Page 47 of The Malibu Arrangement

"Roofing. His own business. Some months we had steak, others we had ramen. He was always chasing the next job. When he died, the bank account was as empty as our fridge."

He nods, a gesture that bridges nothing. What would Max Kensington understand about my mother hunched over coupons at 2 a.m., scissors trembling in her hand as she calculated pennies saved on toilet paper? Or her dragging herself from cashiering to waitressing to night cleaning, the smell of industrial disinfectant becoming her perfume? Or those nights I'd find her at the kitchen table, calculator in hand, eyes red-rimmed as she juggled which bill to pay and which to let slide another month? How we were always looking out for the tow truck that would come and take our car away? His childhood home probably had a name, not just an apartment number.

Still, he’s trying to understand. Trying to relate. I have to give him that.

I twist my hands in my lap. "Mom was always working. I'd wake up for school, and she'd already be gone—cleaning office buildings since 5 AM. Then she'd serve lunch at Denny's, come home just long enough to check our homework, and head to the night shift at Wal-Mart." I swallow hard. "Every penny went to keeping us fed, clothed, in school. If she didn't have us to worry about..." My voice catches. "Maybe she could've rested sometimes. Maybe her body wouldn't have..." I shrug, unable to finish.

Max's lips curl into a hesitant smile as he pokes a hole in my logic. "But how can you blame yourself for both your dad's death and your mom's cancer? I mean, if you hadn't been born..."

"I know, I know," I say, meeting his eyes briefly. "If I hadn't existed, my father wouldn't have been teaching me to ski when that teenager plowed into him. That's where logic and emotion part ways for me. My head understands the contradiction, but my heart can't let go." I reach over and rest my fingers on his hand where it grips the steering wheel. "That's why I get what you feel about your mother. Deep down. Your rational mind knows you're blameless—you didn't choose to be born or ask her to sacrifice everything. But that voice inside keeps whispering otherwise, and sometimes it's the loudest thing in the room."

"How do you live with it?" The question comes soft and urgent, like he's searching for a remedy I might possess for his own guilt about his mother's death.

“I don’t live with it very well. I stare at the ceiling most nights, playing it over and over. If I'd been a better skier—good enough for the black diamond runs—he wouldn't have been with me on that blue slope. Or if I'd been worse, stuck on the green or even the bunny hill after four days of lessons, I also wouldn’t have been on the blue slope. If I hadn't begged to go on that junior class trip like some entitled brat..." I shake my head, swallowing hard. "Somewhere there's a universe where my father wasn't standing on that exact patch of snow at that exact moment. A universe where he's still alive. That universe haunts me."

He inhales deeply, giving a slight nod. "No escaping the guilt, is there?" His eyes narrow against the sunlight. "We better get the tram now.” This time, he extends his hand with clear intention, and after a moment's pause, I slip my fingers between his. "For appearances," he murmurs. "Someone's always watching these days. Better convince them we're madly in love."

His hand is warm and soft against mine, and I hate how I notice that. I try to convince myself I'm not feeling anything—not the electricity shooting up my arm, not the way my pulse quickens traitorously with each step. But my body betrays me, every nerve ending coming alive even as my mind screams in protest while we walk toward the museum grounds.

We shuffle forward in the snaking line for the tram, shoulder to shoulder with tourists in cargo shorts and fanny packs. Max stands beside me, his Rolex glinting in the sun, yet he makes no move to bypass the queue. He doesn't even flinch when a toddler's sticky fingers brush against his arm. No whispers to security, no flashing of his black AmEx—just patience that surprises me.

The Getty Museum emerges into view as we ascend, its massive white travertine buildings gleaming like polished teeth against the cerulean Los Angeles sky, each slab imported from Italy and cut with mathematical precision. The tram deposits us at the summit with a pneumatic hiss, and I find myself frozen between steps. Below us, the sprawling city—a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods, highways, and swimming pools—stretches toward the Pacific, which shimmers like spilled mercury on the horizon. For a moment, even the perpetual Los Angeles traffic seems to pause, as if the museum exists in its own pocket of suspended time.

