At that point, there was nothing to do but bow to the inevitable, and it was while I was quite a few beers into that case that I opened my mouth and started to speak. What can I say in my defense? I wasn’t used to drinking all that much—I liked to be in control most of the time.
Brent listened, and it wasn’t until I had the words out that I realized just how much I needed someone who would listen. It got even better, too, since I could quickly see his mind—his keen, deeply intelligent mind—jumping into action.
I should have talked to him before and I quickly realized it.
“It’s easy.” Brent couldn’t have had a bigger smirk on his face if he’d tried. This was all an intellectual challenge to him, and it was one he didn’t seem to find all that difficult. “You just have to figure out how to make everything that’s hers, yours. I think we both know the easiest, quickest way for you to do that.”
I winced, but I wasn’t going to play stupid. I did know. Unfortunately. But there was no way Brent could be serious.
“You want me to marry her? That woman? You know what she did to me, Brent. She got everything.” I grabbed another beer and looked at him. Brent had to be joking. It was the only option.
He didn’t seem to be, though. He was smirking, yes, but still in the way where he clearly thought he’d had the best idea of all time.
“Yeah, she did. So this is how you take it back,” Brent insisted. “You want revenge. Well, what better revenge would there be than to leave her in even worse shape than she started with? You marry her, get a quickie divorce, and you take it all.”
I frowned a little. It seemed Brent was actually somehow serious about this ridiculous plan, but I could also tell he had never been married or even seriously considered it.
“That’s not how it works. If we get married, there’s no way she’d just hand everything over to me.” I popped the top of my beer and thoughtfully downed a good portion of it. Brent was an idiot, of course, but I pulled an image of Kaye’s beauty into my head.
Married.
She would have to give herself to me if we were married. The thought was as sudden as it was unexpected, and I shoved it deliberately away. Sleeping with the woman was not the point of this exercise.
“There are prenups. Just get her to sign one of those. It’s pretty common.” Brent gave me a confident smirk and a wave of his hand as though to say the whole thing was far too easy for him to need to lay it out like he was. Like the little details were beyond him.
“A prenup?” My eyes narrowed and I started to toss that around in my head, which was admittedly pretty foggy with the beer at that point. “That could work. The person who ended the marriage could forfeit all of the money …”
Then I realized what I was saying and I shook my head—which protested rather strongly.
“No, wait. If I put that in, she would never leave. The last thing I want is to be saddled with a wife I can’t get rid of without losing all of my money.” I downed the rest of the beer, welcoming the rush of heat it brought. “No way am I getting into that sort of trap.”
I didn’t want to marry anyone. I had decided years ago that I wouldn’t. I’d seen too much in my life for it to seem to be worth it. Even if my brain ever fell out of my ear and I did choose to get married, I would never pick Kaye.
Something about her stuck in my head in a way that didn’t seem quite safe.
“Okay, no. You’re right, but I’ve got it,” Brent said, and I could see him getting more and more excited, his blue eyes bright with mischief and his cheeks flushed. “The prenup will say whoever is at fault for the breakup of the marriage will get nothing. The injured party, if any, gets it all.”
I shook my head, staring at him. I still wasn’t sure that I got it, and he rolled his eyes at me. Then, thankfully, he continued on.
“Including cheating, David. She cheats, you rake in your money, and the marriage is over. You come out on top.”
Oh my God.
He was right. That would be one situation in which no one could blame me for the marriage breaking down. If she cheated on me, it would all be over and I’d have exactly what I wanted without having to go to court for it, probably. And even if Kaye did hypothetically drag it to court, there would be no chance of her winning.
It would be trading a doubtful outcome for an almost certain one. But there was still one problem left, the way I saw it.
“What would make her cheat?” I asked, and Brent considered that for a moment before his grin widened.
“I would.”
That’s where the plan started, and the pieces fell into place so easily after that. I would marry Kaye, and then I would start to treat her badly right after the wedding. Hurting from my treatment, she would doubtless fall into the arms of anyone who paid her even a hint of attention.
In my experience, women weren’t the most faithful of creatures. I’d never let one of them get close to me, but even so, I’d been cheated on. And I knew that my mother had left me and my father for another man. So it didn’t seem strange to me that Brent could seduce my hypothetical wife.
Brent was handsome enough, though I was hardly the best judge of that. But I’d seen women throw themselves at him often enough to have some idea. More than that, he was smart, and I could see him having Kaye wrapped around his little finger soon enough.
So easy. Almost foolproof. I ‘catch’ them in the act, she cries, I leave, and I get the money. Simple.
“What do you get out of it?” I wondered, and he shrugged at me.
“What else? A cut of the money that I help you get.”
I struggled against the booze, trying hard to poke at this plan, to see if there were any holes in it. No matter how I looked at it, I didn’t find any. Kaye would give in to human nature, and because of that, she would lose everything.
Seemed like fitting revenge to me.
“Won’t it look suspicious?” I asked, poking at the only bit of the whole plan that still seemed a little dodgy to me. “If I marry her so quickly? Why would she go for that? She barely knows me.”
