The Breaking Season: An Arranged Marriage Romance

by K. A. Linde

  The female attendant allowed me to pass, and a second took my coat with a timid, “Welcome back to Height, Mr. Percy.”

  I knew it wasn’t that sort of gentlemen’s club. Though nothing was far from our fingertips if we so much as asked. I had never asked.

  I strode through the long burgundy-carpet-lined hallway and up a short flight of stairs to the main sitting room, complete with a dark mahogany bar that only served top-shelf and exclusive imported liquor. There were a dozen men in equally tailored business suits scattered about the room.

  While I went to Hank’s to be invisible, I came to Height to be seen.

  The bartender poured a glass of scotch before I even had to ask for it.

  “Mr. Percy,” she said, passing the drink to me.

  “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t even know her name. They changed much more frequently than at Hank’s.

  I shook hands and made small talk with the men here. I knew them all. Though none of them all that well. That was the way of this place. Court could have come here, but he found it too uptight and oppressive. Gavin hadn’t been inducted yet. There was no hope for Sam. None of my friends would be here. Just business associates and potential business associates.

  Phones were supposed to be off when we entered the sanctum, but it was the one rule that no one adhered to. None of us could afford to be unavailable.

  So, when my phone buzzed in my suit pocket, no one blinked as I pulled it out and excused myself. My father’s name appeared on the screen. He knew I was here. Why the fuck would he be disturbing me? Yes, I was always supposed to be free, but this was the one time that he usually let me be. He knew it was good for the company for me to be seen among the wealthiest in the city in whatever way that came to be.

  I stepped aside and answered the phone, “Yes?”

  “What did you do?” my father asked, his voice cold and menacing.

  I thought of all the things that he could be referring to. The fact that Katherine and I were definitely not trying to have a baby. The flight I’d put my sister on to get her the fuck out of Manhattan for a while. Or worse. Deep down, there was something much worse. Something he’d never forgive. The reason I had befriended the police chief in the first place was to locate my mother. I’d never found her. Everything had led to a dead end. As if Helena Percy had just disappeared off the map.

  It wouldn’t matter to my father whether or not I’d found her. Only that I had been looking. But I didn’t know how he could have discovered that. It was just latent fear bringing the thought to the surface. It had all ended almost two years ago. There was no way he would know that now.

  “I don’t know. What have I done this time?” I asked him.

  “You ruined the deal.”

  My heart stopped. “What do you mean, I ruined what deal?”

  “Ireland,” he spat at me. “It’s done. Gone. They pulled out this afternoon.”

  My stomach dropped out of my body. Fury singed through me. “They did what?” I shouted, ignoring the looks from the other men in the room. “How the fuck is that possible? We already finished negotiations. We were just waiting for them to fly into New York to sign the paperwork. I laid that in your lap.”

  “It seems you didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “Or else they wouldn’t have told me that they couldn’t work with you. That you didn’t seem fucking competent enough for the job. That they wouldn’t risk this property on someone like us.”

  My head spun. No. That made no fucking sense. I had been dealing with these guys for months. There had never once been a time where I thought that they were going to bail out of this. Not because of me certainly.

  “They said that?” I said in disbelief.

  “Yes,” my father ground out. “So, congratulations, Camden. We’re out a hundred million dollars with the loss of this deal. Do find a way to make that up.”

  And then he hung up on me.

  I stared down at the phone in shock. Then I hurled my scotch across the bar where the glass shattered against the wall. The nearest waitress flinched, but no one else even looked half-surprised. Did they know what had happened? Was I the last to know?

  I was of half a mind to call up the guy I’d been working with in Ireland and find out what the fuck had happened. No, better yet, I’d fly my ass to Ireland and demand answers. No one bailed on a fucking hundred-million-dollar deal after jerking me around for months on end.

  Fuck that.

  With my fury barely contained, I stormed back down the stairs and toward the exit. The attendant retrieved my jacket. I snatched it out of her hand and dashed out the door. My driver waited nearby and whisked me back to Percy Tower.

  I was a thundercloud as I took my private elevator up to the penthouse on the top of the tower. The only thing between me and the heavens was Club 360, one of the hottest elite clubs in Manhattan. I raced up the flight of stairs that led to my bedroom, my steps echoing in the empty house. I yanked out my suitcase and began to pile clothes inside it. I was nearly finished when I heard the downstairs elevator ding open.

  “Camden?” Court called out from downstairs.

  I snarled something unintelligible and zipped the suitcase closed. I heard footsteps on the stairs, and then Court peeked his head into the room. He took in the sight before him.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “Ireland,” I said, jerking the suitcase to standing.

  “What for?”

  “The deal fell through. I’m going to go fix it.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That explains a lot. Someone at Height messaged me. You broke a glass?”

  “They sent you to check on me?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.

  “Well, one, you have a notoriously brutal temper. And two, they know we’re friends. I came to make sure that you weren’t going to do anything stupid,” Court said. He gestured to the suitcase. “Like that.”