The museum queue stretches even longer than the tram line had. I glance at Max, wondering if his patience has limits. Most billionaire CEOs with magazine covers and Hollywood empires don't wait in lines like commoners. I brace myself for him to flash his VIP status or make a call.

Instead, he tucks his hands into his pockets and catches my eye, eyebrows lifting with a genuine smile. "I can't help it," he says softly. "This place is special to me." His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. "After Dad vanished, Rosa would bring me, Ansel, and Roman here—we were her museum boys. For a few precious hours inside these walls, I could forget everything else and just... breathe."

I nod, shocked to discover this shared ritual between us. After Dad died, I'd ride the 720 bus here every Saturday morning for a year straight. Always alone—I couldn't bear someone rushing me through the galleries or suggesting we skip a section. I needed to lose myself completely, to stand motionless before each sculpture until I memorized every curve, to lean close to paintings until the brushstrokes became tiny universes. I'd read every word on those little placards like they were sacred texts. For those precious Saturday hours, I could step outside my grief and into a world where beauty still existed.

I sigh. The Max I thought I knew is dissolving before my eyes, revealing someone I can't armor myself against. My heart quickens at the danger. A $60,000-a-year development exec doesn't end up with the CEO of Kensington Pictures—that's not how the story goes. What happens when a mortal loves a god? Nothing good.

I squeeze my eyes shut, summoning the memory of his cold shoulder, his silence as I planned our sham wedding alone, the cutting remarks that first day in that restaurant. But the man standing patiently in this endless museum line keeps intruding—the one who just shared his grief in a voice gone soft at the edges, the same man whose salt-water kisses still burn on my lips, whose hands steadied my waist on that surfboard with unexpected tenderness. The man is dangerous, not because he's cold, but because he's warm. And I'm already melting. Madness lies this way.

Inside the museum at last, the air-conditioning hits us and I literally want to sigh with relief; it’s so chill after the oven-blast from outside that it feels illegal, almost medicinal, like the walls are promising to take care of us even if no one else will. I blurt out immediately that the Renaissance painters are my big obsession in this place—their holy scenes with all the gold leaf, those faces that practically glow like there’s a lamp behind the canvas, the intensity of it—and I’m not even embarrassed by how dorky I sound.

Max keeps pace with me, matching my steps, and then suddenly he’s pointing out stuff I never would have noticed even if I’d camped out overnight. Titian’s insane color sense, how he packs more drama into red than the rest of us pack into a whole argument; Raphael, apparently the king of composition, lining up saints with the precision of a drill sergeant; Bellini’s Madonnas, who are somehow both see-through and more real than the people standing here with us; and Masaccio, who basically invented the trick where you feel like you’re falling into the painting, and Mantegna, whose people look like they could step out of the frame and ask for directions. The more he explains, the more I realize my version of knowing things is like a postcard compared to him—and I’m kind of obsessed. We drift from room to room under those ridiculous gold frames and I just want to see what he’ll say next.

I tilt my head, my tone playful. "Impressive museum knowledge for someone who claims he just 'spent time here as a kid.' My art history minor is practically useless compared to your Renaissance painter encyclopedia." The words catch in my throat as I remember Rosa's casual mention of four-year-old Max reading Oliver Twist aloud to her. Of course—the PhD at twenty-three wasn't a fluke. Standing beside him now, I feel the strange vertigo of realizing I've married a beautiful mind, someone whose brilliance is as effortless as breathing. A real-life Will Hunting in designer shoes, casually dropping Botticelli facts while I struggle to remember which artists used egg tempera.

He lets out a soft laugh and slides his arm around my shoulders. "I know, I'm rambling. You should meet my brother Asher—he's the real art expert. Runs our Fine Art division and knows things I can't even pronounce. Growing up, we actually banned him from our little museum trips." His eyes crinkle at the corners. "Poor kid would plant himself in front of every painting and lecture until Rosa threatened to leave him behind. Eventually, he just started coming alone. He’s probably somewhere in this very building right now, torturing some innocent docent about brushstroke techniques."

