That bitch would get what she deserved.
Vengeance would be mine.
Kaye
I’m not entirely sure whether I was entirely aware for a couple of days after the meeting.
The next day, I went back to work. From the details I had been given about Theodore’s estate, I knew I would never have to work again. At least, I knew it logically, though I was having some first-hand experience about how you can know something in your head and not in your heart.
I’d always had to work, just like most people did, just to pay the rent and make sure I could continue to eat. The fact that I could just stop wasn’t something that really resonated with me
What would Theodore want? For me to sit around and live idly off of the inheritance? No way. I knew the man well enough to know he would never want something like that for me. Not in a million years. Theodore himself had only ever been idle when extreme illness had enforced it.
So I went back to work, and I didn’t tell anyone about all of the money I suddenly had or was going to have when everything cleared. I took care of people, because that was my job, and more than that, it was my passion.
I was a nurse. No matter what happened to me, no matter where my life took me, I would nurse people. I could have ten dollars to my name, or I could (somehow, in a way that didn’t even really fully make sense to me yet) be worth slightly over 100 billion dollars, but I would always be who I was.
I knew one thing for certain. I didn’t want this money to change me. As I started to come to terms with the money, I poked cautiously around for charities. Keeping that much money for myself wasn’t something that I could even fathom.
I couldn’t spend it in my entire lifetime, especially because part of it was in properties. I would never have to worry about having a place to live, and paying rent, as strange as it seemed, was something I didn’t have to do anymore.
Yes, definitely charities. The problem I ran into was there just wasn’t enough money to donate a decent amount to all of the worthy ones out there. It was all a little bit overwhelming.
Not only that, but there was the strangest feeling of guilt over even having this indecent amount of money. I owned properties I had never seen, the numbers and locations and place names had started to blur as the lawyer had listened to them all. In the end, it sort of sounded like he was speaking Martian or something.
Part of it was the look I’d glimpsed on David Black’s face just before he stormed out. That money was his, wasn’t it? At least, David had clearly assumed so. Did he need it? I really knew very little about the man.
He’d been so angry. Part of me couldn’t blame him. As the only family Theodore had left, surely he had been expecting the lion’s share of the estate, if not all of it. It was hard not to feel a little bit sorry for him.
It was made a bit easier when I remembered the bleakness in Theodore’s eyes when David hadn’t picked up the phone. I couldn’t imagine ignoring someone like that, even though I had realized David had no real way of knowing his grandfather was dying.
Still, that didn’t do much, if anything, to excuse him. Not to my way of thinking. His grandfather had reached out to him, and I knew the day that I’d dialed the phone for him, that hadn’t been the first time.
How many times had Theodore reached out to David, and how many times had David rejected him without a word? I didn’t know the whole story, but I couldn’t imagine what Theodore could have done to deserve that.
Nobody deserved to be left completely alone.
Nobody.
To say I was conflicted about David Black would be a definite understatement. It was a strange situation, to feel angry at someone for betraying someone I cared about, and at the same time, to feel sorry for them too.
David was so angry at me, too. The disdain, the fury, with which he had looked at me would haunt me if I let it. I barely knew the guy, and normally, I would probably be able to brush off his opinion of me with very little difficulty.
Somehow, with David, it was more difficult.
It seemed easier to just dive into my work. It would take time for everything to clear, and there was no law that said I had to decide what to do right this second. Or even ever. I could take my time.
One thing I didn’t do, though, was let them assign me to work one on one with another patient. Not full time. Theodore’s passing had broken my heart, and I wasn’t sure I could take it if something like that happened again.
I worked until I couldn’t anymore. Any overtime offered, I took, and when I fell into bed, it was because I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open for even another second.
Until, one night about a week after I got the news, I found that I couldn’t sleep, despite having worked my full shift and then some. I lay in bed, too tired to toss and turn, but my eyes simply wouldn’t remain shut.
It wasn’t right. I had all of this money, and I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Why had Theodore left it all to me? The houses, the car, the investments, it was all mine, and all I had ever done was my job.
Slowly, in that overtired, long night, I worked things through in my head a little bit. I had worked hard my whole life, had put myself through nursing school, and I didn’t need this money. I had been doing just fine on my own.
Still, it would be nice to not have to worry about money. I could comfortably do that on a quarter of what I had been given. My needs were not all that great.
It was about two in the morning, and I was so tired my bones ached. My brain hopped around, barely letting me think coherently about anything at all, or so I would have thought.
Suddenly, though, it hit me. I knew what I needed to do. The only thing I could ethically do if only I could figure out how to make it work.
I would split the money with David Black.
It felt strange, in a way, to even consider such a thing. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about David, other than deeply conflicted.
Still, something had come between Theodore and David, something they hadn’t managed to fix before Theodore’s death. Maybe I could help bring them together again. It was too late for Theodore, but maybe not for David.
