Arrabella
“You fucking lied to me. Do you know how that makes me feel? How betrayed?” He flings his arms wide, gesturing to the expanse of the suite.
“This cruise, this whole we need time together was a fraud, and you’ve been plotting it for months.
And the romantic nights in Italy—your loving behavior?
Was the sex just a fucking lure, too? Fuck. ”
He drags a hand over his hair, pulsing with visible rage, the magnificence of their surroundings completely lost on him.
Getting him into the suite was a small win. Now her goal is to keep things from escalating. To bring him down, calm him. Make him agree to stay.
But she’s terrified of making a wrong step, saying something that could inflame him further. If Patrick walks now, she knows she’ll lose him for good. And with him will go her chance at becoming the power wife of a media mogul with a global empire at their feet. What then?
She still has her looks, her sex appeal. She’d still have marketable skills, but she’s thirty-nine with one disastrous marriage already under her belt, plus there was the public humiliation that came with that.
She’d honestly thought her ex, Hugh, was the one. She still wishes he had been. No matter his fuckups, Hugh continues to hold sexual power over her. Arrabella still finds the erotic bastard mesmerizing. She still can’t really, fully quit him.
She was in her twenties when she met the wildly charismatic Lord Hugh Pembroke—a well-born barrister with political aspirations and a seriously healthy trust fund. They married a year later, dividing time between Belgravia and the Pembroke family’s Beechwood Lodge in the Cotswolds. It was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
Hugh turned out to be just like her father—a serial womanizer with gambling, alcohol, and cocaine addictions.
And like her father, he lost everything they owned.
Arrabella was toppled from her London society pedestal and became trashy tabloid gossip fodder.
She resolved never, ever to repeat the same mistake.
Patrick McGregor seemed a safe target. Not terribly handsome, yet robustly wealthy and well connected.
Easy, even—he’d been instantly vulnerable to Arrabella’s calculated seduction.
Soon she was back on the high-society guest lists, and she has zero intention of losing it all again.
A woman can start over only so many times.
“Patrick,” she says gently, “shall I fix us a drink?” She glances at the sparkling wine in the ice bucket. Too celebratory. Wrong move. “A Negroni?” she suggests. Strong enough to take the edge off them both.
“I don’t want a drink. And I don’t want Lillith’s money.” He points his finger at her. “And I’m not challenging my father’s will. If you thought forcing me and Lillith to—”
“It’s not about her money,” she cuts in carefully, taking two glasses from the bar.
“At least, not all of it. Because part of that inheritance is actually yours—always was. Your father was irrational over Christmas when he cut you out. His cognition was slipping. You saw it. We all did.” She drops ice cubes into the glasses.
“You know that he would’ve written you back into his will.
He did it, what—three times before? Cutting you out before relenting and writing you back in?
It was one of his sick power games. He was a difficult man, Patrick, but you are his son. ”
She pours gin, vermouth, adds Campari. Stirs.
“His dying so suddenly before he could set things right—” She allows emotion to thicken her voice. “It was weird, Patrick. The timing was weird.”
“He was ninety-two.”
“And in apparent robust health. A heart doesn’t just stop.” She carries the drinks over, hands him a glass.
He takes a sip. Another small win. Relief eases into her as she drinks, too.
“The postmortem showed nothing suspicious, Arra.”
His use of her nickname shows a chink in his armor—another tiny win.
She allows silence to settle, pacing herself.
She becomes conscious of the coolness in the air-conditioned suite, the soft vibration of the ship’s engines as they sail toward Crete.
If she can relax him enough, she’ll have the rest of the night to work on him before the Orchid docks at Souda in the morning.
“The toxicology showed digitalis,” she says gently.
“Cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia,” Patrick says.
“Yes, with contributing digoxin toxicity, but you heard Lillith and his doc. My father had chronic heart disease he didn’t want anyone to know about.
He was on medication—the digitalis glycoside levels were within therapeutic range, as would be expected.
” His voice cracks. He turns to the window, drinks deeply.
Arrabella feels a clutch of emotion. Patrick might be forty-five, but inside he’s still a boy craving his father’s love—something Angus perpetually dangled just out of reach, always demanding Patrick be bolder, brasher, more “manly,” more deserving of his affection.
The words that Angus fired at Patrick like bullets across the Christmas lunch table sift into her mind.
You’ll never be a real businessman. Never a true McGregor. Too goddamn woke. Need to fucking grow some balls, man.
The row arose after Patrick’s failure to seal a takeover bid. Angus was livid. Patrick argued that he’d allowed the deal to collapse for ethical reasons—staff would have been laid off without compensation. It would’ve brought legal challenges, bad press. It was not the branding he wanted.
His father exploded and called Patrick milquetoast and a yellow-bellied Caspar the coward, then stormed off to his study.
Patrick followed, shouting. Behind closed doors there was more loud yelling, glass breaking, then sudden dead silence.
