ARRANGED

by R. K. Lilley

  And I wanted it gone. All the hours that had led to this craving.

  I wanted it wiped forever from my memory as if it never happened. Wished he and I had never shared the same air.

  He was dressed immaculately, not a hair out of place. I was decked out to the nines.

  Both of us in our breakup best. Oh sweet vanity.

  “Thank you for everything—” I began, looking unflinchingly into his unbearably handsome face. I’d been rehearsing the words.

  “Don’t thank me,” he interrupted in a terrible voice. He grabbed my shoulders in both of his big hands. His grip was hard. His eyes were desperate.

  “Don’t fucking thank me.” He was shaking as he said it, shaking so hard he shook me with him.

  I shrugged him off, stepping back. “Thank you for the opportunities,” I continued determinedly. “And for the lessons.” It came out heavy and thick, like something unholy being dragged out of me.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “Happily. Now sign the papers, and I’ll be out of your life for good.”

  “Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “And don’t say that. Any of it. Take it back. And don’t thank me.” He was begging by the end, his voice little more than a whisper. “Don’t leave me.”

  I stared at him. “Is it about the money? Is that it? Will Pasco pull the rug out from under your business once we’re divorced?” It was petty, but I wanted to know.

  He glared. “My father already withdrew his initial capital. He did it as soon as you filed for divorce. It didn’t matter. I already found other backers. Fuck my father’s money. This has nothing to do with that. This is about us. I don’t want a divorce.”

  It was something. I couldn’t even lie to myself about that, but I was still resolute. In a matter of months he’d broken my heart in too many places for me to risk it with him again. Imagine the damage if I stayed longer. “This is all for the best.” I was certain of it at that point. I turned to leave.

  “What if it’s not?” he asked my retreating back. “What if it’s for the worst? Will you come back?”

  I swiveled back, surprising him. “Why would I? Give me one good reason.”

  My lips couldn’t shape the words, and his heart could not own them.

  I love you.

  That might have held some weight, but he’d never lied to me. Why start now?

  His silence was just the demolition crew I’d needed to clear out the rest of my heart.

  I turned back to leave. My hand was on the doorknob when he spoke again.

  “I never lied to you.” He seemed to pluck the words right out of my brain, throwing them at me like they should mean something. Like they should matter.

  “So what?” I spat back. “You think that outright betrayal is less hurtful than lies? Why the hell does it matter that you didn’t lie? Lying would’ve been a mercy.”

  “It matters because it means that when I do make promises to you, I’ll keep them.”

  “I won’t ask for any promises from you, Calder. You’re off the hook. It’s just what you wanted from the start.”

  “It’s not what I want now.”

  I couldn’t stand the way his anguished face made me want to believe his tempting words. It made me feel vicious. “How’s Fatima, by the way? Are you the father?”

  He flinched, taking a step back. “I still don’t know yet. She’s dragging it out as much as possible. I wish she’d just put me out of my misery.”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re doing the same thing with this divorce, you know. Now put me out of my misery.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  Banks didn’t quite put me out of my misery, not how I’d hoped, but he did sign the papers.

  Our weekly coffee dates were beyond strange.

  Beyond strange as in stiltedly civil. Almost friendly but charged.

  Our first one took place in a crowded coffee shop in Midtown Manhattan. I’d picked it out personally for its lack of intimacy. Chances were we wouldn’t even get a table to ourselves.

  But either I was unlucky or Banks was the opposite because he was there waiting for me, with a relatively private table in the corner for us. Chester pointed him out right after we walked in, but my eyes had already found him like they couldn’t even help themselves.

  He stood when he saw me. He was painfully serious in his suit and tie, dark unruly hair slicked back with a vengeance.

  He swallowed a big enough lump in his throat that I watched its progress from across the packed room.

  He was wringing his hands. He looked nervous and anxious.

  He looked like heartbreak and pain and multiple orgasms.

  I wanted nothing more than to say fuck it, grab his arm, and head for the nearest mattress. I wanted him to do absolutely anything he wanted with me. My body. My heart.

  I was a pathetic creature. All of our contracts had been voided, but it didn’t matter. It was as though he owned me still.

  I shook off the urge with an iron will. Nothing had changed. No matter how much his eyes melted with sincerity, he was still the man with the pregnant mistress on the side, the man who’d broken my heart with minimal effort in a few short months.

  It was smart to get out while I still had any pieces of it left, I told myself firmly and for the millionth time.

  My feet had been automatically moving me toward him during that whole masochistic thought process, and before I knew it, I was in arms’ reach. He grabbed me by the shoulders drawing me close enough to kiss. I thought he was going to do it, the bold, gorgeous bastard, but he merely gave me two firm cheek kisses before drawing away to stare at me solemnly.

  I’d taken a very deep breath when he had me close, drawing in his scent. God, this was going to be rough.

  I was about five minutes late, so as we sat down across from each other I asked, “How long have you been waiting for me?”

  His eyes were steady on mine, glittering with some bittersweet thing I was unable or perhaps unwilling to name. “A thousand years.”

