Arranged

  “I know,” I sigh. “But I don’t know what to really believe anymore.”

  “Your heart?”

  I laugh. I can hear Jen smirking, almost.

  “You could ask Lee personally. Or confront Farlon.”

  “I said something really bad to Lee. He probably doesn’t want to talk to me ever again,” I laugh, but this time it’s not a nice laugh. “And besides, maybe this is good. I was too wrapped up in Lee. Now I can focus on pulling money out of thin air so I can stay here.”

  “Student loan?” Jen offers.

  “Yeah, that’s sounding pretty good right about now.”

  “What about your family’s business, though?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. Thanks for listening.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’m here whenever you need me, girl.”

  When we hang up, I call Brett. He sounds apologetic, but I know it’s an act. I ask him when the will defaults the money to me. He says when I turn twenty-one. That’s a year and then some from now. By then, Mom and Dad’s business will be long gone. I feel like I’m failing them. I feel like I’m failing everyone, including myself. On top of the hole Lee ripped in me, the glass shards of regret and failure dig in.

  On Sunday, I take over Kory’s shift. It’s a beautiful day that doesn’t match my mood at all; golden sun slanting through the glass windows of the bistro. The smell of baking bread wafts from the kitchen. Pierre doesn’t come into the kitchen during the day – he gets up in the wee hours of the morning, makes all the pastries for the day, and then leaves. But today, he’s baking something cinnamony, and it smells wonderful.

  “Mon petite cherie!” He calls. “Come back here for one moment!”

  I’m intimidated by Pierre, not just because he’s very loudly and rudely (in the best way) French, but because he’s never asked me to come into the kitchen before. The counters and utensils gleam stainless silver, and a huge dough mixer is working furiously. Pierre, in a pinstripe shirt and tight jeans under a white apron, shoots me a smile. His tiny mustache twitches with his words.

  “You are very quiet today, non? Usually you are chatting it up with the customers.”

  I shuffle my feet. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bah.” He waves his hand. “I didn’t mean for you to apologize. It was an observation. Pass me that bowl, if you please.”

  I pass him a stainless bowl with a cinnamon-sugar mixture in it. He dumps it in the dough and sighs happily.

  “There is nothing better than watching something transform. Bread goes from sticky dough to beautiful gold-brown wonder. Soupy muffin mix becomes fluffy and precious. It is a very nice thing to watch.”

  I nod. Pierre watches me with his dark eyes.

  “This can be true of people as well. Watching the people you care about grow is another great gift. Sometimes, it is just enough to watch. You do not have to take part. Sometimes just watching is enough for the person who is growing, too. People like knowing someone is there for them, watching them. People can become even better when they have that confidence inside of them.”

  He strides over and grabs a stick of butter chopped into tiny pieces, and adds it to the mix.

  “I think the people who love you must be very proud.”

  “They aren’t. Trust me,” I say.

  “You’ve grown much from the girl I first hired. At the beginning, I was not going to hire you, but rather another person. Do you know why I decided on you?”

  I shake my head. Pierre pats me on the shoulder.

  “When you told me your dream of owning a bakery, your eyes lit up like fireworks. You became a different person, full of passion. I caught a glimpse of the person you would become using that passion. I thought to myself; ‘This girl is quiet and a little shy. I would like to see this girl grow into a great baker. Into a great person’.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not a great person. I’m terrible.”

  “But you are changed. Little by little we become greater. We meet people and they change us, like chemical reactions, like yeast making dough rise. Without people we stay flat. Without sad and happy experiences, we stay the same. But by experiencing many things, we become greater. It is our yeast.”

  He flashes me that smile again, and shoos me out of the kitchen when a customer rings the bell. And for some strange reason, the weight in my heart is lifted a little. I can smile, even if it’s small, timid, bruised smile.

  He’s right.

  No matter what, everything that happened helped me learn. Helped me change. Helped me grow.

  ~~~

  LEE

  ~~~

  Kiera never sees it coming.

