by Melinda Minx
He grins and waves.
I notice Maya’s shoulders are slumped, and she avoids looking at me. She’s wearing a beautiful dress and her hair is done up, but she doesn’t look at all happy.
“We should just get it over with,” Eric says.
I force a smile, and we walk toward them.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Eric says, raising an eyebrow at Dmitri.
“I wasn’t going to,” Dmitri says smoothly. “But I figured it would help business, if anything.”
I notice that Maya is glaring at Eric. She seems almost pissed off. She seemed fine—as far as I can remember—last night, so why would she suddenly have it out for Eric now?
“Speaking of business,” Dmitri says. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Can it wait?” Eric asks.
Dmitri shakes his head.
“I’ll be back soon,” Eric says.
I smile, and Maya glares at him even more intensely.
When the two men are gone, I look up at Maya. “What is it? What’s your problem?”
Maya looks left and right, then bites her fingernails. Her hands are shaking. ”Come here.”
She grabs my wrist and starts pulling me away, toward a less densely-populated area of the penthouse. She gets me outside, and it’s chilly enough that very few people are out on the roof.
I look over and realize there’s a pool just like Eric has. “Do all these people have these scary-ass infinity pools?”
“Ruth,” Maya says, sliding her fingers from my wrist to my hand. “I know I’ve been a bitch to you before, and I know we aren’t like super good friends... but there’s something I promised I wouldn’t tell you.”
“And you’re going to tell me?” I say. “Is it about Eric?”
Tears well up in her eyes, and she starts breathing heavily as she looks away from me.
“Maya?” I feel my heart pounding. I suddenly don’t want to know whatever she’s going to tell me.
“I’m going to dump Dmitri after I tell you this,” Maya says. “I just want this all to be over. We both were manipulated Ruth, and neither of us belongs here. Okay? So after I tell you this, let’s both just leave together and forget any of this ever happened.”
“Slow down,” I say. “What are you talking about, how was I manipulated?”
“Those assholes had a bet,” Maya says. “A nasty, dirty bet.”
“A bet?”
“Eric bragged to Dmitri that he could get any woman of Dmitri’s choice to win New York’s Best Couple…”
“But... he didn’t…” I trail off, not even sure what I’m saying. Why would Dmitri pick me?
Then it hits me. It hits me hard, like a punch to the gut. Because I was hopeless. I was a lost cause. I was unattractive. Eric bet Dmitri that he could make me into something, which means that he thought less than nothing of me before.
All the little moments start to make sense now. Why would Eric be interested in me? Because of the bet. Why he being so evasive about certain things? Because of the bet. I remember all the times he told me this was “serious” or “long-term,” and I feel my heart start to shrivel up and die inside me.
“I’m going to…” I start to say, anger flaring up in me. “We shouldn’t leave, Maya, we should tear them down—”
“Don’t,” Maya says, grabbing my wrist. “It won’t make you feel any better. Just leave them behind in the dust, never look back, Ruth.”
“I thought he fucking cared about me,” I say. I realize the tears are already streaming hot down my face. My makeup is probably a smeared mess. “I thought I loved him.”
Maya hugs me, but I shove her off me.
“He’s just another piece of fucking trash,” I say, voice shaking. “There’s no good things in this world, just—”
“This world,” Maya says, pointing at the infinity pool and the people inside. “Nothing good is here, which is why we should just leave.”
“You weren’t a bet!” I nearly shout, feeling bad for pointing my anger toward Maya, but she’s the only one here. “You’re beautiful and attractive, and Dmitri didn’t—”
“He only dated me to interfere!” she says. “I was too blind to see it, but I see it now. He just wanted to get information on you, and mess with you through me. They’re both irredeemable pieces of garbage Ruth, don’t let them have any power of you—”
“Oh,” I say. “I won’t. I have the fucking power now.”
27
Eric
When Dmitri is done talking to me, I go to look for Ruth, but I can’t find her.
I make small talk with Aiden, who showed up alone.
“I figured I could meet someone here maybe,” he says, chomping on some bread and cheese. “Mm, this is damn good.”
I keep looking around, but I don’t see Ruth anywhere. Maybe I should check outside? I haven’t seen Maya either.
“You still looking for her?” Aiden asks. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Yeah,” I say, taking a sip of wine. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”
Then I see her, coming in from the terrace. She looks somehow... shaken?
“Ruth,” I say, holding up a hand.
“There you are!” an obnoxious Andrea interrupts. Viktor is with her. I do my best to tamp down my irritation, my only concern right now is whatever it is that put that look on my Ruth’s face.
I smile politely, but try to focus on Ruth.
“Ruth,” Viktor says. “Come introduce yourself.”
Ruth looks over at us with a strange look on her face. She doesn’t really even look at me, just through me. She stares for a moment, as if she’s debating to herself whether she should come over at all.
I see Maya enter the doorway behind her, she’s staring at us with a hand over her mouth.
As Ruth gets closer, I see that she’s wiped all the makeup off her face, and her eyes are glassy.
“Introduce myself…” Ruth says woodenly. “Okay.”
I go to put my hand on her waist, but she shoves me back.
