Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(73)

“Hmm.” I scrunched my nose. I didn’t have to give it any genuine thought, though. The answer was clear. It just sounded bad. Fortunately, I wasn’t supposed to care what he thought of me. This was temporary at best and already over at worst. “Don’t laugh, but this goes way back.”

“High school sweetheart.” He made an adorable, albeit mocking, face. “Where’d he first kiss you? Under the bleachers or against your locker?”

“Actually, before high school.” I felt my cheeks pinkening, dropping my gaze to my food, moving it about with the chopsticks. “We were both fourteen. He was . . . well, he was a badass kid and my best friend. I was low-key obsessed with him. We had a little thing over the summer. His mom worked for my family. He’s the one who got away for me.”

When I looked back up, the expression on Christian’s face made my pulse stutter. He looked like a semitrailer full of feelings had slammed into him all at once. He dropped his food on my bed—by accident—and didn’t even realize as he did.

“Shit, don’t worry about it. I hated those sheets anyway.” I made a half attempt to scrape the oily french fries from my linen. Lies. These were brand-new Belgian flax from West Elm.

He was still looking at me weird.

I sat a little straighter, feeling my cheeks heating despite myself.

“I told you it was weird.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “I mean, it’s not like I’m still pining for this teenager or something. Anyway . . .”

“No, this is interesting. So he was your boyfriend?” Christian swung his gaze back to me, all business.

I eyed him. “Um, are you sure you didn’t just have a stroke? You looked . . . off.”

“Sorry. Thought about an email I need to write someone tomorrow. I’m completely on now.” He smiled.

Nice. So he thought about work when I poured my heart out. Duly noted.

I got back to the subject at hand, feeling self-conscious. “No. We shared a kiss. That was all. But we were close.”

“And why did it end?” Christian’s eyes bored into mine with intensity that could light up a carnival.

“He moved away.”

“He did?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

I licked my lips, feeling my nose burning with tears all of a sudden. What in the ever-loving hell was happening to me? It had been years. “He went to live with his father in Belarus.”

“I see.” He nodded tersely, taking a bite of another calamari. “Did he tell you that?”

“Um. No.” I rubbed at my face, struggling to understand why I was so upset and, even more importantly, why Christian was looking at me like I’d just told him I’d murdered his dog. “My dad told me. It was all very . . .” Abusive and insane. “Sudden.”

“Did you ever try contacting him?”

His interest in this story seemed peculiar. So many years had passed. Besides, like he’d said, we weren’t in it for the long haul. Why did he care about my past?

“I did, in fact.” I started picking calamari and fries from my linen and putting them back in Christian’s bowl. “But then when he didn’t answer, I figured I dodged a bullet. A guy who walks out of your life without even leaving you a note is not worthy of your time, thoughts, and efforts.”

That was a flat-out lie. I knew exactly why Nicky hadn’t contacted me—because I didn’t deserve anything from him after what my own father had done to him.

“What about you?” I asked. “Any special someone over the years?”

Christian smiled, somewhat recovered from the topic, reaching over toward me to grab the bottle of water we shared and taking a sip. “None at all, in fact.”

“Lucky you.”

“Yeah, lucky me.”



Three more times, we tumbled atop each other, sheets tangled, fighting for dominance, for skin, for contact. We learned each other’s shapes, likes, and dislikes. How to move like a current. We used condoms, and I made a mental note to stop by the pharmacy the next day for some Plan B. Christian was a generous lover. He seemed to know exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, how deep, and how fast.

Finally, when we collapsed at around one in the morning, sweaty and spent, it was sort of understood—maybe even expected—that he’d stay the night. We both wanted to put off the inevitable.

“But won’t you be late for court? Between going back to your apartment, getting all showered and dressed?” I asked.

Christian pointed out that any rookie lawyer knew to keep a fresh and ironed spare suit at their office, and that was that.



Which was why I didn’t expect to wake up the next day to an empty bed.

The side where Christian had slept was cold, the linen pressed like he’d never been there. The only evidence he had actually been here the night before was his lingering scent of expensive aftershave and decadent sex. Oh, and the pulse between my thighs, a light, persistent heartbeat, and the bite marks that covered me.

I peeked at the time on my nightstand clock. Eight thirty. Groaning, I closed my eyes and pressed my face to my pillow. When I pried my eyelids open again, I rolled over to my stomach and reached for my phone. There were four messages and seven emails. All of them from clients. There was also one missed call from my mother.