Unwrapped by The Billionaire

by Joanna Nicholson

  What made the situation so much worse was that it was utterly nonsensical. Aaron had become a walking parody, a mythical being that he thought only existed in fairy tales. How could he tell Vanessa such an absurdity? It sounded asinine even when he thought it. How could he convince her that it was real?

  “I was given a rare, military-grade serum,” Aaron belted out. “This serum causes me to… transform…”

  “Into what?” Vanessa cut him off, intrigued.

  “The military doctor called it a… werebear,” Aaron said, gulping. “As in, a werewolf bear.”

  Silence fell across the room, and only the lapping of the waves could be heard outside as the landscape of the Maldives revved up for another day, totally unaware of the confession made within these walls. Aaron let his head fall into his hands, hopeless, wondering how to salvage the morning. He’d ruined the conversation, unleashing this venom of a secret to someone who—rightfully so—couldn’t take it all in.

  Something stirred inside Vanessa; curling up around her soul. Her mind sizzled with a mix of fear and confusion bubbling up together in tandem with one another. What is a werebear? Her mind spiraled with the question, over and over again, until it no longer sounded ridiculous in her train of thought. It was intriguing somehow; overpowering in its allure. The notion of being craved by this beast of a man with rippling muscles and overflowing appeal. His confession felt more and more normal with each wave of realization across her mind; so much so that Vanessa didn’t even feel the need to sour the moment with her own commentary.

  “Aaron,” Vanessa broke the stillness. “What do you want out of life?”

  Shock drizzled through him. “What?” he asked, lifting his head to face her.

  “What do you want out of life?” she asked again. “Have you already achieved your dreams? Are you still searching for something?”

  He let his eyes wander outside to the cyan sea, and the way the sunlight glimmered across the surface of the waves. All he wanted was normalcy, to be average, to not be considered such a commodity.

  “I want… to be a regular guy,” he confessed. “I want a house, I want a wife, I want to barbecue in the backyard and drink beer with my friends. I want to talk about sports, not stocks. I want to fix things in the garage. I want to read all the newspaper sections, not just the finance and business parts. I want… to be average,” Aaron said, looking into her eyes.

  “Have you ever told anyone before?” she questioned, curiously.

  “No one’s ever asked me,” he replied.

  Chapter 21

  In the months following his trip to the Maldives, Aaron was informed that his assumption about his former secretary’s involvement in the case was false. His father was still deteriorating, even after a quick jump in his health. In what felt like a move of ultimate betrayal, Mr. Lee was taken into federal custody on two charges of attempted murder, having stolen the serum from an unknown merchant on the black market.

  “Why did you do it?” Aaron said into the phone as he stared into Mr. Lee’s eyes, sunken and gray, across the plexiglass barrier. “Why would you do this to us?”

  “You never respected me,” Mr. Lee hissed. “I had worked for your father since before you were born. I should have owned the company by now. I should be in charge. I was loyal for decades, but Charlie never cared about me. I was stuck, unable to move up, wasting my time. I wanted him gone. I wanted you gone. I wanted to win.”

  “How did you inject the poison into me? How did you make me into such a monster?” Aaron was desperate for answers; his brain seemed to turn itself inside-out in longing to understand how all this happened.

  “I spiked your coffee,” snarled Mr. Lee, his eyes somersaulting in their turpitude. “The morning of the meeting with the investors. I placed a tasteless sedative in a single serving of decaf coffee and poured it into a mug as soon as I saw Desiree coming. Once you were knocked out, I injected you with the serum...the same serum I plunged into your father’s bloodstream in sustained, nearly-lethal doses. I kept him alive just long enough to name me as his successor. And yet...he never did...” Mr. Lee’s wicked confession trailed off, leaving Aaron with the constricting depravity of his words.

  “My father could read people,” Aaron said slowly, measuredly. “He could have sensed this behavior in you, Mr. Lee. That’s probably the reason that you never moved up in the company, not me.”

