Page 58 of Arrogant and Merciless

“Here, idiot. Five minutes late and your OCD is already kicking in, huh?” I say from behind him.

“Yes, because I’m the only control freak at this table, my friend. Keep kidding yourself,” L.J. shoots back.

“Oh, is that what you call us? A pretty way to define sociopathy,” I mock.

“Speak for yourself. I’d rather call it antisocial personality disorder.”

Athanasios shakes his head, half-smiling. The dynamic between L.J. and me is practically that of siblings.

“I didn’t come here to bicker—I’m here to eat and learn about Sleeping Beauty’s awakening,” I say, referring to our associate’s patient, who’s also the woman he’s been oddly invested in.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Brooklyn is just a patient,” he growls, in a foul mood.

“A patient you were obsessed with bringing back to life. Would she be a candidate?” I tease.

“Did you come here just to torment me?” Athanasios snarls.

"No, I’m being completely serious. You’ve spent more time with Brooklyn Foster over the past few months than with any other woman in your life. I just thought maybe you’d finally found the right one."

“What did I miss?” L.J. asks, having spent nearly two months in Europe giving lectures.

“Nothing. William just decided to waste his evening provoking me, which by now he should know is a waste of time.”

“This time I’m not provoking you, I swear,” I say in my defense. “Or have you changed your mind about what we discussed last year?”

I know perfectly well that all three of us remember New Year’s Eve, during a party on Athanasios’s yacht, when we agreed, since we were all nearing forty, to find a marriage of convenience that would give us heirs. Immediately—and I can’t help it—an image of the woman I despise flashes across my mind.

Taylor Jarvis.

The redhead who almost turned my life upside down in more ways than one. Even after I found proof of her betrayal—of how she tricked me by becoming my father’s lover—it still took me a while to accept that I was no longer responsible for her wellbeing. Taylor was well looked after, living in luxury, and as far as I knew, happy with the man she chose.

Yet I can’t help a sharp tug in my chest, and I chalk it up to the hatred and resentment I still feel.

“Seeing as so far none of us has fallen in love, the odds of finding a wife are slim to none,” Athanasios says. “But if we still want kids, we need a mother for them.”

We considered surrogates, raising the children as single fathers, but Athanasios—who’s Greek—was the first to say that wouldn’t work for him because he places enormous value on family.

I watch him get distracted by his own thoughts, knowing the reason: each of us has plenty of skeletons in our closets.

“Where were you?” I ask, because maybe I know him better than anyone on Earth.

“Walking the line between past and present, as always,” L.J. answers for him. “Maybe choosing the right woman will help you finally shut the door on the past, Athanasios.”

He doesn’t answer, and before long, each of us is lost in our own problems.

I haven’t looked for any news of Taylor again. If I allow the hatred I feel for her to consume me, I won’t be able to keep going in any other aspect of my life—but neither have I let it die. It’s just been dormant, like a beast awaiting revenge.

Only yesterday, when I visited my grandmother, I learned that Taylor left my father. Apparently, he’d been hiding it from everyone, sailing across the Pacific, avoiding photographs. Then, in a phone call to Maryann, he finally admitted the two had split.

What happened? Did she leave him for someone richer? Younger? Maybe both.

Grandma could hardly believe her “golden girl,” the young woman she’d come to adore, had run off—or rather, fled—with my father, without so much as a goodbye or explanation. But when I showed her the pictures, she admitted I was telling the truth.

As for my mother, who’s sunk deeper into alcoholism, about three weeks ago she tried to kill herself and had to be hospitalized for depression. She hates the redhead with every drop of her blood.

I’d be the last person to defend Taylor, but if it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else. My parents’ marriage was dead long before that.

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