by Scarlet West
“My father. He’s going to sabotage everything we do,” I said. “He hates me, and he’s pissed off at me, and he’s going to keep pushing and pushing until he makes sure there isn’t a single person in this goddamn town who’s going to give us the time of day. “
“First of all, if you think that we are only limited to New York City, you’ve got another thing coming,” Peter replied. “Secondly. Why the fuck would your father care if we had other investors.”
“He wants me to take over the company. And you know, I did, but now I’m not so sure. I want to do so many things different with this place, and I don’t see it happening. Not with him alive, and you see how young he is. He’s going to be around for quite some time,” I said.
“It’s kind of morbid to plan your life around your parent’s death anyway,” Peter said. “But if he’s going to sabotage us here, then we’re leave here. If you aren’t dead set on the company, then we definitely can leave. Doesn’t he owe you stuff anyway? Like you do have stocks in this place, right?”
“I do, but not enough that would be worth a damn if he were to take me to court. It would be almost better just to tell him to fuck himself and walk out than try to fight him for the stocks, you know?” I replied.
“Then that’s even more reason for us to walk,” Peter replied. “I don’t give a damn about this place. I wanted to have a startup with you. Since day one when I came in as your business partner, I’ve been pushing for this tech aspect, and you were the one who listened!”
“Because it’s a damn good idea. And I think that there’s a lot of merit to it. But I’m so sick of fighting my father. He’s coming after me now because he’s pissed off that I’m beating him at his own game,” I said.
“What do you mean by that?” Peter asked.
“He wanted me to get married to another woman. He thought that we could bring more money into the company by marrying rich, and that’s what he pushed for. But I’ve never loved her, and I told him that. She’s not even trying for this relationship, and I’m not, either. She wants a ring on her finger, and money, and my father wants money,” I said.
“So what do you want?” Peter asked.
“I want them to leave me the fuck alone. He’s a widower. If she really wants fame and fortune, she should marry him,” I said.
“That’s gross, but you’re right,” Peter said.
“I’m thinking that it has more to do with the fact that he’s older than her, and he’s afraid that she’ll end up with the fortune when he’s gone. We both know this girl can’t run a company to save her life,” I said.
“Where did her money come from?” Peter asked.
“Family. She’s one of those who has always ridden on Daddy’s finances. I could say the same for myself until I was nineteen, then I turned and worked my ass off for what we have. A lot of the time I was out doing things for my father that he didn’t want to do, but he was still harvesting the paycheck,” I replied.
“Fuck that,” Peter said. “Why not tell her to fuck off and get the fuck away from you?”
“I have. She doesn’t listen, and my father doesn’t, either. I’ve given up, and basically resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be pushed into this marriage, divorce the girl after a few years, and take what I can from her in the process,” I said.
“That sounds shitty all around,” Peter replied. “Then your new wife came into the picture?”
“Pretty much, but she doesn’t know a thing about Candace, and I have a feeling it wouldn’t go over well if she did, you know? She comes into this with the thought that she was the only one on my radar, then she comes to find out there was another girl I was supposed to be married to? How do you think that’s going to go over?” I asked.
“Maybe not too bad?” Peter said hopefully. I gave him a look and he shrugged.
“Yeah, it’s probably going to be pretty bad.” he said. “But if I were you, I’d talk to her. I’d beat your father to the punch and tell your wife that that was the situation going in, and you didn’t think this other girl was going to be an issue in your life anymore, but now, she’s being an issue, and you’re taking care of it. That’s really all you can hope to do in times like this.”
“What do you know about times like this?” I laughed. “Have you been caught between two women?”
“It could be worse,” Peter said.
“How?” I asked.
“One of them could be pregnant,” he said as he jabbed me in the ribs. He laughed and turned away, and I was glad he couldn’t see the look on my face. That was the entire reason I was married to this girl. Sure, I was happy that I was, and I wouldn’t want to change it now, but the fact that she was pregnant with my baby was what brought this on in the first place.
Peter, of course, didn’t know that, but he hit close to home.
“Well, I’m going to warn my father once and for all. He better not do a damn thing to get Candace here,” I said.
“Can’t she do it all on her own?” Peter asked.
“She shouldn’t know where I am. When I left, she had no idea if I stayed down in Florida or if I came back up here. We didn’t talk when she was in Italy, and she called me out of the blue the other day. My father has got to know where she is, and I have a feeling he would do that very thing if he got the chance,” I said.
“Call the cops if she shows up. That’s stalking, and stalking is not okay,” he said.
“That’s not going to be enough if it’s too late with Ashley,” I said.
“Ashley, so that’s her name,” Peter replied. I hadn’t yet told him much about her. He didn’t even know she was related to the Velvets. There were a lot of things I wanted to keep under wraps in case this all did fall apart. Now, I knew I didn’t want it to, but I still wasn’t sure what she wanted.
