Page 22 of A Man of Wealth

The wheels in my head begin spinning. “The girls in the park?”

“Yep.”

“But what does the brotherhood have to do with that?”

“We aren’t sure. But they sure as heck want Sebastian to take campaign money from them. And they don’t like us prying around about their former drugs that were in research and development and never made it to the FDA for approval.”

“Is Jared…a member?” I ask with a frown as I try to remember where he went to school.

“No. Not from our chapter, but he was a member of TOD at a different university. So he may be friends with members.”

I look back toward his home. “Why do you think your house is bugged?”

“Because my security system was hacked a few weeks ago,” he admits.

I look around us. Behind his house is a pool house and then out in the woods is another building. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing.

He stands and holds out his hand to me. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Chapter11

Conner

She takes my hand.I can tell she’s apprehensive. She should be.

“It’s safe,” I state as I lead her past some grass and shrubbery into the woods on my property. The small guesthouse is really just a project for me. It’s an off-the-grid tiny home. There is only power from a small solar panel. The water is from a rain tank. The toilet is composting. I can even hitch this to a truck and pull it. It started out as a drunken bet with Aiden. Aiden loves restoring old cars. Something about being able to fix them that he finds oddly soothing. Anyhow, he showed me this video online and I said I could totally do that, and he bet me ten thousand dollars that I couldn’t. It took four months of working every weekend and many evenings, but I did it.

I’ve never once brought a woman out here. Hell, I seldom come out here anymore. Just when I need to unplug for a night. I could sell it, but I don’t have the heart. Sebastian once suggested that I buy some beach property and park it there. But for now, it acts as a little sanctuary away from my fortress.

I turn on the light once I unlock the door with a punch code. I watch Vivienne as she turns in a circle, taking it all in.

It’s nothing special. A small bathroom, living area, kitchen, and a sizable loft space with a king-size bed. She runs a finger over the rough-edge oak countertops.

“It’s my tiny home,” I explain as I motion around us. “I built it.”

I watch the look of shock spread across her face. “You? Built this?” she asks, pointing to my chest.

“I know, it’s shocking. But I’ve been told that I’m very good with my hands,” I state with a smirk.

She rolls her eyes. Normally, I’d find such behavior abhorrent, but with Vivienne, I find it oddly attractive. She’s feisty and opinionated and not afraid to ask a question. She’s also beautiful. She has to know how beautiful she is, yet she doesn’t openly flaunt it.

She’s nothing like what I thought she would be. And the fact that she didn’t write the article I read, well, not entirely anyhow, makes my hatred for her transcend into something else. I want her. This whole time, our entire cat and mouse game, I’ve wanted her. Even after I had her at the hotel, it wasn’t enough, I wanted more. I was like a junkie that had just one hit, yet it wasn’t enough to satisfy my needs.

“Why didn’t you just bring me out here to talk?” she asks as she climbs the steps and inspects the loft. I follow behind her.

“I thought you might be more comfortable out in the open,” I confess.

She turns and looks down at me. “You’re scary, you do know that, right?”

I laugh, and she smiles sheepishly.

“I don’t try to be scary.”

This time she laughs. “Oh, right.”

“What? I don’t.”

She shakes her head a little. “I think you like being scary. I think you like people perceiving you as the opposite of what you are.”

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