  “Don’t,” I warned him, voice steady, heart anything but. “Don’t try to charm me. I’m only here because you didn’t give me any other choice.”

  He put his hands up as though surrendering, his face unsmiling. “Consider all the charm off, gone for good. How are you? I miss you.”

  And so it went. I set a timer and left at one hour on the dot.

  One week later, we met at a restaurant instead. I’d decided the coffee was a mistake. At least if we ate I’d have something to do with my hands aside from clenching them hard under the table, tamping down the urge to reach for him.

  Again, I’d chosen the place. A noisy deli with a line around the block. A mistake again. Standing next to him, even if it was in a jostling crowd, was worse than sitting across from him. Our arms kept brushing. He took my hand once. I snatched it away, flushing.

  He was flushing too. “Sorry,” he said, his voice absolutely unapologetic. “Habit.”

  “We weren’t together long enough to develop any habits,” I reminded him.

  “Speak for yourself,” he returned in a voice that ached.

  I was hoping we wouldn’t get our food until our hour was up, but once again all the luck was on his side. We had sandwiches in hand in under fifteen minutes. We walked a few blocks to Bryant Park and found a table. Even with Chester trailing us it was downright romantic.

  Banks nodded to my food as I unwrapped it. He’d somehow talked me over from a salad sans dressing to a turkey sandwich. “At least I can assure myself that you got one solid meal this week.”

  I rolled my eyes and ate every bite.

  Right before we parted he gathered me to him. Modern day men never did things like this. It was something you’d see in an old movie. “I want you,” he breathed into my ear. “Come home with me.”

  What a bastard, I told myself. Even so, I let myself feel everything for five agonizing beats before I wrenched myself away.

  The internet had pred
ictably had a field day with us. The divorce, the pregnant mistress, the public spottings, the ever persistent rumors of the Bride Catalogue, all of it was just too perfectly messy not to gossip about. Even I understood why. We gave good headlines. Our messes were the most succulent fodder for the masses.

  We were still coming up regularly, and if someone managed to nab a picture of us together post-divorce, they no doubt got a good paycheck for it, and it would unquestionably go viral. We became a regular segment on TMZ.

  That picture of us hurt more than the others. Him gathering me close. The harsh longing on his face. The anguish on mine. I returned to it again and again. I must’ve spent hours studying it.

  We looked so right together. It was hard to look at the image, and remember just why we were so wrong.

  “It’s not mine,” burst from him the second we sat down on our fifth mandatory weekly one hour meeting. He was beaming at me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fatima finally took a paternity test. The baby isn’t mine.” His expression was asking for a reaction I didn’t want to give.

  Was I relieved? Yes. God, yes. Did it fix even one single broken thing inside me? Hardly.

  “What would you have done if it was yours?” I asked him, wanting to lash out at the relief I felt inside of me. “Would you have stayed together for the baby?”

  That got the reaction I wanted. His eyes widened in horror. “Stayed together?” He sounded offended. He sounded pissed. “We’re not together. That was never on the table. And I don’t know. I never really believed there was a chance it was mine. I suppose I would have been as much of a father as she’d let me, but me and her getting back together, I know that’s what she was aiming for, but it was not even in the realm of possibility.”

  I studied him, wondering if I believed it. Their toxic attachment to each other had survived a lot of obstacles. “So her husband is the father?”

  “I have no clue. Frankly, it’s none of my business and I’m happy with that. She and I are done for good, Noura. I mean it. Her trying to hurt you . . . It put the nail in the coffin of every good memory I ever had of her. Fatima was a habit for me. An affliction. You’re a cure.”

  “I don’t want to be your cure. Don’t put that on me.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just . . . I haven’t been living right for a while now. Too much resentment for all the wrong reasons. If some relationships bring out the worst in people, the opposite must be true. And you’re the opposite. I’m not giving up on us, Noura.”

  “God, I miss you,” he told me on our eighth weekly meet-up. It was a cheap shot straight to my gut. Not even the words themselves, but the way he said them. Like he couldn’t keep them in. Like they’d become the whole sum of him.

  I figured he just missed the sex. He was my first and only so far, but even I knew we had something rare between us there. If sex was always like that there’d be less fighting in the world and more cases of people fucking themselves to death. “It’ll pass,” I assured him.

  “I want to see you more often. This isn’t enough.” He said it with such surety, with such an entitled air, that I found myself bristling with outrage.

  “That’s not for you to decide. You don’t value what you don’t earn. And your father may have paid for me, but you never had to earn me.”

  “So give me a chance to earn you.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” I couldn’t believe I’d even said the words. I wasn’t going to entertain this madness.

  “Let me show you that I can treat you better. That I can be better. I’ve been celibate, you know. I’m going to wait for you, as long as it takes.”

  My breath shuddered in and out. He was too much. What a fool I’d been to think he’d ever fight fair. “I can’t ask you to do that,” I bit out.

  “You didn’t ask. You shouldn’t have to ask. I didn’t make you promises before, and even though you won’t listen to them, I’ve made them now. You’re the only one I want. I won’t settle for less.”

  That time, I left before our hour was up.

