“Don’t make me the saint I’m not.” I swirled my drink in its tumbler. And then, because apparently I now wanted to prove my lack of professionalism, “I had sex with Claire.”
“Some sex it was. The woman was more vanilla than a fudge-cake ice cream. You kept her around out of sheer convenience and did everything in your power to keep your affair under wraps. Plus, it didn’t even last three months.”
“Claire was bad press, even after I informed HR about us.” I waved him off. “She works under me.”
“Not in the way she’d like.” Arsène tilted his glass up, downing his drink, and slammed it against the wooden bar. “Besides, it was never about the press. Arya Roth is your kryptonite. You should’ve never taken the case, and now you can’t back down. Unless, of course, you want to see your career go up in flames.”
A busty redhead slid between us just then, wrapped in a black leather skirt and what looked like a red bra missing a few parts. She shot me a feline smile, jerking her head sideways. “My friends over there bet me fifty bucks I couldn’t get you to buy me a drink. What do you think?”
“I think”—I smiled cordially, leaning toward her, whispering in her ear—“you just became fifty bucks poorer.”
The woman’s smile morphed into a scowl, and she backed away, stomping back to her clones. She was exactly my type, but I needed a little more than a carbon copy of my last one-night stand. I wanted someone to challenge me, to fight me, to drive me nuts. And that someone was currently blue balling me for going after her father.
I turned back to Arsène, finding him beyond amused as he shook his head. “So toast.”
“What now?” I hissed.
“Old Christian wouldn’t say no to a night of no-strings-attached sex with Jessica Rabbit.”
“Old Christian doesn’t have to wake up at six tomorrow to prepare for trial.”
“Sure.” Arsène patted my shoulder, chuckling. “New Christian can sell himself this load of baloney if it makes him feel better.”
That evening, when I took an Uber back home, I asked the driver to make a pit stop at Arya’s work address. I didn’t care what Arsène thought. All I needed was one taste before I discarded Arya right along with her father back to my past.
I knew Arya and I had no future. Not only because she’d pretended to be a trustworthy person only to stab me in the back, but also because she literally thought I was someone else. A relationship wasn’t on the table. Arya would run for the hills the minute she found out who I really was.
Besides—fourteen-year-old Arya had crushed me for nothing more than blood sport. What would thirty-one-year-old Arya do when she found out the game I was playing?
The damp streets of Manhattan blurred through the window before the driver stopped by the redbrick building where Brand Brigade was situated. It was ten thirty at night. Arya’s office light was on through her window.
I watched as she floated around her office, plucking paper from the printer, while talking on the phone.
She’d grown up to be a workaholic. Just like me.
“Sir?”
“Hmm?” I asked absentmindedly, still staring at her through the window.
“It’s been fifteen minutes.”
It has?
“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. I hadn’t even known I’d said it out loud. “We good to go?”
“Yeah.” I played with my matchbook. “Home it is.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHRISTIAN
Past
“Faster.” Headmaster Plath smacked the back of my head. He glided along the kitchen tiles, lacing his fingers behind his back. Half my body was inside an industrial pot as I scrubbed it clean. My knuckles were so dry they bled every time I washed my hands. Which was often enough, seeing as I was on dishwashing duty at least four times a week.
I sucked in a breath, rubbing the cast-iron cleaner against the tar-like crust that had settled around the edges, refusing to submit.
“Mr. Roth was right. You’re so ugly you could snag lightning.” Headmaster Plath cackled, stopping by a window overlooking the green grass. There were students splayed on a hill by the fountain, catching sunrays, slurping slushies, telling each other about their summer plans. Mine included trying to get some work at the nearest town and walking ten miles to and from boarding school each day, because I couldn’t afford the bus tickets. I imagined Ruslana—there was no point calling her Mom at this point—was playing second violin to the Roths. Making Arya her fancy acai bowls, braiding her hair, carrying a beach bag for her across golden dunes in exotic places near the ocean.
“He is doing you a huge favor, you know,” Headmaster Plath continued, staring idly at his students through the window. His eyes growing large and greedy. I always got the idea that he liked what he saw just a little too much when he looked at some of the boys. “Nothing would have become of you if you’d stayed in New York.”
“It’d have been nice to have a choice in the matter,” I muttered, changing the angle of my arm while scrubbing the pot. My muscles were burning with exhaustion. It was not unheard of for my arms to be numb all night after hours of kitchen duty.
“What’d you say?” His head spun so fast that for a second I thought his neck might snap.
“Nothing,” I hissed. Students weren’t supposed to take on kitchen or laundry duties unless they’d misbehaved. It was supposed to be a detention of sorts, but I seemed to be a part of the staff here. Arsène and Riggs always told me it was bullshit, and I agreed, but there was little I could do about it.
“No.” Plath rushed toward me, eager to pick a fight. “Say it again.”
I turned to face him. My face felt red and hot. I was furious with him for pulling this kind of crap, and with myself for putting up with it. And with Conrad, who kept taunting me years later, albeit from a safe distance, just because I’d dared to touch his precious, stupid, spoiled girl.
“I said it’d have been nice if he gave me a choice!” I turned around, sticking my chin up.
He took a step closer, his nose almost brushing mine. “Do you have any idea how much he pays to keep you here every year?”