Dark Masquerade: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Michelle Love

  I couldn’t hear the exact words, but I could tell from Theodore’s expression, too carefully neutral to be anything but artificial, that he was deeply hurt.

  His hand shook as he placed the phone back into the cradle. “He never answers.” No one who wasn’t looking right into his eyes would be able to tell how much this had hurt him.

  “Who?” I dared to ask. It was rude, and I was probably pushing the bonds of our friendship just a little bit too much. Being deeply presumptuous he’d tell me who it was he wanted to speak to. But there was no way I could keep that one word to myself. It was more than I had in me.

  Maybe he’d been waiting for me to ask, though. He certainly showed no signs of hesitation in answering me, “My grandson. My only grandson.” His voice did a strange thing. It didn’t quite break, he was too strong for that, but it dipped down a little lower. Subtle. Not the sort of thing that I would have noticed if I hadn’t been paying strict attention.

  My heart clenched in my chest, and I had this sudden feeling like I’d been drenched with ice water. Not on the outside, though. On the inside, so that it froze me more surely and deeply. My heart broke for this poor, strong man, so alone and still so brave.

  I started to dislike this grandson immediately. I didn’t know what had happened between them, and I didn’t really care, honestly. Nothing could excuse this man, whoever he was, from ignoring his dying grandfather.

  I had to do something to curtail the hurt the poor man was enduring. “Maybe he just wasn’t home.” I had to try to cheer the poor guy up but also wanted to be fair to this grandson. I didn’t know the man, after all. I was tempted to judge him, but what did I know?

  “That’s his cell phone. He never answers it.” Theodore let out a soft sigh, one I was sure I wasn’t supposed to hear. “Not for me, anyway.”

  Just like that, the dislike was back. Or something like dislike, anyway. The situation seemed pretty grim when a man could ignore his grandfather like this. I couldn’t even imagine doing such a thing.

  “I’ve tried calling so many times,” he murmured, his voice even smaller than it had been before. There was a brief moment of silence between us, and then, when he spoke again, his voice was stronger.

  “I’d like some water, Kaye if you don’t mind,” he said, and I smiled a little though my heart was breaking for the man. He was always so polite, even though he didn’t have to be. A bit cold and remote, but always a gentleman.

  “Of course,” I kept my voice as cheerful as I could as I went off to get him his water.

  Damn, that grandson of his. The fool better wake up and smell the coffee.

  He was Theodore’s only heir. The man might decide to leave it all to charities or something if he didn’t eventually contact his grandfather.

  Being how the man never saw fit to make a visit to his dying grandfather, maybe the riches should go to charity. At least then, the money would be appreciated.

  David

  When the phone rang, I didn’t have any idea who it could be, at first.

  I should have. My grandfather had always been a stubborn man, and it had been years that he’d been trying to reach me. Years of him calling at least every month. Over the past year, it had been more like once a week, if not twice.

  Not once had I answered. It had been twelve years since the last time I’d laid eyes on my grandfather, or even heard his voice. Twelve years that I’d been utterly unable to make myself face the one and only member of my family who was still alive.

  When my mother had taken off on us when I was only five, that had truly sucked. It had been okay, though. I’d been able to get through it because I still had my father, and the two of us had got through just fine.

  Maybe my mother leaving hadn’t left me entirely without scars. I didn’t trust women from that day, and though I’d had lovers and even relationships, none of them had lasted. At the age of thirty, I had no desire to marry. Why bother, when whoever I married would just leave me anyway?

  Everyone left me eventually. anyway.

  I’d been seventeen when my father had been in the car accident that had taken him from me. It was a drunk driver. The guy had plowed into my father going at least forty miles above the speed limit. They said my dad didn’t suffer at all, that his death would have been instant.

  Then it was just me, and I thought it was probably better that way. My father had started a tech company, and I took it over on his death. I couldn’t do much with it at first, but once I’d made it through college, that was a different story.

  I didn’t need anyone. Why count on someone and then have them leave you? There was no point. I had friends, of course, but no one that I was super close to, and I liked it that way.

  I would never give anyone that sort of power over myself.

  Never.

  So that’s why I let the call from my grandfather go to voicemail each and every single time. The last time that I had seen him was at my father’s funeral, twelve years ago. It had hurt to watch him. He was basically an older version of my dad, right down to the tone of his voice and the subtle hint of humor in his dark blue eyes.

  After all this time, I had no idea why he would be calling me. I kept expecting him to give up, and I thought that might be best for everyone involved. He needed to not expect anything from me.

  Or, maybe more to the point, I needed not to expect anything more from him. One thing I’d learned about people is that, whether they wanted to or not, they left you.

  So I watched as his number flashed on my call display screen. Grandpa, it said, as though I didn’t already know that. As though I hadn’t memorized every digit of that phone number.

  And, like always, it was nothing but a reminder of what I was missing.

  I’d built a life by myself. Grandpa had made himself rich with lumber, but Dad had never been happy with accepting the family fortune without doing anything to earn it. Neither had I.