  She doesn’t see me sitting on the doorstep of her fancy mansion in the heart of Beverly Hills, waiting for her to get home from shopping or nail salons or whatever pathetic place she spends her father’s money at. The gardener didn’t even look twice at me as he mowed the lawn, and the maid recognized me and offered me lemonade. I declined as politely as I could and asked to wait on the marble steps of the front door.

  She pulls up in her black Jaguar, circling the gravel roundabout. The headlights pass over my face so I know she’s seen me. She pretends like she hasn’t when she locks the car and turns around, blonde hair let loose and an impossibly short emerald dress on. Her blues eyes feign surprise.

  “Lee! What’s the occasion?”

  “Cut the bullshit,” I snarl. “You know exactly why I’m here.”

  “Well, I assume it has something to do with my scintillating good looks.” She smiles. “Do you know that word? Scintillating? I suppose you don’t, you got to UCLA on a swimming scholarship, whereas I had to actually study to get into Stanford.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Your dad’s rep got you in there.”

  “Money doesn’t hurt,” She agrees, and pinches my cheek. I bat her hand away. “But sweetie, you don’t get into Stanford Law without at least some brains.”

  “Brains you use for your own sneaky good.”

  “Let’s go inside,” Kiera sighs. “I need to change into something…more comfortable.”

  The way she drags the words out oozes the implication of sex. I sneer, but she pretends not to hear it. The entrance hall is all marble and pretentious gilded staircases. A fountain burbles in the center, carved with cherubs and dolphins. Her father’s a celebrity lawyer – one of the best. Every trashed rock star and coke-sniffing diva asks for him first in prison. She skips up the stairs and into her massive bedroom. It looks the same – the same huge bed and walk-in closet stuffed with haute couture.

  “What did you say to Rose?” I demand. Kiera puts her purse down and unzips her dress expertly.

  “Oh, nothing really. Is that her name?”

  “Don’t lie to me,” I snarl. “You know damn well what her name is. You used your daddy’s connections to get info on her, and twisted your claws into her head and now she hates me.”

  “Puh-lease.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s your own fault. Arranged marriages by your grandfathers? A childhood puppy love? What kind of fairy-tale nonsense is that? If anything, I just pointed out to her how stupid the reality was.”

  “You convinced her it was all fake!”

  “She’s a stupid girl unworthy of you, sweetie, if she fell for it.” Kiera laughs, sinewy naked body inching towards me. It’s incredible how little I feel. My dick doesn’t even twitch. Months ago just the sight of Kiera’s thigh was enough to get me to do whatever she wanted. But now I’m repulsed by her. Rose has made me stronger.

  “Leave. Rose. Alone.” I make every word hard. She gets close enough to run her hand over my chest, but I push her away. She sighs and looks at her nails.

  “I never can, Lee. As long as you’re involved with her, I’ll be there to play with her.”

  “Why don’t you get a normal rich girl hobby?” I snarl. “Like shopping, or tennis?”

  “Oh, but this is so much more interesting. I guess you could say I inherited that from my dad. I love
chess. I love people. Why not combine the two? Games and strategy and toying with things I’m not supposed to just make me so…excited.” She grabs at my crotch, but I push her away.

  “For the last fucking time, leave Rose alone!” I snap. Her blue eyes get a devilish glint to them.

  “Fine. On one condition.”

  I wince and grit through my teeth. “What condition?”

  “You tell her the truth.” Kiera glides towards me again, but this time I don’t pull away. She laces her arm around my waist and plays with my belt as she whispers every word. “Tell her the truth. Tell her that your father’s ordered you to marry me, and you just used her as a last-ditch attempt to get away from him.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No!” I push her off. “That’s not what I was doing!”

  “Wasn’t it?” Her voice pitches up. “You and I met at a party your father threw seven months ago in Spain. I fell in love with you, Daddy offered to give your father enough money to pay off his loan sharks if you married me. But no, you didn’t want to do that. You turned down this,” She gestures at her naked body. “For some middle-class bookworm with no body and no experience. But not because you liked her, oh no. That would be too romantic. When her grandpa died and that will came into effect and your father told you about it you wanted to try that. You moved here to try and woo her. You thought that because there were no high-class lawyer daddies involved in it, you could somehow snatch the money and run from your father, from me! But that’s not how this will end. No. I always get what I want, Lee Montenegro, and you are no exception.”

