A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

33

I needed an escape plan.One that didn’t include me having to interact with the man who’d ruined my life at eighteen.

According to the most recent update from Alice, the main house was currently a frenzy of hired staff setting up for the big party tomorrow. And since the weather was so “uncharacteristically nice for this time of year,” it didn’t sound like their group was too keen on moving indoors anytime soon.

These updates from Alice were the only reason I’d let Adrien live this long. It really wasn't easy. He kept offering to have me airlifted out of the front yard.

“I've got a helicopter on standby,” he said at one point, tapping away at his phone. “Never mind. Pilot says there’s enough room to land, so you can just get in.”

I’d always had my suspicions that too much money made people crazy. This confirmed it.

I ignored him as my frustration and impatience boiled over, and stormed back into the bedroom we’d been using so I could change into the single pair of jeans and crumpled long-sleeved tee that hadn’t been in the laundry bag Adrien had handed over to his mother this morning. I shut the door in his face when he tried to follow me.

“I can fix this. Can you please just talk to me?”

I threw on the clothes, bunched my hair into a messy ponytail, swiped on some deodorant, and stormed back out with my heart hammering in my throat.

Adrien was still standing outside the room when I tore out of it. “Give me ten minutes. I just need you to listen.”

Right. Except he could spend an entire lifetime inventing a myriad of elaborate excuses for why he’d done what he’d done, and it wouldn’t make a difference. I wouldn’t believe a word that came out of his lying mouth.

I shoved past him, heading straight for the front door. It opened exactly one inch before his hand pressed it shut. It was official. The man had a death wish.

“Talk to me.”

I whipped around, glowering up at him with my fists heavy at my sides. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Adrien. We’ve been talking nonstop for a week and everything you’ve said up to this point has apparently been total bullshit!”

“That’s not true. If you’d just let me explain—”

“Adrien, listen to me carefully,” I ground out through my rising anxiety and frustration. “I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care if you have more excuses or sob stories. It’s not going to change a damn thing. So do us both a favor and fuck the fuck off!”

He didn’t stop me this time when I ripped the door open, but ten seconds into my sneakers pounding against the stone pathway, his shadow began to trail behind me like an imprinted duckling, following my every turn and swivel. I marched on, ignoring him, until I could hear the faint chatter of his family enjoying their brunch out on the patio.

My pulse thundered as I slowed down. I couldn’t see them yet, which meant they couldn’t see me. Adrien and I were hidden behind a large, perfectly groomed hedge. Three more steps and we’d reach the corner, in full view of the table and its occupants.

I stopped walking.

Sweat trickled down my back, my fingers beginning to tremble as the nausea kicked in. This was the most anxiety-inducing and uncomfortable situation he could have possibly put me in. As far as the revenge thing was concerned, he’d really outdone himself with this one.

I pressed the base of my palms to my eyes and let out a shaky breath, trying to think. I only had three options at this point.

One, march up to the house and come face-to-face with the people that had ruined my life.

Two, march up to the house with my head down, ignore the whole table, go inside, and leave Adrien behind to do the explaining.

Three, stay here and wait them out. Eventually they’d go inside, and I’d sneak upstairs through the side entrance.

“Ria.”

I jerked away when I felt Adrien’s fingers graze my wrist.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed.

The fact that he was starting to look utterly miserable did nothing to cool my rage. In fact, as far as I was concerned, he had no right to be upset. This was his own doing. He was the one who’dgotten us into this fucking mess.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck.”

Unless his apology could teleport me out of this nightmare, I didn’t want to hear it.

“I can fix this if you just— What are you doing?”

But I’d already turned the corner.

I was going to bolt into the house. It was the best option out of the three. Not only did it get me out of here faster, but having to explain my behavior to his family would keep Adrien preoccupied while I grabbed my stuff.

My lungs grew too big for my ribs as the carefree chatter and laughter became more prominent, Adrien hot on my tail.

Just don’t look up. Whatever you do, do not make eye contact.

Julie spotted us first, seconds after I turned the corner.

“Ria! Addy!” she called out. I could see her begin to wave in my peripherals.

Keep your head down. Do not engage.

“I’m so happy you guys decided to join us. Come, come.”

Stay strong. You’re less than twenty feet away.