  Black Technology had been our answer to that, and what my dad had started, I had continued on in a way that had honestly surprised even me. The men of my family, it turned out, had a knack for business, for making money.

  As I watched my phone’s lit screen, my fingers itched. What would happen if I did pick it up? By now, my grandpa must not expect that. Would it shock him to hear my voice?

  That was almost a good enough reason for me to do it. Almost. There was an impish side of me that would enjoy surprising the man, but at the same time, what would happen if I did?

  It was too easy to imagine. My grandpa would, yes, doubtless be shocked. There could be no way, after twelve years, that he would expect me to do it. I’d get maybe as much as ten seconds of shocked silence.

  And then what?

  Well, then the questions would start. The recriminations. The reminders that the old man was all I had left, and that we had to stick together. My grandfather had never been the type of man to hold back when he had something to say.

  The hell of it was, I would deserve it. I was the one who had cut off contact. My reasons for doing it, I thought, were sound enough, but even I knew that I could have said something, some sort of explanation, to the old man who was my only family.

  He had kept in contact as much as I had let him. There had always been a card at Christmas, and another at my birthday. Every year, I’d expect for him to give up, but I guess the Black men had always had a bit of a stubborn streak.

  It would be nice to hear his voice.

  My phone stopped buzzing, and I let out a soft sigh, a breath I hadn’t even been aware I was holding. I’d missed the chance. It was too late. Maybe this was even the last time Grandpa would try to call. There had to be a last time, right? Sooner or later, he would give up.

  Or …

  No. The old man was immortal, like the mountains themselves. I wouldn’t think about him dying. But surely enough was enough. I’d been pushing him away for so long, and even someone as stubborn as he was, had to give up at some point.

  For just a mome
nt, I had the almost overwhelming urge to call him back. To tell him … What? That I was sorry, maybe. Sorry for protecting myself. Sorry that the months kept on going by, and each and every time he called, I told myself that the next time, I would answer that call.

  Next time, maybe. If there was a next time. Lately, the urge to take the call had been getting stronger and stronger, and it nagged at me more, too.

  Once, it had been easy for me to glance at my screen and then go right back to work. There had been so much to do, after all. Now, the company almost ran itself, and with my thirtieth birthday coming up in a few days, I was starting to have the sense that I should accept the gestures the man kept extending to me.

  My birthday.

  Of course. That was it. On my thirtieth birthday, my grandfather would call again. I knew he would. He always did. On that day, I would take the call, and I would accept anything he wanted to say to me. That was only three days away, after all, and it would give me some time to prepare myself for whatever happened.

  Hell, what did I know? There was a decent chance he just wanted to tell me off for ignoring him for so long. So be it. It was sort of ridiculous that I was hiding from him, or that I had done so for so long.

  Anyway, I’d deserve it. I’d let time get away from me. Even now, I was a little bit anxious about the idea of speaking to him. Okay, in other words, I was downright terrified.

  It was stupid, though. Stupid to be so scared. Stupid to let the fear keep on paralyzing me. I didn’t have to be close to him or anything. I would talk to him, I promised myself.

  Somehow, that promise felt good. It felt like the right thing to do. There was even still the urge to call him right then and there, but no. I needed the time to psych myself up to it.

  Just a few more days and I would hear the voice that was so much like my father’s that I had turned around at my dad’s funeral, sure he was the one who was talking. It had felt, just for a second, like my dad was somehow miraculously not in the ground.

  It had felt somehow like a betrayal when I had seen that it wasn’t my father, but my father’s father, who had spoken. So yes, I argued with myself, I did need time to prepare myself. What were a few more days, when measured against the twelve years which had already gone by?

  Somehow, that decision didn’t feel nearly as good. It sat, a hard lump in the pit of my stomach, telling me maybe there wasn’t time.

  Which was ridiculous, of course. If my grandfather had truly had something important to say, he could have said it to my answering machine. I had always counted on, in an emergency, I would know because grandpa wouldn’t just hang up, he would leave a message.

  Call him.

  The two words echoed through my head, and I frowned. Maybe I should just get it over with. Like ripping a bandage off. Swift and painful as hell, yes, but at least it would be over.

  I almost jumped out of my chair when the phone started to ring again.

  If it was him, I would answer. If he called back twice in a row, that would be what did it. That would mean he really, really wanted to talk to me, and maybe I should listen.

  My whole body tensed up as I slowly, slowly, let my eyes drift down to my screen. Did I hope it was him or not? Even I couldn’t really tell.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, as my eyes finally rested on the lit up screen. The number was familiar, but it was Brent, my best friend and partner in crime at Black Tech.

  All of the air left my lungs, leaving me feeling curiously drained. There was no question about not answering this call, though, and I picked it up without hesitation. Even so, with how long it had taken me to get brave enough to look at my phone, I was sure I’d gotten it right before it went to my voicemail.

  “David, what the hell? Do you not check your work emails anymore?” Brent sounded peeved, and I had to hold back a slight sigh. I was sure I was pretty much just letting everyone down, and it sort of pissed me off.