Brent got this strange little smile on his face and he raised his bottle of beer, using it to gesture to me.
“Is that a real question? You have women flinging themselves into bed with you all the damn time, David. I have faith that you will figure out how to seduce one little nurse with no problem at all.”
I knew I could be charming. I hadn’t shown a lot of that charm toward Kaye as of yet. But when I wanted to, I could make people like me.
Our start had been rocky, but wouldn’t that just make it all that much more of a challenge? And if there was a single thing on this earth that I couldn’t resist, it was a challenge.
“If you’re serious …” I took a deep breath, still struggling to think through the haze of the beers I’d consumed. Surely there had to be some reason this whole thing wouldn’t work, but I would be damned if I could think of one. “I’m in. What do you say about five million? I think that’s a pretty good deal for you for sleeping with my future wife.”
Not to mention that Kaye was utterly beautiful, in a quiet, graceful, and kind sort of way. Brent would be lucky to have her. Five million was a pretty decent paycheck for this sort of thing.
“But you only get it if she sleeps with you,” I added. I thought it was likely that she would, but I wasn’t going to take any chances and be out five million dollars. I’d been born and raised in a fairly high-income family, but even for me, that was hardly chump change.
“Deal,” Brent said, and then grinned. “But you’re going to have to do your part, man, and I expect to be best man at your wedding.”
My wedding. Oh my God. It seemed ridiculous that Brent would even be saying those words, much less that we had a whole plan to make that happen.
“You got it,” I promised, and that was that. The plan was made.
All I needed to do then was figure out how I was going to change Kaye’s undoubtedly negative opinion of me enough that she�
�d marry me.
I’d have to shape up, stop the moping, and somehow push the hatred I had for her down far enough that it wouldn’t show when I charmed the pants off her then slipped a wedding ring onto her slender finger.
Vengeance might be fun.
Who knew?
Chapter 4
Kaye
I meant to call the lawyer, I really did, but one of the worst things that could happen to a nurse happened to me.
I got sick.
Not super sick. It was just a cold, but a particularly nasty one. The sort that had me sniffling, blowing my nose, and hanging out in bed with a book, too miserable to do anything else.
I certainly couldn’t go to work, not with the job I had. It would be horribly irresponsible to give those germs to people who were already sick. So, right when I would have liked to be very busy, right when I wanted the distraction of work, I couldn’t have it.
After two days of feeling like crap, I finally saw some improvement. I was able to get up, have a shower, and dress myself in clean pajamas. That was about all I had the energy for though. So I collapsed onto my couch to watch some Netflix and begin my recuperation.
I never ever got sick. It had to be the stress that was getting to me. I’d only been rich for just over a week and I was already pretty sick of it. Literally. The only sensible thing there was to do was distract myself with television from the 90s. That wasn’t so bad—it was actually kind of awesome. I mean, what choice did I really have?
I was thoroughly engrossed in an episode from an early season of Friends when a knock came at my door.
That was odd.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends, because I did. But they were pretty much all friends I’d made through work and this was a normal workday. Plus, none of them were close enough as friends to just randomly drop by, and I hadn’t gotten any texts about any of them coming over.
As I got up, I was still a little bit dizzy. I rubbed my eyes to try to clear them a little bit—to pull myself out of my stuffed head and itchy eyes—and went to answer the door.
It was probably the landlord, though that would be weird, since the bills were all up to date and my rent had been paid. I hadn’t forgotten, had I? It had undoubtedly been a strange week for me, but I could swear …
I opened the door, and it wasn’t the landlord.
If you had asked me the absolute last person I would have expected to knock on my door, it probably wouldn’t have been David Black. But he wouldn’t have been far off. And, yet, he stood there, staring at me with that small little smirk on his lips as he gazed at me.
No, I definitely didn’t expect that.
Suddenly, I was very aware that I looked like crap. I hadn’t even brushed my hair and my nose had to be red from wiping it so many times. Meanwhile, David stood there like he’d just stepped out of the pages of a men’s fashion magazine, or maybe even right off a runway.
Unfair. Bitterly so.
“What are you …” I remembered my manners, even if it was somewhat belated, and tried again. “David. Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you, yes,” he agreed, and I winced a little. I usually kept my little apartment spotless, but I’d been so sick that I was sure it was a mess. Desperately, I tried to remember how bad it was. I’d been too caught up in my cold-inspired pity party to keep the house the way I usually did.
At least there weren’t dirty clothes or dishes in the living room. That was something, though I was suddenly very aware that my apartment was about the size of a postage stamp. I somehow got the sense he was used to bigger places.
The way he moved through the small room was graceful. He exuded class, and I kind of hated him for that. A man who couldn’t, at the very least, take a phone call from his dying grandfather had no class. “I bet you’re wondering why I’m here.” David seated himself on my white leather sofa. He glanced around the room once, but he didn’t seem to be judging, which I was grateful for.
I had nice things. I made decent money. I’d never been ashamed of my little apartment. But I knew he lived an upscale lifestyle. It was intimidating to have a man like him sitting in my small space.
