The Cinderella Arrangement Read online

  “That piece of shit! I cannot believe he did this! Where’s my fucking phone?”

  Looking scared, Will backed away as I barged out of my room, sprinting past a bewildered Jessica, who turned around on Will.

  “What did you do to her?”

  Enraged, Will turned on Jessica. “I didn’t do shit. It was her psycho ex!” He grabbed me. “Natalie, forget it. He will not answer the phone!”

  He was right. It went straight to voicemail. I screamed a long line of obscenities, yelling so hard my throat was raw. Will finally wrenched it out of my hands and closed the phone.

  I lunged for it. “What are you doing? Give it back!”

  Will’s eyes wrinkled with sympathy.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Jessica demanded.

  On edge, Will spun toward her and snapped. “This isn’t any of your fucking business, so stay out of it.”

  “She’s screaming! I think I deserve to know—”

  He gritted his teeth, ignoring Jessica. He took my hand as I collapsed to the floor, crying.

  “Everyone will see: all of my old clients, my former employees, my colleagues. They will all get a notification that my profile was updated. He'll ruin me. That’s what he wants.”

  Jessica marched into my bedroom before I could stop her. Will sprinted toward her and yanked her away from the computer, but not before she let out a horrified gasp.

  “God fucking dammit, didn’t I tell you to mind your own business?” he roared at her.

  Tears of rage filled her eyes, and she didn’t object when Will pulled her out of the room. “Natalie, I’m so sorry.”

  “We need to go to his place.”

  I chewed my thumb. “You have to fucking promise me you won’t hit him. He’s a lawyer.”

  Will’s jaw jutted out. His eyes crackled with electricity and I knew that it would be a struggle for him not to beat the ever-loving shit out of Ben. I had half a mind to let him.

  “Whatever.”

  “Natalie,” Jessica said in a small voice. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Why is that?” he snapped.

  She kept her jaw rigid as she looked at Will. “You both are pissed off and you’ll do something stupid. Just call the police and let them handle it.”

  “The police won’t be able to do shit. It takes days for an investigation like this.”

  I nodded. “Let’s go now.”

  “Natalie, it’s a really bad idea!”

  “Shut up!” I screamed.

  She didn’t fucking understand. Everyone in my professional life would see these photos. I would be surprised if some of them hadn’t blocked me already. Will and I tore out of the apartment, a team of violent, angry energy. Jessica begged me to stop. To think.

  I slammed the car door shut and for once, I didn’t argue when Will sat behind the steering wheel. He was focused on getting to Ben’s house.

  “What’s the prick’s address?”

  I punched it into the GPS and Will sped off, not even waiting for the GPS to calibrate. He lived in Oakland and it would be about half an hour to get there. I pounded my cell phone over and over again, but he wouldn’t pick up.

  “Don’t call him. It’s better if he doesn’t know we’re coming.”

  “That son of a bitch,” I kept repeating. “I can’t believe he would do something like this. It’s just so fucking childish.”

  “I could. Did you read his emails?”

  My eyes narrowed at Will. “Will, when we get there, I don’t want there to be a fight.”

  His fingers tightened over the steering wheel.

  “I want him to grow up and take the photos down. That’s it!”

  “What if he says no?”

  I sputtered. “He has to. He’s a fucking lawyer. I don’t understand this at all. Ben’s not this stupid.”

  “People do stupid things when they’re pissed off.”

  My rage boiled all the way along the highway. I kept cycling through a list of fiery emotions: rage, disappointment, hurt, and betrayal. Did he really think plastering naked pictures of me all over LinkedIn would make him look good? He could lose his career over it. It was such a stupid thing to do.

  The car screeched to a halt in front of Ben’s apartment and my chest felt like a drum. Will got out of the car, looking like he was out for blood. He bounded up the steps and pounded on the door before I could make it up there.

  “Ben!”

  It was weird. He was definitely inside, but he wasn’t answering the door.

