Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 253(@200wpm)___ 202(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
“The marriages alone followed by divorce probably wouldn’t have been enough to make me call things off, but there was more that I found after I went digging. You know because I’ve told you, that I was never in love with her. She was more like a business merger than anything else. I fell for the businesswoman more so than the woman if that makes any sense.”
“But like I said, there’s more to it than her marrying men for their wealth. I’ve uncovered some things about her that make that pale in comparison. After learning what I have…” I put a finger to her lips when she made as if to ask me just what it was that I had found out.
“I have to deal with her first and then I’ll tell you all of it. Just suffice it to say that I wasn’t in love with her before and after this, whatever care I had for her is now long dead. She’s no threat to you, to us. No one will stand in our way I promise you, least of all her.”
“I still don’t understand how you could plan to marry someone you didn’t love.” Ah, I get it now.
“What she and I shared was different, hard as it is to believe, until two weeks ago I was a completely different person. I didn’t look at marriage the same way as I do now. My life was all business and forging my dynasty, until this brown eyed beauty waltzed in and took over.” She grinned at that and the band around my chest eased.
This being in love thing is all consuming. I never knew what it was to hold someone else in that place that was my very essence. I’d probably never tell her this, because who in their right mind would give another that much power? But I sometimes feel I will die without her. One fucking week and she’d turned me into the lovesick sap I’d never been not even in my youth.
Chapter 5
***
After lunch, I called the driver to come take her back and admonished her to stay put this time. No one knew where she was and I was trying to keep it that way until everything was over. I hated deceiving her parents, but she’d been so freaked out when I suggested we let them know, that I’d given in. She rightfully feared her parents’ disapproval and I could see why. But once I’d taken care of Jen, I had all intentions on going to them and setting the record straight.
This is the south and a grown man taking up with a young girl after seemingly having an affair with her aunt would be frowned upon I had no doubt, so I was going to have to tread carefully there. I wasn’t too worried about it though, since the only thing I cared about was keeping her with me. If they didn’t accept us, I’d just have to find another way to fill the void for her. But no matter what, she was never leaving my side again.
The rest of the afternoon flew by quickly and the closer the hour grew the more annoyed I became. I was long past the anger that had seized me once Jen’s perfidy was uncovered. I’d have had to care more for it to have lasted, but I was more angry at myself for being so careless, than at her for being what she was and trying to walk me into a trap.
The papers laid out before me on my desk told a dark twisted story. If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I would find it hard to believe. Obviously the two men that came before me had seen something way more in her than I had to have been suckered in so completely. My excuse was the indifference I’d felt for the whole marriage game. I can’t imagine what theirs had been.
A look at my watch showed it was almost time. She’d wanted to meet at a restaurant but I’d convinced her to meet me here at the office after everyone else had left. The shit would hit the public soon enough, but I wanted the pleasure of annihilating her here first. It was a kind of spit in your face kind of deal.
Sitting back, I replayed every conversation we’d ever had. It was so plain to see now, all the traps and snares. What I’d mistakenly took for moral ethics on her part had been nothing more than cunning manipulation. The one fucking time in my life I took my eye off the ball and she almost got me. I won’t be making that mistake again though, and now I won’t have to.
I had no doubts about Ashley’s feelings for me. She wears them on her face like a beacon. It may have started as simple teenage lust, a crush as she calls it. But when I watch her asleep in my arms it’s there for me to see.