Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways 1)

She’s not worth the partnership, not to mention nailing her father. She is doing this to ruin you. This one-trick pony seduces for destruction.

She took a few steps toward me. We were alone, but someone could walk in any minute. The wet sauna was unisex. I could tell she was going to mount and straddle me if I didn’t put a stop to it. As much as it pained me—especially one part of me—to reject her, I couldn’t cave in to her advances.

She leaned toward me, bracing one of her arms behind my shoulder, her green eyes meeting mine. She put her other hand on my pecs. They flexed instinctively. My cock threatened to play peekaboo with the towel. Suddenly, we were back to being fourteen.

I laced my fingers around her wrist, pushing her hand away. “I’ll pass.”

“Why?”

“Never show your neck to someone who wants to chop your head off.”

“It is a pretty neck, though.” Arya’s eyes twinkled. I wanted to laugh. She didn’t move away. “Is it because of Claire?”

Claire. Her name on Arya’s lips felt strange. Wrong. In my thirty-two years, there’d never been another woman who held a candle to Arya’s pull, capabilities, and demolition.

“Jealous?” I swiped my tongue along my lower lip.

“Maybe.” She slid her hands back over my shoulders.

My heart thudded faster. I hadn’t been expecting that answer. “Don’t be.”

“Are you saying you’re not sleeping with your associate?” she asked, and I couldn’t lie, although it was tempting.

I shook my head. “I’m saying she doesn’t matter.”

There was always the chance Arya was fishing to find some leverage against me, and screwing my fellow associate was definitely not a great look.

“What’s the problem, then? The chemistry is there.” Her tone was businesslike, almost terse.

“Yes.” I flashed my teeth, cool and collected. “But the willingness to fuck up my case isn’t. If I touch you, I lose, and you and I both know it. Now wrap a towel around yourself and park your ass all the way across the bench. We need to talk.”

She retreated, stepping back and picking up her towel. She wrapped it around herself and walked toward the farthest end of the wraparound bench, sitting in front of me, calm and collected, like she hadn’t been rejected minutes ago.

“You should clean your hands of him.” I ran a hand over my hair, which was slick with sweat.

“No,” she said simply.

“He is guilty.”

“You would say that; you are Amanda Gispen’s lawyer.”

“I’m saying that because I have eyes and ears. I looked through your side’s discovery responses. This will cause a lot of destruction to your father. Just because shit is about to hit the fan doesn’t mean you have to get dirty.”

“Christian,” Arya said, almost chidingly. Another memory from our thirteen-year-old selves. She’d always been bossy. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you advice.”

“Are you going to charge me five hundred bucks at the end of this hour?”

“You mean two grand. And the answer is no. This advice I am giving you for free, though you should consider it priceless. Your father’s attorneys—are they a part of his in-house litigation team?”

I had no idea what I was doing or why the hell I was doing it. I just knew I had to throw her a bone. I wanted to win, but not by default. Conrad Roth’s case looked weak right now. A walk in the park.

“No.” Arya shook her head. “They’re outside counsel. He’s worked with them before. They come highly recommended by his team.”

“His team ain’t worth a dime, and his general counsel should be fired. Any rookie would tell you that when dealing with any gender-related lawsuit, the jurors would respond more sympathetically to a female litigator. Especially someone young.”

“Like Claire,” Arya pointed out.

“Like Claire. But that’s beside the point.”

“Are you saying he needs to hire a female lawyer?” Her green eyes sparked with curiosity, and there it was, the Arya I knew and was obsessed with. Apparently she was still there, under the thick layers of designer clothes and ballbusting moves and bullshit.

“Correct.”

“That’s sexist.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her eyes tapered. “No part of you wants my father to win this case.”

Smiling at her like she was a foolish child, I deliberately mansplained. “I’ll be buttoning up this puppy if you bring in Jesus Christ himself to represent your father. It’d be nice to break a little sweat while I do. I’m giving you a head start.”

Arya’s eyes glided over my chest. I was glad I couldn’t do the same to her, now that she’d wrapped herself back up. My IQ had dropped by sixty-nine points when she was naked.

“You look pretty sweaty to me,” she remarked.

“In court.”

She extended her bronze legs, wiggling her toes. I couldn’t help it. I sneaked a look. First at her shapely calves, then at those toes she used to entwine with mine when we were kids, reading under the desk at her library.