  “Shut up!” I grab her wrists and pin her to the dresser. The wicked gleam in her eye turns lustful again.

  “You were using her to get away from me.”

  “No, it started out like that, but it wasn’t –”

  “An idea just came to me.”

  “I don’t want to hear your shitty ideas!”

  “I’ll leave Rose alone. You won’t have to tell her the truth, you little coward. In fact, I’ll pay off her family’s company problems and her tuition, just like you were planning to do with your end of the money if you married her. That is what you were planning to do, wasn’t it?”

  My face burns red. She laughs and kisses my cheek.

  “How noble. Sacrificing your freedom from your father for hers.”

  “What’s the catch?” I sneer. She smiles.

  “Come closer and I’ll tell you.”

  Chapter Nine

  In Which Lee Montenegro Learns To Hate Me

  The loan office smells like weak coffee and hairspray. I try to smile and look agreeable, even though on the inside I’m terrified and a little sad. The woman who calls my name and leads me to her desk has bright red, curly hair and a nametag that reads; Iris.

  She asks what type of loan I’m interested and explains them to me. I ask for the lowest interest rate and she smiles a smile that tells me she hears that all the time. As she looks up my student number and class schedule, I sneak a glance at my phone – a missed call from Mom. I’ll call her back after this.

  “I’m sorry.” Iris adjusts her glasses. “What classes did you need the loan for?”

  “The ones I signed up for next semester. They should be right there. Economic Analysis, Sociology 303 –”

  “Yes, I see them.” She nods. “But it says here they’re already paid for.”

  “What?”

  She tilts the computer screen to me. There are my classes for next semester, and next to each of them a little green ‘PAID’.

  “Sorry,” I stutter. “It must be a computer glitch. That can’t be right.”

  “That’s your name? And your birthday? And your student number?” She taps the screen. I nod. “Then it’s right. Maybe your parents paid for them and didn’t tell you?”

  “Maybe,” I give a nervous laugh. As I leave the office, I try to keep myself from screaming. It has to be a glitch. I’ll go to the Accounting office and tell them. But if I do, they’ll go back to being unpaid. Should I let the glitch go through? Ignore it and feign ignorance when they finally catch on?

  I sit in the cafeteria with a smoothie and call Mom back. She answers, breathless.

  “Rose! Oh god Rose, you won’t believe it!”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Someone offered on the house!”

  “That’s great!”

  “A nice man and his daughter were driving by and loved it. They offered right there! Oh honey, you should see your father, he’s making a horrendously tall cake –”

  “So,” I try to sound casual. “They didn’t pay for it yet, right? Like, you don’t have the money.”

  “No, not yet. The paperwork has to go through the real estate office and then come back to us. We won’t see anything until two weeks, at least, but it’s official!”

  I cheer and laugh as Mom regales the full story. It’s so nice to hear her in high spirits. The company will be fine. But if she didn’t pay for my classes, who did? Somehow, everything is going right. My classes are paid for. Mom and Dad’s company is off the hook. Two huge weights have been lifted off my chest. But I want to know how, and why. I can’t accept it until I know what happened. It’s too coincidental. Good luck doesn’t happen to me like this. I work hard – I don’t get lucky.

  I learn quickly just how difficult a night alone can be.

  Sometimes I wake up at midnight, shivering and reaching for someone who isn’t in my bed. Sometimes I wake up hallucinating in the morning light and see his bronze skin and strong roman profile on the pillow next to me. Sometimes, when I’m alone in the dorm, I can ease the desperate ache in my body by using my hands between my legs in a pale imitation of what Lee could do with his. My body burns for him, my dreams thick with him. The dreams can be tender – us kissing sweetly, and they can be wild and vivid – Lee fucking me into oblivion with a feral smirk. I can’t control them, and when I wake it doesn’t matter which type of dream I’ve had. Both leave me with a dull, unsatisfied ache and a lingering bitterness when I realize I told him I never wanted to see him again. He probably hates me. But if he conned me, he doesn’t care about me at all.