A laugh escaped me when he mentioned his brother being banished from family museum outings. "I'm sorry," I said, my shoulders still shaking. "It's just—I was a solo museum-goer too, but by choice. I can't stand trailing behind someone else, rushing past pieces I want to study or being dragged toward exhibits I couldn't care less about." I tried picturing Asher from the wedding reception. Which one was he again? They all shared that same genetic lottery win—sharp jawlines, perfect hair, eyes you could drown in—but the faces had blurred together in the champagne-soaked whirlwind of that night.

For the rest of the day, we wander from one sun-dappled gallery to the next, our footsteps echoing against marble floors. I linger longest before the impressionists, drawn like a moth to their luminous canvases. My favorite paintings feature Degas's ballerinas—those delicate figures with spines like reeds, captured in chalky pastels. In the Getty hangs my beloved "Waiting": a young dancer, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, head bowed beside a severe woman in mourning black. Max gravitates toward Manet and Renoir, his fingers hovering inches from their gilded frames. I join him, despite their fixation on society's elite—those champagne-sipping aristocrats with their silk parasols. Their brushwork transports me into their world—I can almost feel the breeze off the Seine at a boating party, or the flush spreading across the cheeks of that Getty painting's subject: a woman in pristine white, her gloved hand clasped by a gentleman as they ascend a sun-drenched hillside. Before leaving, we stand transfixed before Caillebotte's melancholy young man at his Parisian window, both of us silent before that perfect captured moment of urban solitude.

We step outside into the December darkness at five o'clock. Max hasn't mentioned what's next—a restaurant somewhere? Back to his place for a movie in that ridiculous screening room? My stomach flutters at the thought. I glance at his profile against the city lights, the sharp line of his jaw softening when he catches me looking. Why am I already planning the rest of our evening? The Getty always leaves me feeling like I've stepped into another world, but today it wasn't just the art. It was him. The way he listened when I talked about Monet. How his hand brushed mine reaching for the museum map. I'm trying to remind myself this is temporary, just business. But something's shifting between us, something terrifying and thrilling all at once.

Max checks his watch. "What do you think about the Santa Monica Pier?" His voice has a hesitant quality, like he's bracing for rejection. He has no idea what's happening inside me—my pulse quickening, my cheeks warming. The Santa Monica Pier! Just the thought of it brings back memories of childhood delight: that rickety wooden roller coaster, the ferris wheel spinning against the sunset, face painters turning children into tigers and butterflies, magicians pulling quarters from behind ears. Neon signs reflecting off the waves below. But what makes my stomach flutter isn't just the promise of cotton candy and carnival games—it's the hours ahead with Max, stretching before us like the boardwalk itself.

“Well, what do you think?” I ask him. “Obviously, I love the pier.” I jump up and down and clap my hands and his face lights up.

“I figured you did,” he says. “So let’s go.”

Time blurs on the Santa Monica Pier, all neon and laughter that make my chest feel light. I let myself twirl to a saxophone player's jazz, and when a magician in a top hat pulled me from the crowd, I feel my cheeks flush with unexpected delight. The ferris wheel creaks upward, and Max's fingers finds mine at the apex. On the roller coaster, we both abandon dignity, screaming through the drops with our arms raised like surrender flags. At Bubba Gump's, I nearly choke watching fitness-obsessed Max devour battered fish and hush puppies with the enthusiasm of a man breaking parole. Across the table, the restaurant light catches in his eyes as I sip my jalapeño mango margarita. For a moment, I picture us doing this every weekend, becoming a real—No. Absolutely not. This is strictly professional.

A few hours into dinner, Max sets down his beer—his second—and leans forward. "So," he says. The rim of my third mango jalapeño margarita leaves a sticky ring on my fingertips. The tequila has loosened something in me, made my thoughts slippery. I catch myself staring at the curve of his mouth, imagining our children with his smile, and I have to look away. Tipsy Celeste is dangerous Celeste. I grip my glass tighter. This arrangement was never about love—he needed to appease his grandfather, I needed money for Mom and Lexi. A marriage of convenience, nothing more. No matter how much I wish otherwise. Max clears his throat. "About that book on your coffee table..."

I feel my cheeks flush hot. "Don't worry, it's not some Mean Girls burn book situation," I say, attempting a casual laugh that comes out more like a nervous hiccup. "Trust me, if I were keeping a list of all the ways you drive me crazy, I'd need something a lot thicker than that notebook."