been played. Only one of us was surprised by the revelation of our identities, and that someone was me. He’d already had the upper hand when he’d walked into the reception area ten minutes ago. And I’d foolishly—unbelievably—played into his hands. Shown him my cards.

“The receptionist called you her boss.” Thankfully, my voice was still flat. Unfazed.

“Sandy’s fond of nicknames. Adorable, right?”

“You said you weren’t a partner,” I insisted.

He shrugged, as if to say, What can you do?

“Did you lie?” I pushed.

“Why, that wouldn’t be very sporting. I’m a senior associate.”

“So you’re . . .”

“Ms. Gispen’s attorney, correct,” Christian finished for me, removing his peacoat, his gray five-piece suit on full display.

The doors slid open, as if on cue. Christian motioned for me to get out first, his manners impeccable, his grin insufferable. It was both bizarre and amazing, how he’d turned from the potential father of my hypothetical children to the big, bad wolf in less than sixty seconds.

“Third door on the right, Ms. Roth. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

“Can’t wait.” I smiled sweetly.

I let my legs carry me to my destination, not daring to look back as I gathered my wits. I felt Christian’s smoky gaze the entire time, prickling the back of my neck. Assessing, calculating, scheming.

This man, I knew, was going to take every weakness I’d show him and use it to his advantage.

One–zero to the home team.

“Thank you so much for taking the time to be here, sweetheart. I know how busy your day is, and I’m, well . . . embarrassed.” Dad squeezed my hand as I took my seat next to him. We sat at the oval desk at Cromwell & Traurig’s conference room. The lantern-in-the-sky ceilings, ceremonial staircases, rose-gold-veined Italian marble, and brass penholders told me Amanda Gispen was not playing around. She’d probably sold a few internal organs for the pleasure of being represented by Mr. Miller.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dad.” I rubbed my thumb across his outer palm. “A couple of hours from now, all of this will be ancient history, and we can go back to our day. I hate that you have to deal with this.”

“It’s a part of the job,” he sighed.

Terrance and Louie, Dad’s lawyers, sat to his right side, already making notes in their legal pads. They talked animatedly between themselves, paying us no attention. When all this had started, they’d explained that a complaint had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against my father. Apparently this mediation was part of the EEOC’s conciliation process.

The mediator, a stern, silver-haired woman in a black dress and white Peter Pan collar, was typing away at her laptop, already waiting for the plaintiff and her team.

A petite, attractive woman in a knitted beige dress ambled into the room clutching an iPad and a clipboard, accompanied by a PA who balanced a tray full of beverages. The fashionable blonde introduced herself as Claire Lesavoy, a junior associate. By the way she completely ignored my existence, I gathered Christian had yet to fill her in about my slip of the tongue. I wondered if he filled her with anything else and hated myself that I even cared. He was a jerk. She could have him.

“What’s the holdup?” Terrance, who had the wrinkly face of an armadillo, regarded Claire like she herself was responsible for the delay. “Your client is running thirty-five minutes late.”

“I believe Mr. Miller is ironing out the kinks with Ms. Gispen ahead of the meeting. Shouldn’t take long now.” Claire smiled brilliantly, enjoying Terrance’s obvious impatience. She took a seat in front of us. Upon a closer inspection I decided Christian certainly fraternized with this staff. She was magazine beautiful.

Christian and Amanda Gispen walked in fifteen minutes later. By then, the meeting was running almost an hour late. I glanced at the time on my phone. Jillian and I had an appointment with a potential client in Brooklyn in less than two hours. Between the rain and traffic, there was no way I was going to make it on time.

“Apologies for the delay. Ms. Gispen and I had to go over the premediation statements one more time.” Christian’s smirk was so dazzling, so good natured, there was absolutely zero chance the man wasn’t in need of deep, lengthy psychological treatment. Who took such pleasure in dealing with a sexual harassment case? Even a bogus one? A lawyer. That was who. My father had warned me about them. Lawyers, not psychopaths—though both should be avoided, if possible. As someone who’d had to deal with plenty of lawyers in his lifetime, he had nothing but bad things to say about them. Conrad Roth was of the school that believed the fine line running between lawyers and criminals was opportunity and a scholarship. He detested lawyers with a passion. I was quickly coming to understand why.

“That’s absolutely fine, Christian, my dear.” The mediator patted his arm warmly. Well, crap. He already had the advantage of being well loved and respected. Amanda Gispen and Claire Lesavoy were also ogling him adoringly.

