by J. C. Reed
“That’s right. I’m not interested in your money,” he explained. “It’s not money per se I’m after, but the inheritance Clint gets.”
I frowned as my brain began to struggle to put the pieces together.
“Clint?” I asked slowly and leaned forward. Chase nodded. “Why are we talking about him?”
“Because Clint is the reason I married you.”
Oh, God.
My stomach dropped and my head began to spin.
Suddenly, I felt weak. My grip tightened around the glass, and for a moment I feared it might snap. I stared at Chase shell-shocked. “Did Clint make you do it?”
Sighing, he leaned forward to lift the bottle from the bar, poured himself another glass, then shifted in his seat, his eyes still avoiding me. For the first time something flashed across his face. Judging from the way his expression hardened and his shoulders tensed, he was fuming mad.
“You couldn’t be more wrong,” he said, his tone dripping with disdain that I thought was addressed at me. “Your stepfather destroyed everything we had. Our home. My family’s business. Everything my parents had built in thirty years—all lost in the span of a few weeks.” His voice was quiet but firm, every word spoken with so much hatred, it made me flinch. “He ruined us, so it’s only fair that I destroy and ruin what is his.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, struggling to find the words as confusion wreaked havoc in my head. “What you’re talking about is a personal issue. It’s…my God, it’s—”
“Revenge.” He looked up. I shrank back at the intensity in his glance. “Revenge, Laurie. You were the only way to get close to him, I guess.”
My heart started to hammer—fast and hard, just like his words.
I held my breath as I took him in—the way he let the golden liquid swirl in his glass, his face drawn in concentration, as if it took great effort to do so.
He downed his glass before he continued, “When we first heard of you, we thought you had a close relationship with him. I mean, he adopted you.”
“I don’t have any relationship with him.”
“We didn’t know that back then,” Chase said and shook his head. “He sent you checks every month.”
“Which I always sent back,” I interrupted.
He shook his head again, as though it didn’t matter. “Anyway, we dug deep. We found out that his business is tied to your mom’s money, your inheritance, so the plan was to marry you and ruin him.” He put the glass away, and slowly turned his whole body to me. He eyed me as if I was an object, not a human being—with cold, calculating eyes that scared the crap out of me.
I had never seen him so detached. So—
Different.
“So what I am to you?” My voice sounded awfully thin. “A pawn in your play? Collateral damage?”
He didn’t reply.
Worse yet, he started to bite his lower lip. In the short time I had known Chase, I had learned that it meant whatever I’d just said was true, though he wouldn’t admit it.
Piece by piece of me began to crumble to bits. My throat closed up. The confined space felt devoid of air.
We had no future. None whatsoever.
My lips began to quiver. I swallowed hard, over and over again. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry over him.
Stupid me.
All that time, I had thought Chase cared for me. Even after finding the folder, my heart came up with bullshit excuses—him being in trouble, involved with the wrong kind of people, needing money.
Never in my wildest dreams had I envisioned that I had been targeted because of something my stepfather had done. That it might all be a ploy to get revenge.
In a deep corner of my mind, I recalled tiny morsels of conversation between Clint and his lawyer I had often overheard. As a child I had always assumed they were talking about won trials, boasting about the things they had done and all the money they had taken.
I had realized a long time ago that Clint wasn’t who he pretended to be. I wasn’t sure what to think anymore, but I was inclined to believe that Chase was probably one of the people Clint and Aldwin had harmed.
Clint had many enemies, so why wouldn’t Chase be one of them? It was impossible to like someone like Clint who stopped at nothing to further his own gain.
Greed did that to people. And Clint was as sneaky as was humanly possible. When he first met my mom, he was a car salesman with the necessary character traits to make it big—manipulative and passive-aggressive—two qualities he managed to nourish in the following years.
Looking at Chase, I realized maybe they had that in common.
“You said your inheritance isn’t worth anything to you,” Chase said, interrupting my thoughts. “If that’s really the case, it all doesn’t matter. It’s a marriage of convenience. You wanted the letters, and I want revenge. What’s so hard to accept?”
The way he put it—cold and cruel, as if we were talking about a business transaction rather than my family; as if nothing had happened between us, and I was only a random encounter in his long list of women—I felt like slapping him.
Maybe you were like a random encounter, Hanson. Easily forgotten.
My heart began to bleed. If he could have seen inside, he would have seen all the blood seeping out of me. There were cracks here and there, little pieces chipping away, and large fragments crumbling to bits. My throat closed up. The air felt devoid of oxygen.
We had no future.
The realization hit me hard.
None whatsoever.
I knew it all along, but had pushed it to the back of my mind. Now I had no other choice but to face the truth.
And it hurt like hell.
“I thought you wanted to help me.” My voice broke so I cleared my throat to get rid of the stinging sensation inside. “I never thought you had your own agenda. I thought you cared about me. That’s all.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.” I smiled bitterly and shook my head. “You used me.” A silent sob remained lodged in my throat. “You didn’t care if I got hurt, Chase,” I whispered. Tears began to gather in the corners of my eyes again.