Viktor and Andrea look at us with their mouths agape.
Ruth stares at me, trembling. “I’m Eric’s bet.”
That tiny one syllable word cuts into my heart with the force of an atomic bomb. As soon as I hear it, I know that she knows everything. And how could I possibly respond to that?
“I don’t understand…” Andrea says, tilting her head like a confused dog.
“Well,” Ruth says. “You’d have to be pretty fucking twisted to really understand it. Twisted and heartless... like Eric here. You see, he was so fucking cocky and full of himself, that he bet his asshole friend he could make me into the winner of your dumb little popularity contest.”
Her voice gets loud. So loud that everyone around us stops talking. The silence sweeps through the party in waves, until everyone is staring at us in stunned silence, waiting for Ruth to continue.
I consider trying to get a word in, but nothing I say can make this better. This is the punishment I deserve, isn’t it?
I catch a look at Dmitri. His face is all smug satisfaction, and he’s sipping at his wine as if he were drinking in my misery and heartbreak.
“So,” Ruth says. “Maybe you’re thinking that doesn’t sound so bad? But here’s the thing, it’s a bet, right? So if you want to make the bet interesting—challenging—you have to pick someone really shitty. Someone ugly who you would never date in a million years, otherwise where is the challenge? Pick someone beautiful or someone you actually could care about, and it’s not a game worth playing. Right, Eric?”
Every eye in the room is turned toward me now. And I can see in Ruth’s eyes that she wants me to deny it. She wants to believe there is some glimmer of hope, some possibility of a good explanation. Some magical words that could make everything she is feeling go away and give us a fresh start.
But I don’t have any magic words, only the harsh truth. The only silver lining is that I love her. Those are three
words I should have said to her before, and words that I can never say to her now.
“Nothing?” She says. “You won’t even deny it?”
Viktor and Andrea look aghast, and Dmitri is trying as hard as he can not to laugh.
Maya comes up behind Ruth and puts her hands onto her shoulders, as if she is going to pull her away.
“Get off,” Ruth says, swatting her away. “I need to hear him say it.”
“What you said is true,” I say.
Hushed murmurs and buzz vibrates out from the crowd. I see people staring daggers at me from every angle.
“But,” I say. “That’s just how it started. Now, I feel—”
Ruth flings a glass of wine into my face. The wine hits me as I’m speaking, and I feel it go right up into my nostrils. The excess liquid spills across the white of my tuxedo, staining it red.
“I never want to see or hear from you ever again,” Ruth hisses.
She grabs Maya by the hand and drags her out, the sea of people witnessing this cluster fuck part wordlessly for the two of them.
28
Dmitri
I’m not the type of man to get satisfaction from excessive gloating. Seeing Ruth tear into Eric in front of everyone was my reward. I have no need to rub it in Eric’s face.
I slink away to the pool, predicting that Eric will take the elevator out. I don’t need him to vent his anger on me if he comes across me. Besides, I want to be at the party to bask in the aftermath.
I watch through the windows as Eric holds up a veneer of calm-collectedness. He disappears into the elevator, covered in wine and shame.
Only then do I step back out into the party, to furious conversation all spoken in gossiping whispers. For everyone in attendance, this party was meant to be something to brag about to those who weren’t invited. Now, everyone here will get to tell their own first-hand account of how Eric Prince and Ruth Biederman lost New York’s Best Couple.
Victor Copeland is on me almost as soon as I get inside.
“Dmitri, do you know who this bet was with?” He asks me.
I shake my head. “I thought he was really into her... I can’t imagine having such a total lack of regard for another person’s feelings.”
“It’s just awful,” Victor says. “That poor girl.”
“She’s not hardened against the tabloids yet either,” I say. “She’s going to be in them for a long time after this. It won’t be easy for her.”
Victor forces himself to look glum, but I can tell he’s loving this. He’s ecstatic that this all happened at his party. Everyone will desperately want to be here next year, and New York’s Best Couple is now one hundred percent on the map.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, holding up my empty glass and walking past him toward the bartender.
I move around the room, absorbing other people’s conversations. A few people look at me suspiciously, but I just smile. I never wanted to have a “good” reputation like Eric. I prefer that people fear me, and I can tell by the way most everyone at the party is avoiding me that they do, indeed, fear me.
“Jesus,” Aiden says, grabbing my arm. “Dmitri…”
I scoff. “This will bring us a lot more business. I thought you wanted to take on more.”
“But like this?” Aiden asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Exactly like this. No one can succeed without others failing.”
“Eric knew what he was getting into,” Aiden says. “But Ruth?”
“You’re getting a soft-spot for her? Why don’t you go be her rebound then?”
“Rebound…”
I laugh. “Look at you, you want to, don’t you? You have to admit she cleaned up well. I’d do her.”
Aiden glares at me. “I’ll get working on those new accounts. I’ll draft up plans for when they inevitably call us tomorrow.”
He turns his back to me, but I grab him hard by his arm, squeezing hard enough to hurt him. “No, you heard me. You’ll be her rebound. I want you to fuck her. And I want Eric to figure out that you did.”
Aiden looks at me like a dumb child. Maybe I should have gotten someone with more balls as my apprentice.
