CHAPTER FOUR ARSÈNE

CHAPTER FOUR

ARSèNE

“Pull over,” Grace instructs after we land in Newark hours later.

The chauffeur flicks his blinker, slows down, and pulls the Cadillac to the shoulder of the road. She pushes the door open, staggers out, and vomits all over the bushes.

She’s been crying the entire flight here, talking with her mother on the phone. Not once did Grace ask me how I was coping. Maybe she assumes, like her mother, that I’m a sociopath, incapable of feelings.

Or maybe she simply doesn’t care.

What’s peculiar is she isn’t the emotional type. Falling apart isn’t her style.

Stumbling back into her seat, she plasters a hand over her sweaty forehead. “It hurts so much, Arsène. You wouldn’t understand.”

Wouldn’t I?

Her utter selfishness robs me of my breath. She’d had them both growing up. Miranda. Douglas. She never once apologized for what she did to me.

And this is why you want her so bad. Because she’s an obsession. An unattainable fantasy. A class of her own.

“He was my father too,” I point out flatly.

“But he was closer to me,” she whines childishly.

Turning my gaze to the window, I bite my tongue until the metallic taste of blood coats my mouth.

“Look, I’m just exhausted.” She shakes her head, more tears spilling from her eyes. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her cry. Even when she fell from the roof, she was tough about it. “I just want to get there already.”

In response, I snap my fingers at the driver. “Floor it.”

Ten days later, the Corbin mansion is teeming with people. Not in the same way it had been crowded when my father threw his Great Gatsby–style epic parties when Grace and I were children.

The memorial service has been elegantly planned and flawlessly executed. Caterers float among guests, carrying platters of finger food and alcohol. A pianist takes requests behind a golden grand piano. Old classics my father used to listen to—“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Imagine,” “Your Song.”

I stand in the corner of the room with my friends since adolescence—my only friends, really—Christian and Riggs. Christian is a lawyer who owns a white-shoe firm, while Riggs is a professional photographer and possibly the prolific creator of a few new STDs. Christian brought his wife, Arya, along.

“We’re so sorry for your loss.” Arya gathers me into a hug, refusing to let go. It is more than Grace has done in the past ten days. Then again, Arya is an actual well-rounded human capable of sympathy. Grace is a female version of me. Which makes the ordeal even more peculiar, because she’s been all torn up about Doug’s death out of nowhere.

“It’s fine. We weren’t close. Where’s the baby?” I pull away from her, looking around. Arya gave birth some months ago to a pink, screaming thing who looks like a bald bookkeeper. Quietly, and only to myself, I can admit I want what Christian has with Arya, perhaps because I know it could never happen.

“The baby has a name.” Christian’s eyebrows pull together. “It’s Louie. And he’s home, with the sitter. You thought we’d bring him to a wake?”

“I didn’t think about him at all,” I admit coldly. “I was just making conversation.”

Christian eyes me with exasperation. “Mingling is not your forte, buddy. Stick to making money.”

“Why weren’t you close?” Arya puts an encouraging hand on my arm. “You and your father.”

“Good luck with getting a confession out of this guy,” Riggs snorts out, raking a hand over his golden hair in slo-mo. “Ars is not the talk-about-it type. I’m gonna go hit the bar. Not that I’m not interested in your sob story, buddy, but .?.?. oh, wait. That’s right. I’m not interested in it.” He winks and swaggers to the other side of the room.

I wouldn’t put it past him to chase tail here. Riggs is shameless in his pursuit of women as if he just found out about their existence last month.

“It’s a client.” Christian lifts his phone in the air, indicating an incoming call. “And not a happy one. I’ll be right back.”

“Well?” Arya continues staring at me intently.

I hitch a shoulder up. “My father and I hadn’t seen eye to eye.”

“Since when?” She tilts her head sideways.

