Ruin

by Laurelin Paige

  Saying that felt too big. Like I wasn’t dilated enough for that. I needed some sort of epidural.

  I leaned forward and reached my hand out toward the cognac.

  “Oh, come on,” he said, relinquishing the bottle to me. “How trapped have you been really?”

  I practically choked on the swallow I’d just thrown back. I wiped at my mouth, coughing.

  “Uh. Pretty trapped.”

  “How hard did you try to get away?” He stared intensely at me, forcing me to really think about the answer.

  I had tried in the beginning. But I certainly hadn’t exhausted my avenues. After learning what Edward had told the islanders, I hadn’t attempted to talk to anyone besides Joette about the real circumstances of my confinement. I hadn’t tried to seduce any of the Spanish-speaking workers who’d helped with my redesigns. I hadn’t tried to steal a boat in the middle of the night. I hadn’t tried to hack Edward’s computer to get to the internet or even searched the staff’s quarters for a laptop or a satellite phone, both of which surely existed.

  I couldn’t begin to say why I hadn’t tried harder. It hadn’t been because I was scared. It might have been a little because I was lazy. The truth was, though, when I really thought about it now, there hadn’t been enough reason to want to leave. What did I have waiting for me beyond Amelie? What did I have waiting for me beyond Edward?

  The revelation threatened to knock me off balance.

  Then the look in Edward’s eyes definitely threw me off balance. It said, See? Not so easy to define what’s going on now, is it? Because what must he have been thinking leaving me here? Had he expected me to be gone when he came back? Each time he arrived, was my presence a surprise? Had he wanted me to escape?

  Had he been glad when I hadn’t?

  I shook my head, more confused than I’d been before. “If I'm not your prisoner, Edward, then what am I?”

  It was his turn to sigh and reach out for the bottle, which I passed without comment. He took a slow draw off the neck then settled it back in the crook of his arm, his brow furrowed as though searching for what he wanted to say.

  I brought my knees up to the sectional and hugged my arms around them, letting him take his time, the same way he’d coaxed me with patience in all of his sessions.

  Finally, he spoke. “You asked me earlier today what sort of relationship I had with my father.”

  I blinked, caught off guard by the apparent change of subject. “Sure. Yeah. I did,” I said, curious where he was going.

  “We weren’t close, exactly. Stefan Fasbender wasn’t a mean man or cruel in anyway, but, like your father, he worked all the time. He did make quite an appearance of being a family man—everyone said he lived for his company and us—but both Camilla and I knew that what he really loved besides his job was our mother.”

  “Amelie.” I twisted the ring on my finger, the one that had belonged to her. It had felt significant that he’d given it to me. Even more so now that I knew it represented a deep love.

  “She really was a lovely woman. It was easy to see why he was so enraptured by her. She was physically beautiful, something you can tell just by looking at photographs—dark hair, pale skin, plump lips. But all that was magnified when you were actually in her presence. She radiated joy, and if you’ve never seen that on a person, it’s incredibly attractive. She made everyone around her feel it with her. It was infectious, and the three people most infected were my father, Camilla, and me. She doted on us. Spoiled us with love and affection. She was better than Father Christmas. She was magic like that.”

  I smiled at the image. “No wonder you named the island after her. It’s magic here too.”

  “Yes.” He gave a respectful nod. “You can imagine how devastating it was for all of us to discover she was terminally ill. I was almost eleven. Old enough to understand that what was happening was not normal, but not quite old enough to understand the intricacies of something as complicated as ovarian cancer.

  “The real indicator that it was serious was how my father behaved. He stepped away from his job for weeks at a time, desperate to be at her side through every treatment, through every bout of nausea, through every crying jag. I remember making a huge effort to protect Camilla from it all. She was only six, and I’d ignore homework to keep her entertained so that she wouldn’t go searching for my mother’s attention. But then, when she was asleep or busy with the nanny, I’d sneak up to my parents’ room and watch from the door frame as he tended to her, unnoticed by her because of the fog of medication. Unnoticed by him because of his preoccupation with her.”

  My throat ached with sympathy, and I wanted to say something, but the cadence of his words indicated he was getting to a point, and my condolences weren’t it. So I took my cue from the way he always behaved in his sessions with me, holding back and just listening.

  “Understandably, the business suffered from my father’s absence. Accelerate, was the name of his company. Not impressive compared to Werner, by any means, but it was substantial. A handful of television stations and some newspapers. He’d inherited a lot of money and bought into media at the right time. He’d built most of it before he’d even met my mother. (He was forty-two when they met, a dozen years her senior. I came along three years later.) He was so blinded by his devastation with what was going on with my mother that he didn’t take the time to take proper measures at Accelerate. He should have stepped down as CEO. He should have pulled himself from operations, but he didn’t. Which made the company vulnerable, and soon it was ripe for takeover.

  “When he realized what was happening, he tried to retaliate. Tried to buy stock in the company that was purchasing, but stock options weren’t available. Tried to get his entire team to resign—a tactic known as a poison pill—but the purchasing company didn’t care to retain the management team. There’s probably more to the back and forth of the negotiations—I was only thirteen by the time this came to a head, so my knowledge has been only pieced together from accounts from other board members years later. The point is, he lost Accelerate.