  “Your car is out front! Open up!”

  I lost my head and slammed my body into the door, screaming as it flew open. It swung inside and I stumbled over the threshold. He left it open?

  I walked inside and behind me followed a tense looking Will. His eyes darted down the unlit hall.

  “Ben?”

  No answer.

  Swallowing hard, I walked toward the only lit room in the apartment: the kitchen. There was only the sound of the refrigerator humming and our whispers to each other.

  I half-expected to see a dead body, so I was almost relieved when I saw him sitting at the kitchen table. It looked bare without all of my kitchen appliances sitting on the counters. It looked unchanged from the moment I left him over nine months ago, as if preserving it would somehow lengthen the memories he had of me.

  My ex-fiancé looked up at me, an unfathomable expression stirring in his eyes.

  “What are you doing in my house?”

  “I think you know what the fuck we’re doing here.”

  The blonde man’s face twisted as Will stepped into the kitchen. They were opposites juxtaposed against each other. Light vs. Dark.

  “The fucking photos, Ben. I want them taken down. Take them down and leave me alone, and I won’t press charges.”

  “The fuck you won’t!” Will burst out. “Remove them or I’ll remove your fucking balls and boil them in motor oil, you pathetic—”

  “Will!”

  Ben smiled back at me, unperturbed by the insults. He had an infuriating look of superiority on his face. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. You should be more worried about whether I’ll press charges against you.”

  “That’s cute,” Will spat.

  “For what?”

  “Breaking and entering. Trespassing. Take your pick.”

  My body went hollow. Oh, fuck. I didn’t dare look at Will; I kept staring at Ben. Please just do the right thing.

  Will lunged forward, but I grabbed his jacket and wrenched back.

  “No! That’s just what he wants!” I turned toward Ben. “The door was open, Ben. There was no break-in. Why are you being so childish about this?”

  “Listen, fuckstick. Even if you took them down, I’ve got screen caps of them. I thought you might pull some kind of bullshit. I bet if the cops traced the IP address for the last login on her profile, it would lead back here.”

  Or maybe not.

  Ben cocked his head, still wearing that smile that made me want to vomit. “To be honest, I was curious about meeting you,” he said to Will. “You’re the one replacing me. The more I looked into you, the more I didn’t understand why Natalie would be into you.”

  Will laughed. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “You’re just a foul-mouthed, spoiled, rich boy with a body count. Three people died in that car accident.”

  A ringing silence followed his words. He savored the pain on William’s face. For once, he didn’t have a retort.

  “You’re unbelievable,” I told Ben.

  I tugged Will’s jacket. Will looked ready to pounce.

  “Let’s just go. Jessica was right, this was a waste of time.”

  “What’s the matter?” he goaded as we turned around to leave. “Scared to lose in front of your girlfriend?”

  Will pulled against me to sneer at Ben. “I’ve already won. Natalie is mine and you’re just a little bitch who can’t even get it up.”

  “—Will
!”

  Holy fucking Christ this is going from bad to worse.

  I clapped my hands to my face. I had told none such thing to Will, but it was true and Will had somehow guessed it.

  The chair fell over as Ben stood upright, all 6’2” and 180 pounds vibrating with rage. The leaner, smaller Will was itching for a fight. His light, kind eyes narrowed at me, his face purpling. I could see a small gleam of hurt behind the rage.

  “You told him our personal shit?”

  I opened my mouth angrily but William beat me to the punch. “She told me nothing. I guessed that you were a boring, lame asshole whose cock didn’t work. Guess I was right.”

  Ben threw a disgusted look at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that. What right do you have to judge me? You’re the one who put all my naked pictures online and tried to destroy my career. Fuck you, Ben.”

  I took Will’s hand and turned around, not before Ben’s heavy footsteps launched across the kitchen. I fell to the side as William pushed me away and I screamed as I fell on the floor.

  Ben’s huge body collided with William’s smaller one. The table and chairs went flying as he knocked them aside. Will ducked as Ben’s ham-sized fist came swinging at him.

