I nodded. “Ruslana and Conrad went back and forth for a few months. Finally, he fired her and gave her hush money. A measly ten-thousand-dollar check to keep her mum. She spent it in about a week and wrote to me that she went to see him again to ask for more. That was her last letter before I got the call from the police that she was dead.”
“How did she die?” Arya asked.
“The official medical cause cites a broken neck. In practice, she got thrown off the Palisades cliff. The cop who told me about her death said they suspected no foul play. That it was a classic suicide case. My mother hadn’t been known as the happy-go-lucky type, and she did lose her job that same month. But it was a bunch of nonsense. Ruslana hated heights. She’d flown one time in her life, and even if she were suicidal, which she wasn’t, she would have preferred any type of death over that one. Drowning, slitting her wrists, a bullet to the temple. You pick.”
“You think my dad was behind it?” Arya’s eyes flared.
“Short answer? Yes. Long answer? To an extent, but I’m not sure who were the key players in what happened.”
“Then he should be tried for that too.”
She wasn’t wrong. But in Conrad’s case, I knew losing everything around him—his money, his status, his kid—was punishment enough. Wandering the world a penniless reject would be more of a punishment for a man like him than sitting around with shamefaced criminals like himself in prison.
“There’s no way for me to prove it, not without revealing my true identity, at any rate,” I replied.
“Regardless of what’s happening, I’m sorry you lost her.”
“I’m not. She was a shit mother.”
“And you want to tell me that after everything Conrad did to you, this move with Amanda Gispen wasn’t calculated?” She knotted her arms over her chest.
“Correct.” I sidestepped to let a woman with a stroller pass by, my mind immediately drifting to Arya with a baby. Dammit. The floodgate was open now, and even a sandwich reminded me of her. “I believe Conrad did something to my mother—or at least sent someone else to do it—but the way I see it, it was never my problem. The day she gave up on me, I gave up on her. I went ahead and found new friends, a new family, a woman who gave me what my mother failed to, and I’m not talking about the money here. I’m talking about courage, confidence, and the mental leg up. Someone who told me what I wanted from life was within reach.”
When I moved back to my spot on the sidewalk, I made sure I was a little closer to Arya than I’d been before. Just a smidge. “No part of me wanted to return to New York. I wanted to stay in Boston. Maybe head down to DC and dirty my hands up in politics. New York has always reminded me of the Roths, of my mother turning her back on me, of that disastrous first kiss. But fate had it that Arsène is from New York and actually likes this hellhole. Riggs is from San Francisco, but he seemed eager to never set foot in the place again. He was all too happy to move into Arsène’s monstrous, rent-free condo. I didn’t want to stay behind. They were the only real family I’d known, so I tagged along. Believe it or not, I worked damn hard to keep my distance from you and yours. My worst nightmare was you or Conrad walking into my life once more and screwing it up. But when the case dropped on my desk, I couldn’t stop myself.” I licked my lips. “We both know I yield to temptation from time to time.”
“So you didn’t seek revenge; it just fell into your lap.”
“Yes.”
Until it had become clear it had always been Arya I wanted in my lap.
“All these years I thought you were dead . . . ,” Arya mumbled, still trying to piece it all together. She shook her head. “That’s why I didn’t recognize you. That was the only reason why I didn’t think you were you. Because I’d convinced myself not to believe. Not to hope.”
And I’d foolishly held it against her. Each time we’d watched one another. Assessed. Caressed. Kissed. I’d always told myself she deserved the hell I gave her, because she couldn’t even recognize the boy who’d been wildly in love with her. Who’d been willing to give up the world for her and, in some ways, had.
“I spent all of yesterday trying to untangle one feeling from the other, and I still can’t.” Arya rubbed at her forehead.
“Let me help,” I offered. I had no right asking her for anything, but especially her trust.
“That’s the thing.” She frowned, practical as ever. No tears or empty threats from this woman. “I don’t trust you with a piece of toast anymore, let alone my life, my decisions, my feelings. I absolutely loathe you, Nicky, with every piece of my soul. All this time, all this yearning . . . I ached for you for over a decade. We were Cecilia and Robbie.”
I had no idea who she was talking about, having never met a Cecilia and only one Robbie, who happened to be a tax lawyer from Staten Island. But I wanted to throttle both these people for butting into my relationship.
Arya rubbed her cheek, getting over her own mental slap. “All the things that made you dazzling and untouchable disappeared yesterday when I saw the picture of us canoodling on that website.”
“It wasn’t me.” I stepped forward yet again, daring to smooth one of her flyaways behind her ear. She swatted my hand away. That hurt more than the slap. More than that day Headmaster Plath had sent those boys to kill me. “It was Claire. Claire was the one who sent us the limo that day when I made you the promise. She tipped off the press.”
“Canoodling,” Arya stressed, her eyes widening. “They used that word.”
