Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(65)

“Come home with me.”

Fuck. It sounded like a command more than a request. She stiffened in my arms, descending back to earth, the fog of dopamine dissipating from her body.

She put a hand on my chest. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Christian.”

“Is it the bet? Because screw the bet.” I almost crushed my teeth into powder, outraged by my own desperation. I’d slept with dozens of women over the years and had always been in charge. Of the narrative, the rhetoric, the fine print, the situation.

“It’s not about the bet. You’re right. We can’t be together, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to dive into this with you when I’m feeling so . . .”

“Vulnerable?” I offered.

“Confused,” she said firmly. “I’m going through a lot. So if you’re looking for more than friendship, don’t contact me. I don’t do forbidden.”

We were forbidden when I couldn’t afford the clothes on my back and you asked me to pin you against your library shelves. You liked it, then, when you wanted to destroy me.

“You’ll change your mind,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

“What makes you say that?”

“We’re good together. We have chemistry. We make sense. Doomed things are always sweeter, don’t you know? This thing”—I pointed between us—“it’s not going anywhere until we act on it. You want a friend? I’ll give you a friend. But you’ll want more. I guarantee it.”

“Oof.” She dropped her head to my shoulder, chuckling softly. “I’m too old for this.”

“For what?” I pressed my hand to the small of her back, inhaling her greedily, smelling her pending departure.

“This. It was easier to hate you when I didn’t know you at all.”

“You always knew me,” I murmured into her hair.

“You know? I think you’re right. My soul . . . it feels calm when it’s next to yours.”

I smiled grimly.

If only she knew.



The next day, I arrived at the courthouse with a mixture of irritation and relief. Arya wasn’t there, which meant that for once, I could do my job without a constant semi and the hovering question of what was going through her head, but also that I didn’t have the luxury of bathing in her presence. Of knowing she was only a few steps away.

Which was why, as soon as I caught up with paperwork back at the office, I gave her a call.

“How did you get my number?” She typed away on her computer on the other end.

“You gave me your business card, remember?”

“Yes. I also remember you throwing it away.”

“Irrelevant. I’m a man of limitless abilities.”

That was a roundabout way of saying I’d gotten my secretary to look her up in the yellow pages.

“You mean limitless bull crap.”

“How about hot dogs by the New York Public Library? I have a book I need to borrow. Seven thirty okay?”

“First of all, the library closes at five. Second, no, actually.” She stopped typing for a second before resuming her work. Was I the only one who was obsessing about that kiss? Apparently so. Arya sounded like she had other things on her mind. “I can’t. I have somewhere to go.”

“Want some company?”

Just fucking offer her your balls already. Throw in your apartment too, Christian.

If this was how I reacted to one kiss, I definitely had no business sleeping with this woman.

“I’m not sure you’d want to give me company.”

“Where are you going?”

“The cemetery.”

I dropped the pen I was holding, wheeling myself backward and turning to look at the calendar hanging on my wall. Shit. March 19. Arya and Aaron’s birthday. I pushed my chair back to my desk, where my phone was on speaker.

“The cemetery sounds fine. Which one?” I pretended not to know.

There was a pause on the other end.

“Why would you want to go with me to the cemetery?”

“Isn’t that what friends do? Be there for one another?”

“Is that what we are now? Friends?”

“Yes,” I said, even though giving her friendship in return for what she’d done to me was crazy, even by my standards. “We’re friends.”

Another beat of silence. I had no idea what I was doing.

“Mount Hebron Memorial.”

“Who are we visiting?”

“My brother.”

“Do you think he’ll like me?” It was a thing we’d done back then. Pretend like Aaron was still around. Argue, tease, and laugh with him.

Arya stopped typing and sighed. “I think he’d love you.”



Mount Hebron Memorial hadn’t changed. The giant weeping willow was still there, hovering above Aaron’s grave. I saw Arya’s outline curling above her brother’s tombstone like a question mark and had to stop and absorb her. Leggy and stylish in her designer pencil skirt and red-bottomed heels. Larger than life, and yet not much larger than the Arya I’d met almost twenty years ago. A firefly; small but glowing. I pushed the wrought iron gate open, a luxury I hadn’t had as a trespassing kid. Arya sensed my presence and turned around, throwing me a tired smile.