Not to mention that Kaye was utterly beautiful, in a quiet, graceful, 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 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 to figure out how I was going to turn around Kaye’s undoubtedly negative opinion of me enough to marry me.
I’d have to shape up. Stop the moping. And somehow push the hatred I had for her down far enough 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?
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, a particularly nasty one, the sort that had me sniffling and 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, the third one finally saw some improvement. I was able to get up and 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 to 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 to distract myself with television from the 90’s. 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 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 got up 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 expect to knock on my door, it probably wouldn’t have been David Black. But he wouldn’t have been far off, and he stood there, staring at me, 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 brushed my hair, even, 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 virus inspired pity party to keep the house in 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 it 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. 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 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.”
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, and the shimmer in them much reduced 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. After all, 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 finding myself telling her the truth about myself. I meant to, but it still felt so weird as it 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.
I’d spent hours trying to figure out what sort of story I was going to give her to get her sympathies. After all, you can’t just call a woman a bitch and then expect her to welcome you back with open arms. So what was I going to say to get her to forgive me for that?
I’d settled on the truth. It was easier to remember than a lie, for one thing, and I wouldn’t need to keep a fancy lie straight in my head.
I hadn’t realized just how much it would hurt to talk about these things with an actual living human being. I’d spent so long, twelve years, trying not to even think about any of them, even to myself.
And there she was, with her small hand gently wrapped around my fingers, telling me that I could tell it all. Which was, of course, just what I’d wanted. I wanted to work on her sympathies, and this was the perfect chance to do so.
It was also just good to talk. To say these things that I’d kept hidden for so long. Maybe I’d needed to get all of this out of the depths of my own head. It wasn’t why I was doing any of this, of course, but it was still nice.
So I did. I talked about things I had never said out loud before. Things I hadn’t so much as thought about before. Kaye hadn’t said much, yet she seemed to be able to pull things out of me no one ever had. Not even any of my friends.
“I was seventeen when my dad died, but before that, my mom left. I barely remember her.” I found my hands clenching at each other, the fingers fiddling together with my nerves, and I glanced up at Kaye. “May I have some water or something to drink?”
I wasn’t thirsty, but I wanted to get my hands to stop dancing together.
“I’m so sorry, I should have offered.” Kaye got up, and I heard the fridge open. Seconds later, she came back with a bottle of water, which I accepted gratefully.
“Do you know why she left?” Kaye prompted, and I realized I’d let myself get lost in my head again. It was a bit of a habit with me.
“There was another man.” I opened the bottle of water, drinking a little bit of it down. “She walked out, and I never saw her again. I don’t want to see her again. She destroyed my dad.”
She nodded, and I drank more water that I didn’t really want, just to give myself a chance to get myself back together.
“So when my dad died in the car accident, I felt like … it’s stupid.” I looked at her and then glanced down at my hands, which clenched at the water bottle desperately.
“Tell me, if you want to,” she invited, and her voice was soothing. I could tell she would be a hell of a nurse, she had the caring act down.
No one was as sweet as she was pretending to be. I didn’t buy it. She might act like Pollyanna, but I didn’t think, not for a second, it could be genuine.
“I felt alone. Like I had to do everyone on my own.” I sighed softly. “That’s why I didn’t go see my grandfather. I knew he was going to leave me, too, but now …”
For a second, my voice cut out, and I had to wait for a second for it to come back before I could speak again.
That was weird.
My emotions, a thing I kept in check, were coming forward. I wasn’t sure I liked that.
She patted my thigh, reassuringly. “That’s okay, David. I know it’s hard and it hurts. Please, go on.”
She was so fucking sweet and understanding, it made me crazy. “Now, it’s true. I have no one, and it’s my fault.”
She had let go of my hand when she reached to get a drink of her bottle of water, but she took it again, and I frowned a little bit.
What was up with this lady, anyway?
It was almost convincing. If I didn’t have a sort of instinctive distrust of women, I might have even believed she was as pure and sweet as she was trying to appear.
Those green eyes of hers, a man could drown in them. If he let myself, which I had no intention of doing.
Her fingers tightened in mine, and I had to fight to keep myself from showing a reaction. I had wondered what would happen if she didn’t fall for this act, but I didn’t think that was going to be an issue.
Not when I was pretty sure I’d figured out her game.
“Anyway,” I said, forcing a brave smile. “That’s all in the past. I’m doing okay now. I got through college, and my tech business is doing better every year. I just … I guess I just wanted you to know why I was such a jerk to you.”
She gave my fingers one more gentle squeeze, and then let go of them. My hand felt empty and odd. “No, I was glad to hear it. I’m glad you told me.”
Time to disarm her a little bit more. I looked deliberately around the small apartment and then spoke, as though hesitant, “You don’t need to live here anymore. You could move into Grandpa’s house. It’s yours, isn’t it?”
I wanted her to think I was fine with her taking what my grandfather had left to her. Why not show that by gently pushing her
to do it? If I played my cards right, she would soon not even remember how I’d reacted the day of the reading of the will.
Let her think I wasn’t even interested in the money. She would soon think it had just been the stress of losing someone I cared about that had caused it. It was even partially true. The money I cared about only insofar as it could help me get revenge on her, and, of course, I wanted it to really launch Black Tech into prominence.
“I didn’t think about that,” Kaye commented, and I could almost believe it. I thought she was probably just caught up in appearances. She didn’t want people to talk about her, say she was nothing but a femme fatale.
The gold digging, money grubbing, whore.
“You should move,” I repeated and rose to my feet. I’d done enough for one day, I figured. “And, if you’d like, I’d like to see you again.”
The more I thought about it, the more sure I was. It didn’t make any sense at all that my grandfather would leave everything to her. Not unless she was very good at getting people to do what she wanted.
“So you think that she actually manipulated your grandfather into it?” Brent asked. I’d gone right to his house after leaving Kaye’s, with both of us promising to stay in touch. I thought she would probably even move like I’d suggested. That would be a good thing because I wasn’t sure I could stay in that teeny apartment without getting claustrophobic.
I was going to be seeing her quite a lot, after all.
“Yeah, I do. But it gets worse,” I said, looking at him gloomily. “I’m pretty damn sure she was setting her sights on my money next.”
“Oh my God. Are you serious?” Brent asked, and I thought back to the conversation and nodded my head emphatically.
“I’m serious, and I’m sure.” I smirked a little. “She kept giving me these little looks, and she held my hand to show me how very sorry she was about my grandfather’s death.”
Dark Masquerade: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 23