The Fidelity World_Scorched

by Casey Hagen

  “Infidelity is a company that matches clients with companions in a year-long contract. Companions are paid generously for their time, their living expenses are included, all for their loyal companionship,” he said as though he were reading it out of a pamphlet.

  No doubt he used the logical tone to steer her away from what this really was. “Define loyal companionship,” she murmured.

  “Someone to attend social functions with, a roommate, a plus one in any situation, essentially.”

  “In any situation,” she said with her heart shriveling under his insulting offer. “So what about sex? Would this be you hiring me to be your plus one in sex?”

  He drummed his long fingers on the granite. “If you wanted. Not everyone has that kind of arrangement. Considering we’re already intimate, I don’t see the point in excluding it,” he pointed out.

  “Convenient. So instead of being in your bed by my choice, I’d be reduced to a paid whore no better than a woman who’d let a man like my father grope her against a wall in public.”

  His dark eyes turned stormy, his teeth gnashed together, and his nostrils flared, giving him the look of a man who’d been pushed a step too far. “Don’t,” he bit out. “I’m not him, Beatrice,” he said with a razor-sharp edge to his voice.

  “No, you’re not, but you managed to make me feel cheap anyway,” she said, fighting tears.

  He shoved a hand through his hair and grabbed the bar stool, the sound of the legs scraping along the marble floor making her jump. He took a seat and snagged her arm before she managed to pull away.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her to stand between his legs. “The contract isn’t to buy sex from you. It’s a way for you to gain financial independence from your family so no matter the fall out, you’re able to support yourself,” he said.

  “And I should believe that because?”

  “Because you know I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.

  “You’re not playing fair,” she said, laying her hands on his shoulders and drifting toward him. The minute he touched her, held her, he drew her in, and no matter how she tried to free herself, she was bound.

  Not that he needed to know that.

  “Loving you means not reducing you to a piece of ass,” he said as he kissed her lips. He kept his hands on her waist, likely to prove his point, but she could sense the energy in him, the need to taste her flesh, to hear her crying out his name as he made her his once more.

  “I used to believe that. Before…” she cupped his cheek and kissed him back before stepping out of his embrace and grabbing her purse. “I have to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “I need answers. I’m going home to find them,” she said before slipping out the door.

  ***

  She stood before the doors of the Addington estate. A thirteen-thousand-square-foot ostentatious monstrosity she’d called home for twenty-seven years.

  She’d always considered herself lucky to live in a real-life fairytale.

  But now, a part of her quivered in terror to greet the strangers inside.

  Did she have what it took to look her father in the eye and pretend that she hadn’t seen the callous betrayal of his marriage and family?

  The door opened before her, and her head snapped to attention.

  “Beatrice, what on earth are you doing just standing out here?” her mother asked.

  Her mother stood before her, the epitome of style and grace in her Dolce & Gabbana dress, with the skirt just past the knee as decorum would dictate of a woman her age. Her blond hair, once natural but now painstakingly maintained every three weeks in a salon, lay perfectly coiffed in a chignon at the nape of her neck.

  This had been her job for the past thirty years. And she’d been in training for this very position for the twenty-five years prior to that.

  Just as Beatrice had.

  Only Beatrice couldn’t live this life of dinner parties, air kisses, and keeping up pretenses. Even if that meant she ended up working as a waitress in a seedy truck stop diner.

  Living her mother’s life meant a slow death.

  She wondered how her mother felt about it, in her heart of hearts. Did she have long-ago buried dreams of a different life, of all the things she could have been had she not been relegated to a life as the backbone of her father’s success?

  “I came to apologize for the other night,” Beatrice said.

  Her mother reached out to clasp her arm and shuffled Beatrice in. “Well, I should think so. You’ve gone completely off the deep end, and your father and I have been beside ourselves wondering what was going on with you.”

  Her father seemed to be taking her absence just fine, not that she’d say as much to her mother just yet. She needed evidence of his betrayal. Otherwise, her mother would likely dismiss Beatrice’s claim as just more acting out.

  Beatrice smoothed her blouse. “I’m sorry. I know you’ve been worried about me, but I needed a little time to myself.”

  Her mother glared. “You needed time with this new man, in other words.”

  Beatrice met her judgmental gaze. “That was part of it, yes.”

  She waved a dismissive hand, blinked, and covered her irritation with an impersonal smile. “You know, we had Dane Carmichael here the other night with his parents. He’d been looking forward to seeing you again. I think he’s finally ready to settle down, and forming a union with their family would be a wonderful benefit on both sides.”

  Beatrice’s heart pinched realizing she couldn’t remember a time she’d ever seen a single of her mother’s smiles reach her hazel eyes. She’d told Micah that what he had done had set her adrift from her family, but she had to wonder as to the strength of those tethers to begin with.

  “And if I’m not available?” Beatrice asked.

  “There’s no ring on your finger, Beatrice. You’re available.”

  Her mother had a point. Maybe she’d have to play the Dane angle as well to stay in her parents’ good graces long enough to expose the truth. “You know what, Mother? You’re absolutely right. Will you be entertaining the Carmichael family again soon?”

