Page 48 of Legal Attraction
Muriel’s pulse quickened when the doorbell pealed. Had Ronan returned?
She hoped like hell that he had. As wonderful as the night before had been, it had ended too soon. He’d run off too quickly. If he’d stayed...
Hell, if he’d stayed, she would have started getting used to his being around. She would have started envisioning a future with him. And that wasn’t possible for so many reasons.
No. It was better that he’d run off. And if she was smart, she wouldn’t open the door to him. But she wanted him again—still—so she pulled it open without even looking through the peephole.
But she should have, because if she had, she would have never opened the door. Not to Arte Armand. That was one man she was never allowing back into her life.
Hell.
But she was so shocked that he’d have the guts to come and see her, that she could say nothing. And apparently, her silence unsettled him because he began to nervously stammer, “Mur-Muriel, I—I know that after everything that happened, you probably don’t want to see me.”
If he was waiting for her to argue, she couldn’t. “No. I don’t want to see you.” Because now she couldn’t see what she once had—the sweet, funny man she’d thought she loved.
She could only see the lying weasel he had become. Or maybe he had always been the lying weasel. How had she been so blind? She closed her eyes now, as just the sight of his ridiculously handsome face made her feel sick. Where Ronan’s features could have been carved from granite, Arte’s would have been porcelain or some other smooth, flawless material. His features were so perfect that he was more pretty than handsome. Had she been shallow? Had she fallen for his almost pretty good looks without seeing his real character?
What character? During the divorce, it had become clear that he had none.
“I didn’t think you’d still be mad,” he said, as his lips puckered into a petulant pout.
Was he that oblivious to how much he’d hurt her?
“What?” she asked. “How stupid do you think I am?” She had been pretty stupid to fall for Arte in the first place let alone marry him. But she’d thought the prenup would cover her assets. She hadn’t realized someone like Ronan Hall would be able to get so easily around it.
“You’re not stupid,” Arte said. “You’re very smart. You used what happened—all the media attention—to take your career to the next level. You’re The World’s Most Beautiful Woman.”
She flinched. The title had begun to wear on her, especially since she felt she hadn’t earned it—not like so many other women out there who’d made smart choices. Not someone like her, who kept going for inappropriate man after inappropriate man.
But he must not have noticed her reaction because he continued, “That just goes to prove that there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Maybe Allison McCann would be able to use that for her next ad campaign for her own business. But no matter what campaign Allison launched, she wasn’t getting Muriel’s business.
“I didn’t need any publicity,” she reminded him. Since she was fourteen, she’d always had steady work as a model. Her grandmother had worked as a seamstress for a designer who’d given Muriel her first job.
“I do,” Arte said. “I’m producing that musical I always talked about.”
She didn’t know what he was waiting for—congratulations? She knew the only way he’d managed to produce anything was from taking so much money from her in court.
He smiled like a little boy trying to convince his mother to give him a cookie or maybe a puppy. “And I could use some publicity for it,” he said, “so people will come and see it.”
He’d taken some money from her but not enough to produce anything on Broadway. So it must have been off-off.
“Is that why you’re here?” she asked, as her stomach churned with disgust. “You want me to mention your play?”
“Or you could invest in it.”
If anyone deserved a slap in the face, it was her ex. But he didn’t inspire any passion in Muriel. Maybe he never really had. Because whatever attraction she’d once felt for him paled into insignificance compared to what she felt for Ronan.
All she could do was laugh in his face. “You’re crazy if you think I would help you after what you did.” And she pushed the door toward him to shove him back into the hallway.
But he caught the edge of the door and held it. “Please, Muriel.”
And she saw the desperation in his eyes. Karma must have finally bitten him in the ass. He was probably on the verge of losing everything he’d taken from her.
“Why don’t you go see what Ronan Hall can do for you?” she said. But she only made the suggestion because she wanted to hear what he would say about his former divorce lawyer.
“I already did,” Arte admitted. “He said that the settlement was final. I can’t get any more money from you.” His mouth pulled into that petulant pout again. “Even though all the publicity over the trial has made you even more successful.”
