by Shen, L. J.
I led Persephone inside, ignoring the few people who were dumb enough to approach me.
That was the beauty in being Boston’s most hated businessman. I didn’t need to pretend I gave a damn. I wanted a private word with the man who was suing my company, so I came here with a check the organizers couldn’t refuse. But my willingness to socialize or play the game was below zero.
I snatched a flute of champagne from a waitress’s tray for Persephone and a cognac for myself, snubbing a hedge fund manager who came to introduce himself with a boring-looking woman I assumed was his wife.
Something fast and hard bumped into my leg. It stumbled backward, landing at my wife’s feet in a tangle of pudgy limbs.
Persephone lost her grip on the champagne, spilling her drink all over her dress. She let out a breath while I grabbed the stupid thing and scooped it in the air. It was kicking and screaming.
“What in the—”
“Let him go!” my wife cried out, swatting my hand away. She crouched down, giving everyone in the room a front-seat view to her cleavage, and righted the thing—fine, child—who’d crashed into us, helping him to his feet.
“Are you okay, sweets?” She rubbed his arms.
The child looked vaguely familiar, but since I wasn’t acquainted with any kids, I figured they all looked the same. Like squirrels or Oreo cookies.
The little boy screwed his nose, shaking his head. His right eye ticked twice…no, six times.
Tick. Tick. Tick, tick, tick, tick.
My gut twisted. I stepped back, popping my fingers one after the other.
“Are you lost?” My wife put a palm on the snotty thing’s cheek.
Yes.
The boy cast his eyes down, twitching and buzzing.
“Y-y-yes.”
“Let’s go find your parents.”
She offered him her hand. He took it, when another identical-looking kid sailed on his sneakers in our direction, bumping into the twitchy kid. They both knocked Persephone down. Instead of pushing them out of the way, she laughed her throaty laughter that seemed to have a direct speed-dial connection to my groin and collected them in her arms as if they were eager puppies. They stuck their sticky fingers into her blond curls and fingered her diamond necklace.
“Easy there, little ones.” She laughed.
“I’m not little. I’m a big boy. Tinder!” the second boy cried. “Mommy and Daddy are looking for you.”
“T-Tree. Look what I found. A real princess.” He motioned to my wife.
Tinder?
Tree?
Oh, for fu…
“Fitzpatrick. Fancy seeing you here. What are you doing raising funds for For the Love of Cow?” Andrew Arrowsmith strolled behind his children, leading his wife by the small of her back.
I glanced at one of the posters in the room, certain he was testing me. Sure enough, the words For the Love of Cow were plainly there. Apparently, I’d slid a fifty-thousand-dollar check at the door to support research on how to decrease methane’s effect on depleting the ozone.
Cow’s shit just got a whole new literal meaning.
I stole another glance at Tinder. He was jerking around in my wife’s arms, his throat producing feral sounds I doubted he controlled.
“Don’t tell me you grew a conscience.” Andrew smirked. I had to admit, he wore his newly earned aristocracy well.
“What conscience?” I asked nonchalantly. “I heard the word cow and figured there’d be steak.”
“That sounds more like you.” Andrew’s eyes drifted to Persephone, who was still on the floor, ahh-ing and aww-ing over something his children said.
“She is lovely.”
“I have eyes.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to her?”
“No,” I deadpanned.
Unfortunately, part of why I was mildly obsessed with Persephone was due to her impeccable manners. She rose to her feet, extending her hand to my nemesis with a warm smile, introducing herself anyway.
“Persephone Fitzpatrick. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Andrew Arrowsmith, and this is my wife, Joelle. I believe you’ve already met my sons, Tinder and Tree.”
“Oh, they made a grand entrance.” Persephone brushed brown locks from Tinder’s pasty forehead, laughing.
Do not touch his kid.
“I-I-I-I’m b-b-bored. C-Can you play with me, princess?” Tinder tugged at my wife’s dress, still damp from the champagne he made her drop.
I was not jealous of a five-year-old.
I simply wasn’t.
Even if the awe in which my wife regarded him grated on my nerves.
“This place is boring, huh?” She winked at him conspiratorially. “Let’s see what trouble we can find around here.”
“No, thank you. We still have a few people to greet.” Joelle pulled her kids back to her side, struggling to control them. She looked pitifully average, especially next to my wife. Her features boring, her hair too stiff.
Flower Girl gave her a pointed look.
“I think Tinder needs the fresh air. We’ll stay on the balcony, where you can see us. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Sweetheart.” I put a hand on my wife’s arm. “You’re off-duty. Let his parents deal with him.”
She shook away from my touch. “Not everything is a chore.”
I pinned her with a look but kept my opinions to myself. What could I say? That the kid was broken, and hopeless, and any kindness she was going to show him was going to give him cruel and unjustified hope he could one day be normal? Accepted? Loved?
“Please, Mommy.” Tinder fell on his knees. “Please, we really want to have fun for a change.”
“Fiiiiine.” Joelle laughed nervously. “Tree and I will tag along.”
“You never let us play during stuff like this.” Tree looked up at his mother suspiciously. “Why now?”
Joelle snorted, waving her hand around.
