ARRANGED

by R. K. Lilley

  In short, yes. Now that I knew her, I regretted everything I’d done to resist her.

  And what if she found out? God, the thought was horrifying, because it was altogether feasible. Fatima was just the type of ex to make sure she’d find out at least some of it.

  She shifted onto her back in her sleep, but she didn’t stir. It was enough. She was naked, nothing but a sheet covering her. I took it off. The shades were open, the city light filtering in enough that I could make out delicious little details of her sleeping form. She shivered at being uncovered, her pert breasts pebbling up. I stroked her, throat to naval, and she curved into my hand. Even then she didn’t stir. I rubbed between her legs, watching her sleeping face. Her mouth went slack, eyes still closed. She was wet. I pushed a finger inside her, feeling her. Her body responded, but even that didn’t wake her.

  I must’ve really worn her out. The thought didn’t bother me. On the contrary, it didn’t even slow me down.

  I mounted her, shoving in with one smooth, tight glide. That woke her up. She moaned as her beautiful eyes popped open. I kissed her, pumping in and out.

  What had I done? How had I allowed myself to get sucked in this deep?

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  NOURA

  It happened on a Thursday. It was a sunny, pleasant day in the city. The sort of day that made you want to walk where you were going instead of sitting in traffic.

  I remembered strange little details like that, as though the day were imprinting itself strongly on me before my brain even knew why it should.

  I woke up in Banks’s arms. He’d stayed the night for no other reason than he’d wanted to. He’d been at my apartment, takeout in hand, when I’d gotten home from a shoot the night before. He’d kissed me like he’d never get enough. We’d had a quiet, intimate meal together that still made me feel warm in my chest just to think about.

  For my part, I’d outright admitted to myself that I was falling hard. The man was irresistible when he decided he wanted something, and he wanted me.

  I was a little sleep deprived after that night. He’d fucked me several times, waking me up at odd points of the night, each one with a tireless desperation that to this day make my whole body clench in memory.

  We couldn’t resist each other, that much was clear.

  And I was starting to feel hopeful about us, about where we were headed, and what we could become.

  A cheerful Banks had even taken me to church the previous Sunday. He’d led me in on his arm, seating me in the middle of his family like he did it every week. His brothers had grinned at him, elbowing each other. His parents had gaped. I couldn’t keep the blush off my cheeks or the smile off my face for the entire service.

  We were starting to build the foundation for something powerful and profound. A real marriage? Perhaps. For the first time I let myself consider it, at least.

  The only thing that could hold us back at this was ourselves.

  Or so I thought.

  Banks had kissed me passionately goodbye on the sidewalk outside my building. He’d gotten into one of his cars, and I’d walked from the apartment to my gym that morning. Chester and I, of course, and even Jovie tagged along. She had a callback at nine, so she’d have to cut it short but she could fit in an hour workout with me beforehand.

  I remember that as we were walking, she’d grabbed my hand and beamed at me. “Banks and Noura sittin’ in a tree,” she’d chanted softly. She was happier than anyone about how things were progressing in my strange marriage. It made her outright giddy. She was painfully young and she’d been through a lot, but she was still an optimistic soul. She was sure that my husband had, against all odds, fallen in love me, and that love would conquer all.

  It was a sweet moment, the kind that stays in your mouth for a long time, counteracting some of the bitter flavors that come after.

  My trainer pushed Jovie and me through a strenuous and satisfying workout.

  “Will you be home in time for dinner tonight?” I asked her on her way out.

  “I should be,” she replied.

  “Well, call if you’re not, and don’t forget to eat a decent meal. Humans need food to survive,” I reminded her. She was like me, constantly monitoring her food.

  She rolled her eyes like the teenager she was but rarely acted like. “Okaaaay, Mooom,” she mocked with a smile. She softened it all by kissing me goodbye on both cheeks.

  I was still smiling as I walked into the locker room. I changed into a serviceable black two-piece swimsuit and went to do my laps. The gym boasted a good-sized lap pool, but the whole room was rented out for my personal use for this slot of the morning. It was still one of my very favorite perks of becoming a Castelo.

  Chester waited just outside the room’s only door to the rest of the gym while I swam. There was another door into the cavernous room, but it was Employees Only and locked at all times. Chester still double-checked it every time before he left me to my swim.

  It was a nice balance where Chester could do his job, and I could enjoy one of my favorite activities in absolute peace.

  It was the time of day I used to clear my head, swimming mindlessly, letting my body and mind float free of care. I didn’t count laps. Most of the time I didn’t even set a timer for myself. I simply swam until I’d reached my limit.

  That day my mind wouldn’t go blank, and I didn’t mind. It was too full of Banks, and in a good way. I swam with a light, and admittedly, besotted heart.

  I remember the heat of the room, the delicious feel of the cool water sliding over my skin. I remember the irritating but familiar smell of chlorine.

  And then it all came screeching to a halt.

  My hand touched the side of the pool, my body curling, feet purchasing a good grip for the return push. I propelled myself forward.

  And stopped with a wrenching pain. What the hell?

