Page 79 of The Malibu Arrangement

I catch Bill's eye and give him the signal. My pulse quickens. I need Elody to throw that fucking drink in my face. But she's holding back. For now.

She uncrosses her legs, then recrosses them deliberately—a calculated move that sends every man in the room adjusting their collars. Those legs could cut glass. She's sculpted herself into a weapon, and I respect the discipline. You don't get a body like that without bleeding for it. She leans forward, her cleavage practically daring me to look away. I don't.

"Fine, Max," she hisses through perfect teeth. "You win. Not a single word about Celeste, your father, Gianni, your brothers, Rosa, your grandparents—nobody. I'm not about to commit career suicide."

"Smart girl." I lock my arms across my chest and flick my eyes toward the dirty martini. Her smile turns predatory. She glances at Bill, then grabs her glass and hurls the contents at me—vodka burning my eyes, olive brine soaking my $3,000 shirt. She's on her feet in an instant, chair scraping back with a screech. Her Maltese Charlie erupts in a frenzy of high-pitched barking as she storms toward the exit, leaving a wake of shocked faces.

Perfect. Inevitable. Elody would rather die than exit without scorching the earth. But something's off—her rage felt too precise, too controlled. Maybe that's the real performance—acting like she's fine when she's plotting my murder. With Elody, you're never safe.

One thing's certain: Elody is neutralized. Not for now. For fucking ever.

Chapter Sixty-Two

GETTING MARRIED FOR REAL

Celeste

Six months flew by like a montage in one of my screenplays. Mom's oncologist actually high-fived her at her last appointment—"No evidence of disease" still scrawled in his messy doctor handwriting across her chart. She still needs those quarterly check-ups, but I caught her throwing away her head scarves last week. She's slinging plates at Mastro's Ocean Club now, where Lexi hosts. You should see them in their matching black outfits, Mom winking at Lexi as she glides past with trays of seafood towers. Between the $17 hourly and the tips from tech bros trying to impress their dates, she's covering the mortgage on that Westwood condo I helped her buy.

And then there's her thing with Michael Kensington. Max orchestrated the whole setup—dinner for five, just us, Michael, Mom and Rosa. I knew something was up when Max kept refilling Mom’s wine glass. Mom and Michael started finishing each other's sentences by dessert, Mom laughing at Michael's stories like they shared some private joke. Five minutes in, they were debating the best Elvis era; by coffee, they were planning a Vegas weekend. Mom came back from that trip with a craps table story and $1,000 in winnings. Michael didn't gamble—"one addiction was enough for this lifetime"—but he said he followed her around the casino floor like a lovesick teenager, saying he could feel the universe's energy there.

I sat in the back row during his last AA meeting, watching Michael accept his 9-month sobriety chip with trembling hands. Later, over coffee, he squeezed my arm and whispered, "Your mother saved me." Mom texts me daily updates about their conversations—how he finally talked about the night Catherine died, how she showed him her mastectomy scars. How he recited an entire Frost poem from memory and how he knows the plots of every single Shakespeare play ever written. Yesterday, I caught them in Mom's garden, Michael's weathered hand resting on hers as she laughed at something he said. "He makes me feel young again," she told me later, her cheeks flushed pink. When I mentioned this to Max, he smiled and said his father hadn't looked this alive in years.

Then Max froze mid-sentence. "Wait—if they got married, you'd technically be my stepsister." We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all.

As for Max and me...well, he finally proposed—properly this time. Down on one knee, he presented a ring that stole my breath: a rare pink Argyle diamond, natural and flawless, nestled in platinum filigree that mirrored my grandmother's wedding band—the same intricate vine pattern with tiny diamond-dusted leaves that had adorned her finger for sixty-two years of marriage. I'd once lingered over her photo while flipping through dusty albums with Max, never imagining he was committing every delicate curve of that antique setting to memory. Three carats of pink perfection—the kind of stone that makes insurance agents nervous—now catching light on my finger. And we’re going to get married in jolly old England.

Why England? It all started when Max discovered my not-so-secret obsession with Downton Abbey. I'd never told him, but everyone else in my life has endured my endless rewatches, my passionate defenses of Lady Mary's misunderstood character, and my encyclopedic knowledge of the estate's floor plan. One night over dinner, I mentioned offhandedly that visiting Highclere Castle—the real-life Downton—topped my bucket list. Two weeks later, Max casually mentioned he'd looked into it, and apparently, you can rent part of the castle for weddings. With his connections, we could have hosted a hundred guests under a marquee on those iconic grounds. We opted for something smaller, but still—Highclere Castle. My Downton-loving heart nearly stopped.

As Max explained it: "We keep it to thirty. Family only—my brothers, their plus-ones, Dad, grandparents, Rosa, Gianni. Your mom, Lexi, Tally, Olivia, and any plus ones they might bring. That's our list." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's not that I don't want to invite industry people, but it's all or none with that crowd. Start with one producer, director or actor, then I have to invite them all and suddenly we're at three hundred guests minimum. Lady Carnarvon would throw us out if we turned her estate into some Hollywood circus."

Good enough. But soon we’ll be flying over the country and then flying over the Atlantic in my very first overseas trip! Max's teases me about my lack of worldly experience, but it’s just friendly ribbing. He doesn’t actually judge me about this. But yeah. I’ve never been over an ocean, ever. Max, who’s been to all seven continents, including Antarctica, couldn’t quite believe this although I’m sure I told him this fact earlier in a dinner we had. He must’ve just forgotten this.