“Of course I do, honey.”
The women left with the children. Andrew and I stayed behind, leaning against the bar, watching them. A couple of people who passed us shook his hand and waved at him, ignoring me.
“She really is something.” He scrubbed his chin, following my wife’s elegant movements, undressing her with his eyes.
“Something you better avert your eyes from,” I hissed. “Unless you don’t mind my scooping them out with a dessert spoon.”
“Don’t pretend you are capable of forming an attachment to anyone or anything other than money, including this delectable little creature.”
He turned to smile at me, satisfied. “Does she know?”
There was no point in pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Yes,” I lied.
He chuckled. “Nice try. She doesn’t, but she will. And once she does, she’ll dump you.”
“Tinder’s an interesting kid,” I poked back.
“Yeah.” Andrew propped his elbows on the bar, still watching our families. Persephone wrapped her lean arm around a column on the balcony, spinning and laughing. Tinder followed suit, and Tree joined them. Joelle looked on, a grim smile on her face. “I give him all the support and help he needs.”
“Your love and support can’t fix his nervous system.” I tilted my head back, downing my cognac.
“I’m having a real good time fucking up your business, putting billboards next to your office, arranging demonstrations, suing your company for all it’s worth. What do you have to say about that?” He grabbed a drink from the bar and took a sip. “Oh. That’s right. You never curse. How is that working for you?”
I turned to him. I could count on one hand the things that managed to pierce through my armor these days.
Andrew Arrowsmith was one of the few.
So was my wife.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Andrew. Drop the lawsuit, or I will make you lose your job, then your home, then your reputation, exactly in that order. The Arrowsmith fingerprints
are all over Royal Pipelines from decades ago. All it takes is one dig inside the company’s records”—I snapped my fingers—“and everything you’ve built will crumble like a stale cookie. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,” I assured him. “My father left you penniless and forced you to scale back on your dream and potential, and if you push me to it, I will make sure your kids won’t be able to afford the clothes on their backs and the bread in their stomachs.”
Andrew took a step forward, getting in my face.
“Don’t forget I have something on you, too, buddy-boy.”
“A condition, not a scandal,” I cemented.
“Condition or not, I bet your father still doesn’t know his golden boy is anything but precious metal. Doesn’t know the extent of embarrassment you’ve caused the Fitzpatrick name. You touch Green Living, and I will make sure everyone in the world knows your story. Your history. The ugly lies and uncomfortable truths. It’s either economic carnage or a private bloodbath, Fitzy. Your pick. But I’ve a feeling you already came to terms with the fact I’m going to destroy Royal Pipelines.”
The women appeared in our periphery before I delivered a comeback. Andrew took a step back, bowing in Persephone’s direction.
“Mrs. Fitzpatrick. May I have a dance?”
If she was uncomfortable, she didn’t let it show. She placed her hand in his. I used every ounce of my self-control not to pounce on him and rip her from his hands.
It was just a dance. Besides, it was great practice for seeing her in someone else’s arms. Which was something I was destined to go through in a few years, after she gave me heirs and officially threw in the towel on my sociopathic ass.
We would turn into my parents.
Civilized strangers, linked by commitments, common interests, and social ties.
I was left alone with horsey Joelle and her unbearable twins.
It was Joelle’s turn to drape herself against the bar, a cunning smile smeared on her ill-fitted lipstick.
“She’s a darling.”
“She will do.”
I should peel my eyes away from Persephone in Andrew’s arms, but I was fascinated by what it did to me. To my insides. My head throbbed.
Mrs. Arrowsmith’s eyes ignited with curiosity.
“That’s not a glowing review for a wife you can’t seem to stop staring at. How’s being a newlywed treating you?”
My gaze glided down her face. No wonder Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off my wife. His looked inbred.
“I thought shotgun marriages were a thing of the past,” Joelle continued, tapping her lips, ignoring her children, who were off running between the legs of the couples on the dance floor. “Everyone is wondering if you two have a little bun in the oven.”
I wish.
Jackson Hayfield, an oil baron from Texas, caught my eye from the other side of the room and saluted me. I saluted back, treating Mrs. Arrowsmith as if she were air. For all I cared, that was exactly what she was.
“It is my understanding that this is Persephone’s second marriage.”
“Do you enjoy talking to yourself?” I wondered, checking my phone for emails. “You seem to be holding this one-sided conversation well. A telltale of your marriage dynamic?” I knitted my eyebrows together.
Her smile faltered, but she didn’t back down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as forward. I just think it’s so brave, what you’re doing. My husband told me about your condition, and well…” She trailed off, playing with the necklace on her neck.
“And what?” I turned, finally taking the bait.
“And it is clear she is still with her ex-husband. I mean, why else would she be visiting her grandmother-in-law at a retirement home every weekend?”
Joelle flipped her dyed, straw-like hair to one shoulder, going in for the kill.
“I mean, it makes sense. She was penniless with no prospects. And it was high time you got married. The pressure was on, I’m sure. If you ask me, arranged marriages have their merits. So how does it work, exactly? Are there three of you in this marriage, or does Mr. Veitch pop in every few weeks for a visit…?”