It was worth a shot.
Then I would take my half of the money, and I would divide it in half again. That would give me a quarter of the original 100 billion to see me through the rest of my life, and the same amount to give to charity.
The decision felt good, and I smiled as I could finally let myself drift off to sleep. I was halfway there when something else hit me.
I had absolutely no idea how to reach David Black.
There was social media, of course, but it wasn’t like David Black was the most uncommon name in the world. I could try, and I would, but I might need something else to reach him, too.
Then it hit me. I was being an idiot and making this all much harder than it had to be.
John Dixon.
The lawyer obviously knew how to reach David, since he had done so to get him to that terrible meeting in the first place. I could reach out to him, ask him to get into contact with David, tell him what I wanted to do with the money. At least the part where it concerned him.
It would be better if Mr. Dixon did it, anyway. For whatever reason, I found it greatly unsettling to be around David. He didn’t seem to be all that fond of me, either, and I suspected even if I did find him, he would never accept my call. If by some minor miracle he did, he would likely just hang up the second he realized it was me.
This would work, though. Or it could. The whole thing could probably be handled without me even needing to see David again, so I could do the right thing and not have to worry about any sort of awkward fallout from it.
Though maybe David would be nicer if he knew he was getting some money after all. It seemed to me he was more likely to be upset that he hadn’t gotten it all, and probably he’d even call me hurtful names again.
John Dixon was going to work, though. I was sure of it. And with all of that decided, I was able to
finally close my eyes and actually drift into a deep, restful sleep, something I hadn’t experienced since the night before Theodore Black passed away.
For some reason, though, my sleep was far from dreamless. It was filled with thoughts of David, his smile, as rarely as I’d seen it, the sparkle in his dark eyes, the humor, and warmth I could almost swear was there.
In real life, the man unsettled me deeply, made me feel strange in my own skin. In my dream, though, he was both incredibly exciting, and he also soothed me, in some way I wasn’t used to.
I slept through the whole night and into the next morning, and by the time I woke up, I could almost swear I smelled the man. It was almost infuriating, how he could get to me so easily.
During the day, I could keep my guard up, sternly refuse to let any pleasant thoughts of him into my head at all. Nighttime, though, had been proven to be a different matter entirely.
In the night, something was different. Something approaching sensuality took over my body, my mind, and maybe even my heart. I had always been too cautious to let anything like this happen before, I’d guarded my heart well, but here I was, obsessed with a man who had seemed indifferent toward me at best, and outright hostile at worst.
I had never been such an idiot before, and in the cold, bright light of day, I was even more sure than ever that any interaction I had with David should take place with a lawyer present.
The ideal situation would be for me to never see the obnoxious man ever again, and that was exactly what I intended to make happen. I was still going to do what my conscience told me was right, but I was going to do it while protecting myself, too.
Something told me seeing David Black again would be pretty much the worst thing I could do.
But I had to see him in order to do what I thought was right. Giving him the money would be the right thing to do. That was that.
I’d talk to the lawyer ASAP.
David
I knew I needed to get my revenge, I had never wavered. Not even for a second. What I hadn’t figured out, though, was exactly how I was going to make that happen. Just what I could do to get what I wanted.
Of course, I knew I could contest the will, I could take it to court. I didn’t know what the chances of me winning were, though, and it was pretty damn final. Once I’d done it, I was stuck with the choice I’d made
Something told me there was a better choice. If I played my cards right, I could get everything I wanted. So I waited, and I didn’t so much as consult a lawyer.
To the world, it would look like I had totally accepted what my loving grandfather had done to me. Inside, though, I was brooding, just biding my time. Soon enough, the idea would come, and I would be ready for it when it happened.
It didn’t really take very long. It was only eight days past the funeral, but maybe it would have taken longer if not for Brent.
I had been lost in my own world, but Brent had never been the sort of man to let me get away with that. He was my best friend, and really my only close friend. For so many years, my main focus had been keeping my business going.
He’d sort of adopted me, in a way. So when I got depressed and started rejecting his invitations to go hang out, he had something to say about it. In this case, it was more about doing than saying, since he showed up at my house uninvited with a case of my favorite beer.
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 keep control most of the time.
Brent listened, though, 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 fine, 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’s 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 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 did fall out of my ear and I chose 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, wait, 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, his cheeks flushed. “The prenup will say whoever is at fault for the breakup of the marriage gets 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 and then, thankfully, he continued on.
“Including cheating, David. She cheats, you rake in your money, 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, even, 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 wou
ld marry Kaye, and then I would start to treat her badly right after the wedding. Hurt, 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 the women throw themselves at him 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, 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, not as of yet, but when I wanted to be, I could make people like me.
Our start had been rocky, Kaye and me, 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 drunk down. 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, my future wife.”
Dark Masquerade: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 22