  The next time he showed up with an armful of pink peonies, my favorite, smiling like I hadn’t cursed him out and stormed off at our last meet-up.

  He was courting me, the subversive bastard.

  And so it went. I had to miss a few dates because I was traveling for work.

  Once he showed up in Hong Kong just to make sure that he wouldn’t miss out on our hour.

  I tried hard to convince myself that it wasn’t romantic of him.

  Once we had a big blowout fight in public when he found out about my nude editorial in Vogue Italia.

  “First of all, it’s none of your business,” I told him after I let him rant about it for a while. He was being loud and unconstrained enough that I knew we were going to dominate the news cycle for at least a solid twenty-four hours. “Second, everything is covered.”

  “You always say that, I’m not sure you know what it means.”

  I laughed.

  He glared. “Let’s negotiate. What can I give you to stop you from showing so much skin?”

  “When are you going to get it through your spoiled little rich boy skull? I’m done making deals. This isn’t your game anymore. I call all the shots in my life now.”

  That week he was the one that did the cursing out and stormed off before our hour was up.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  On week sixteen post-divorce I got a strange phone call from a strange number with a strange man on the other end of it.

  Fatima’s estranged husband, Antoine Beauchamp, wanted to meet me. I said yes mainly out of curiosity, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a heavy peppering of spite factoring somewhere in the decision.

  We met for dinner at a swank restaurant uptown. For all intents and purposes, it was a date. It certainly looked like one. Camera flashes clocked me from the moment Chester handed me out of the car until I’d walked into the establishment. Someone had tipped them off. Obviously Antoine. I wasn’t the only one here operating out of spite. Both of our exes would likely know about our dinner plans before we even touched a menu.

  I’d heard a snippet somewhere that Antoine was French nobility, a Count or something, and the moment I saw him, I could picture it. He was tall, slender, and elegant down to the tips of his toes. His dark hair was slicked back attractively, bringing out his large black eyes. He was quite handsome and reeked of old money.

  One would think Fatima was out of her mind unless one had seen just what this man was competing with.

  He greeted me with a kiss to both cheeks. Camera flashes told me our paparazzi hadn’t been limited to the sidewalk outside. I didn’t even comment on it. He’d gone a bit overboard, but I could appreciate more than anyone the extreme degree of Antoine’s vindictiveness.

  We sat down opposite each other and he shot me an appealing, crooked grin. “Noura. Nice to finally meet you. You’re even more beautiful in person. I should have reached out earlier. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we have a few interesting things in common.”

  I laughed. “I heard you were a Count. I didn’t hear you were a Diplomat.”

  His eyes smiled warmly at me. “Our exes are fools, aren’t they?” he mused.

  I liked him instantly. “They are.”

  “I have a list of every time I could gather that they were together while she was married to me,” he said, like he was just bursting to get it all out. “It’s fairly staggering. Everything is dated, so you can get an idea how many times he was with her when he was married to you. Would you like to see it?”

  I was agonizingly tempted, but I reined it in, with effort. “I don’t think I need to see that at this point. I’m just trying to move forward.”

  He was on his phone as I spoke, his fingers moving like a flash. “Well, I’ve sent it to you, in case you’re like me and you sometimes need reminders to hold onto your resolve.”

  He looked up at me, stashing his ph
one back in his pocket. “At first I wanted to kill him. A part of me still does. But it was both of them. And frankly she’s the one that made vows to me. She’s the one that deserves the brunt of my contempt for this betrayal.”

  Something bitter must’ve run across my expression because next he remarked, “You probably hate her. I don’t blame you. But remember that it was him that betrayed you. Don’t make the mistake of vilifying her and giving him a pass.

  “Oh trust me, I won’t.”

  “But you’re still seeing him.”

  I didn’t question why he thought it was his business. I didn’t really care. I just responded, “Yes, but not because I’m taking him back.”

  “I thought perhaps you may have been swayed by the news that it wasn’t his baby.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m done. What about you? What will you do if it’s yours?”

  “You didn’t hear? She got rid of it as soon as she found out that Banks wasn’t the father,” he said with unmistakable bitterness. “To be honest, I’m not sure she didn’t fake the whole thing. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing could have kept us together. You two were still newlyweds, and I can’t say what your marriage was like, but she’s been lying to me for years, years that I blindly trusted her. Everything I thought we had has been poisoned by her betrayals. Everything about us was a lie. I’m done.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to him. We were virtual strangers with one painful thing in common. I liked him, but didn’t particularly want to share any more of my feelings with him.

  “Anyway,” he continued, waving a hand in the air. “I have leverage over Fatima. So does Banks. Between the two of us, we can guarantee she won’t try to hurt you again. We’ll use her pride to rein her in. I just wanted to let you know.”

  “Thank you,” I said simply. For someone who owed me nothing, he sure had a lot to offer. It was surprising and oddly endearing.

  “One more thing about that file I just sent you. I know, I know,” he said hurriedly as I began to shake my head. “You don’t want to look at it, but just so you know, they were still hooking up for almost a month even after your wedding.”