Christian sat directly in front of me. I kept my eyes on Amanda, whom I’d known my entire life. Blinking in disbelief, I tried to reconcile the person I’d grown up with and the woman in front of me. It was hard to digest that she was the lady who’d slipped cookies to my kid self when I’d hidden behind her desk on days Dad had taken me to work. She was the one who’d given me a book about the birds and the bees when I was twelve because my mother had treated my sexuality like a unicorn that would never arrive. The very same person sitting here, demanding Dad pay for something he hadn’t done.

The mediator began with a short presentation of what could be expected during the process. I chanced a glance at Dad, who looked pale and a little seasick. My father had always been larger than life. Seeing him like this was shattering. When we’d first gotten the call about Amanda taking legal action, my mother’s response had been odd, to say the least. I’d expected door slamming, shouts, and a theatrical production. Instead, she’d received the news with quiet resignation. She’d refused to discuss the subject again and, of course, booked a two-week retreat in the Bahamas to get away from it all. She’d never really been a partner to him or a mother to me.

Dad needed me. Now more than ever.

I slipped my hand in his under the desk and pressed.

“I got you,” I whispered.

When I looked back ahead, I noticed Christian watching our exchange, his jaw twitching.

What the hell is his problem now?

The mediator finished explaining the procedure.

“Let the record show we are entirely unimpressed with your method of mind games, namely showing up an hour late.” Louie scribbled something on the margin of the document in front of him, referring to Christian.

“Let the record show I don’t give two shits what you think about me,” Christian responded, making all the gazes in the room snap to him.

Dad’s jaw slacked. Amanda turned to look at Christian, her face marred by horror. Even Claire looked a little pale. Christian seemed to miss the social cues, settling comfortably in his seat. “Now, if we may continue.”

Each of the attorneys proceeded to give their statements. The mediator explained we were now going to offer a settlement and discuss it privately in different rooms. Dad had told me he wasn’t going to rebut Amanda’s complaint, upon his counselors’ advice. Louie and Terrance thought it could make Amanda strike even harder. I wasn’t happy about it, but I also knew nothing about sexual harassment cases and just wanted to get it over with. From the PR side, I knew the right thing and the correct thing weren’t always the same thing. The correct thing would be to make this go away quietly, even if you had to swallow your pride and pay a crook like Amanda.

An hour later, it was obvious I wasn’t going to make it to the meeting with Jillian. Any ballpark number Louie and Terrance came up with and handed the mediator was rejected on the spot by a solemn Christian Miller before he even dragged his client to a private room to discuss it. Dad’s back curled forward like a shrimp. He shook his head and closed his eyes in disbelief. We were getting nowhere fast.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Dad told me, pale as a ghost. “What is she trying to achieve? If we take it to court, everyone is going to get hurt. She must know that.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. She knows the truth. She won’t go to court.” I patted his arm, but he didn’t look convinced.

Discreetly, I slipped my phone under my desk and texted Jillian that I wasn’t going to make it to our Brooklyn meeting. My best friend’s reply was prompt.

Don’t worry about it. Best of luck to Conrad. Keep me posted. X

“Are we boring you, Ms. Roth?” Christian drawled. I nearly jumped out of my skin and bumped my knee against the desk. Internally, I screamed in pain. Outwardly, I grinned.

“Funny you ask, Mr. Miller. The answer is yes, in fact. You, specifically, do bore me.”

He’d been targeting me ever since I’d walked into Van Der Hout building. I got that this was business and that he was charging Amanda Gispen a fortune he needed to justify somehow, but not on my back.

Christian popped his knuckles, his eyes never leaving mine. “My apologies. Miss Lesavoy, would you be so kind as to fetch Ms. Roth a copy of Us Weekly? Perhaps she’s in the mood for some fine literature.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, meeting his gaze head-on. “Make it the Enquirer, Miss Lesavoy. And could I, like, get the audio version? I’m not super good with words.” I adopted the dumbest, airiest tone I could produce.

“Perhaps you two could engage in verbal foreplay after we finish the negotiations,” Louie scolded me. “Counsel, I—”

“Put your phone on the desk, Ms. Roth,” Christian snapped at me over Louie, his eyes boring into mine with open hatred.

What in the ever-loving hell is wrong with this man?

It was Dad’s turn to spin his head and look at me. A haughty smile touched my lips. “Sorry, Mr. Miller, did I miss the memo where you’re the boss of me?”

“Arya,” Dad hissed, shocked. “Please.”

Christian’s eyes narrowed. “I suggest you listen to your daddy and put your phone down. My time costs money.”

“Pissing you off is worth the invoice,” I retorted. “I’ll even throw in foreign currencies and some Bitcoin if it means seeing you suffer.”