Whatever Angus said to Patrick in there, it crushed him.
He came out of that study changed. He gave up fighting.
He seemed to curl inward, and away from her, too.
Patrick finally turns to face her.
“You know, Arra, I’m not comfortable with how this makes me feel. About us. About you.”
She swallows. “You know I love you—”
“I think you love the idea of me. Or you once did—back when I was set to inherit.”
The cut slices deep. She reaches up, touches his face. “Patrick, I will always love you. No matter the legacy.”
His gaze holds hers, searching for the lie.
She presses. “It’s because I love you that I wanted you on this ship. To spend time with Lillith. She lost him, too, Patrick. She’s also grieving. And I know you do hurt. I know you’re sad. Angry. Despite everything he was. Don’t walk away from family now.”
“You mean, don’t walk away from Lillith and the money.” His mouth is tight.
“I mean, don’t excise her from your life out of anger. She doesn’t want that any more than you honestly do. What Angus did is not her fault. And it’s certainly not yours. His mind wasn’t right in those final weeks, I’m convinced of it. Letting his words come between you and your mother is—”
“Stepmother.”
Arrabella sinks onto the sofa, suddenly drained.
“Why won’t you tell me what he said to you in his study that day?”
Whatever happened in there is behind Patrick’s refusal to fight for what’s his. She’s sure of it.
Pain flickers through his eyes. He turns away from her again, shoulders tense, neck corded.
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“It’s personal, Arra. Nothing you can change.”
“So share it, Patrick. Off-load it. Holding emotional pain inside can make people sick.”
He doesn’t move. His glass is almost empty.
“At least offer Lillith some comfort. That alone could help you. Helping others saves people in dire situations, you know. It’s a proven fact.”
He says nothing.
“I know you care for her,” she urges gently.
Finally, he slumps into a chair, sets down his glass, rubs his face hard with both hands.
She goes to him, lays a hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t want a handout from her,” he says before she can speak. “I’m not interested in some peace offering. I’m not going to grovel. I’ll agree to see her tonight, but in the morning I’m off this boat in Crete. Don’t try to change my mind.”
Arrabella plays her last card.
“I think Lillith is in danger, Patrick. Especially now. On this ship.”
He glances up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Poppy. She’s bad news.”
“Oh, please—”
“No. Hear me out. Where did the woman even come from?”
“Lillith said she met her in Brighton.”
“Out of the blue? Just like that? This oddball caregiver runs into one of the richest women in Britain and offers her services? Think about it, Patrick. Every single one of Poppy’s former clients has wound up dead.”
Patrick snorts. “She did palliative care. Of course they died.”
“So why would Lillith hire someone like that? And why did Angus suddenly die right after she arrived.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! You’re not going with this conspiracy crap again, are you?”
“Listen, I was the one who was already assisting Lillith with her affairs. I was the one who convinced Lillith to start her autobiography. I was supposed to help her research and ghostwrite it. Lillith had basically made it clear. We were going to keep it all in the family. Then, poof, this Poppy person appears, moves in, cuts me out? Now Lillith is alone with her. We need to be here. You need to keep an eye on her.”
He stares. Arrabella can see the wheels of his mind turning. Clearly he’s also had concerns about Poppy. He just hasn’t admitted it.
“Not only that,” Arrabella presses, “the moment Poppy arrived at the castle, she started isolating Lillith from other family members and friends. I no longer have access to Lillith at all, without going through Poppy. You carving yourself out of Lillith’s life just makes it easier for her to fall prey to that assistant of hers.
Have you noticed how frail Lillith has gotten since Angus died?
Her mobility has worsened. She leans so heavily on that cane now.
She looks thinner. Her complexion is all wrong.
She has tremors in her hands, new tics and twitches in her face. ”
Emotion gleams in his eyes.
Sweet Patrick. He does care. Too much. Angus was right—he’s too soft. Which is why he needs her in his life. She won’t be fooled by manipulative little Machiavellis in librarian cardigans and owl glasses.
“You’ll think about staying aboard?” she asks.
“I’ll think about it.”
Relief blooms through Arrabella. But as she exhales, her phone pings. She crosses to her purse on the bed, takes out her mobile, checks the screen. Her pulse spikes as she reads the text.
We need to meet. In person.
Got something big and juicy for you. Call me.
I’m on the ship.
“Who is it?” Patrick asks.
“Um . . . nothing.” But her mouth has gone bone dry.
He’s on the ship? Fuck. Why?
She clicks off her phone and slides it back into her purse. “Just a question from work about a feature.”
“What feature?”
She meets his gaze, and forces a casual tone. “A trend piece on how the megarich are rebranding. I assigned it to Mary—you know Mary? She second-guesses everything.” Arrabella skirts her lie close to the truth, because Patrick is ultimately her boss at the magazine, and he could check.
“What does she want?”
“Just something that I suggested she run by legal.”