  “And two months later, he lost his wife.”

  My inhale was sharp and audible, despite having already known the bare bones of the story. The sound brought his eyes to me as I covered my mouth with my hand.

  “We weren’t completely destitute, mind you. We hadn’t lost everything. Money was exchanged in the takeover, though a lot of that went to pay the medical bills. My father had gone all out in search of experimental treatments, each of which were costly and didn’t work in the end. There was money in a trust, still, but it wasn’t going to last forever. He tried to return to Accelerate as a high-level employee, but the new company had no need for his expertise, since all they planned to do was tear the company apart and sell it piece by piece. Which they did, rather quickly, I might add. He was devastated watching his life’s work be demolished, and, after the death of my mother, his two reasons for living were gone.”

  “He killed himself.” The words came out of my mouth before I meant to say them. I’d read this too, but it hadn’t been quite so shocking without the details.

  “Yes, he did.” Edward’s eyes were dark and unreadable. “The trust was left to me and my sister, and our care was put in the hands of a cousin we’d only met once before. She and her husband were the trustees and, with no one monitoring them except each other, they sent us to foster care and spent all the money. What money there was after the fall of all the Accelerate stocks, which were worthless after the company was torn apart.”

  He looked at the bottle in his lap, but instead of taking another swallow, he put the cap on it and set it on the ground. Then he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. “The foster system separated us, and Camilla ended up in an abusive family. Burned and beaten for years, until I could get her out of the clutches of that man. The damage had already been done. My situation wasn’t nearly as bad. I was moved around a few times, no one wanting an angry, maladjusted teenage boy—and I was
certainly both. The homes that took me in along the way were hardly stable. The neglect and lack of supervisory attention did give me time to plan, though, and even before I knew about Camilla, even before I discovered all the money was gone, I knew that one day I’d get my revenge. One day I’d take back what was owed.”

  He turned his head toward me, his eyes searing into my skin. “I’ve been living and planning and working for vengeance since I was thirteen, Celia. Before you were even in preschool. It’s taken years to find the right path. So many times I’ve been close, but never as close as now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  My stomach dropped like there was an anchor in its place and it had been thrown out to sea, taking all of me with it. Because suddenly I did understand what he was saying. “The company that took over—it was Werner Media, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t have to answer for me to know I was right, and he didn’t. He just kept his gaze pinned in place, watching me react. The brandy on an empty stomach suddenly seemed like it had been a very bad idea.

  “But...but...but that’s just business!” I exclaimed. Though, I knew that there were ethical business practices and less ethical ones, and from his description of the situation, I guessed this had been the latter. “And what about the cousin? The one who took all the money? Or the foster dad who hurt Camilla? Things turned out shitty, but it wasn’t all my father’s fault. There were other demons in this story, too.”

  “And those demons have already been taken care of.”

  A chill shuddered up my spine at the ominous pronouncement.

  “For that matter, my father is also to blame, and I acknowledge that. He was a pathetic coward, taking his own life instead of caring for his children, and, believe me, if I could kill him again for it, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  His tone was as vicious as his words, his demeanor as cruel as his intentions, and, if I’d ever forgotten, here was the reminder—Edward Fasbender was a devil.

  And I’d fallen in love with him. Crashed into love with him. There wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t mangled and damaged from the impact. The best I could hope was that he’d crashed into love with me, but now that I’d heard his story, I could see why that outcome was unlikely.

  I swallowed back the ball at the back of my throat and blinked away tears. “I’ve only ever been a tool. A means to get to him. To ruin his life the way he ruined yours.”

  The slight sag in his shoulders said everything.

  It was stupid to be so surprised. He’d outright told me he wanted my father’s shares. But I hadn’t truly understood. I’d thought he wanted to move into the U.S. market because he was a ruthless businessman. That felt somehow easier to handle than being the means to execute a plan that was emotionally motivated. Especially after knowing the details of his story. If I’d lived through something so brutal and painful, I’d want revenge too.

  Except, the man he wanted revenge against was my father. A man I loved, despite his flaws. “You still want to take him down, don’t you? Even now. Even after us.”

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “I won’t let you get taken down with him.”

  I bit my lip, holding in a sob. “Really? You've already taken me down. Broken me. All this time you were doing that—you were only ever interested in finding out things you could use to get to my father, weren’t you? Hoping to make me ‘yours’ so I could manipulate him for you somehow. Was that the reason you kept me alive?”

  He scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wanted you to be mine because you belong with me. I wanted you to be mine so that I could justify—to myself, at least—not going through with plans I’ve worked a fucking lifetime to implement.”

  He was still torn, the evidence in the frayed pitch of his words. Still divided between wanting me and a revenge scheme that consumed him as thoroughly as any of my games had consumed me.