Christian let out a metallic chuckle. “You haven’t changed.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped. His smile vanished in a second.

“I said you need to change.”

“That’s not what you said. I have ears.”

“You have a mouth too. And that’s the organ you seem to be needing more control of.”

“Who raised you?” My eyes were wide and wild, I could tell.

He tossed the documents in front of him aside. “No one, Ms. Roth. Interested in hearing my life story?”

“Only if it has a tragic and abrupt ending.”

Well, well. This got off the rails real fast.

Dad put his hand on my wrist, his eyes pleading. “What’s gotten into you, sweetheart?”

Finally, I put my phone down on the desk, feeling a little sick. I couldn’t take my eyes off Christian. His teal irises glimmered back at me. There was something frightening about them.

The negotiation proceeded for twenty more minutes, in which I stayed (bitterly) silent. Each time we thought we were getting somewhere, we hit a roadblock. Finally, Terrance rubbed at his sweaty forehead.

“Mister, I don’t understand. You got yourself a reputation of a lawyer who settles out of the courtroom, yet you’ve refused every single proposition we came up with.”

“That’s because I believe this should go to court.” Christian lounged back, readjusting his maroon tie, which, tragically, looked lovely with his pale-gray vested suit. So it was true, then. The devil did wear Prada.

“Then what did you invite us here for?” Louie’s lower lip trembled with rage.

“I wanted to read the room.” Christian examined his perfect, square fingernails, looking like a surly, spoiled prince bored out of his mind.

“Read the room?” Terrance spluttered, at the same time that my father piped up, for the first time since the meeting had started. “You cannot seriously want to take this to court! This will become a circus—”

“I rather enjoy circuses.” Christian rose to his feet, buttoning his suit (yup. Definitely Prada). Claire and Amanda followed his cue, rising on each side of him, a loyal harem. “Colorful. Full of entertainment. Sweet popcorn and cotton candy. What’s not to like about a circus?”

“Neither of us need the media attention.” Dad shot up. The tips of his ears were red, a film of sweat coating his entire face. I held myself back from lashing out, knowing that I needed to be cold and calculated now.

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Roth. I quite enjoy being seen.”

“This could get very messy and very risky for all of our careers.” It was Terrance’s turn to warn.

“Au contraire, Mr. Ripp. Mine will flourish as a result. In fact, I think it’ll earn me a principal spot at this very firm.”

And just like that, Christian and Amanda were gone. Claire and the mediator stayed behind to talk to Dad and his lawyers. I couldn’t help myself. I got up and rushed into the hallway after Christian. He escorted Amanda toward his office. When he noticed me coming, he nodded for her to wait for him inside and stayed behind, stuffing his fists into the pockets of his dress pants. He leaned against a wall. “Missed me already?”

“Why are you doing this?” I skidded to a stop in front of him. My emotions were frayed, tangled. All red wires. Hatred, annoyance, desire, and exasperation. The man threw me off balance, something not even my five-inch stilettos could do.

Christian tapped his lips, pretending to mull this over. “Let’s see. Because I’m about to get a whole lot richer and even more famous in my field off your father’s spineless back?” he asked. “Yeah. That must be it.”

My fists balled at my sides, my whole body humming with rage. “I hate you,” I whispered.

“You bore me.”

“You’re a vile man.”

“Ah, but at least I am a man. Your father is a wuss who got grabby with his staff and now needs to suffer the consequences. Sucks when your money can’t get you out of trouble, huh?”

I let out something between a bark and a snicker. “Mr. Miller, at least have the decency not to pretend you weren’t born into good fortune and dubious scruples.”

Something passed across his face. It was brief, but it was there. I’d say I’d hit a nerve, but I doubted this man had any.

“Do you have legs, Ms. Roth?”

“You know I do. You made a point of ogling them in the elevator.”

“I suggest you make good use of them now and take a hike before security escorts you out. Then the only fire you’ll have to quench is the one perishing your career.”

“This is not over,” I warned, mainly because it sounded really good in the movies.

“I wholly agree and advise you to get the hell away from it before it explodes all over you.”

Then the bastard slammed his office door in my face.

Stunned, I marched back to the conference room. By the time I got there, Dad and his lawyers had already left.

“My apologies, Ms. Roth. There’s another conference scheduled in twenty minutes in this room.” Claire offered me a venomous smile as she collected her documents. “I told them they could wait for you at the lobby downstairs. You don’t mind, do you?”

I smiled just as tightly. “Not at all.”

I headed straight to the elevator bank, my head high, my smile intact.

Christian Miller was going to go down, if the last thing I did was drag him to the pits of hell.