I didn’t want to cry and yet I knew I couldn’t stop the tears that would soon fall.
“I need your inheritance to destroy him, Laurie.” Even though his voice was quiet and steady, I could hear the plea in his tone.
“At my expense,” I stated the obvious.
Chase reached for my hand, but I leaned back, pulling it out of his reach.
“Admit it,” I said angrily, the pain inside me sharp and raw. “You wanted revenge at my expense. Just say it. We both know it’s the truth.”
He took his time to reply, hesitating, as though his silence would make it all less real.
“It needed to be done,” he said slowly. “Even if I weren’t a part of this, even if things didn’t turn out the way they did between us, my brother would have made his move on you. It was either Kade or I.”
He made it sound like it was a positive thing. Like I could be passed around. Like I should be grateful it was he and not Kade.
The thought hurt me more than I cared to admit.
I had never felt so insulted in my life.
“So, it was either you or he,” I repeated, laughing darkly as I remembered how close I had been to going out with his brother. “Boy, I’m so spoiled with choice.” I grimaced. “Doesn’t Kade know we got married or why else would he be following me?”
Chase sighed and ran his hand through his silky hair. “I haven’t told him.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
He closed his eyes, his fingers pressing the bridge of his close. When he opened them again, his expression was hard. His eyes looked like stones, tearing down my wall. I could feel his hate for Clint seeping into my soul. “It’s not personal, Laurie. If you just tried to understand why I did it then—”
“Then what?” I cut him off. “I’d see your point? Trust you more?”
I shook my head, ignoring the little voice inside my heart that begged me to give him a chance. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t sign up for this.”
I clutched my bag and squeezed into my shoes. “The conversation’s over. I’m not listening to you anymore. Tell the driver to stop the car.”
“No, I need you to listen,” he said calmly.
But I couldn’t. “Let me out, Chase.”
“We’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes.”
“I want to leave now!”
His lips tightened. “Laurie, you don’t even know where you are.”
“That’s not your problem,” I said harsher than intended. “Stop the car, Chase.”
“Please,” Chase said softly. “I can’t let you go before you understand.”
“Trust me, you were very clear when you said everything you did was out of revenge. What more is there to explain?” He remained silent. I nodded. “Exactly. There’s no point in wasting each other’s time. Now tell the driver to stop the car.”
When Chase didn’t move, I turned around and leaned over the seat to hammer against the divider in the hope the driver would hear me. “Stop the car.”
“The driver doesn’t speak English,” Chase said. His voice was calm, but I could hear the slightest hint of desperation in his tone. “Besides, I instructed him not to stop, no matter what happens. I’m afraid you’ll have to listen to me for a few more minutes.”
I stopped the hammering and turned to face him, my face a mask of fury. “You have no right to hold me here.”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.” His response surprised me. “Please, Laurie, you haven’t heard it all. This is important. It involves our future.”
Not my future.
Our future.
“We don’t have a future,” I said dryly.
Even if I wanted to.
Even if I had believed it at some point.
“Believe it or not, we do have one. According to the contract, we have at least twelve months together.”
I let out a sarcastic laugh again.
That damn stupid contract.
That mistake was going to haunt me forever.
Chapter 14
If I had known that Chase was such a pain in the ass, I would never have hired him. Full stop. The first time I’d seen him, I thought he was going to shake my world. Well, he shook my world, rocked it, and made sure that everything I had known and believed in, crashed and burned.
“I’m still the same man, Laurie. I never meant to do you any harm,” Chase said, oblivious to my thoughts.
I snorted.
He had never wanted to.
Of course it hadn’t been his damn intention.
As if the knowledge would make me feel better.
When people said ‘I never meant to do you any harm,’ what they really wanted to say was ‘I never meant to do you any harm, but things turned out differently, and there was a choice: you or me. Guess what? You lost.”
“I should never have believed you,” I whispered. “It was stupid to trust you when you so clearly only think of yourself.” I felt the pressure of my unshed tears gathering behind my eyes.
Stupid emotions.
Why couldn’t I stop them?
He set his glass down. Instead of replying straight away, he moved closer to me, but didn’t touch me.
“I’m not doing it only for myself,” he whispered after a pause. “I’m also doing it for you. Why do you think my brother doesn’t know we got married?”
“You already said you married me because of your personal issue with Clint,” I said matter-of-factly. “As for Kade, maybe you didn’t tell him because you were waiting for the surprise party.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not just having issues with Clint, as you so eloquently put it. It goes much deeper than that.” He patted the seat next to him, his voice rising up a notch. “Sit down. This will take at least twenty minutes.”
I didn’t move. “Ten minutes. Tops. And I’m standing.”
“Fine. I’ll give you the short version then.” He motioned at a nearby seat. When I made no attempt to move, he sighed.