“Conception.” I let out a wry laugh. “He made sure I remembered he only married my mother because she was knocked up with me. As if sperm-me escaped from his balls in the dead of the night and found my way between her legs. No personal responsibility taken. When my so-called mother died, he married his ex-girlfriend not even two years later. Supposedly they’d been having an affair throughout his brief marriage. But that’s all right, I’ve been hearing Patrice wasn’t anything to write home about in the parenting department either.”

I sound as bitter as a pint of Guinness. Truth is, I don’t give two shits about my no-show parents. I just want her to do a U-turn from the conversation and stick to safe topics, like the weather.

Arya nods. “Sounds like he was a piece of work. I can relate. Loving someone who doesn’t deserve our love is the greatest punishment one could endure.”

A sardonic smile touches my lips. “Remind me why we love people by blood connection and not merit?”

Arya considers my question. “Because humanity wouldn’t survive otherwise. People are generally not very endearing,” she says matter-of-factly. “Look, I know you’re not feeling the grief now. Things are too raw, too hot to process. Maybe you never will. And I know we’re strangers, for the most part. But as someone who’s had a very complex relationship with her father, I just want you to know—if you ever need to talk to someone .?.?.” She puts a hand on my arm. “That someone could be me. I will understand and never judge.”

“I appreciate it.” And I do. I would have liked to fall for a woman like Arya. Strongheaded, smart, and compassionate. Someone who is the head of a charity in her spare time. Tragically, I’m in the market only for one egocentric nymph.

“How’s the PR business going?” I change the subject.

“Great.” Arya smiles. “I’m never out of a job, because people are never out of trouble.”

“And the charity you run?” I forgot what it was about. Something with children. Christian doesn’t usually ask for favors, which means I am going to need to attend the stupid charity gala she throws every year.

Arya opens her mouth to answer me just as Riggs swaggers his way back with wine, hands Arya and me glasses, and takes a sip from his. “Is the girl talk over? Is Ars ready to purchase his first training bra?”

Arya gives him a playful shove. “Grow up, Riggs.”

He makes a face, something between horrified and disgusted. “Not a chance in the world, ma’am.”

“Are we taking bets on Arsène growing a heart in this hollow chest of his?” Christian reappears from the veranda, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Close.” Riggs chugs his wine like it’s Gatorade. “Your wife just told me to grow up.”

Christian plants a kiss on Arya’s forehead. “We’ll land on the sun sooner.”

“Riggs would probably be the idiot to say yes to going there to take pictures,” I point out. Laughter rings in the air.

I’m glad they’re here. My core support group. The people I confide in. We grew up together. Fought the odds together. And won together.

From the corner of my eye I spot Alice Gudinski, the spiritual godmother of Christian, Riggs, and me.

“Came all the way from Florida as fast as I could.” She breezes toward us and kisses both my cheeks. She is wearing a flowery, colorful dress and looks like an exotic bird, as opposed to someone attending a funeral. She clutches me close, whispering in my ear, “To tell you good riddance. That old fart didn’t deserve you as a son. I hope you know that.” She pats my back in a gesture more motherly than Miranda ever offered me.

“Hello to you, too, Alice.” Christian chuckles beside her. “Forgot your manners?”

She turns to hug and kiss him too. “Outgrew them when I became a widow. Life’s too short to be a well-behaved lady.”

A-fucking-men.

The pianist begins playing “Friends in Low Places.” At my request. Not only is it apt now that Douglas is worm food, but I also know how much my father despised country music. It’s my tongue-in-cheek farewell.

“Christian, Riggs, Alice, so nice of you to show your respects.” Grace parts the throngs of people, approaching us. She is wearing an off-shoulder black dress and a dramatic eyeliner. She looks impeccable even in grief.

In the ten days since my father passed away, Grace has been acting like a ghost of her former self. She took days off, which I thought she was physically incapable of doing. Most days, she didn’t leave bed before noon. I know there’s more to her behavior than Douglas, and the only reason I’m not pressing for information is because I’m letting things play out organically to see where her mind’s at.

Grace reaches to shake both my friends’ hands, then pivots to Arya on her pointy heels.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Christian’s new girlfriend, right?”