“They’re in, and they love us more than the Oscars love Sally Field.” Jillian slapped the signed contract on the nightstand by my bed later that evening, proceeding to do a little dance. I was buried under the duvet, still hiding from the world after the disastrous afternoon at Cromwell & Traurig. A stomach-turning vision of my father standing in a courtroom, shriveled into paper-thin pieces of himself, flashed through my mind.

My family life had always been complex. I’d lost my twin brother before I could even get to know him. My memories of my mother throughout my childhood were a revolving door of rehab visitations and missed birthdays, graduation ceremonies, and other landmark events, as well as a lot of public meltdowns. Dad had been the only constant in my life. The one person I could count on who didn’t cut a nice paycheck from being there for me. To think he was going to go through something so mentally exhausting as a public trial made me want to scream.

“Yoo-hoo. Arya? Ari?” My friend rubbed my back, hovering over my figure. “Did you come down with something?”

I groaned, peeling the duvet down to my waist and turning to face her. Jillian gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth.

“Have you been crying?”

I propped my back against the headboard. My eyes were the size of tennis balls, but I think I’d run out of tears, energy, and damns about a couple of hours earlier.

“Allergies,” I mumbled.

Jillian’s delicate eyebrows twitched. She had the maddening skin complexion of a Kardashian after the Photoshop treatment, curly black hair, and eyes the color of toffee. Her dress, a lilac tweed number, was borrowed from my closet.

“What’d the clients say?” I sniffed.

Jillian and I had incorporated Brand Brigade, our public relations consultancy firm, when we were both at a crossroads. Jillian had been working for a nonprofit organization as a PR specialist and got hit on by every privileged douche in and outside her office, making her life miserable and her then boyfriend jealous, while I’d interned my way through two political campaigns that had ended in a scandal and annihilation respectively, clocked in forty-five-hour weeks, and gotten paid mainly in compliments.

Finally, we’d both decided we’d had enough and could do better on our own. That was four years ago, and we’d never looked back. Business was booming, and I was proud of my ability to provide for myself, even if my mother viewed it as an act of defiance.

Now I was doing what I did best—getting people out of the pickles they’d gotten themselves into. Because as Jillian had said, there were two things we could always count on in this world: the IRS cashing in our checks every April 15 and people’s unique talent for making mistakes.

“They said that we’re hired and that they loved the Real Bodies presentation you made for Swan Soaps.” Jillian plonked next to me, grabbing one of my pillows and hugging it to her chest. “They want a three-month trial run, but they signed the contract and paid the advance. They’ll go over the fine print tomorrow. It’s a huge opportunity, Ari. Stuffed is the biggest reusable-diaper company in the world.”

I cooed and gushed over Jillian nailing this client, but my heart wasn’t in it. It was still bleeding all over Christian Miller’s limestone office floor.

Jillian bumped her shoulder against mine. “Are you going to tell me what happened? Because we both know the allergies were just an excuse so I could talk about the deal.”

There was no point keeping secrets from Jillian. She had the instincts of an FBI agent and the ability to smell bullshit from continents away.

“Dad’s case is going to court.”

“You’re kidding me.” She reared her head back, her mouth dropping into an O shape.

“I wish I was.”

“Oh, honey.” Jillian rolled out of my bed and returned a few minutes later with two glasses of red wine. She toed off her heels and discarded them in the hallway. “Promise me one thing—don’t overthink this. They have nothing on your dad. You said so yourself. We’ll spin PR gold around this case and make him look like the angel Daddy Conrad really is.” She handed me one of the glasses, which I noticed could double as a bucket and was completely full.

I took a sip, blinking at an invisible spot on my wall.

“Should I be looking into this more?” I grumbled, mainly to myself. “I mean, if you strip away the fact that this man is my dad, the allegations against him are pretty gross.”

Jillian shook her head vehemently. “Hello, I grew up with you, remember? Been to your house every day since junior high. I know Conrad. He’s the guy who takes you to the Cloisters every month, who gave his secretary a yearlong paid vacation when she gave birth. Hello? Who cares what Amanda Gispen says?”

I wanted to take every word Jillian had said and ink it into my flesh.

“If Amanda lied—why would she go all the way to court?” I played devil’s advocate.

“Because he turned her down? Because they had a thing and he broke things off?” Jillian offered. “There could be a hundred different reasons. People perpetuate drama all the time. Amanda can say whatever she wants.”

“Under oath?” I took another sip of my wine. “She could face jail time if she gets caught.”

“She could, but it’s unlikely. I just don’t see this thing having legs, Ari.” Jillian offered me a comforting smile. “He’ll be fine.”