  “No! Stop fighting!”

  William sank his fist under Ben’s ribs and the bigger man grunted. The blonde man slammed Will into the wall, cracking the plaster and knocking the wind out of his chest. He caught a vicious blow on the side of his head and Will stumbled, stunned.

  I sprinted forward and kicked the backs of Ben’s knees and he fell instantly. Will grabbed a fistful of his hair and kneed him in the face. There was a sickening crack and a gush of blood.

  I screamed and knelt to Ben’s side.

  “HELP ME!” Ben screamed through a fountain of blood. “HELP!”

  “Shut up!”

  Ben used his shirt to stem the flow from his nose and I dashed across the kitchen to get paper towels. Fuck, this couldn’t have gone any worse.

  Will was unsympathetic. “Calm down, you big baby.”

  “Will, that isn’t helping.”

  Two male voices shouted into the apartment. “Police! What's going on in here?”

  Will made threatening moves toward Ben, but he continued to scream.

  “Help!"

  The cops raised their guns as they entered the kitchen. I threw my hands in the air as they look at Will and I.

  Oh, Shit.

  “He attacked me!” Ben moaned. “They broke into my house and he attacked me!”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” The color drained from Will’s face as the cops whipped out handcuffs.

  He lured us here to do this. He knew this would happen. A wave of nausea made me double over.

  “Want to press charges?”

  His thick arm pointed at Will. “Just against him.”

  What? “Ben, what the hell are you doing?”

  Ben’s thick, bloodied face stretched into a grotesque smile. I collapsed on one of the still standing chairs as Will’s wrists were handcuffed together. “Officers, you don’t understand. This is a complete misunderstanding. He’s not the one who committed the crime!”

  The cop looked tired with us already. “You can follow us to the station and file a report, but I have to arrest him.”

  “Tell them the truth!” I screamed at Ben, who was sitting still on the floor, clutching the handful of paper towels to his face.

  He just smiled.

  Sickened, I raced to the foyer where the cops were hauling him away. “Will! I’ll get you out of there! Don’t worry.”

  Looking sick, Will nodded at me and ducked inside the back seat of the car. I descended the steps, watching his face behind the window. Slowly, the blue and red lights blurred together, and I wiped my eyes.

  “If you come inside, I’ll call a cab for you. I have to call a tow truck for that asshole’s car.”

  I spun around and saw Ben standing at the top of the staircase. “Why are you doing this? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  Something flickered in his blue eyes, maybe there was a bit of regret buried somewhere inside there. Every part of me was radiating heat. I don’t think I’d ever been so angry in my life. I didn’t understand how someone could be so petty, to set up my boyfriend to be arrested because he was jealous.

  “You never used to talk like that, Nat. What happened to you?”

  “Are you disappointed that I’ve finally learned to stand up to your bullshit?”

  He disgusted me. I wished Will hit him harder. I pulled myself to the top of the staircase and my knee shot upwards, hitting him straight in the groin.

  All six feet of him crumpled to the ground, and I laughed with savage pleasure as he cradled his balls.

  “That’s for posting naked pictures of me on my LinkedIn. I will sue you and you’ll be disbarred. You’ll never practice law again.”

  I wasn’t sure he could hear me. He was still rolling on the ground, holding his balls. I walked down the steps, leaving him there to scream in pain while I opened my phone and called Jessica. Something inside me said that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  10

  It was past midnight, and I was walking alone on the streets of Oakland. It was almost as though I witnessed someone being shot. The numbness that gripped my head wouldn’t let me think about anything but placing one foot in front of the other. I couldn't believe what had just happened.

  Ben had lost his mind. There was no other explanation for why he would do something so petty, but this wasn’t just the action of a jealous ex. No, he had leapt far beyond jealousy and had crossed into creepy as fuck. Ben wasn’t a bastard when we were together, but somehow he became one when we were apart. Will was carted off to jail because of me, and now I’d dragged Luke into this mess.