With the way she looked at me over the phone that morning, I got the impression there was some jealousy going on. Then again, not thinking that she could trust me could be enough to make her want to call it off when she got her money.
There were so many fears that were going through my brain, I had no idea which one to worry about first. I wanted my father out of my life. But, if I was going to stay part of the company, or if I was going to get the money that I deserved out of the company from him, I was going to have to play some of his games.
All I wanted was to be able to start my own business with Pete. I wanted to have enough money we could get it up off the ground and still live comfortably while we did so. I wasn’t about to put it all on the line and end up dirt poor, then have to crawl back to my father a failure.
For starters, I wasn’t sure he would even take me back if that were to happen. Secondly, I knew he would hold it over my head for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t live with that. I had worked too hard for my share of the company for him to hold my money from me, and to constantly shoot down what I thought we should do.
I sighed and tried to turn my attention back to the charts Peter had laid out.
“So what have you got for me. You’re right. We can go all the way to China if we have to. My father doesn’t know everyone in the world, and if we get enough people on board in the beginning, we aren’t going to need him at all. It’s the perfect plan to get this to work, and we can say fuck him when we become even bigger,” I said.
“That’s the spirit. That’s way more like the you I know,” Peter said. He started going over the different aspects of the prototypes he wanted to make, and his vision for our future. I wanted to listen to him, and I tried to pay attention to all that he was saying to me, but I knew I wasn’t going to remember any of this.
Part of it was the whiskey I’d drank in my office, the other part of it was the fact that my mind kept wandering back to Ashley. It wasn’t even the fact that my father was going to bring back Candace, or that I feared he was. I wanted to be with Ashley, and it was hard for me to admit that to myself.
I thought talking to Pete about it would help, but he was too far
removed from the situation to do much but tell me simple answers. He didn’t know how complicated it could be working with my father, or what I had on the line.
If my father were to catch me in the lie that I told him, I knew I’d be out of the company for sure. He wasn’t about to let me be there if I lied to him like that, and I knew it. But then, it would be too late for me. I wouldn’t have a shot at helping myself or Ashley.
Now, I felt guilty about the spot I’d put her in. She was either going to have her heart broken, or she could be risking losing it all. And I didn’t know how I was going to help her if she did. Hell, I didn’t even know if she’d want me to help her if I fucked up her life that bad.
I’d already fucked up her life from the night I fucked her on my yacht, and we were both paying for it now. I sighed, trying to turn my attention back to Peter. Perhaps that was the secret to me helping her. Maybe we could get people and not need my father’s help.
If we could just get enough signatures, we’d be able to get this thing going, and it wouldn’t matter anymore. I was going to start seeing if I could find investors along with Peter that afternoon. I had free time in my office, and it could be well-spent emailing people and seeing what kind of connections I could find.
I didn’t need my father for any of that, and I had the skills to negotiate without him. Hell, Peter was right. We could do this on our own, and we could reach all the way around the world to make it happen.
But there was a Hell of a lot too much on the line in the meantime.
16
Ashley
I walked into the bank the next morning and headed right for Jenny. I had a cup of coffee in each of my hands, and I knew I had to talk to her. I had thought long and hard about what she had said to me the day before, and I now wanted the truth.
It was hard for me to work through all my emotions. I’d gotten a cab ride home, and when I arrived, I ran myself a bath. All I could think about was Blake. I wondered where he was, and what he was doing. I wondered if I were to send him a message and ask about it, what he would say.
I didn’t want to be that woman. Fake wife or not, I didn’t want to be the one who checked up on him. Besides that, I had no idea whether he’d be lying. For all I knew, he could be with another girl and tell me that he wasn’t.
I wasn’t going to ask him for picture proof, and I wasn’t going to try to find him. I would be at home when he got there, and he was the one who could deal with his conscience that night.
But, the longer I sat in the bath, the more I realized, that’s not what I wanted. Our marriage might be fake, but that didn’t mean that we didn’t make those promises to each other. He told me that he was only going to have me. I knew that meant for as long as our marriage lasted, but as of now, our marriage was lasting.
As the anger started to subside, I started to think about what I wanted. What did I want from him? An apology? An explanation? More than that? Did I want to live here with him? Did I want a relationship with him? What was I really seeing in him that made me feel the way that I did?
I knew that I loved him. Deep down inside, I knew that I wanted to be with him. Those were feelings that I was afraid would break me. I was afraid that for him, I was the one on the side. But, there was no way I’d know if I didn’t talk to him about it, and I didn’t know how.
Hell, from what Jenny had said at work, I wasn’t even sure that I should.
I washed my hair slowly, looking down at my pregnant belly as I washed myself. He was the one who put the baby in there. That didn’t automatically make him the man of my dreams, but I had a feeling, he already was that before we had sex that night.
He was the one who caught my eye out of all the other men on the boat. There were a lot of men there that night. And many of them had money. I couldn’t even say that it was the fact that it was his yacht or this apartment belonged to him that made me attracted to him. He had just caught my eye, and I wanted him.