I nibbled on the side of my lip, my thoughts ping-ponging from Christian’s hate-filled eyes to Dad’s expression, full of pain, embarrassment, and disbelief.

“Side note—I can’t stand the lawyer who represents Amanda Gispen.”

“Lawyers aren’t exactly known as the professional world’s Labradors.” Jillian gave me a pitying, you-should-know-better look.

“Yeah, but this one takes the seven-tier shit cake, Jilly.”

“Who is it?” Jillian bumped her toes against mine over the duvet, the way Nicky used to do when we were kids, reading books under my library desk. A wistful smile touched my lips. Oh, Nicky.

I remembered the day I’d called Dad’s personal PI and asked him to look Nicky up. To see if he was okay. It was the first call I made after I turned eighteen. I paid the PI with the money I’d saved over the summer selling tourist paraphernalia.

Nicholai is dead, Arya.

The revelation was followed by denial, anger, tears, and a mini breakdown. You know, to wrap it all up in a nice bow. The PI explained to me that this was the nature of the beast. That kids like Nicky often fell through the system’s cracks. That he’d probably died of an overdose or in a knife fight or as a result of a DUI. But I’d known Nicholai well, and he hadn’t been some punk who was up to no good. It was hard to believe he was no longer sharing the same slice of baby-blue sky I lived under.

“Just the most infuriating man on planet Earth,” I groaned into my drink.

“Does the most infuriating man on planet Earth have a name?” Jillian probed.

“A generic one,” I huffed. “Christian Miller. Or what I prefer to call him—Lucifer incarnate.”

Jillian sprayed the red wine all over my tweed dress and duvet, choking on a laugh.

“Say that again?”

“I prefer to call him Luc—”

“Yeah, I got that part. What’s his name?”

“Christian Miller,” I repeated, annoyed. “Thanks for staining my Egyptian cotton sheets, by the way. You’re a pal.”

Jillian stood up and dashed out to the living room and returned clutching a glossy magazine I did not recognize, because contrary to Christian’s belief, I did not read any gossip or fashion magazines (not that there was anything wrong with doing that).

She leafed through the pages until she found what she was looking for, then proceeded to wave it in my face in triumph. I recognized Christian through puffy eyes, looking to the camera in a dashing tux, his hair sexily disheveled, his smirk promising a good time and a bad breakup.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, as if my ability to use my vision had evaporated sometime in the last five seconds.

“Read the headline.”

“‘Thirty-Five under Thirty-Five: New York’s Most Eligible Bachelors Revealed!’”

Great. Not only was he rich, handsome, and dead set on ruining my family; he was also widely celebrated in the city we shared. I skimmed through the details.

Name: Christian George Miller.

Age: 32.

Occupation: Litigator at Cromwell & Traurig.

Net Worth: 4 Million dollars.

Height: 6’2’’.

Dream Woman: Would it be politically incorrect if I said I preferred blondes? Deep brown eyes. Tall and leggy. A science-related degree a bonus. Someone serious, a must. Enjoys parties, fine wine, and taking the paths less traveled in life.

I clutched my glass of cabernet to my chest, feeling personally attacked. His dream woman happened to be the polar opposite of me. Almost like he’d designed her envisioning everything that I wasn’t.

Calm your tits, Ari. He wasn’t throwing shade. He didn’t know you existed until six hours ago.

“I know we’re supposed to hate him, but since he is going to lose this case and get a giant slice of humble pie, can you tell me if he is as gorgeous in real life as he is in the picture?” Jillian repositioned herself on my bed.

Sadly, he looked even better up close. Of course, I wasn’t gracious enough to admit that.

“He’s hideous. Barf worthy.” I flung the stupid magazine into a trash can nearby, not surprised to find Christian’s face still smirking at me from the edge of said trash can. The man was going to haunt me through this lifetime and, very likely, the next four, if reincarnation was a thing. “It’s all Photoshop. He looks like a cross between an ogre and Richard Ramirez.”

“Richard Ramirez has been dead for years.”

“Exactly.”

Jillian pursed her lips, obviously not buying this. Finally, she said, “Well, screw him, even if he looks like a demigod. If he’s after your family, I consider him an enemy too.”

“Thanks.” I drew in another deep breath, feeling marginally better from the alliance declaration. If nothing else, I’d robbed Christian Miller of the ability to date one of the finest women in Manhattan. Jilly was a catch.

“Just to be sure—does that mean I can find his number on LinkedIn?” Jillian joked.

I swatted my best friend’s shoulder. “Traitor.”