“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.