Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(53)

“Give me a shot.” He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You’re either going to give it to me today or next month or next year. But I will make you forgive me. Make no mistake about that.”

“Fine,” I was surprised to hear myself say. “But don’t think we’re going to be cool with each other after or something.”

He took me to the Met Cloisters, to see medieval art and architecture. We strolled shoulder to shoulder, silent the whole time.

“You know,” Dad said when we got to the tomb effigies, “there are more of those in Westminster Abbey. My favorite one is of Queen Elizabeth the First. I could take you to see it, if you’d like.”

“When?” I demanded haughtily. At some point during that year, being awful to him had become like eating. Just another thing on my agenda.

“Tomorrow?” He lifted his eyebrows, offering me his cunning Conrad Roth smile. “I’m free tomorrow.”

“I have school tomorrow,” I supplied, my voice thawing considerably.

“You’ll learn plenty in London. Lots of history.”

And so, after a year, I cut a corner and added Dad back into my life.

We made the Cloisters a monthly thing.



London didn’t change me.

Neither did the trips to Paris, Athens, and Tokyo.

I was still obsessed with everything Nicky, hungry for crumbs of information about him.

I changed tactics from constant preoccupation with him to spurts of questions and pestering. I could go weeks without speaking about him, then spend a few days asking about him nonstop.

Ruslana explained that Nicky was happy in Minsk. That if he didn’t answer, it was because of his busy schedule. Dad was supportive, but every time I tried to ask him to check on Nicky through his private investigator, he refused, saying he was doing it for me. That I needed to move on. That he hated seeing me all wrapped up in my fixation.

Maybe there was something wrong with me. Could love make you sick? I supposed it could. I’d watched my mother mourning my brother my whole life and didn’t want to pine for someone who’d never return.

Still, when I turned sixteen and got my second first kiss from Andrew Brawn, all I could think about was that he wasn’t Nicky.

But I knew pushing Dad into doing something was impossible. Besides, I had to pick my battles. Mom was barely with us anymore. My only steady family was my father, and I didn’t want to ruin it by fighting over a boy who didn’t even bother writing back to me.

The years flowed like a river, drowning me in all kinds of firsts with boys who weren’t Nicholai Ivanov. First seven minutes in heaven (Rob Smith). First make-out session under the bleachers (Bruce Le). First boyfriend (Piers Rockwysz) and first heartbreak (Carrie and Aidan from Sex and the City, because let’s admit it, Piers was great but not Aidan great). Nicky always sat there on the sidelines of my conscious, making each boy I dated fall short. I wondered how many girls he’d kissed over the years. If he still thought about me when he touched other girls, his hands slipping under their shirts. It felt crazy that I couldn’t ask him. But maybe lucky, too, because a big part of me didn’t want to know.

And so, when I turned eighteen, the first thing I did was make a call to Dad’s private investigator. David Kessler was the best in Manhattan.

David came back to me four weeks after I asked him to look for Nicky, informing me of his death.

I didn’t get out of bed for three days, after which the fear of turning into my mother outweighed the misery of knowing he wasn’t alive.

From that point forward, I vowed to forget Nicholai Ivanov had ever existed.

If only it were that easy . . .





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


CHRISTIAN

Present

Arya arrived at the courtroom the first day of the trial.

Clearly, she’d decided to give my friendly advice a nice, long middle finger with a side of mind-your-own-business clapback.

At least she opted to take a seat in the public seating area and not the family bench, where she’d be visible. Conrad Roth never had hired a female litigator like I’d suggested to his daughter. Whether it was out of pride or because he knew he couldn’t worm his way out of this mess was anyone’s guess.

Five victims, accusing Roth of six counts of harassment each, seeking $200 million combined in compensation, $40 million each.

Unlike other sexual predators of his position and wealth, he’d done a piss-poor job at covering his tracks. I estimated it at four weeks before Judge Lopez would ask us for our closing statements.

I stood in front of Judge Lopez’s bench for my opening statement, clad in my Brunello Cucinelli suit and grave expression. It took everything in me to rip my eyes from the woman in the last row of the courtroom. Arya sat with her back ramrod straight and her nose tilted up. The picture of poised elegance. She’d stopped hitting the pool, so I’d had a week to stew on our last encounter, in which she’d pretty much told me to go shove it when I’d offered to take her for dinner. Naturally, it made me want her even more.

I wasn’t sure when, exactly, the line between wanting to screw her over and screw her, period, had begun to blur. But I knew I was straddling it like an eager stripper performing at a bachelor party for tips.

No matter how irrational, how illogical, how dangerous (and there was no denying that touching her could complicate my case, my partner prospect, and my life in general) it was, I wanted Arya.