Now, I wanted to be with him. I wanted more than just being his fake wife. I wanted to be his real wife. I didn’t want to be his baby mama when I turned twenty-five. I wanted to be the mother of his child. The one he came home to at night, and the one he held in bed.
I wanted to be the one he told everything. The woman of his dreams, just like he was the man of my own. I wanted it all, even the pain that I was feeling right now. But I didn’t want the pain to last. I wanted it to leave, and trust to be there instead.
And I didn’t know how to get it.
I knew I didn’t fully trust Jenny. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she would give me the wrong advice so I could make things worse. But right now, she was all I had to turn to in the world, and I wanted to know what she would do in this situation.
I wanted to know what I had to do to figure out if there was something going on, and to stop it. If there was another woman in the picture, I wanted to know how to get rid of her, how to make Blake love me and not want to look at another woman’s body.
But I felt lost. I had been used to living the party life myself, and when I got pregnant, I stepped away from all that. I didn’t know how to get it back, and I didn’t know how to use my body like that anymore. I felt like I was a mother now, and I didn’t want to do anything I shouldn’t.
Then again, if she felt that he was cheating on me, and that he wasn’t going to change, I was going to have to make another decision. I didn’t want to live my life as the unloved woman who was married to the rich billionaire. I saw so many women like that in my life already.
They were all over in my grandfather’s circle, and I wasn’t going to be one. Hell, there was even a time when I told myself I’d never marry a wealthy man because of his money. Quite the opposite from many I’d heard of.
“What’s that for?” Jenny asked when I handed her the coffee.
“I need to talk to you again,” I said.
“About what?” she asked. “Didn’t go as well as you hoped?”
“That’s just it. It didn’t go at all,” I said. “I didn’t talk to him about anything last night, because I spent the night trying to figure out what I wanted.”
Jenny looked surprised, and I got the impression she’d never thought of doing that herself. She seemed to be rather impulsive to me, always doing things in the heat of the moment. But, she knew what she was doing from the sounds of things, so perhaps she could help me if I told her what I wanted.
“What did you decide?” she asked. “And what did you find out?”
“That’s just it. I didn’t find out anything, and I only decided,” I said.
“Are you going to leave me in suspense?” she rolled her eyes, but sipped on her coffee. There were times when I really wanted to slap the girl, and this was quickly becoming one of those times. But, I was going to push through. I knew I wanted what her opinion was at the end, and she wasn’t going to do that if I was a bitch.
“I want him. I know I do. If there is another woman, I want to beat her out of the picture. I don’t mean literally beat her up, but I mean this is a competition, and I want to win. I don’t know how to do that. If I bring this up to him, then I feel like he’s going to freak out and tell me I’m insecure. It might even push him further away. I want to figure out how to make him mine and not have to worry about her or any other woman ever again,” I said.
“So there is another woman?” she asked, almost gleefully.
I shook my head, but then shrugged. “That’s not the point. You see, if I’m good enough for him, then it doesn’t matter if there are a million women throwing themselves at him. He’ll only want me. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I get it,” she said. She didn’t quite sound disappointed, but I got the impression she wanted there to be more drama than what she was hearing. “So you want to be so sexy that he wants you and only you and no one else ‘til your both dead, right?”
“Right,” I said. “And you said you know how men work, so I’m hoping you know how to make this work.”
“How?” I asked.
“It’s going to take money, and it’s going to take time. I’m going to take you shopping when we get off later, and we are going to doll you up so damn well he’s not going to know what hit him when he walks through that door. You’re going to seduce him, basically,” she said with a smirk.
“You think if I seduce him it’s going to be enough for him to leave the other woman?” I asked, before quickly adding, “If there is one, of course.”
“Yeah,” she rolled her eyes again.
“But I don’t need to go shopping to do that,” I said. “I’ve got plenty of clothes that will get the job done.”
“That’s not the point. You aren’t just going to have sex with him. You are going to be the complete package. He’s going to come home and find you in lingerie, and you’re going to be making dinner, and you’re going to want to have sex with him, and you’re not going to complain about your day or anything, you’re just going to be awesome. Think like the things you see in movies,” she said.
I was going to correct her on her usage of the word movies, but I chose to let it go. I did see what she was saying, but there was another problem in my mind.
“Why aren’t you jumping for happiness? I just told you what’s going to save your marriage,” she said.
“Because there’s another problem,” I replied.
“And that is?”
“I’m not sure what his fantasy is,” I let the words hang in the air, and she rolled her eyes. I was getting sick of the sarcasm, but at the same time, I did feel like she was helping me.
“We aren’t going to do a costume or anything like that. Don’t worry. You are going to be wearing nothing but lingerie and your apron when he gets home. All men have the fantasy of coming home to something like that, trust me. I’ve asked enough guys, I know,” she took a sip of her coffee and smirked again. “So are you in?”
