Dad said scruples were a beggar’s jewels. That I shouldn’t bother myself with morals. “We pay too much tax to be good,” he’d once laughed out.
I glided toward one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, pressing my back against it and closing my eyes. I felt like I was acting, so at least that part wasn’t a lie. Not in that moment. The sound of his footsteps echoed behind my rib cage. The heat of his body told me he was near. When he stopped right in front of me, my eyes opened. He was so close I couldn’t take his entire face in. Just those turquoise eyes that twinkled like an excavated part of the ocean. I wondered if I looked as lost as he was. He looked so scared. So . . . not sexy.
“It’s my first kiss.” My voice came out syrupy and apologetic. Foreign to my ears.
“Mine too.” He gnawed at his lower lip. The pink hue on his cheeks made everything more precious. I wanted to devour this moment like it was a juicy peach. To feel the sweet, sticky juices of it on my chin.
“Oh, good. I’m pretty sure I’m going to suck at this.” I giggled.
“Impossible,” he said gravely, and for some reason, I believed him.
He leaned over to kiss me and missed. Our foreheads bumped clumsily. We drew away and chuckled. He tried again, this time palming the sides of my neck and guiding his mouth to mine. His lips were hot and soft and tasted of tobacco and ice cubes and boy. We both kept our eyes open.
“This all right with you?” he murmured into my mouth. There was a thin line of hair above his upper lip, wetted by saliva. He still hadn’t had his first shave. My heart drummed in my chest. I hoped he would always remember this. The girl who’d kissed him before everyone else.
I nodded, catching his lips in mine. “Mm-hmm.”
“Good,” he whispered. “Shit, you’re pretty.”
“You said I was ugly. Years ago.” We were kissing. Talking. Holding each other.
“Lies.” He shook his head, his lips still exploring mine. “You are and always will be beautiful.”
My heart soared. He kissed me again, lacing his fingers through mine from both sides. It was still awkward, but I shoved the feeling of self-consciousness aside. The euphoria of being kissed nearly made me nauseous. It wasn’t the sensation that I liked but the fact I was experiencing it with him. The knowledge of how much he was risking for me set my soul aflame. There was an ache in my chest that unfurled like a small piece of paper. Expanding and expanding with each second that passed.
“Get your dirty hands off my daughter!”
The next few things happened fast. One second, Nicky’s body was pressed against mine, and the next, he was on the floor, huddled in a nest of thick, hardcover books, my father’s figure crouching above him, fisting the collar of his shirt.
There was a thwack—the sound of skin slapping skin. My vision blurred around the edges.
“I should’ve known . . . you little shi—”
I didn’t let Dad finish the sentence. I launched myself at him, yanking him away from Nicky by the arm. “Daddy! Please!”
“—will ruin your life.” Dad dragged him upright from the floor now by his collar, smashing Nicholai’s back against the shelves. More books rained on both of them, but neither of them paid attention. Dad’s face was red, almost purple, while Nicky looked defiant, his expression passive. He didn’t try to deny or explain what had happened. Didn’t chicken out. He was going to see this one through, the way he had everything else in his life.
Another jab sent Nicky’s face flying, and this time, by the crack, I knew my father had broken his nose.
Ruslana blasted through the library door holding a broomstick. I tried jumping between Dad and Nicky, prying Dad’s fingers from his throat. I was confused, upset, and sick to my stomach. I’d never seen my father being violent. He’d always been gentle and loving with me, making up for all the things my mother wasn’t.
“What’s happening here?” Ruslana shrieked. When she saw her son’s purple face staring back at my dad, she jumped between them, poking Dad away with the broom in her hands.
“Off! Get off him!” she roared. “You’ll kill him, and then I’ll be the one who needs to answer the authorities.”
This was what she cared about right now? Really?
“Your filthy, stupid son touched my Arya. I got back home early to grab a new tie before the fundraiser and . . .”
“Mercy!” Ruslana cried, turning to her son, who was nothing but a heap of jumbled limbs, blood, and swollen flesh in that moment. “Is this true? I told you not to touch her!”
Nicky jerked his chin up boldly.
“Say something!” she demanded.
Nicky turned to my father, smiling. His gums were bleeding. “She tasted good, sir.”
My father slapped him with the back of his hand, using his fraternity ring to draw more blood. Nicky’s face flew to the other side. His cheek banged against the shelf. This was all on me. My fault. I wanted to do so many things.