“Guys like Clint pave the way so people like us wind up with nothing,” he started. “He used your mother’s money—money he was never supposed to touch—to set up a corporation. He uses the funds as loans to small businesses in return for shares knowing that they can’t afford to pay back the loans. Then he seemingly helps them so that the business takes off. It all comes down to the business owner not being able to repay him, so he takes over the business and everything else to get his money. That’s what happened to a lot of families. This is the simplified version. Basically, many people have lost their income. Their homes. Their dreams. Someone needs to stop him. That someone has to be me.”
I ran my tongue across my parched lips, his words resonating in my mind.
Holding my bag in front of me as if it was some shield, I sat down, eyeing him carefully. “So, he supports them in order to cheat them out of their livelihood?”
“I wouldn’t call that support. He sets them up for their own fail.”
I frowned at his choice of words, my heart racing. “I don’t understand. How does he do it?”
“It’s all a bit of a gamble,” Chase said. “He lends them a lump sump of money and convinces them to invest their money, their homes, everything they own into their business. When things start to go well, he makes sure that a competitor beats them in a series of events that leaves them in greater debt than before, unable to fight him. I don’t have to tell you that he’s the competitor. His loss is minimal, but the rewards are huge. In the end, Clint is the one who owns the business and all the money invested in it while the previous business owner is left with insurmountable debt.”
I frowned. “Is that even legal?”
“Is tricking someone into buying a car that is a piece of shit, legit? Yeah, it is. Unfortunately.” He stretched out his legs, an angry expression flashing across his face. “Clint is the reason why I became a lawyer,” he continued. “For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be part of the law so guys like him could be served justice. I want to fight; I want to implement a change. Unfortunately, what he does is legal. In the legal sense, all parties involved agreed to his contract. There’s absolutely no proof that what he does is premeditated. Without that proof, an investigation is a waste of time.”
“He’s using the gray area of the legal system to further his own agenda. Just like you did with me,” I couldn’t help but comment.
“Just like me, yes.” He grimaced. “Except, my plan doesn’t involve stealing your money or making you lose everything. Actually, quite the contrary’s the case. I’m making sure that Clint doesn’t get your inheritance,” he said. “I never intended to keep it. You have to believe me.”
I exhaled a sharp breath.
“Like I said before, I’m not interested in your money,” Chase continued. “I want revenge.”
“How are you going to accomplish that?”
“As your husband, I can take him to court. Your mother’s money is your family heirloom. It belongs to you. He had no right to take and invest it. Just give me a year to sort it out, and he’ll be ruined.”
I frowned and let out a shaky breath I didn’t know I had been holding. At some point, knots of unease had formed in the pit of my stomach. “Are you saying that you’ll take him to court? A real trial?”
“It’d involve a little detour, but basically, yes. The plan’s to make sure he loses the inheritance, the home that should be yours, everything.”
“Oh, my god.” I shook my head, closing my eyes.
Fighting my stepfather in court was the last thing I wanted—or needed.
The past few years, I had done my best to stay away from Clint, minimizing contact, forgetting the past. Now that I was married, Chase was trying to force me to face my past again.
I wasn’t afraid of Clint. I despised him. I resente
d him, blamed him for my mother’s suicide.
“Once I take everything away from Clint and expose him for who he is, I can return everything that is rightfully yours.”
“Aren’t you even asking if I want this?” I said weakly.
His brows shot up. “Well, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
My words rendered him silent for a minute.
“You won’t have a choice, Laurie,” he said coldly. “I’m your husband. And I so happen to be your lawyer. You’ll have to leave it up to me.”
“I didn’t hire you as my lawyer, Chase.”
“I bailed you out so, technically, I am.”
My thoughts were racing, and at last I took a deep breath. “I get it. What Clint does is terrible and I agree that he needs to be punished. But why don’t you just move on and let karma do its job? Why is it so important to you to get even with Clint? I’m not saying I’m justifying what he does; I’m just trying to understand why you’re still living in the past when you and your brother are clearly doing well. I mean, Kade owns LiveInvent. Talk about wow. That’s a huge accomplishment. And you don’t seem poor, either.”
It was true.
LiveInvent was where the big-shot strategists and best marketing professionals worked. In the few years it had operated, it had quickly become a household name among celebrities and famous brands, and my big dream ever since I realized they were behind almost every major campaign that had won a prize in the past years.
“It took us ten years to build LiveInvent. It didn’t happen overnight,” Chase said. “But you’re right. There’s a reason why it’s so important for me to get revenge.”
I held my breath as I realized the moment I had been waiting for had come.
“Clint is the reason my father committed suicide,” Chase said. “When my dad couldn’t repay Clint’s loan, we weren’t just miles in debt; we ended up homeless and without any hope. My father was desperate, not because he had just lost his business. My mom grew sick, very sick, and there were medical bills we couldn’t pay. When the medical insurance company refused to pay, my father drove of a cliff.” His voice broke.