  Her mother smiled with a regal tilt of her head. “Why yes, they’ll be here this Saturday. Your father has asked that I plan a party, a welcoming of sorts for a few new business associates. I assume you’ll be in attendance.”

  Beatrice squeezed her hand. “I’d love to. What time?”

  “The cocktail hour begins at five. Please, don’t be late,” her mother said, letting go and tracing her fingers over the pearls nestled around her neck.

  “I’ll make sure to be a bit early, even. Listen, I’d like to give Dane a call and apologize for my absence and reassure him that I look forward to seeing him Saturday. Would you mind if I use Daddy’s office?”

  “Of course not, dear. I think that’s a fine idea. I’ll give you some privacy,” her mother said, turning on her heel and heading upstairs. She turned back a few steps up. “Beatrice?”

  “Yes?”

  Her eyes softened momentarily, and Beatrice would swear she glimpsed the real woman inside. “The house has been far too quiet without you here,” she said quietly before turning away and continuing up the stairs.

  It was as close as her mother had ever gotten to saying, “I miss you.”

  With a glance around the foyer and all things quiet, Beatrice headed for her father’s study. The room smelled of the finest pipe tobacco, Cuban cigars, leather, and old books.

  And it was all for show. Her father only smoked to impress, and the books, he hadn’t picked ninety percent of what stocked his floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves.

  His heavy, black executive desk sat before tall windows overlooking the veranda. She used to love sitting in the sunny spot in the corner, practically at her father’s feet, while he worked on briefs in the earlier years of his career. He’d been less about schmoozing and more about making partner.

  She spent every day at his feet with her arts and crafts, a
nd later curled into his easy chair reading the literature from his shelves, while he worked the hours away. She had convinced herself that he’d do anything for his family, even if that meant he was too busy to spend quality time with them.

  Had he been a cheater then?

  He’d been so handsome with his full head of wavy hair and blue eyes. He reminded her of the husbands in the old movies, tall and classy.

  Twenty years later, he’d put on thirty pounds and his hair had thinned, but he’d still had that charm.

  Apparently.

  The image of his wrinkled, rough hand grinding that woman’s breast flashed in her mind.

  Bile rose in her throat.

  She peeked out the door and with the coast clear, she locked it and got to work starting with his drawers.

  She scoured through notepads, pens, paper clips, and envelopes, everything in its place and neat as a pin.

  His filing cabinet was the same with files labeled with names and dates of mergers over the past two years, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  She sorted through his Rolodex of associates, partners, clients, and families from the area, only old money, of course. They couldn’t sink so low that they mixed with regulars.

  Now that the veil had been lifted and lies exposed, her father’s life looked like nothing more than a continual attempt to kiss ass.

  Did he actually enjoy it?

  Or was this him acting out because he’d finally reached the point where he couldn’t stand keeping up appearances any longer?

  After all, that’s how her relationship with Micah had begun.

  She didn’t want to sympathize with her father. Micah was different. She was a free woman. The only people her actions hurt, if you could call it hurt, was her parents because she’d taken away their power to steer her in their direction.

  She opened the last drawer and dug through. Papers for the Mercedes lay folded in a dealership envelope. A manila envelope with tax forms sat below it on top of an address book and a stapler.

  Nothing.

  She scoured through books and tobacco boxes, she even searched the humidor and came up empty.

  Disappointed, she lifted the top of the Bankers Box on the bottom shelf and smiled at the construction paper and markers inside.

  He’d kept them after all these years. She ran her fingers over the rough paper, her heart softening a fraction as she contemplated what it meant.

  She slid out the envelope, recalling the day she’d stuffed it with homemade confetti stars. Her mother had never let her play with real confetti. She said it made too much of a mess so her father had suggested making her own, but bigger, so it would be easy to collect and she could toss it in the air whenever the impulse hit.

  Opening up the envelope, there they were, their sides uneven lengths, but still recognizable. She had to have been five, maybe six when she’d made them. She remembered making heart ones for Valentine’s Day and shamrocks a few years later for St. Patrick’s Day.

  Spotting a second envelope, she reached in.

  She smiled as she spilled the contents out into her lap, eager to see another happy memory.

  She froze.

  No confetti stars.

  No confetti hearts.

  No confetti shamrocks.

  Only an envelope full of pain to pierce the child still in her heart.

  Photos.

  Graphic photos of her father in compromising positions with multiple women. Some of those women alone, performing for the camera.

  Another set of her father, at a club, nestled into a corner booth with topless women surrounding him. Another of his mouth hovering over the nipple of one of the women, a grin on his face as he waggled his tongue.

  She might just vomit.

  More pictures followed, all of her father with the women, and a few other men. Powerful men with dark eyes, shrewd looks, and money dripping from their ringed fingers. Drinks flowed. Cigars burned in ashtrays.

  Her father existed in a whole other world. Something deviant and obscene.