  Hatred emanated from Mr. Lee’s pores as he spit at Aaron’s face across the windowpane. The two guards supervising the visit immediately snapped to action, dragging Mr. Lee back into the dingy recesses of the federal prison where he was held, awaiting the death sentence. Sighing, Aaron held his thumbs tightly within his fingers for a few seconds before getting up to leave. This was his coping mechanism, this helped him calm down. Over time, Aaron learned the value in stress-management strategies, always testing and trying new ways to prevent a transformation. In times of intense anxiety, Aaron could squeeze his thumbs at the pressure points to release dopamine through his body to create waves of contentment.

  Behind the wheel of the Tesla he’d traded for his old bachelor’s Porsche, Aaron took in the fields of unending green across the rural California landscape. Mountains sketched themselves out across the brilliant blue of the southwestern sky and birds flitted through the wind gusts, chirping and singing a soundtrack of inextinguishable joy. He sold Kümertech to a rival company, which absorbed his albatross with open arms. Now, Aaron did what he wanted, when he wanted, and didn’t have to keep up the masquerade of detached indifference.

  Aaron pulled into the driveway of a house he’d bought shortly after his return from the Maldives. Emma ran out to greet him as he closed the car door, bounding across the yard only to be swooped up in his arms and spun around until they both fell in their dizziness on the landing pad of the grass. Vanessa watched from the window, spinning in her own form of dizzy joy at the sight of the two of them together, giving each other companionship they’d never had before.

  For Emma, Aaron was a big brother and a father figure rolled into one. For Aaron, Emma was a window into a life of joy, of compassion, of innocence, of hope. For Vanessa, they were bridges to a family she didn’t think she deserved, the new and improved version of the family that was ripped away from her. She was nearing her twenty-third birthday, and her life had painted itself in ways that she lacked the artistic ability to imagine. Watching Aaron gaze up at clouds with Emma in the grass, pointing out cloud formations and giggling at the possibilities, Vanessa’s heart was bursting. This was her life now.

  4. His Prey

  By: Cassidy Rowe

  His Prey

  © November 2017 – All rights reserved

  By Cassidy Rowe,

  Published by Passionate Publishing Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. All names and characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  This book is for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Warning

  This book is intended for adult readers, 18+ years old. Please close this e-book if you are not comfortable reading adult content.

  Chapter 1

  Vanessa counted the streetlights as the bus roared forward on the main thoroughfare of the suburban sprawl where she was raised. Two, four, six, eight, ten. She lost count as they spattered light into the darkened bus while nightfall spilled across the sky outside. Usually Vanessa’s journeys on public transportation were limited to the sheltering light of daytime. Her six-year-old sister’s recent epilepsy diagnosis confined the convenience of the bus to times when the jittering of excess light wouldn't spur a fit or a seizure. These were the things she had to think about, the little details that swoop in to disarm you when you think you’ve got everything together. She’d had to step up in the last year, to assume the role of Mother, Father, Sister, Provider.


  As Vanessa gazed out the window, she could feel shards of her old life nicking her from across the landscape of her consciousness. Independence was something distant to her now, something illusory. She’d forgotten the boundless, untethered feeling of something as simple as going to the grocery store by herself, the exhalation of autonomy swirling in the air around her. She’d taken the first twenty years of her life for granted, living as a normal child in a regular suburb with ordinary parents and a lackluster view of her own sovereignty. Now the memories of her parents being alive, cooking dinner, helping with homework, mopping floors… it all seemed jumbled inside Vanessa’s head, memories mingled with dreams in the same far-fetched, mental mirage.

  It’s human nature to think that the death of one’s parents—the irreversible scorching away of a person’s fundamental support system—is the ultimate tragedy in life, especially for a young person without a life of their own yet. But somehow, for Vanessa, this wasn’t true. She didn’t know if it was just in her case or if everyone went through this—if it were some sort of rite of passage for everyone whose parents were ripped right out of their lives—but the aftermath was what really stung. Sure, receiving the news that she’d never again see her mother and father was devastating—worse than devastating, a cataclysm of every child’s worst fears rolled into one burst of anguish—but she only had to receive the news once. One time, and then it was over.