  Or maybe he was just angry about the situation. About the cost that came with keeping me alive and giving up access to my shares. Fuck, I’d give them to him if he asked me to. If he’d just say he didn’t need his revenge anymore because he had me. If he’d just say he loved me.

  But I’d never been anyone’s first choice, not even my parents’. My mother preferred her gossip and social hour to time with me. My father preferred his golf and his empire. Hudson preferred The Game and then Alayna. Edward preferred his revenge.

  “I guess I understand what it must have felt like for you as a kid, not being the priority of your father’s affections. Of anyone’s affections.” It was childish and passive-aggressive, and now he knew how hurt I was, and even without outright telling him that I was in love with him, he would be stupid not to have figured it out.

  “Bird…” he said, his arms starting to reach out before thinking better of it and retreating into his body.

  I shook my head, denying the term of affection. “It's not your style to pretend like you're worried about my feelings. You don't need to start now. I know what my value is in this world. I’m practiced at being the one who matters less.”

  The memory of my father spanking me flashed in my head. He’d put me in second place then too. Believing someone else’s word over mine.

  Edward started to say something, something I heard nothing of because of where my thoughts had led me.

  “Wait. Accelerate was a London company.” I did the math in my head to be sure I was right. “That wasn’t my father who screwed your dad over. He didn’t run that branch of the company back then.” It had been Werner Media’s brief venture into the European market, a disastrous one from what my mother had told me in later years.

  “Don’t try to protect him,” Edward said.

  “I’m not trying to protect him. Lord knows he's failed at trying to protect me.”

  He put a finger up, as if bookmarking the topic. “We're going to revisit that.”

  Despite the course the evening’s conversation had taken, with the promise of a future session, of Edward wanting to know about a pain I had yet to tell him, a bud of hope sprung inside me.

  “But tell me who you think I should be blaming if not Warren. It was a subsidiary of Werner, yes, but your father was the CEO. He oversaw everything that happened under him.”

  “He did, and he didn’t. Not back then. The branch that went into England had autonomy.”

  “Then who was behind the decision?”

  The hope bud inside of me blossomed into something bigger, fed by an odd combination of relief and exhilaration. See, I understood the want for revenge, too. I just had never been ambitious enough to try to go after it. Not when my father had shot down my first attempt.

  Now, though, with Edward, perhaps it was time to think bigger.

  I almost smiled when I gave him my answer. “A man I'd fully get behind you hurting—my uncle, Ron.”

  Twenty-Four

  Edward

  She’d changed everything.

  From the moment she walked into that conference room at the St. Regis Hotel, my course had veered. Her eyes. The tilt of her chin. The way her lips formed into a natural pout. I’d been transfixed.

  Then, little by little, she altered me. Changing the very nature of who I was. I’d been a vessel, a piece of stemware full with the wine of revenge, and she’d shattered me into a thousand shards of glass, and now I didn’t even recognize myself.

  Discovering Warren Werner might not be the enemy I thought he was, brought the biggest change of all. A death of sorts. If what she said was true, if there was another villain behind the destruction of my family, then I couldn’t be the man I’d been anymore. I’d have to become someone new, someone who didn’t live and breathe to bring down Werner Media. I didn’t know who that man was. I didn’t know how to be him.

  She thought I’d ruined her?

  She’d ruined me. In every dangerous and noble way.

  I needed time to process it. Long hours of examination and research, but I couldn’t do that yet because of her. Because she was sitting three cushions awa
y from me, on the verge of shedding another layer of skin, and I needed to devote all my thoughts and energy to her. To whatever pain this was that had her tense and snarling.

  I didn’t just need to—I wanted to.

  I wanted to know everything about her, the good and the bad, but especially the bad. I knew what it felt like to carry agony, how it corrupted and controlled. How it turned into poison. Without someone willing to burrow and excavate and scrape out the heartache, it grew into a cancer that compelled actions of evil. It was too late for me, but for her—I wanted to replace those pains in her, wanted to weed them out and take them on myself. She didn’t have to be the angry, destructive woman she’d been inhabiting for years. I would be her wrath for her.

  Starting with Ronald Werner.

  “When did it start?” I asked, making my question too direct for her to sidestep.

  Her eyes widened, startled. Then she settled into a frown. “Are you guessing?”

  “Am I wrong?” I knew I wasn’t. As soon as I’d seen her reaction to the man when he’d shown up at our wedding reception, I’d known he’d hurt her in some contemptible way.

  And there was only one usual way that men like that hurt younger women.

  Even without her confirmation, I wanted to rip his balls off and shove them down his throat so he couldn’t scream out while I raped his ass with my fist. It still wouldn’t make up for however he’d touched her, however he’d harmed her. But it would be a good start.

  Her body sagged as she looked out to the ocean, then toward the fire, the light catching the moisture in her eyes. Finally she turned her gaze back to me. “He didn’t rape me, if that’s what you assume.”

  My jaw clenched. If it wasn’t rape…

  “Would rape have been worse?” I asked, my mind already taking me to darker places. Scenes informed by the terrible things I’d witnessed other powerful, depraved men do. Images I could barely stand to imagine let alone discover they were real.