  “This is the only way to fix it.” I brushed past him and carried the suitcase down the flight of stairs.

  Court followed behind me. Not stopping me, but not letting me go either. “Why don’t we back it up a few steps? Why did they back out of the deal? This was the one you were working on when we were in Puerto Rico?”

  “Yes.”

  Then I stopped in my tracks. It was the one that I’d been working on in Puerto Rico. The one that I’d been working on when my head was so full of Katherine that I let her blow me while I was in the middle of a conference call. “My father said they backed out because of me.”

  “That sounds unlikely.”

  “It does,” I said.

  “Can we go have a fucking smoke and chill before making any rash decisions?” Court asked. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pair of joints.

  Fuck, I could use a joint. Everything was just anger and madness and the desperate need to prove that I could make this right. But maybe I needed to stop for a minute. I had the private jet. I could take a red-eye when my head was a little clearer.

  “Fine,” I said, snatching one out of his hand.

  I left the suitcase in the middle of the foyer and strode into the recreation room. My pool table took up the center of the space along with a pool table opposite it. I sank into a large black leather chair and reached for a discarded metal lighter. I flipped the top open and lit the joint. Then I took a pull on it, letting the pot do its job.

  Court took the lighter from me and lit his own, sitting opposite me. “So, what do you think is the real reason they pulled out?”

  “My father said it was because of me. That I lost a hundred million dollars.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “No,” I snapped, “I don’t.”

  “But it’s what he believes, which means the dick is going to punish you for it.”

  I brought the joint back to my lips and sucked in deep. “Yep.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yep,” I repeated. “The worst part is… he’s not wrong. I wasn’t in it a hundred percent.”
/>   “I don’t believe that. The Camden Percy I know doesn’t do anything less than a hundred percent.”

  “I was distracted. My focus was on Katherine,” I admitted. “My head wasn’t in the game. It was in her game. I slipped up.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Court said. “You cannot blame Katherine for this. You were less of a jackass while we were away because of her. This is not her fault. It’s not your fault. It just… happened.”

  “Nothing just happens,” I told him. “Something caused this.”

  “Then figure out what it was. But you don’t actually believe that it’s your fuckup. Camden Percy doesn’t fuck up, even when his head is more interested in getting laid than the business.”

  “And I didn’t even get laid.”

  Court choked on his next inhalation. “What the fuck, dude? You two were alone for a week! How hard was it to get in her pants?”

  I didn’t explain it to Court. He didn’t need to know my particular proclivities. Not when it came to Katherine Van Pelt. The truth was… it would have been easy to fuck her. Fuck her until she couldn’t walk and do it again day after day after day. It was what I’d wanted to do, but it wouldn’t have kept her. She needed more than that. She needed handling. And I enjoyed handling her, but then she’d gone and fucked it all up royally. Just when I’d been ready to give her what she’d been all but begging me for.

  Court shook his head at my silence. “You know that she doesn’t love Penn, right?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You didn’t see them together.”

  “I don’t have to. I have eyes. I see Penn with Natalie. I see Katherine with you. There’s no comparison, man. You two are the only ones who don’t see it.”

  “I’d still like to kill him,” I told Court.

  He snorted. “Yeah, well, it should say something that you want to kill him and not her, you possessive jackass.”

  I shrugged. “I need to be focused on work right now, not Katherine.”

  “Wrong. You need to focus on your wife,” Court said. “Or else you’re going to lose her for good this time.”

  His words chilled me. Katherine and I had gone back and forth for so long. It didn’t seem possible that this would ruin everything. We were bound for life. She wasn’t getting out of this contract, but that didn’t mean that we had to be together. We’d spent the last six months seeing each other only in public when we had to. I didn’t fucking want that. It was why I’d offered the truce in the first place. Then I’d gone ballistic at the sight of them together.

  Fuck, maybe I’d have to call her. She was likely still furious with me. She hadn’t even flown back to New York with me. I didn’t have words to make it up to her. But I had actions. That was the only thing she responded to anyway.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I admitted.

  Maybe I needed to win back my wife.

  20

  Katherine

  “Girrrlll,” Alexandre D’Oria trilled, “did you go down another dress size?”

  Alexandre was the up-and-coming designer that I’d decided to work with for my Fashion Week dress. He was doing daring work that complemented my style. When I’d approached him, he’d fallen all over himself to say yes. My dress could make his career this Fashion Week, especially since he wasn’t doing runway in New York, just exhibiting.

  “I couldn’t have,” I said, running my hands down my narrow hips in the trifold mirror.

  English stood nearby in black cigarette pants, a black tank, and a blazer. She shook her head. “Seriously, how do you do it? I’m going to need the name of that trainer. You’d think that I’d be losing a shit-ton because of the divorce, but no!”

  “You’re happy with Court. That’s what happens,” I told her.

  “Well, we’re going to have to take this in,” Alexandre said. “If you go down another dress size, we might be in trouble. But, girl, you look so fab.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a grin for both of them.

  “You’re next, baby girl,” Alexandre said, waving his hand at English. “Strip, and I’ll have Dominique get you into your dress.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this for me,” English said as she removed her blazer.