  I still don’t know what to believe.

  He never said it. The ‘L’ word. And it’s not like I expected him to, because boys saying that is a rare thing. They don’t like saying it. But every day of that blissful week I told Lee how much I liked him. And every time I did, he’d kiss me or touch me, but he’d never voice his feelings in return. Sure, he complimented me in cheeky ways, but he never said his feelings as clearly as I did. In my haze of our crazy week I didn’t hear the doubts, but now that we’re apart they’re loud and clear and yelling in my ear. If he was trying to con me, I can never forgive him. But if he wasn’t, and everything was sincere…

  And there’s still the mystery of who paid my classes. I tried to get a receipt from the Accounting office, but they insisted only the person who paid could request one. When I asked them who paid, they pursed their lips and said it was confidential information. Other students got receipts. So why all the secrecy around mine?

  I float through my classes in a daze. Mercifully, I don’t see Lee around campus at all. Whenever I meet up with Jen in the cafeteria for dinner, she always tries to get me to eat more. My stomach’s too upset to eat much lately. After a month my old jeans start to sag off my hips and I look like I’m swimming in my old shirts that used to fit so well. Everyone talks about their Christmas plans. Jen practically forces me to agree to coming to the Battle of the Bands she’s competing in on Saturday, and I agree. Listening to music and watching her play will be a thousand times better than lying in my bed trying not to think about Lee or burying myself in studying.

  “You’re going out?” Selena asks when I start rummaging through my closet.

  “Yeah. Down to the Battle of the Bands.”

  “Oh, that’s in Club Harper, isn’t it? I saw a flyer for it.”

  I nod and ch
oose a white blouse and leggings. Selena smiles at me over her mug of cocoa.

  “Well, I’m really happy you’re going. I’ve…been worried, I guess. Have fun.”

  “Worried?” I pull my blouse on and quirk a brow at her.

  “Yeah. You’ve lost so much weight. And you stay up so late studying almost every night. I know it’s none of my business, since we aren’t really good friends or anything. But I get worried.”

  Her sincere tone melts a little of the bitter iciness that’d wrapped itself around my heart lately. I smile as best I can.

  “Thanks. For worrying about me. It means a lot.”

  She waves out the dorm window and I wave back as I cross the quad. I left my hair long and my makeup light, and the frigid air caresses my cheeks. Walking to the club, I feel better than I have in weeks. The last rays of the sun peek out as streaks of orange and peach over the buildings, and pigeons are cooing as they sit in rows on the power lines. Mom and Dad’s business is long saved. Riley called to talk earlier in the week and he sounded happy again. My classes are paid for, for now. Everything I was worried about earlier is resolved, and I’m on my way to a club to have fun and see my friend play in her band. I should be happy. And I am. I’m learning how to be happy again, slowly.

  The line for the club is huge, almost around the block. I get in the back behind a guy in a dark peacoat. It takes me a second to realize that the back of his head looks familiar. Really familiar.

  “Brendan?” I say.

  The guy turns, and his smile is bright and warm and his hair is sandy as ever.

  “Hey, Rose! How are you?”

  “I had no idea you were going to this, too.”

  “Yeah, last minute sort of thing. My friend is one of the bouncers.”

  “Nice. So you’re the one with all the connections. Remind me to keep you around.”

  He laughs, and we talk about what we’ve been doing for the past month or so. I don’t mention Lee. Brendan starts to mention a girl named Lisbeth, but trails off awkwardly. By the way he winces ever-so-slightly, I can tell it ended badly. I distract him by asking how he’s been doing in school, and we both agree the mid-terms were killer. I forgot how easy Brendan was to talk to. Time flies and the sky gets darker and before I know it we’re at the head of the line, the music booming from inside. Brendan says hi to his bouncer buddy, and we go in. The darkness of the club and the masses of writhing bodies in the crowd make me feel a little claustrophobic, and I instinctively gravitate towards Brendan, hiding myself behind him and holding on to his sleeve.