The door was right there. I just needed to—

“Ariana?”

His voice spider-crawled up my spine, making my shoulders hunch instinctively. My feet stuttered.

Don’t look up. Please, please don’t look up.

“Ariana Sanchez?”

I looked up.

Eight pairs of eyes gazed up at me from the long, extravagantly adorned table, but my attention immediately cut to him. Joshua Motherfucking Goldman.

“You two know each other?” Julie asked.

Beside her, Alice sipped her tea, brows arching.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Josh asked, his tone on the rude side of accusatory.

He was dressed exactly how I would have expected. Fitted silver suit. Six-figure watch. Blonde waves tousled away from his sharp, handsome features. He screamed money, privilege, success, stolen dreams.

I’d knownwhat to expect, but it still ripped open the wound in the deepest, darkest pit of my soul, poured salt on it, and set it ablaze.

Life really wasn’t fucking fair, was it?

Josh’s steel gaze flicked to a movement behind me. Adrien, I assumed.

“What’s going on? What’s she doing here?” The question came from the middle-aged man sitting across the table from Josh. His father—Kenny Goldman.

“I don’t understand. How do you all know each other?” Julie asked, her smile flickering. The conversation was already starting to go in circles.

I recognized the shift in him before Josh even opened his maw and managed to steel myself for the bite. “Ariana’s father used to clean the toilets at our high school.” His eyes gleamed, that vicious mouth of his curling into an all-too-familiar condescending sneer.

Heads twisted in his direction, shoulders tensed. Gampy visibly bristled, his white brows ramming together with disapproval.

“Watch your fucking tone, Goldman.” Adrien stepped closer, his presence behind me growing broader.

Josh didn’t pay him any attention. He’d already locked in on his prey, there was no letting it go now.

“I heard the news,” he said. “Car crash, right? After a night shift?”

There was a ringing in my head. Somewhere near my left ear. The outskirts of my vision were beginning to blur, the air growing too thick to breathe.

“It’s too bad,” he went on. “Nice guy. Makes you think, eh?”

“Josh, enough,” Kenny cut in. “Can someone explain what the hell she’s doing here? Did you hire her as part of the staff?”

I was rooted in place, my throat constricted. I knew I had to move, knew that I was less than ten steps away from the door. But I couldn’t seem to get my body to follow the orders it was receiving from my brain.

Suddenly I was too aware of myself—my disheveled appearance, the deer-in-headlights expression, my lack of spine.

I was, in a word, pathetic.

There was a woman sitting to Josh’s left, the impressive diamond on her left hand winking at me.

Mandy was unsurprisingly lovely. Ethereal and elegant. Unlike me, her hair was not bunched into a haphazard ponytail that spilled out in all the wrong places. She was not in jeans, nor was she wearing a somewhat-crumpled shirt with growing sweat stains.

No. Mandy was wearing an off-shoulder summer dress with frills and flowers galore, dark hair spilling down at back in a silky waterfall that had never even heard of the word frizz.

She looked exactly like the type of woman you’d expect to see on Josh’s arm—the type of woman you’d expect to see on Adrien’s.

“They’re engaged.”

Anthony’s voice jerked me out of the depths of my own head. My lashes fluttered, cheeks bruising.

“We were going to wait until they joined us to share the news,” Julie said politely. “It’s their announcement to make, and we— Ria, honey, are you all right? Do you need to sit?”

“Who’sengaged?” Josh.

Warm fingers grazed the small of my back, a gentle nudge toward the door. My feet remained cemented to the spot.

“Adrien and Ria.” Anthony.

You could hear a pin drop. For what felt like three full karmic lifetimes, no one said a word.

Josh’s disbelieving gaze slid an inch to my left. “You’re joking.”

He was ignored.

Adrien’s full hand was now splayed across the dip of my back. He leaned down to my ear, whispered, “You’re okay. Come on.”

I didn’t know how his voice managed to reconnect the wiring between my brain and my legs, but it did. I took one stiff step forward, then another.

Adrien said something to the table, but I was already inside the house, and the door had already clattered closed behind me.

My muscles loosened, built momentum. I ran up the stairs.

Fuck the clothes. Just grab the suitcase and get the fuck out of here.

