Arranged(80)

“I want to see you more often. This isn’t enough.” He said it with such surety, with such an entitled air, that I found myself bristling with outrage.

“That’s not for you to decide. You don’t value what you don’t earn. And your father may have paid for me, but you never had to earn me.”

“So give me a chance to earn you.”

“How do you propose to do that?” I couldn’t believe I’d even said the words. I wasn’t going to entertain this madness.

“Let me show you that I can treat you better. That I can be better. I’ve been celibate, you know. I’m going to wait for you, as long as it takes.”

My breath shuddered in and out. He was too much. What a fool I’d been to think he’d ever fight fair. “I can’t ask you to do that,” I bit out.

“You didn’t ask. You shouldn’t have to ask. I didn’t make you promises before, and even though you won’t listen to them, I’ve made them now. You’re the only one I want. I won’t settle for less.”

That time, I left before our hour was up.

The next time he showed up with an armful of pink peonies, my favorite, smiling like I hadn’t cursed him out and stormed off at our last meet-up.

He was courting me, the subversive bastard.

And so it went. I had to miss a few dates because I was traveling for work.

Once he showed up in Hong Kong just to make sure that he wouldn’t miss out on our hour.

I tried hard to convince myself that it wasn’t romantic of him.

Once we had a big blowout fight in public when he found out about my nude editorial in Vogue Italia.

“First of all, it’s none of your business,” I told him after I let him rant about it for a while. He was being loud and unconstrained enough that I knew we were going to dominate the news cycle for at least a solid twenty-four hours. “Second, everything is covered.”

“You always say that, I’m not sure you know what it means.”

I laughed.

He glared. “Let’s negotiate. What can I give you to stop you from showing so much skin?”

“When are you going to get it through your spoiled little rich boy skull? I’m done making deals. This isn’t your game anymore. I call all the shots in my life now.”

That week he was the one that did the cursing out and stormed off before our hour was up.





CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN





On week sixteen post-divorce I got a strange phone call from a strange number with a strange man on the other end of it.

Fatima’s estranged husband, Antoine Beauchamp, wanted to meet me. I said yes mainly out of curiosity, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a heavy peppering of spite factoring somewhere in the decision.

We met for dinner at a swank restaurant uptown. For all intents and purposes, it was a date. It certainly looked like one. Camera flashes clocked me from the moment Chester handed me out of the car until I’d walked into the establishment. Someone had tipped them off. Obviously Antoine. I wasn’t the only one here operating out of spite. Both of our exes would likely know about our dinner plans before we even touched a menu.

I’d heard a snippet somewhere that Antoine was French nobility, a Count or something, and the moment I saw him, I could picture it. He was tall, slender, and elegant down to the tips of his toes. His dark hair was slicked back attractively, bringing out his large black eyes. He was quite handsome and reeked of old money.

One would think Fatima was out of her mind unless one had seen just what this man was competing with.

He greeted me with a kiss to both cheeks. Camera flashes told me our paparazzi hadn’t been limited to the sidewalk outside. I didn’t even comment on it. He’d gone a bit overboard, but I could appreciate more than anyone the extreme degree of Antoine’s vindictiveness.

We sat down opposite each other and he shot me an appealing, crooked grin. “Noura. Nice to finally meet you. You’re even more beautiful in person. I should have reached out earlier. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we have a few interesting things in common.”

I laughed. “I heard you were a Count. I didn’t hear you were a Diplomat.”

His eyes smiled warmly at me. “Our exes are fools, aren’t they?” he mused.

I liked him instantly. “They are.”

“I have a list of every time I could gather that they were together while she was married to me,” he said, like he was just bursting to get it all out. “It’s fairly staggering. Everything is dated, so you can get an idea how many times he was with her when he was married to you. Would you like to see it?”

I was agonizingly tempted, but I reined it in, with effort. “I don’t think I need to see that at this point. I’m just trying to move forward.”

He was on his phone as I spoke, his fingers moving like a flash. “Well, I’ve sent it to you, in case you’re like me and you sometimes need reminders to hold onto your resolve.”

He looked up at me, stashing his phone back in his pocket. “At first I wanted to kill him. A part of me still does. But it was both of them. And frankly she’s the one that made vows to me. She’s the one that deserves the brunt of my contempt for this betrayal.”

Something bitter must’ve run across my expression because next he remarked, “You probably hate her. I don’t blame you. But remember that it was him that betrayed you. Don’t make the mistake of vilifying her and giving him a pass.