I settled down on the chair that matched the couch, as far away from him as the tiny room allowed. If he started to yell again, I didn’t want to be anywhere close to him.
“The thought had crossed my mind.” My tone was just the slightest bit wry and I didn’t try to hide it. Leaning forward, I looked at him, trying not to notice how handsome he was.
So what? There were a lot of handsome men in the world and this one had shown himself to be somewhat temperamental.
“I owe you an apology,” he suddenly stated, dark eyes fixed on me, every appearance of sincerity on his face.
I didn’t have any idea what to say. He’d completely shocked me with his admission, and I leaned back, knowing I was staring and unable to do anything about it.
The fact was, I thought he was right. He did owe me an apology, but I didn’t know how to say it without sounding like a bit of a jerk myself. So I just waited and hoped he would explain.
“I’ve been pretty terrible to you,” he did go on, after a brief, awkward silence. “I just lost it, I guess. It felt like a lot of bad things happening altogether, but you didn’t deserve anything that I said. So, I’m sorry, Kaye. I mean it, I am. I hope you can forgive me someday.”
I frowned, looking at him, scanning him for any hint of insincerity.
“The last time I saw you,” I pointed out. “You called me a …well. You know what you called me.”
I wasn’t going to dignify the statement by repeating it.
I had the satisfaction of at least seeing him wince in response. “I know. Like I said, I’m sorry. I was an asshole. I was just so upset about my grandfather, and … well, like I said, I hope that you can forgive me someday.”
How to ask this next question without basically calling him a liar? I shook my head. It was going to come out like that, I thought, no matter how I phrased it.
“You hadn’t seen him in years, from what he told me,” I finally spoke, in the least accusatory tone that I could manage. I didn’t want to start something, but his story that he'd been too upset to be polite didn’t quite seem to fit.
With a soft sigh, David raised one hand to rub at his eyes. It was a small, forlorn little gesture, and the truth was that it did a lot to make me believe him. Surely faking his words would be easier than his body language.
Besides, what reason did he have to lie to me? It didn’t make any sense. Why should he care what I thought of him?
“No, I hadn’t. Because I’m a terrible person.” David sounded defeated, which matched with the subtle movement of rubbing his eyes that I’d seen. I could almost swear he didn’t know he’d done it.
“I didn’t get the whole story from Theodore,” I admitted. “He didn’t exactly talk a lot about, well, much of anything. But he tried to call you the night before he died.”
“I know,” I could barely hear David speaking and had to lean forward again to pick up his words at all. “I didn’t take the call. I was too scared.”
In my experience, that wasn’t the sort of thing men admitted to very often—being scared. Especially not strong, attractive billionaires. It got my attention, to say the least.
Then he started speaking, and I felt the same pain—the same pressure building up in my heart as I had when Theodore had spoken to me the night before he’d died.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him too.”
Nine words. That was all it took for him to turn my heart inside out, to make me feel like someone had stabbed me right in the stomach. And he didn’t stop there.
“I was such a coward,” he confessed, his voice still almost too soft to hear. “When my dad died, everything about my grandpa reminded me of him. My dad, he looked a lot like me, and my grandpa was the spitting image of both of us. I couldn’t even hear him talk without wanting to shut down.”
&nb
sp; Why was he telling me all of this? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t make myself stop him—not for anything. Maybe he was telling me because he needed to tell someone and it was sort of flattering that he was trusting me with all of this.
“I’m sorry,” I broke in gently, when it became clear that he was gathering his thoughts.
He shook his head and his eyes were bleak, the shimmer in them almost gone when he spoke again.
“You have no reason to be sorry. It was all my choice. It’s on me. I was too scared to be hurt, and because of it, now I really have lost everyone and everything.”
I thought of myself as a pretty good judge of character, and the way he was speaking to me, I found I believed him. Once more, I couldn’t think of a single reason he would bother lying to me. Why would he take the time, when I was sure he was a busy man?
“I wish …” His voice broke and he finally looked away from me, seemingly utterly defeated. “I just wish I could build a time machine. I wish I could go back to the past and live it all again.”
I had to swallow around a lump in my throat and my eyes threatened to tear up. The story was so tragic and I knew I was only getting the first parts of it. With nothing more than a brief hesitation, I shifted over onto the couch and reached out to touch his hand.
It was very forward of me, but I found myself eager to provide some sort of comfort. This man wasn’t one of my patients, but he was obviously suffering, and I couldn’t just sit around and not try to help.
“You can tell me if you want to,” I told him, holding his hand firmly in mine. He gripped onto it like I was a lifeline. “You can tell me everything. I’ll listen. I don’t know what else I can do, but I can at least do that.”
He shot me a sad little smile that made my heart break for him even more and, still holding my hand, he started to speak.
David
Sitting on her little sofa, I felt odd. I was actually telling her the truth about myself. I had meant to, but it still felt weird as the words flowed out of me with ease. Kaye was remarkably easy to confess things to. It was part of the plan for me to expose my true self, making myself so completely vulnerable. The thing that shocked me the most was how much it hurt to talk about all of it.
No Promises: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 25