Arya smiles, letting the intentional insult roll off her back. “You can call me Arya. Or Christian’s wife. I’m not picky.”

“My bad.” Grace lets out a throaty chuckle. “Understandably, I’m a bit too preoccupied these days to keep up with your little gang.”

I remind myself that this woman is perfect for me. For multiple reasons. All of them practical and hardheaded. We have the same taste, the same values, the same wants. Christian has Arya, and look—they’re happy. As happy as his miserable ass can be, I suppose. My stepsister and I can have that too. Or at least a fucked-up version of it.

Yes, Grace can be obnoxious, but so can I. Conquering Grace’s heart has always been my end goal. A few vulgar remarks to my friends aren’t gonna change that.

“Sorry for your loss,” Christian tells Grace in a voice that indicates he couldn’t be happier she’s suffering. All three of my friends know what Grace did to me when we were kids. None of them have found any redeemable qualities in her current, adult version.

“Thank you. It was so horrible for me.” Grace clutches her pearls.

“For Arsène, too, I bet,” Arya points out.

“Of course.” Grace waves flippantly. “It’s just that .?.?. well, Doug and I had been really close. We had something special, you know?”

“If I had a penny for every time a leggy woman in this room said those words .?.?.” Riggs chuckles behind his wineglass. “Including your mother, now that I think of it.”

Alice lets out a rowdy laugh. Arya joins her.

“Because that’s what you need.” Arya pins Riggs with a playful glare. “A fatter bank account.”

Riggs is a billionaire who needs more money like Grace needs more diamonds. The best part is that despite his wealth, he lives an appallingly modest life. His lack of need to impress drives him to say things no one else in the room would ever think of uttering. Which is why he’d just handed my girlfriend her ass.

“For shame, Riggs. Not everything is a joke.” Grace withdraws dramatically.

“Get off your high horse, sweet cheeks.” Riggs knocks back his drink. “We both know what drew you to the Corbins, and it’s not their character. No offense, Ars.”

“None taken, asshole.” I raise my drink to him.

“This whole conversation is tasteless and inappropriate.” Grace stares Riggs down. She wants an apology, but that’s never going to happen.

Riggs inclines his head, feigning grief. “My apologies, Grace. Please, tell me more about appropriateness. There’s no one I wish to get a lecture from more than a woman who fucks her stepbrother.”

“Hmm.” Christian swirls his drink, looking into it. “Definitely been to more traditional funerals in my lifetime, but I prefer this one. Pretty action packed.”

Grace’s face reddens. She turns to look at me, expecting me to intervene. “Are you just going to stand there and let him talk to me like that?” she demands.

I smooth out my suit. “I can sit down if you prefer.”

Arya lets out a strangled giggle, and so does Alice.

“Well, thanks for coming. It is appreciated.” Grace turns around, fuming, then stomps her way back to her mother and a cluster of her friends.

Christian elbows me, gesturing with his drink toward her. “Remind me what you see in her again?”

“Beauty. Elegance. Lack of submission.”

“You know who also fits this bill?” Alice yawns. “A cheetah, and I wouldn’t share a bed with one.”

“She puts the ass in nasty.” Riggs waxes poetic, plucking another drink from a tray nearby.

I watch Grace’s shapely calves as she swaggers off. “That’s a feature, buddy. Not a bug.”

“I can’t believe this is coming from me, but you’re going to regret checking that woman’s oil.” Riggs whistles low.

“No better antidote than the poison itself.” I tsk.

“May I remind you she tried to ruin you?” Christian and his poster-ready Clark Kent features darken. “Almost succeeded too. Yet you’re obsessed with her.”

“And obsession”—Arya sinks her upper teeth into her bottom lip—“is a potent poison. It tastes real sweet and can easily be mistaken for love.”

I am well aware that what Grace and I share does not classify as love to most people. But it is big, uninhibited, and everlasting. This is what Christian and Riggs don’t understand—Grace and I never have to settle for friendship with sex, the default state of every couple who’s been together longer than two or three years.