  At first I thought my long hair had caught on something. And in a way it had, but it was not something. It was someone. Someone’s fist.

  I’d gone still at the pain, confused but not alarmed, not yet. I was raised from out of the water. For a split second, I caught a glimpse of a man, more his figure than his face, but before I could react, I was thrust down again, not into the water but against the side of the pool, the rounded edge. I had time to turn my head so most of my face was preserved, but that did nothing to protect the side of my head, which made heavy, solid contact with the concrete once. Pound. Once. It hurt so much. Pound. Twice. I tasted blood. Pound. Again. My brain was muddled. Pound. Again. I tried to struggle. All I managed to accomplish was a futile squirm mid-water. My feet found no purchase. I was too disoriented to place which way the ground was. Pound. Again. I reached up, scratching at the wrist that held my hair. There. The ball of my foot made contact with something, and I pushed with all my might up. I gasped in a blessed shock of air. I tried to scream, but it was only a piteous sob before my head was shoved back under. Pound. The world went black.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  I came to in a wash of unpleasant sensations.

  The slow scrape in and out of air squeezing through a raw throat. My mind was filled with a wealth of disconnected nightmares that I couldn’t remember, but I could still taste like copper at the base of my throat.

  My whole body hurt, but nothing throbbed so badly as my head. It was a pulsing agony, and I wanted instantly to be unconscious again.

  I was assaulted with beeping, buzzing sounds in my ears, and the astringent smells of a health clinic. I’d never been hospitalized before, but I’d spent more than my fair share in them, and I knew instantly where I was. I hated hospitals. They always made me think of my mother, dying in one while I was hundreds of miles away.

  It was a struggle to pry my eyes open, and I instantly flinched, closing them again. I took a few more breaths and tried again. All I could see once the initial brightness passed were a pair of tormented silver eyes.

  “Noura,” my
husband breathed, squeezing my hand. His gaze was blaring into mine with utmost relief. Like he’d been worried he wouldn’t get the chance again.

  I squeezed faintly back and let my eyes fall shut again. It was all too much. The pain, the confusion, the rush of powerful emotions that punched through me in a jumble.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Like I shouldn’t have woken up,” I replied truthfully, the words coming out in a croak through my tortured throat. I heard him suck in a sharp breath.

  Little details were already floating to the front of my brain. The pool. The struggle. The certainty that I was going to die. Someone had tried to kill me.

  “How long have I been out?” The words scraped out of me, and I instantly decided it was my last question. Speaking wasn’t worth the pain.

  “Four days.” He said the words with a desperate kind of pain. Like four days was an eternity. It kind of felt like it had been from my end, too.

  “Pain meds,” I rasped.

  “Of course,” he replied instantly. “I’ve rung for the nurse.”

  There was a rustle of noises. The nurse sweeping in, a murmur of talk, the sounds of buttons being pushed. All the while I felt Banks’ stroking my hand comfortingly. Vaguely I mused that it was the only thing I felt that wasn’t pure pain. The drugs must have been fast-acting because I felt myself slipping away again shortly.

  My relationship with consciousness took quite a dive for a bit after that. It was touch and go. I’d wake up, ask to be drugged, and sleep again. This went on for days. As far as I could tell, Banks never left my side. He was always there for my brief lapses into wakefulness. I’d lost count of how many when I woke up to the sound of my father-in-law’s voice. I didn’t open my eyes. That still hurt.

  “You don’t look surprised,” he was telling someone in angrily, voice drenched in contempt.

  “Of course I’m not surprised,” Banks replied, just as angry. “I’m the one that told you.”

  My whole body went cold, almost numbing the pain. Almost.

  What did that mean? I didn’t like the sound of it, but I was quickly distracted from exploring the thought.

  I must have moved in some kind of way, something that betrayed my wakefulness because the next thing my father-in-law said was, “I think your wife’s awake.”

  I opened my eyes, directly meeting Pasco’s. In spite of his disdainful tone with his son, his expression was soft with concern as he studied me. “How are you, dear?”

  I smiled wryly. “I’ve been better.”

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  I did, mostly. It had all returned to me in blurry patches as I drifted in and out. “Someone tried to drown me,” I said softly. My throat sounded better, at least, though it still felt like hell. I had a horrifying thought for the first time. “Is Chester okay?” He must have been the one that saved me, but that very fact meant he’d most likely been in direct contact with whoever had tried to drown me.

  Banks barked out a laugh that was far from amused.

  Pasco’s mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “He’s been sick with worry for you, but other than that he wasn’t hurt too badly. Do you feel up for hearing some of the details?”

  “Yes,” I answered instantly. I wasn’t sure if I was, but I wanted to hear it anyway.

  “There were multiple individuals involved in the attack. They were well-coordinated. Two of them attacked Vincent, who was waiting at the front of the building. That drew Chester away from his post, and during the time that was happening, a man came after you in the pool.”

  I listened with a numb sort of shock. This couldn’t be real. What reason could someone have to try to kill me, let alone a whole team of someones? It simply made no sense to me.