  Un-fucking believable.

  My pocket buzzed, and I slipped my hand inside for the phone.

  “Hey.”

  Jessica’s voice was a nervous bubble of energy. “Natalie? Where are you? We’re stopped near Ben’s apartment.”

  “Just keep driving. I walked about a mile.”

  “Natalie! You shouldn’t be walking alone in Oakland!” She said something to Luke. “We’ll be there soon.”

  “Okay,” Nothing worse could happen at this point.

  Luke’s car rolled up next to me and he honked to get my attention. Jessica popped her blonde head out of the window and beckoned. I got into the car and stared ahead as they both turned their heads to look at me.

  It was like swimming through water. Every sight and sound distorted into confusing messages I couldn’t understand. I asked Luke to repeat what he said three times before I understood.

  “Did Ben hurt you?”

  “No, but he hit Will.” A horrible image of Ben’s fist slamming against Will’s head replayed over and over in my mind. “It’s all my fault. Will was just defending himself.” I looked into Luke’s blue eyes. “I’m sorry for all this.”

  “Natalie, you’ve nothing to be sorry about. You did nothing wrong.”

  “Yeah, but…” my voice cracked, and I bent my head to the ground.

  “What happened?”

  I told them everything in a robotic tone; the severity of his actions hadn’t hit me yet. From the backseat, I watched Luke’s face tighten as I finished the story.

  “Someone needs to contact Will’s father…and his publicist, if he hasn’t already. This is really bad.”

  My throat squeezed. “But he did nothing wrong!”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s between the word of a criminal defense lawyer and a man who has had trouble in the past with the law.”

  Shit. He was right.

  “Once this gets out, it’ll be a circus. Uncle Dominic will be livid.”

  “Shouldn’t you call him?” Jessica asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m in a lawsuit with the man. Can’t.”

  She held out her hand. “Give me the phone. I’ll call him.�
�

  “I’m sure Will already has.”

  The rest of the car ride passed as silently as it could with me trying to stifle my crying. Would he hate me for getting him into this mess?

  When Luke parked the car, he turned around in his seat. “Just stay here. I’ll get him.”

  I nodded, my eyes still full of tears. Jessica and I waited in silence, both of us yawning in exhaustion.

  What time is it? Three or four in the morning?

  At last, two tall figures left jail and my pulse raced as I made out Will’s outline. Was he angry? Was he relieved? Not being able to take it anymore, I got out of the car and walked toward him, trying to see his face in the darkness.

  Luke kept glancing at his cousin as if wondering the same thing. Luke walked away from his side when he saw me standing there, waiting for Will.

  The side of his face was red, but his eyes were bright with the manic energy that always drew me toward him. Will looked more alive than ever. Blinded by tears, I stopped in front of him and stared at his tan shoes. I heard Luke’s low voice talking to Jessica in the car.

  “Will, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve gotten you into so much trouble.”

  The scrape of his shoe against the concrete brought him closer and then he pulled me into his chest. I wrapped my arms around him, dissolving into tears. Will stroked my head and the gentleness in his hands made me cry harder. I didn’t deserve it.

  “Why are you crying? I’m the one who was arrested.”

  I felt the bump of his lips on the top of my head.

  “Natalie, it’s not your fault. I hated leaving you there at his apartment.”

  My face burned against his chest. “I kneed him in the balls after you left.”

  The vibrations of his laughter shook through my body. I felt a little lighter.

  “You crazy girl. You shouldn’t have done that, he could have hurt you.”

  “He wouldn’t.” My mouth went dry. How would I even know? Ben had done things I never thought he was capable of.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Will was smiling as if it would be all right, but I wasn’t sure it would be all right ever again.

  Billionaire Will Pardini arrested for battery, B&E in Oakland - Pardini sons out of control?

  Another article included a picture of Will waving to the camera as he was escorted in handcuffs to jail.