Our sex is always angry, hot, and hostile. Our animosity infinite.

I traded comfort for passion. Safety for desire. Gracelynn Langston is a risky stock, but I’ve always played on the dangerous side.

“I’m not obsessed with her,” I say, dry amusement in my voice. “I’m obsessed with having her. It’s the circumstances that drive this entire operation.”

“You’re wrong,” Arya insists. “The circumstances don’t matter. What matters is you’ll end up being with someone who doesn’t care for you. News flash, Ars—the world is full of people who don’t care for you. So, when choosing your partner, you really want to make sure you find someone who’d be in your corner.”

Riggs massages his jaw. “Sorry to interrupt your TED Talk, but your heartbroken, grieving stepsister is looking mighty happy right now.”

Following Riggs’s gaze, I watch Grace standing next to Chip, Paul, and Pablo. Her colleagues came to show their condolences. Grace laughs at something Chip says, smacking his chest playfully, not a care in the world.

Without meaning to—certainly without wanting to—I find myself scanning the room for Winnifred. If Paul is here, maybe he brought his wife along.

It isn’t that I’m interested in her. I want to see if she is showing a bump. If I was right. I want to see if her blue eyes are still sad and haunted.

As it happens, she isn’t here. Good. Terrific. More alcohol for me.

“Welp, this is boring,” Riggs laments, grabbing an hors d’oeuvre from a floating platter and tossing it into his mouth. “I’m going to try to beat rush hour back to the city.”

“With what car?” Christian asks with exaggerated interest. For all his wealth, Riggs does not possess any items of value. No car, no apartment, not even a fucking staple piece of furniture from IKEA. Whenever he is in town, he crashes either at Christian’s or at my place.

Riggs throws him a half-dazed look. “Right. I bummed a ride with you. Well, I’ll Uber it.”

“No need. I rented a car.” Alice pats his back. “And anyway, I came here to show my respect to Ars, not his father. Which I did. I’ll give you a ride. Corbin, sweetheart, I’ll see you soon.”

“So long, and thanks for the sashimi.” Riggs salutes us.

They trek out of the room. Riggs stops to compliment a few of Grace’s attractive friends on their outfits like we’re in a fashion show. He gets one number and a lot of inappropriate giggles. The man is as careless as a condom wrapper at a frat party. Though chronologically he is thirty-four years old, based on his behavior alone, I wouldn’t give him more than seventeen on a good day. Best of luck to the woman who tries to tame the fucker.

“You need to take care of the Grace situation.” Christian turns to look at me as soon as Riggs and Alice are out of sight. “When shit implodes, no one’s going to help you tidy up.”

“You’re right, it is my shit to clean. So do me a favor and stay out of it.” I clap his back, bowing to his wife. “Lovely seeing you as always, Arya.”

“Didn’t he want to be cremated?” Grace takes off her earrings in front of my en suite bathroom mirror. I live in a skyscraper on Billionaires’ Row. A fourteen-hundred-foot tower overlooking Central Park.

Lounging on the upholstered bench at the foot of my bed, I unlace my loafers. “He did.”

“Why’d you decide to bury him, then?” She materializes from the bathroom, lathering her hands in cream.

“Precisely for that reason.”

I waltz over to my walk-in closet to put my shoes away. Grace falls into bed with a sigh, scrolling through her phone with a bored pout. “You’re petty.”

“And you fucking love it,” I say mildly.

“Do you think he was aware of what was happening to him when he had the stroke?” She sounds pensive.

One could wish.

“Don’t know,” I say instead, plopping on the other side of the bed. I start undoing my shirt buttons. “Don’t care.”

“Do you think he thought about us? The few seconds before he died?”

Though I’m unhappy about Douglas passing away—it is never good news when someone in your vicinity pegs out—I don’t understand why Grace is trying to humanize the man.

“Maybe.” I bristle. “Why does it matter?”