While I’ve never been overseas, I have been out of the country, technically. Once on that disaster cruise to Mexico with Liv and Tally, crammed into a cabin the size of a walk-in closet designed for two people, where we each traded off sleeping on the floor. We docked in Cozumel and I tried SNUBA—that weird hybrid where they strap a twenty-pound yellow helmet over your head connected to oxygen by a flimsy-looking tube. Twenty feet underwater, my chest tightened as I imagined air bubbles clogging the line, my lungs burning as fish circled, watching me suffocate. In my panic, I barely noticed the rainbow parrotfish darting between coral fans. My clearest memory: tequila shots at Señor Frogs, and dancing on the tables, the sticky wooden table wobbling under my bare feet while Liv screamed the lyrics to "Livin' La Vida Loca." Canada was my other "international experience"—Toronto with its gleaming glass towers and sidewalks so pristine you could eat off them, then Montreal with its crumbling stone facades and narrow cobblestone alleys that smelled like fresh bread and cigarettes.

I still laugh about that time in Montreal when I grabbed what I thought was “raisin" soda from a convenience store cooler. My stomach turned just picturing the flavor, the grossest thing imaginable, raisin pop. Tally spun the bottle around to show me it was just grape soda – "raisin" being French for grape. Max would probably chuckle at this—the man speaks four languages, French, Italian, Spanish and Mandarin flawlessly, as any proper international CEO should. But I'll keep my linguistic humiliation to myself, thank you very much.

Because I’ve never been overseas before, my stomach flutters with anticipation as I board Max's Gulfstream. Just us—no other passengers, no flight attendants, nobody else but the pilots. The wedding party will follow on his company's Boeing, but Max insisted we take his personal jet. I run my fingers along the buttery leather of the heated massage seats, marvel at the mahogany tables that fold out from hidden compartments with the punch of a gold button, peek into the marble-tiled bathroom with its rainfall shower, and blush when Max gives me a private tour of the sumptuous bedroom, with its king-sized bed draped in cream silk sheets, polished mahogany paneling that gleam under recessed lighting, and a ceiling painted with subtle gold accents that catch the sunlight streaming through the oval windows.

"Eleven hours to London," he whispers against my ear, his hand sliding around my waist. "I've been thinking about all the ways we could pass the time." The look in his eyes makes my cheeks burn hotter than the engine turbines.

I gasp as Max pulls me into the private bedroom, his voice a rough growl against my ear: "This is why I demanded an empty plane. No one to hear what I'm about to do to you." My knees nearly buckle as he claims my mouth, not gentle now but hungry, desperate. He tears at my blouse, buttons scattering across the floor. His fingers find my nipples, pinching hard enough to make me cry out, the sweet pain shooting straight between my legs. I arch against him as his mouth replaces his hands, teeth grazing sensitive flesh. He shoves me onto the bed, yanking my jeans down with such force I hear the fabric tear. His eyes are dark, possessive as he spreads my legs. When his mouth finds me, I don't just scream—I shatter, his fingers merciless as they drive me beyond coherent thought.

His voice drops to a growl. "You're mine," he says, gripping my wrists so tightly I can feel my pulse throbbing against his fingers. "You've always been mine. And tomorrow, about this time, you'll be mine forever." The possessiveness in his words floods my body with heat, making it hard to breathe. I've never craved belonging to someone the way I ache to be claimed by him—completely, irrevocably, with nothing held back.

He devours my breasts, his mouth claiming each peak with hungry desperation that tears a gasp from my throat. His teeth graze my nipples—gentle then sharp—sending electric currents straight to my core. I arch against him, begging without words. He blazes a scorching trail down my stomach, each kiss branding me, marking me as his. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and sea salt—floods my senses until I'm drowning in him. His hands suddenly pin mine above my head, fingers crushing together as our bodies crash into each other with the violent force of a storm surge against Malibu cliffs, both of us breaking and reforming with each devastating wave of pleasure.

He drives into me with a force that steals my breath, each thrust deeper than the last, his teeth grazing my neck as his fingers dig possessively into my hips. The silk sheets twist beneath us, drenched with sweat, as the private jet cuts through storm clouds at 40,000 feet. Lightning flashes through the window, illuminating the raw hunger in his eyes for half-seconds of electric clarity. The plane drops suddenly—violent turbulence—and I cry out as the sensation merges with the building pressure inside me. "Mine," he growls against my ear, the word burning into my skin. I rake my nails down his back, leaving crimson trails across bronze muscle, desperate to mark him as thoroughly as he's marking me. The luxury around us blurs as we crash together, the jet's engines roaring in harmony with our release. Later, I lie sprawl across his heaving chest, both of us gasping for air. His heartbeat thunders against my cheek as I trace the welts I've left on his skin, watching his eyes flash dangerously when I whisper, "Again."

Later still, we lie tangled in the sheets of his private jet's bedroom, our bodies cooling. I trace lazy circles through the dark hair on Max's chest, feeling it rise and fall with each breath. A smile tugs at my lips that I couldn't suppress even if I wanted to. This happiness feels almost dangerous—like tempting fate. A gorgeous man who looks at me like I'm his world, my mother's health restored, and my name on scripts that actually matter. How did I get here? Tomorrow we exchange vows that will mean something this time—not the hollow performance we put on before, but a promise I'm finally ready to make.

Chapter Sixty-Three

A WEDDING AT LAST

Max

I'm possessed by visions of Celeste's face transforming when she sees Europe through my eyes. Beyond Highclere—that ancient stone fortress rising from the English countryside where we'll bind ourselves to each other—waits a continent I will conquer for her, every cobblestone street and hidden café a territory to claim in her name. Lady Carnarvon has become my willing accomplice, conspiring with me to transform the castle's grand state rooms, the magnificent Saloon, that sweeping oak staircase into a cathedral of devotion. December's brutal cold will surrender to the heat between us. The first time, she was shackled with a contract. This time, I'm burning it all down and rebuilding her world from the ashes.