“You’ll do it,” I hiss. “Otherwise, forget those accounts.”
29
Eric
I go to my office and pour myself a drink. I know my building will be surrounded by reporters, and I can’t deal with them right now. I don’t care how bad this hurt my business or my fortune, I’m just mourning the loss of Ruth.
And I can’t even act like Dmitri took her from me, or that I somehow got screwed over. It was my fault all along. How in the hell did I think I could have something real with someone I started seeing through such a false pretense?
I’d started to think of myself as untouchable—that’s what started the damn bet in the first place—and tonight is just the universe’s way of repaying me for my hubris.
If I’d never made the bet with Dmitri, I still would have gone into that store and seen Ruth. I would have been somewhat interested, but I’d never have asked her out. I’d have just dismissed her out of hand, and I’d never have seen her again.
I don’t really believe in fate, but if I did, it would seem that we were fated to never be together. I could either have met her without the bet, and never pursued her. Or I could have met her through the bet, and been with her while this dark secret drove a wedge between us.
There was no happy outcome from that, was there? Sure, I could have told her the truth earlier on, but judging from her reaction tonight, she probably would’ve just dumped me the moment I told her. Even if I had confessed early on.
I hear a ding coming from the lobby, and I put my drink down onto my desk and get up.
Could it be Dmitri? Would he really come here to me in the middle of the night to gloat? I should have seen it coming. He had it in his power to make this happen, so why risk that I win the contest and thus the bet? He got exactly what he wanted without risking anything. I’m sure I’m going to lose a lot of accounts once it becomes clear what kind of person I am, and he’ll be there to swoop them all up.
“I don’t care about the fucking accounts,” I shout toward the dark lobby. “Take them, they’re all yours.”
“Did you really love her?” A voice calls out, and when he steps into the light from my office, I realize it’s Aiden.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, “Go home, Aiden.”
“Did you love her?” He asks me. “I need you to answer.”
I meet his eyes. Did Dmitri send him? If I tell him the truth, will it make Dmitri’s victory even more sweet?
No, I can tell from Aiden’s look that he’s not here representing Dmitri. He’s here as himself.
“I love her,” I say.
“I was with her last night,” Aiden says.
I lunge toward him, but he quickly adds, “Not like that, Eric. Dmitri sent me to keep tabs, to get her drunk enough that Maya wouldn’t confess to her until tonight.”
I hold up my glass to him. “Well, your plan worked. Cheers.”
“You know what he told me to do now?” I ask.
“I take it you’re at least not supposed to be here talking to me.”
Aiden shakes his head. “He told me to go be Ruth’s rebound. To get with her and hurt you more.”
I laugh. “So it’s not just about the accounts for him, is it? He just wants to see me suffer?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Aiden says. “I don’t have it in me to be so cut-throat.”
“You also don’t have enough money to retire yet,” I say. “And get your farm.”
Aiden grins. “Which is why I want to work for you. But first we’ve got to win Ruth back.”
“Jesus, farm boy,” I say, shaking my head and taking a drink. “You really are naive. She can’t be won back—I don’t even deserve her—and why work for me? I’m all but ruined.”
“My reputation isn’t tarnished,” Aiden says. “I can recover a lot of your acc
ounts, steal them from Dmitri before he steals them from you.”
“Alright,” I say. “If I actually cared about the money or the accounts, I’d say it’s a brilliant move, but I only care about the one thing I can’t have.”
“Listen to yourself,” Aiden says. “You said you love her, and you’re going to give up on her so easily?”
“How could she be with me after hearing the truth? What kind of monster makes a bet like that?”
“Everyone fucks up from time to time,” Aiden says. “This was a bigger fuck-up than most, I’ll give you that. I figure Dmitri blackmailed pretty hard though, so it’s not like you could have just told the truth?”
My jaw tightens.
“Sure, it would have been better than what happened here,” Aiden says. “But you were ultimately trying to protect Ruth, weren’t you? At least for most of the time you were with her.”
I start to feel a glimmer of hope, which is probably the worst thing I could feel right now. I wave my hand at him as if to dismiss him. “Shows how good my protection is. I ruined her.”
“What if she loves you?” Aiden asks.
I let out a dry laugh. “Then I’ve hurt her even more.”
“Love doesn’t just go away,” Aiden says. “Even if you fuck up... bad.”
It sounds almost too manipulative to consider. If Ruth has feelings for me still, then I could get her to forgive me—against her better judgement.
But dammit, it wouldn’t be bad judgement on her part. I made my mistake already, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t let her down again. I have to show her though, words aren’t enough.
“You want to sell how much?” Ben, my broker, asks.
“All of it.”
“How much of the money do you need... we can—”
“That’s just it,” I say. “I don’t need any of it. It got in my way. It made me choose wrong.”
“So you’re going to…”
“Give most of it away,” I say, grinning.
I’ll keep enough to provide for Ruth and any future children. I laugh thinking about children. It’s not like Ruth is even speaking to me right now, so we’re pretty far away from that. Still, I’ll keep enough to be well off, but I’ll donate enough that it’s not weighing me down anymore.