I shook my head. “Coincidence. I would never do that to you, Ari. Ever.”
“You’re wrong.” Arya stepped back, her eyes filled with tears again. I wanted them to fall. For her to break. To stop being so goddamn stubborn and better than me all the time. Because deep down, that was how I’d always felt. Unworthy of her time, smiles, and existence. “You already did. You said you wouldn’t betray me.” A sad smile tugged at her lips. “You lied.”
“I was planning to tell you,” I said.
“When?”
“I don’t know.” I ran my fingers through my hair, yanking at it. “After the trial? Once I was sure you fell for me? Who knows? I was worried you’d dump me because Nicky wasn’t good enough.”
Of course, if I told her I loved her now, she’d never believe me. My professional ass was on the line. She was one call away from ruining my career, and we both knew it. Declaring my feelings for her would feel calculated, cunning, and—above all—humiliating to her. Not to mention I didn’t want to start a relationship with her thinking I was chained to her because I had something to lose. Not that I didn’t. But she was that something. Not my job.
Arya shook her head. “Nicky was always good enough. It’s Christian I don’t trust.”
“Then let me change that.” I raised an eyebrow. “There’s more I can give you. A lot more. And all you have to give me in return is one thing.”
“What is that?”
“A chance.”
“Why Christian?” The look in her eyes was chilling as she changed the subject. “Why Miller?”
“I changed my name legally before I attended my first semester at Harvard. I didn’t want your father to find me. Knew he was going to keep an eye on me. Nicholai Ivanov didn’t apply to any universities. He bought a one-way ticket to Canada and ran away. After all, as soon as we turned eighteen, all bets were off, and he knew you could look for me and that I could look for you.”
Her teeth sank into her lip. She understood. After all, she had looked for me through her father’s private investigator. And the only thing stopping me from looking for her had been the knowledge I had nothing to offer her.
“I needed to disappear. So I chose one of the most common last names in America—Miller—and Christian, which is widely one of the most popular names in the English language and also brought to mind the rebirthing, the christening of another identity. Basically, I did all I could to ensure your father never found me. The day Nicholai disappeared across the border, a John Doe was born.”
She shook her head, stepping toward the entrance door. She was about to leave. I couldn’t let her. Not because she could get me disbarred, or because my partnership was on the line. But because I was not ready to say goodbye. Not to her. Not at fourteen, and not at thirty-two.
“Arya, wait.”
She turned around again to face me. “You know, Nicky, the first thing I did when I found out who you were was tell Jillian. It was stronger than me. My vindictiveness took over me. I needed to feel . . . reckless.” She drew in her breath. “But I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell my parents about you. Aim to where it would hurt you the most. I couldn’t tell them the truth. Isn’t that sad? That I hate my father almost as much as I hate you? And love you both too. I guess my love will always be dipped in hate, making every important relationship in my life bittersweet. But I want you to know I’m well aware of the control I have over you, and don’t think for one second I won’t use it. If you get anywhere near me, for any reason whatsoever, I am going to make sure Judge Lopez and the partners at your firm know about your connection with the Roth family. As well as the NY State Bar Association. So make sure you stay the hell away from me, because all it’d take is one call, one text, one unwarranted visit, for me to ruin your life. And believe me, Christian, I will ruin your life without so much as a blink.”
She wasn’t going to say anything.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or scream.
I didn’t think the chances of Arya keeping this a secret were high. I supposed telling on me just seemed like the natural thing to do. Which was why I was more preoccupied with her forgiving me than her revealing my secret. Any other man would have taken what she’d given him and left. And maybe I had been that man two months ago. But I wasn’t him today, nor would I be any day after.
“So you’re saying the next time I contact you, you’ll have me disbarred?” I drawled.
“At the very least.”
“Very well. Thank you, Ari.”
“Burn in hell, Nicky.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHRISTIAN
Present
I didn’t want to fly out to Florida in the middle of the week. It had nothing to do with the mounting pile of work I had waiting for me at the office or the two puzzled partners who couldn’t understand why my first move had been to fire one of their most promising associates. I knew Claire wouldn’t try and pull the sexual harassment card against me, mainly because we were both ultracautious, calculated people, and she knew I’d saved all the messages she had sent me in the past in which she’d been begging me to bed her. Dragging me or the firm through court would detonate the one thing Claire valued above all else—her pride.
Plus, I had notified HR about it when we’d first started.
I didn’t like the idea of leaving New York when things between Arya and myself were unsettled. But as Arsène and Riggs had pointed out when I’d told them about my conversation with Arya, this sort of shit was beyond their pay grade, and I needed a woman’s touch to figure out where I was headed from here.
Alice Gudinski lived in a sprawling Palm Beach condo. Arsène, Riggs, and I visited her occasionally, especially during the holidays, but the past couple of years had been hectic work-wise, so I’d dropped the ball.