“Oh, no reason. It’s just that, you know .?.?.” She drops her phone on the mattress, whipping her head toward me. “Mom said Doug left something for me in his will.”

I still, my fingers pausing around one of the buttons. The air between us crackles with silent competition; I consider my next words, knowing we’ve started a brand-new mental chess game.

“I hadn’t realized Miranda and Douglas were in touch.”

She presses against me. Her hands lace over my back, kneading it in a massage.

“They were. They were in talks of reconciliation. Doug had been signaling to her that he was tired of his meaningless girlfriends, and you know how Mom broke things off with Dane not too long ago.” She watches me closely for a reaction. Our imaginary swords are still tucked away, our fingers itching to yield them. “But I’m not sure how serious they were.”

“That’s very convenient.” I smirk.

“What are you insinuating?” She rubs at my back.

“Nothing.” I push her away, let my shirt slip off my shoulders, and toss it at the foot of the bed. “We’ll see if he made some last-minute changes in his will.”

I don’t care one iota about Douglas’s money. I make enough on my own. What I do care about is Miranda getting her claws on something she doesn’t deserve. Grace too. They’d been loitering around him for scraps for decades.

“I’m getting a drink.” I exit the bedroom and stroll to the living room. I pour myself two fingers of whiskey. Sip it, one shoulder propped on the wall, glowering at the Central Park view.

Douglas fucking me over with a last-minute will before kicking the bucket is a valid possibility. He liked Grace well enough. Hell knows what he felt for Miranda. They’d had their ups and downs. But me? I’d always been a bone in his throat. My indifference toward him, toward his wealth, paired with my financial and mental independence always made him feel emasculated and unimportant.

Then again, I am his biological son. Doug always cared about keeping the fortune in the family.

Grace’s hands crawl over my chest from behind, splaying over the dark hair.

Her naked body presses against my shirtless frame.

Her tits are hot, her nipples erect. She nibbles on the side of my neck, licking and biting softly. Her breasts feel heavy. Has she finally put on some weight?

“Come to bed, you big grump,” she purrs into my ear, nipping on the shell of it.

I stare at the bottom of my glass of whiskey. “Sell it to me, sis.”

She cups my crotch from behind. I’m hard. She drags her hand higher, pushes it into my pants, and closes her fist around my shaft.

“Jerk you off?”

I put my whiskey down on a nearby table, catch her wrist, and tug her to stand in front of me.

I flip her around like she is a rag doll, bend her over a side table, grab one of her hips, and use my free hand and teeth to rip a condom wrapper. I always have condoms handy in my pocket.

I’m inside her within seconds. She is soaked.

I ride her from behind, closing my eyes, remembering all those times.

When she stabbed me in the back.

When she wronged me.

When she took what was mine and taunted me with it.

So much for having the blissful fucking fairy tale others have.

Grace finishes first. She always does. Nothing turns her on more than knowing she is getting dicked by the man she loathes the most.

I come a few minutes after. Yanking the condom off on my way to the bathroom, I pass by a floor-to-ceiling mirror in the hallway and pause.

I am extremely athletic. I play tennis six times a week. I’m relatively young. Handsome enough, and wealthier than anyone has business to be.

I can find a decent woman. The Arya type. A compassionate, smart, attractive companion whose lifelong wish isn’t to see me burn in hell. And yet Christian and Riggs are right. The only woman I have eyes for is my poisonous, fickle stepsister.

“This was good, wasn’t it?” she asks when I exit the bathroom.

I nod. “Wanna see a movie?”

I need to decompress after the wake.

“Actually, I’m gonna work on the balcony for a bit.” Grace is unplugging her laptop from its charger in my bedroom. “While the weather’s still nice and all.”

We never share a bed for more than sleep and sex. Never watch movies together. Go to museums, picnics, vacations.

Never do anything that is remotely couple-like.

“It’s fine, I have my own projects to tend to.” I make my way to my office and close the door.

It is time to call Dad’s estate lawyer and see what hell he brewed for me before he died.