  “It’s not work hours,” I snapped back, but Brent didn’t even really seem to be listening to me. He was the numbers guy, the one who made sure our little company kept growing, and he clearly had something to say on the matter.

  “These Q3 results aren’t looking too good. If we’re going to close out the year where we need to be, we’re going to need to make some changes?”

  Sighing, I transferred the phone to my left hand and rubbed at the bridge of my nose with the right. I knew Brent would be able to handle it. He was much better at this sort of thing than I was.

  Still, it was my job to listen, so I settled down to do what needed to be done. Three days would be soon enough to talk to my grandfather.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Kaye

  After the phone call that went unanswered, it was like Theodore gave up. Like he’d been holding on to try to talk to his grandson, and when that didn’t happen, he just stopped wanting to try to live at all.

  He lasted one more night, and one more morning. He’d spent the whole of that morning closeted with his lawyer, which only added to the nagging feeling I had about him not caring anymore.

  It had all happened too fast for me to believe it was truly a coincidence. The day Theodore had tried to call his grandson, he’d been an old, sick man. The next day, he’d been dying and putting his affairs in order.

  The skies were gray when I went to his home that morning. Not a bird chirped, not a butterfly flew, it had my mind going in a bad direction.

  I’d been through this same thing too many times. As if death lingered in the space, waiting to take the sickly person to the other side.

  It was both a happy and sad time. Happy, because there would be no more suffering. Theodore would finally be at peace. Sad because he would be missed. I already missed him.

  Fighting back the tears, I knew I had to be strong. No nurse would sit by their patient’s bedside, weeping as they left this world. We were there to be supportive, to give them help in letting it all go and allowing death to come and take them out of that body that gave them so much pain and anguish. That would be no more, only peace would be where they were going.

  I believed it too. With all of my heart, I did.

  I wasn’t a religious person, but I was spiritual. I was a true believer that we all go on. Death isn’t the end of us, only the end of our Earthly body.

  With all that faith, it still took a piece of me when my patients left us all behind. Theodore would take more than a piece of me, he’d take a chunk.

  I was all the man had. No family would be there to say their goodbyes to him. Only I would be there. Bittersweet though it was, I didn’t know if I was truly prepared for that day.

  The door squeaked as I pulled it open. It had never squeaked once since I’d started working there. The house was aware of what was happening. I’d felt it all too often. How the houses would feel when a person passed within their walls. Like a scar, it would permanently affect the home.

  I ran my hand over the wall as I walked inside. “You’ll be okay.”

  Some people thought I was nuts with how I thought. I didn’t care. I felt it right down to my core. A person leaves their mark on a place. And Theodore had built that home then lived in it for decades. He was a part of that place, and it knew it.

  Peaking in on him, I saw his withered body barely breathing as he lay in the hospital bed. The head of it had been inclined to help him breathe. It wasn’t doing much for him. I went to his side and sat silently in the chair next to the bed. I didn’t want to disturb him at all.

  Perhaps he was dreaming of his younger days. I’d hate to interrupt that. For a few hours, I just sat by and listened to his slow breathing and stayed quiet, letting him take all the time he needed in peace.

  I was there when it happened. He’d called out to me, his voice barely a rasp, “Kaye?” He seemed to have aged ten years and lost twenty pounds overnight, and his skin was pale and loose, his eyes finally losing their sparkle.

  I’d taken his hand. “Theodore, I’m here.”

  His
eyes barely opened as he looked up at me. “Kaye.” For a long time, we stayed like that, him lying in bed and me sitting beside it and holding his hand like I could somehow keep him with me.

  “It’s all going to be okay, Theodore.” The urge to cry was always right there, but I held those tears back. I had to stay strong for the man.

  He didn’t ask for anything. He was utterly silent until I felt his fingers gripping mine suddenly, frantically. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  Moments later, before I could so much as frame the question to ask who he wanted me to tell that to, he was gone. I didn’t really need to ask, though. There was really only one ‘him’ it could be.

  His grandson.

  The man who had, less than a day before, rejected the last attempt of a dying old man to reach him.

  The whole situation was so terribly sad, so tragic, and tears leaked down my cheeks as I did what I needed to do.

  The funeral was a few days after, and I’d dried my tears before then. I didn’t always go to the funeral of my clients. Sometimes, I got the sense from the family they didn’t think that would be entirely appropriate. Of course, I would respect their wishes.

  In this case, though, the only family was a man I’d never met. A man I wasn’t sure I liked. David Black was not my most favorite person in the world. Though I tried to keep an open mind about most people, in his case, I was willing to make an exception.

  What possible excuse could there be for ignoring a man and letting him die alone?

  The sadness had been replaced by a fair bit of anger, and I let that energy carry me through what I knew would be a terrible day.

  Nor was I wrong, but it was, at least, a chance to say goodbye to someone I had cared for a great deal. The day was overcast, showers seemed sure to happen. Most had umbrellas they held to make sure their black funeral clothes wouldn’t be ruined by the drops that would surely drop from the sky at any moment.