The look on my face must’ve told Joelle she needed to rewind. I had no idea how she knew about Persephone’s ex-husband. He wasn’t a society man. Sam told me Paxton was a D-list errand boy for Byrne.
Joelle read the question on my face, waving a hand around.
“Please, Cillian, people talk. The minute the country club folks in Back Bay heard about your nuptials, tongues started wagging. Paxton Veitch was my tennis mate’s student in high school, so she volunteered the information. Apparently, she still visits his grandmother, too. Poor thing has no other relatives in Boston, and she’s in quite a state. I’m told your wife hasn’t missed a visit in three years, not long after she started dating him. Familia primum, huh?”
Family first in Latin.
So Joelle was one of those women.
Fluent in Latin, mingling, and designer brands.
Gently bred to become the wife of men like me.
“Here’s the thing.” I inclined my head toward her, bulldozing into her personal space as she did into my business. “My marriage may be a sham, but at least my wife and I are upfront about it. Your marriage is a farce, and I bet you’re dumb enough to believe it’s the real deal. Let me guess—you come from money, don’t you, Joelle? Never worked a day in your life. You have a nice, albeit useless bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League university, a prestigious lineage, and trust funds coming out of every hole in your body?” I arched an eyebrow. By the way she flinched, I’d hit a nerve. I plowed through it, gutting it with a pitchfork. “Everything Andrew Arrowsmith has done from the moment he was born was to try to make up for the fact he wasn’t born into the Fitzpatrick family. He ate from our plates, played in our backyard, and attended the same extracurricular classes I took part in. His family went as far as to send him to the same schools as me. But make no mistakes—the Arrowsmiths never sliced through the airtight seal of Boston’s upper crust. He is our hang-on, and you, my dear, are his meal ticket. While it is true that I, too, stand in your position of feeding an ambitious, good-looking go-getter of the world, at least I married a woman I’d like to take to bed every night. You married a social climber who wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole given the chance. When was the last time he ate you out?” I leaned down, my lips brushing her ear. Her body responded with an excited shiver. “Ravaged you like you were a precious prize and not a check he needed to deposit? Your husband is cheating on you, isn’t he, Mrs. Arrowsmith?”
She paled under her makeup, staggering backward. I shot out a hand to clasp her arm and help her to her feet, a polite smirk on my lips.
“That’s what I thought. Tell anyone about my wife visiting her former grandmother-in-law, and I will make sure everyone in America knows your husband has side pieces. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mrs. Arrowsmith.”
“Mrs. Fitzpatrick will be spending the night at my place. There’s no need to stop at her apartment,” I announced to my driver when we slid into the back seat of the Escalade.
Persephone took off her heels with a joyous sigh, dropping her head to the cool leather, too exhausted to discuss this new development.
She’d danced with every man worth knowing in the ballroom tonight. Was handed from one pair of arms to the next. A dazzling, shiny toy that belonged to the most closed-off man in New England. Everyone wanted to see who had managed to tame The Villain, and since most people had long given up on approaching me directly, Flower Girl was the next best thing.
“I see I’m growing on you.” She rubbed her swollen, red foot, propping it on my knee in hopes I’d give her a massage.
“You might be needing glasses.” I patted her wiggling toes, ignoring her pleas.
“How can you be so unhappy when everything went smoothly tonight?” She blinked at me. “Are you programmed to be miserable or something?”
I paid my dues in this marr
iage and with a healthy interest rate. Not only keeping my wife alive—which turned out more challenging than I’d expected—but also showering her with everything a twenty-first century woman could dream of.
If Persephone thought she was going to run around, visiting her ex-husband’s family, and keeping in touch with the Veitch clan—maybe even with Paxton himself—she was sorely mistaken. She was mine now, and if I had to close the deal by impregnating her this week, I was up for the job.
Once we arrived at my house, Petar dashed from his room to see if I needed anything.
A loyal wife would be nice.
“Out of my way.” I waved him off. Persephone and I headed to my study on the second floor, ascending the Tuscan staircase.
I closed the door behind us, strolled over to my desk, retrieved the stupid contract from my breast pocket, and slapped it on the table. Producing my own pen from a nearby drawer—one without a goddamn plumbing company’s name—I signed the contract, handing my soul over to my wife, then held the paper between my index and middle fingers in the air.
She lifted her arm to snatch it. I tilted my arm up, shaking my head slowly.
“I found a price for my soul.”
“Let’s hear it.” She folded her arms over her chest.
“Stop visiting your ex-husband’s grandmother. It is inappropriate, ungrateful, and sends the wrong message.”
There was a beat of silence in which she tried to digest how I’d known about this to begin with.
“No,” she said, point-blank. “She has no one. She is senile, and lonely, and in desperate need of companionship. She doesn’t have much longer to live. I’m not going to turn my back on her.”
It surprised me she didn’t deny visiting her ex-relative.
Although it shouldn’t have. I was always under the impression Persephone was easier to handle than her friends and sister—aka the PMS Brigade. In practice, my wife simply had an unconventional approach to things. Instead of standing her ground, she perched on it cutely with a sweet smile on her face.
But she was still, technically, on her ground, not moving an inch.