But my blood was roaring too loudly in my ears by the time I reached the bedroom, and I had to squat down, put my head between my knees. It felt like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut.

“Makes you think, eh?”

Acid boiled in my stomach, pain stabbed at my throat, behind my eyes. I was going to throw up.

“Hey.”

I bolted upright. Bad idea. My head spun, my vision darkened, stars spotted Adrien’s pinched features, and gravity tilted. I stumbled back a few steps and almost tumbled to the floor when my foot snagged the edge of my suitcase.

He caught me before I could crash, one arm linked around my waist, the other braced on the wall to steady us.

“Jesus,” he breathed. An indent of feigned concern etched itself between his dark brows as he studied me.

Like he actually fucking cared.

Like this wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted.

“Let me go,” I ordered.

“Sanchez, you’re white as—”

“Let me go!” I shoved at his hard chest with my forearms, my back slumping against the wall when he reluctantly released me.

I gripped my knees as a bead of sweat slipped down the nape of my neck. I’d had nightmares sweeter than this. My subconscious’s imagination had nothing on Adrien Cloutier’s scheming capabilities. He should have been proud.

He stood two feet away, his fingers twitching in and out of fists like they weren’t sure what to do with themselves.

I straightened. Looked him in the eyes.

“Does this feel good to you?” I asked through the hot coals churning in my throat. I didn’t try to hide it. He deserved to see exactly how much damage he’d done. “You wanted to break me, right? Does it feel good?”

He had the audacity to stand there and look miserable instead of owning up to it.

My breathing slowed, my muscles regaining some of their strength as the hollowness in my chest spread, a familiar numbness taking over.

The back of my head hit the wall.

“You still wanna know why I didn’t go to college?” I asked him. At this point, he deserved to hear the story. Just so he could sleep better at night, knowing how deep he’d cut me with this one. The man had earned it. “Based on the questions you’ve been asking, I’m assuming Josh’s version of our breakup had a few major holes in it, so let me enlighten you.”

He looked like he might say something, but I shook my head, silencing him. It was my turn.

“We dated for six months. I broke it off four weeks before graduation.” I swiped at the corner of my mouth with the back of my shaky wrist as the memories rushed back. “Private school. I was a scholarship student, and my dad worked there as a janitor—that’s how we learned about the scholarship program in the first place.”

Abehill was the best school in the province. It popped out Ivy Leaguers like a gumball machine.

It also had an annual price tag of sixty thousand dollars, but I’d had my greedy sights set on the most competitive law school in the continent, and Abehill was my first step to reaching my goal. It wasn’t just about the education, it was about the connections.

The school was filled with kids from the country’s wealthiest, most influential families. Plus me and the two other scholarship kids, neither of whom were in my year.

“I was a fish out of water there. Spent the first two months eating alone in the library.”

My dad had offered to eat with me every single one of those days, even though I’d set a very strict “pretend like you don’t know me while at school” rule. Because I was a spoiled teenager who cared way too much about what her peers thought of her.

The offer’s always open if you change your mind, he’d Sign back.

I swiped at my wet cheek with a hard fist. What I wouldn’t give to share just one meal with him now.

“Anyways,” I went on, “Josh was my first... friend, I guess. Had two classes together, and one day he asked me to go to the movies with him after school. We started to date, and it was… fine, for the most part. But he was pretty outwardly ashamed of my family’s socio-economic background and grew increasingly disrespectful about it over the course of the relationship. Eventually, I got sick of it, grew a backbone, and broke things off.”

And then everything went to shit.

“He tried to get back together. I refused. He tried some more. I still refused. Then he became mean, belligerent, vindictive. Started messing with my stuff, spreading rumors about me. I had to stop using my locker because he kept putting shit in it.”

Literally. Dog poop, shaving cream, and hair. Every single day for a full week. I kept staying late after school to clean it all out because if I didn’t, my dad would have to. And he didn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire.

“The administration was aware of what was going on, but Josh’s dad was one of the school’s biggest donors at the time, so no one batted an eye.” They would have let the guy get away with murder if it meant the money would keep flowing in. “I ignored him as best I could. At that point, I had less than three weeks left before graduation, and I told myself that I could stand anything for three weeks. The finish line was so close… everything I’d worked for was right there. Hell would’ve had to freeze over before I’d risk losing even an inch of it.”

I lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “And then it did. Hell froze over.”

Adrien hadn’t broken eye contact with me once since I’d started talking. And except for the subtle rising and falling of his chest, he stood motionless, listening intently with his brows furrowed.

“Josh wanted a reaction out of me, and when I wouldn’t give him one, he switched tactics.” My throat was beginning to constrict in that tell-tale, painful way, but I ignored it and pushed through. “I was working on my independent research project in AP Bio when I got the video. Josh and a handful of his buddies had broken into the janitor’s closet and pissed in the mop bucket. The video showed…”

I paused, a breath rattling out of my chest. Ten years later and it still burned.

“My dad was born deaf,” I explained. “He couldn’t hear anything. The video showed the guys mocking and taunting him about their stupid prank. But Dad didn’t know what they were saying, he just saw that they were laughing and smiling, so he… smiled back, and waved at the camera, and…”

My breaths were rushing out of me in short, quick bursts now. I took a fisted sleeve to my face, gave it a punishing swipe.

“I don’t remember it,” I said. “Making the decision. Exams were coming up, I was already stressed and pulling all-nighters, and my dad was… When I was six and he couldn’t afford to buy me the limited-edition lawyer doll I wanted, he hand-sewed the outfit for one of my existing ones. And that’s all I remember thinking about when I ran out of class. The outfit wasn’t perfect, it didn’t fit my doll properly, and even at that age, I could tell he was sad about not being able to af-fford the real thing. But he always tried so h-hard. And I didn’t deserve him. He was the best dad you could… I was just so fucking angry.”

The tears were falling so hard and fast that my hand couldn’t keep up. The world was a smudged and blurred oil painting, and I couldn’t parse out Adrien’s individual features anymore.

I paused long enough for my lungs to settle back down. I thought maybe retelling the story would have gotten easier with time. Apparently not.

“I found the mop bucket before my dad could see what they’d done,” I eventually went on. “Then I dragged it to the school parking lot, smashed Josh’s car window with a brick, and dumped the contents of the bucket onto the driver’s seat.”

And in return, Josh and his dad had ruined my fucking life.

“Your uncle owns one of the biggest law firms in the country. I didn’t stand a chance. Whatever lies Josh fed to his dad about me worked. Kenny promised to bury me for ‘everything I’d done to his son,’ and he did. Charges were pressed, my university admissions were revoked, and I was expelled from school, which rendered my scholarship for the year void. Sixty thousand dollars.”

I patted my eyes dry with my sleeve, sniffling.

Adrien’s expression had tightened with a mixture of disgust and rage, his pulse jutting out of his neck as his breathing grew heavier. And I knew when he put two and two together, because his eyes flared.

For a moment, he was utterly frozen by it. Then his lips peeled apart, and a lungful of air pushed out of him.

“I heard the news. Car crash, right? After a late-night shift?”

“Makes you think, eh?”

Horror. Adrien was horrified.

“Sanchez.” His voice split right down the middle. I had to give it to him, the guy was a great actor.

“It was my fault,” I admitted. Dad was dead because of me. Alba would never admit it out loud, but I knew deep down she blamed me for it too. I knew she’d never forgiven me for it; probably never would. “He took that second job to help pay for the tuition I now owed the school. He was exhausted. Hit a tree. They think he fell asleep for a second behind the wheel, and that was all it took.”

Silence.

I peeled my back from the wall, took a wobbly step forward. “You must be so happy with yourself, huh? Managed to get me right where it hurt.”

His eyes were hard and glassy, his blinks incomplete. “You know that’s not true. I had no idea. Josh—” He cut himself off, swallowing hard. “I swear I didn't know.”

I didn’t give a fuck.

“We’re even,” I whispered, my throat thickening all over again. “You did it, you got me back. I can’t think of anything else you could do at this point to make me feel any more stupid than I already do. Not to mention humiliated, pathetic, naïve… dirty.”

His mouth stuttered, but nothing came out.

“We’re even, so please just… leave me the fuck alone now.”

I didn’t allow myself to dissect his reaction before I brushed past him, quietly gathered my things, and left him standing there, staring down at the carpet.