  Pasco kept shooting looks at Banks that were outright hostile. It was so strange. Banks was visibly upset. And there was obviously nothing he could have done about any of it since he wasn’t even there when it happened.

  “Is Vincent okay?” I asked.

  “A few bumps and bruises. He’s old, but they underestimated him. He can still fight, and he held his own just fine until Chester entered the fray, and then it was game over. Chester knocked one of them out cold with one hit, which chased the other one off. The whole thing took about two minutes before he went back to check on you, but it was a very close thing.

  We’ll be upping your security,” Pasco continued, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “Chester and Vincent did as well as they could, but it clearly wasn’t enough. All the guys got away while Chester and Vincent were taking care of you.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why would they go to so much trouble to hurt me?”

  Pasco and Banks shared a look. “They were hired,” Pasco answered.

  “By who?”

  Pasco’s nostrils flared. I darted a look at Banks, who wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  “We’re looking into it,” Pasco said tonelessly. It was infuriating, but apparently the only answer I was going to get at the moment.

  As soon as it was apparent I was staying awake for longer than two minute stretches, the visits began. A sobbing Jovie almost crushed me with affection while Santi told me cheerfully that I was the sixth most Googled person of the week.

  Vincent’s bruised eyes teared up at the sight of me, and a gruff Chester patted me on the hand and glared at Banks on my other side.

  Pasco and Diana visited frequently. As soon as I voiced my concern about missing so much work, Diana reassured me that it was all being handled.

  “I’ve been interviewing new assistants for you since Asha was let go so . . . unexpectedly,” Diana added. “I think I’ve found a good fit. You’ll meet her just as soon as you feel up to it.”

  That felt promising. An assistant certainly sounded more pleasant than a handler.

  I caught some of the bits Pasco had left unsaid on the news from my hospital bed as things developed. No arrests had been made but the men involved had all been identified as professionals. Catching them was unlikely, as they’d undoubtedly left the country or gone underground, but they didn’t really matter, did they? The real question was: Who had hired them?

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  My mother always used to say that bad things come in threes, and as far as I’ve ever been able to tell, she was right.

  The blows just kept coming.

  The news broke the day I came home from the hospital. It made a much bigger impact than it would have, I think, because I was already getting so much attention due to the attack.

  Turned out, Asha held a grudge. Also turned out, NDAs aren’t worth a damn when someone wants to take you down with them badly enough.

  It was everywhere. Gossip rags. News sites. Talk shows. Vicious Twitter threads.

  My secret was out. And maybe it was a slow week in news, or perhaps it was just that outrageous, but it dominated the headlines internationally.

  The Bride Catalogue had been outed to the public, and I was its poster girl.

  Everything Asha knew came out in one long, vindictive interview. And she knew plenty.

  The arranged marriage. The prenup. The rules and requirements of my lifestyle. Way too many of the sordid details from our awkward wedding night. All of it was now public.

  A few other names were thrown around, speculated brides and buyers, but none as often or loudly or with nearly as much detail as mine.

  For these reasons and more, I became the focus of the scandal in its entirety.

  People put things into patterns they can understand. It’s only natural. I had done something that most people couldn’t relate to so they put me in that other category people create to separate them from us.

  I was dragged publicly. Deeply and often. The internet went after me with an almost religious fervor. Editorials were written about me that were foaming at the mouth with their own sense of self-righteousness. I was cancelled repeatedly on Twitter. All with endless speculation and a few conf
irmed facts that kept them going for quite a while.

  People who rarely agreed on anything could agree that I was trash.

  So much judgement from every direction at once. I was overwhelmed.

  Men hated me for what I’d taken in the exchange.

  Women hated me for what I’d given up. It was ironic how people would use the fact that you made your own choices to use even feminism against you. I was no expert, but wasn’t that missing the point just a bit?

  I learned a lot about human nature during that news cycle. How quickly the mob could turn against you. How much it wanted to. How effortlessly admiration could turn to antipathy, like that had always been the path it was fated to take. How deep and powerful of a hold envy held and how it was always poised for the natural evolution into a grudge.

  It was so personal, the loathing the horde aimed at me, as though the things I’d done had been done to steal from them rather than to enrich myself.

  It would be a lie to say it didn’t change the way I viewed my decisions. The way I viewed myself. Those were hard lessons.

  But not everything I learned was negative. I also discovered that I had inner stores of strength I hadn’t discerned before. I could take these hits. They were hard but they could only knock me down if I let them, so I braced myself and faced it with my head held high, and I didn’t have to do it alone. Jovie, Chester, Vincent, and even Santi offered me all the moral support I needed.

  Banks was wonderful to me at the hospital while I was recovering. He barely left my side. At home, it was different. My disappearing husband started disappearing again. It stung more than I ever thought it could. I thought perhaps he blamed me for the mud being slung his way, which led to resentment on my part, because it was barely more than a speck on his shoes. I was covered in it.

  I wasn’t well enough to return to work right away, but more jobs were pouring in than ever. The public might hate me, but the model world loved to model drama above all else, and I was draped in more than my fair share of it.