  What wasn’t over? The stillness in their bedroom. The dust collecting on her mother’s books. The runaway follicles in her father’s horsehair brush. Their toothbrushes, side by side, never to be used again.

  Vanessa woke up every morning hoping for the pain to ease, for reality to seem more normal, for the grief to subside, for Emma to understand. And yet every day, Vanessa was faced with more uncertainty, more bereavement, more despair. Emma was still a small child, and her disability branded her with an extra layer of frailty that Vanessa couldn’t seem to shelter. Being an orphan at the blink of an eye, being a parent, having to raise a child alone, bearing the weight of disability… these were all nearly unbearable realities to live out on their own. But for Vanessa, they were all sides of the same die thrown onto the board game of her life. She was all of these things, all at once.

  Tonight Vanessa looked down in horror at an empty box of tampons staring back at her. Normally she remembers to pick up all her essentials during the day, when Emma’s in school. But these are seas that Vanessa is still learning to navigate: the uncharted waters of remembering everything all the time. Under the weight of what day the water company takes out the monthly bill from her checking account, the strain of learning to cook more than frozen pizza, and the feeling of treading water professionally, forgetting to pick up tampons on her way home to get Emma seemed like a tidal wave that would capsize the ship she’s trying to steer through the bluster that’s become her life.

  Leaving Emma with her next-door neighbor, Vanessa decided to take the bus rather than ride her bike to the store. It was getting late, the darkness felt prohibitive and uninviting… and selfishly, Vanessa just wanted to feel what it was like to be chauffeured again. Her life had become so unrecognizably complicated in the year since her parents’ death that the notion of sitting in a seat and being driven to a destination felt almost unreachably luxurious.

  When the stoplights didn’t beam themselves into the bus with the same speed, Vanessa glanced over at the doors of the bus. As they opened to accommodate new passengers, a face from a few years back illuminated itself in familiarity: the dimpled smile of a cheerleader from her high school named Talisha. Though they never really talked—just shared a few classes together—Talisha’s face lit up as she noticed Vanessa and approached her with what seemed like excitement.

  Internally Vanessa groaned. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She didn’t want to get wrapped in a blanket of nostalgia for a time that seemed like eons ago—a life that she can’t even remember now under the weight of her almost immobilizing responsibilities. All she wanted was to look out the window for a few minutes, to feel the serenity of solitude, the luxury of loneliness. All day long she catered to customers and all night long she entertained the babble of her kid sister. Vanessa just needed a few minutes to herself, just a little bit of privacy… but apparently that wasn’t in the cards tonight.

  “Hey,” Talisha said warmly, sitting in the seat next to Vanessa.

  “Hi,” Vanessa said, reluctantly picking up her head from the window of the bus and sitting up straight.

  “How are you doing?” Talisha asked in what seemed like a genuine tone.

  “Fine,” Vanessa quipped, unsure of whether Talisha was just making small talk, or if she knew about Vanessa’s parents.

  “That’s good…” Talisha said, dropping her tone. “I, uh… I saw the news report last year. I’ve been thinking about you,” she said, looking Vanessa in the eye. “I didn’t know how to reach out, or even if I should… so I didn’t. We didn’t really know each other in school, but when something like that happens, it’s instinctual to want to do something, to say something, to let the person know you care…”

  “That’s all right,” Vanessa said sharply. Talisha was picking at the scab of a wound that had taken months to clot.

  “Well, okay,” Talisha said, aware of the awkward energy she’d brought with her into the bus, the vapor of social clumsiness floating between them. “So,” she began in an effort to change the subject, “you’re in law school, right?”

  “I was,” Vanessa sighed. It was becoming clearer each second that Talisha wouldn’t let up, that she was too curious to realize how her meddling was making Vanessa feel. “I had to drop out to care for my sister,” Vanessa admitted quietly, rolling the corners of her paper bus pass between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Oh God,” Talisha said, putting a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That must… be… hard…” Her voice drifted off and neither of them said anything for a few seconds. “What are…” Talisha began, unsteadily. “What… are you doing for money right now?”