To tell him I was sorry.
To say I hadn’t known Dad would come.
To help him out.
To explain everything to Dad, to Ruslana. I needed to salvage this. To protect him.
But the words got stuck in my throat. Like a ball of puke, blocking my air pipes. My mouth fell open, but nothing came out.
It’s not his fault.
“Go to your room, Arya,” my father snarled, marching to the open door and tilting his head in the hallway’s direction. I didn’t move at first. “Go, God dammit!”
And then I thought about how my life would change if Dad decided to be like Mom. To neglect me, look the other way, treat me like I was another piece of furniture.
Shockingly—disgracefully—I moved, my legs heavy as lead.
I could still feel Nicholai’s eyes on my back. The heat of the betrayal. The burn of knowing I would never be forgiven.
That things would never be the same again.
That I’d lost my best friend.
CHAPTER NINE
CHRISTIAN
Present
I’d recognized her instantly.
The swanlike neck. The ethereal Ava Gardner gaze and feline green eyes. Arya wore every passing year with grace and elegance. At thirteen, she’d been pretty. At thirty-one—a real knockout. Even her innocent halo, the sense of something wholesome and unreachable, was cracked but still intact. She glowed from miles away, and I wanted to douse her magnificence. Dim her light and drag her to the shadows with me.
When I spotted her at the building’s reception, I couldn’t believe my luck. She’d decided to tag along and get a front seat to her father’s downfall. I had no idea what she was doing there. My immediate response was to talk to her. To see if she, too, recognized me. If I’d ever mattered. Or if I’d just been the help, who’d stolen her first kiss and paid for it with interest.
She had no idea who I was. No surprises there. I’d always been a blip in her world. An unimportant anecdote. The need to punish her, to show her this new version of me could not be overlooked or tucked away in an establishment no one could see or reach, slammed into me. I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
Not from dropping profanity in the middle of a mediation meeting like a D-grade rapper.
Not from rejecting any defrayal offered, including a mouthwatering eight-figure deal.
Not from drinking in her face thirstily. Like I was still the same fourteen-year-old boy with a stiffie, vying for crumbs of her attention, consuming her in any shape or form she’d throw my way.
I took a swig of my whiskey, watching the Manhattan skyline from my Park Avenue apartment. It was a one-bedroom, but it was all mine, fully paid. I’d always preferred quality over quantity.
“Are you coming to bed?” Claire asked behind me. I could see her reflection in the glass of my floor-to-ceiling window, leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom, wearing nothing but my white dress shirt, her bare legs on full display.
“In a minute.”
“I’m here if you need to talk,” she suggested. But there was no point in talking to Claire. She wouldn’t understand me. She never did.
I hate you,Arya had told me this afternoon in my office, and by the way her lower lip had trembled like it had all those years ago when she’d talked about Aaron, I knew she’d meant it.
The good news was that I hated her, too, and was all too pleased to show her just how much.
You’re a vile man.
With that, I had to agree. Especially after I’d taken this case.
With a low growl, I tossed the tumbler of whiskey onto the double-glazed window, watching the golden liquid slosh along the glass and crawl to the floor, where twinkling shards of crystal waited to be picked up by whoever cleaned up this place.
This was the person I’d become.
A man who didn’t even know the names of the people who worked at his apartment.
So detached from the reality I’d grown up in that sometimes I wondered if my early childhood had been real after all.
Then I remembered the only thing separating me from Nicholai was money.
Arya Roth was going to pay in the currency that was the dearest to her.
Her father.
Days later, it was everywhere. The filing of Amanda Gispen’s complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. As soon as the EEOC had given us our notice of right to sue, I’d had the complaint hand delivered to the clerk’s office. The national newspapers were all over it. News channels broke the story, making it the first headline. I had to take an Uber home and slip through the garage to avoid the press. Claire and I had been paired together for the case. Claire’s parents sent a huge bouquet of flowers to the office to celebrate, as if she’d gotten engaged.
“They really want to meet you when Dad visits from DC.” Claire dropped the bomb when I complimented her on the flowers. “That’s next week. I know you have depositions on Wednesday and Thursday . . .”
“Sorry, Claire. Not gonna happen.”
Amanda was under strict warning not to talk to anyone about this. She went off the grid, moving to her sister’s place. I didn’t want Conrad Roth or his toxic daughter to pull any strings. That night, for the first time in almost twenty years, I slept like a baby.