  And he’d hidden the evidence of his revolting behavior in a box of her childhood arts and crafts.

  She fought for each breath while her ears rang and the heat of mortification burned her cheeks.

  She didn’t know this man. Nothing about him reflected the father she’d grown up admiring.

  Which made it all that much easier to take him down.

  She slipped the pictures into her purse and replaced the box in the corner.

  Numbness took over and she welcomed it because it might just be the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

  She couldn’t do that here, with these people.

  But she knew whose arms would hold her while she did.

  She quietly closed the door to her father’s office and headed for the door, abandoning her plan to grab clothes.

  She’d buy clothes.

  Her mother started down the stairs, but Beatrice couldn’t meet her eyes. “Thank you for giving me some privacy. I’ll make sure I’m right on time Saturday.”

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  With a hand on the doorknob, holding it like a lifeline out from the pit of hell, she glanced over her shoulder at her mother. “Back to Micah’s.”

  “But what about Dane? This is hardly appropriate,” her mother said with a confident air of authority in her voice.

  “It’s like you said, Mother. Unless there’s a ring on my finger, I’m available. That extends to Micah as well.”

  Her mother’s lips pinched so tight it was a wonder that she didn’t swallow her own face.

  Beatrice entertained the idea of trying to talk to her mother, really talk to her, for about thirty seconds before Beatrice realized that she’d have an easier time breaking into the Federal Reserve.

  If there were any hope of finding her mother somewhere under all that refinement, it was going to take one hell of a wake-up call to jostle her free.

  Beatrice tightened her grip on her purse.

  The next time she saw her father, she had just the evidence to deliver that wake-up call…to the both of them.

  Chapter 4

  Micah glanced at the clock again.

  She’d been gone for five hours.

  Where the hell could she be?

  His phone rang, the sound welcome from the silence and his stormy thoughts. He glanced down to see Sebastian’s number. “We got cut short on the Bellini file,” Micah said by way of greeting.

  “We did, and I would have called you earlier, but we’ve got some more information. Turns out Addington has invested in a bit of a side business of the illegal variety,” Sebastian said.

  “Tell me,” Micah said, taking a seat at the dining room table.

  “We’ve found three offshore accounts where money is transferred…get this…every time Addington secures an investment for a friend. Not only is he getting his fee as the corporate attorney for the businesses with the investment opportunities, he’s charging his buddies a fee to steer these opportunities to them first,” Sebastian said.

  “I’m sure his law partners would love to know about this little side business he’s got going.” Everything he did that blurred the lines put his law firm at risk, something Micah was sure his partners would frown upon.

  “Oh, that’s just the tip of a huge iceberg. He’s invested some of that offshore money in an escort business,” Sebastian said.

  “So the women we saw at The Cellar, they’re part of that?” Micah asked. Not that the confirmation would make Beatrice feel any better. How she’d ended up with such an honorable, moral compass when she came from a shitbag like Addington, he’d never know.

  He’d never know what he did to attract her.

  And he sure as hell didn’t deserve her.

  She was goodness and light. And he was sullied by a past that carried a stink he’d never managed to fully shed.

  “Looks like it. Bellini wanted to invest in Infidelity as a safe place to launder larger quantities
of money unnoticed and approached Addington. It’s getting harder and harder for Bellini to keep track as his wealth grows which means taking on more associates and a higher risk for betrayal. With Infidelity’s reputation and the way they keep themselves above reproach, Addington knew they wouldn’t go for it. Plus, it’s dangerous getting your not-so-squeaky-clean dollars tangled with a business that finds companions for the elite. Can you imagine the scandal should it come out that certain politicians had entered arrangements through Infidelity and later find out Infidelity laundered money for the mob?”

  “All of a sudden a legitimate business is marred in scandal, and government investigations crop up everywhere. I wonder how Bellini even knew that the opportunity was ripe for the taking. I knew because I had heard it from Addington,” Micah said.

  “Yeah, and Bellini won’t appreciate attention from the feds, so how long before there’s a bloodbath in New York City unlike anything we’ve seen in decades? Because if he’s already under the microscope, he has nothing to lose. As for knowing, Bellini has tentacles reaching all over this city,” Sebastian pointed out.

  Wallace Addington had to be the dumbest son of a bitch on the planet if he thought he could pull this off. If Micah wanted payback, he’d have to race Addington’s own arrogance before it got him dead. “So Addington is placating Bellini by going in on an escort business with him?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said.

  “Addington has to know that Infidelity isn’t an escort business, right?” Micah asked.

  Sebastian let out a chuckle. “I’m sure, but it doesn’t look like he cares.”

  “Because the set-up takes too long, and Bellini wants the investments now,” Micah said, flattening his palm on the table, pressing his fingertips into the glass until they turned white.

  “That would be my guess. Bellini needs avenues to filter his money now,” Sebastian said.

  He pushed to his feet and walked to the window to watch the people below. “So, you have something I can use against Addington? Concrete evidence?”

  “I do. We have pictures and a money trail. What do you plan to do with it?” Sebastian asked.