  “Well,” Vanessa began with an even deeper sigh, hoping to indicate to her socially tone-deaf seatmate that she clearly didn’t want to discuss any of this, that her entire life had become a bubbling cauldron of anxiety, that she was just trying to enjoy a rare moment of peace. “I work part-time at a restaurant. I’d like to work some more, but my sister needs someone home with her at night.”

  “Oh,” Talisha said, inhaling deeply. “Well, that’s, um… that’s too bad.”

  “Yeah,” Vanessa said in an attempt to sever the conversation, turning her head to the window once again.

  “You know,” Talisha said, stiffening in her seat, “I’m, uh… I’m working at a nightclub now. As a waitress. It’s not too difficult, you don’t need any skills, just connections. I could hook you up, if you think you’d be able to work a few nights a week.”

  Vanessa wanted to roll her eyes. A waitress, she thought to herself, yeah right. She could remember a time when the passable word was “dancer,” the word they all used to refer to the profession with a hint of playful whimsy, a lighthearted wink toward something otherwise scathing and low-class.

  “No thanks,” Vanessa said, never letting her eyes stray from the window.

  “It’s not what you think,” Talisha said immediately, a little too defensive to be taken seriously.

  “I know what it is,” Vanessa said, turning to Talisha as the bus slowed. “I’m not interested, and even if I was, I can’t leave a six-year-old at home alone,” she replied, grabbing her purse from beneath the seat.

  “Here, take my number,” Talisha said, scribbling seven digits on the back of a receipt she fished out of her purse. “Think about it, okay? It may be difficult at first, but… the money is,” Talisha broke out into a grin, “I mean, it’s insane.”

  Vanessa glared at Talisha with a steely indifference, too thoroughly exhausted to give her any more attention. “This is my stop,” she muttered, reluctantly taki
ng the receipt and crumpling it into her back pocket as she scooted out of the seat and out of the bus, into the crisp November night.

  Chapter 2

  Emma laid her head on Vanessa’s shoulder as she was carried through the darkness from Jessica’s house. She’d fallen asleep on her neighbor’s couch waiting for her big sister to come back for her. Even though she wanted to stay up and play with Vanessa, Emma couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. With her legs wrapped around Vanessa’s torso and her arms hung around Vanessa’s neck, Emma floated off into a dreamy landscape of bright pink and sunny yellow as she was rocked into slumber by the lumbered gait of her big sister walking them home.

  Once Vanessa laid Emma in her bed upstairs, the first part of her night was over. Then came the following acts. Tidying up the explosion of art supplies her baby sister had strewn across the living room floor. Washing the dishes that had been sitting in the sink since last night, the baking pans and mixing bowls left after baking brownies for Emma on the grounds that they needed “to soak,” though even Vanessa knew she was lying to herself. She just didn’t feel like doing anything else yesterday. Each day came barreling at her, throwing her more than she could handle, and every day she just ran on what felt like a treadmill of progress, exhausting herself with the doldrums of daily life, but never getting anywhere.

  And this is how it manifested itself: a house in chaos, with dolls face-planted on the floor, their clothes in a trail of disarray behind them. Crumbs of food were ground into the floor, as the only time that Vanessa had to vacuum was when Emma was asleep. Dirty laundry piled up in heaps in the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen, moaning to be put in the wash. Clean clothes begging to be folded spilled over off the chair where Vanessa’s father used to read the paper when she was Emma’s age. Envelopes snaked across the kitchen counter in various colors: a rainbow of tension between bill collectors and Vanessa that ranged from the standard eggshell hue to an anxious, suspenseful red. With a sigh which racketed through her body, she glanced at the pile of unopened bills, not ready to face the magnitude of the final notices, the threats of discontinued service, the looming reality that utilities could be shut off at any moment.