  “Of course,” I said. “We must celebrate your official divorce.”

  English laughed and shook her head. Her divorce would be finalized the weekend before the annual Fashion Week gala. We’d all decided to throw her a huge party, but I’d also offered to get everyone into the Fashion Week gala as a second surprise with Alexandre designing a dress for English. Now that all of my girls were coming, I couldn’t wait. This was going to be infinitely better than last year.

  A phone buzzed on one of the tables.

  English stepped over and picked it up. “It’s yours, Katherine,” she said. “Camden.”

  I shook my head. “Let it go to voicemail.”

  English frowned and then clicked the button for it to be silent. “Are you two still fighting?”

  “No. The fighting is done,” I told her. “Now, we’re just not speaking. It’s better that way.”

  “I hate that you two got into it on New Year’s. I thought it was going so well. You guys were happy.”

  I shrugged. “It was just a lie. We’d made that truce and pretended to be happy. By the end of the week, the truth came out. We can’t be around each other without screaming at one another unless we’re faking it.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It is what it is. We’re not a fairy tale. We’re just… us.”

  “Yeah, but… don’t you want to find love?”

  I looked her up and down. The girl who had found the man of her dreams, only for him to cheat on her. Then found love again with the biggest train wreck on the Upper East. Of course she believed in fairy-tale love. She’d lived it… twice.

  I had none of that. I couldn’t even imagine what it would look like.

  “No,” I told her. “Love is full of pain and disappointment and loss. I’ll stick with what I know.”

  English looked like she wanted to say something else, but the phone started ringing again. She glanced at it. “Camden again.”

  I pursed my lips. “Just turn it off.”

  English frowned and then nodded.

  “You’re good, Katherine,” Alexandre said. “English, you’re up.”

  Alexandre helped me out of my dress, and I strode off of the pedestal in nothing but my bra, thong, and heels. I’d come here in all black, but I planned to leave in something else entirely. I had my first volunteer shift for ChildrensOne, and I knew what I would wear.

  I zipped up a pink dress and changed out my cherry-red lipstick for a pale pink. I kept on my black pumps and black jacket, but somehow, the combination made me look… softer. Younger even. Like maybe I wasn’t the villain today and I was the princess instead. Of course, the only time I’d been a princess for anyone other than my daddy, I’d been an ice princess.

  “You look cute,” English said. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m working with that charity. Going to get some time in at the hospital and do some party planning.”

  “Oh! You are doing a party then? I love it. I can’t wait.”

  “Yes, I figure… if it’s what I’m good at, might as well put it to good use.”

  English grinned. “Definitely.”

  After saying my good-byes to English and Alexandre, I took the Percy Mercedes back uptown.

  My meeting with Deborah had gone off without a hitch by the time we were finished. I had a rough draft of the party and a timeline for how to get it all in order. I’d agreed to work on it all at home now that we had a schedule.

  I swallowed back my mounting fear again as I walked across the street and upstairs to the cancer ward. I knew that hospitals shouldn’t bother me like this. I was in control here. I was a fucking adult. Why did it do this to me? I shook out my hands and tried to channel some of my inner Jem. She was stuck in here and still had so much light inside of h
er. I just needed to find my light.

  My heels carried me down the familiar hall. I passed Patricia’s room, which was dark and silent. Then I continued toward where I’d seen Jem skip off to. After looking through a few doors into empty rooms, I came upon a nurses’ station.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Jem’s room,” I said confidently.

  “And you are?” the black man asked, looking down at his computer.

  “I’m here from Deborah’s office over at ChildrensOne. I’m volunteering.”

  “Oh, great!” he said, his smile suddenly lighting up. “We love having the volunteers in for the kids. Let me show you to Jem’s room. I need to check on her vitals anyway.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  The nurse directed me down the hallway and to a room near the end of the hall. He knocked twice. “Jem, how are you doing?”

  “Come on in, Frank,” she said cheerfully.

  He shook his head. “My name is Jerry. She calls every nurse on the whole wing by a made-up name.”

  I tried to suppress my smile but didn’t manage it. “She must keep you on your toes.”

  “You have no idea.”

  He pushed the door open and bustled inside. “How are we feeling today, Princess Jem?”

  “Queen Jem today, Frank,” she said, tilting her chin up and trying to look as regal as possible. She really managed it, even with the series of cords running into her little veins and the half-moon circles under her eyes.

  “Hey, Jem,” I said as I followed him inside.

  Her eyes lit up. “Frank! You didn’t tell me that you brought Villain Katherine with you.”

  Jerry looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. “Is your name really Katherine?”

  “It is.” I turned back to Jem as I removed my black coat. “But I’m not a villain today.”

  Jem’s mouth dropped open. “You’re wearing a princess dress.” She twirled her finger in place. “Do a spin!”

  I laughed at her command but twirled on the spot as if I’d been meant for it. It had been a long time since I’d been in ballet, but the turn came back to me effortlessly.