Page 31 of The Billionaire's Fake Wife
"Takes one to recognize one, Father."
Color bleeds from Edward’s face.
"Shit, I didn’t mean that."
"Sure, you did." Edward sucks in his cheeks. "That why you called us here? To rehash the mistakes of our past?"
"What’s your plan?" Saint stalks into the room, drops into the nearest armchair. "You are too smart, Sin, It’s the one thing I hate about you… Possibly the one thing I admire about you too. You’ve managed to emerge relatively unscathed from the incident, put your life back together, the first of us to earn a million."
And a billion... many times since, but who’s counting, huh? I widen my stance, "What do you want in return?"
"50% of whatever profit you are proposing," Saint growls.
"Hold on a second." Weston strides forward, "I am a surgeon, that doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for less than my proportionate share of the profits."
"And I am the most in demand Angel Investor in Silicon Valley." Arpad drums his chest.
"That’s because Jace decided to turn his attentions to philanthropy,” Damian smirks.
He’s referring to our mutual acquaintance JK aka Jace. He is part of a select circle of people that Arpad and Damian have become close to in LA.
"Tosser got married and decided to retire." Damian bounces on the balls of his feet.
"More power to him." I snort.
Losers, all those who follow their hearts and get involved in that emo shit. The result: they lose their killer edge, become soft at their edges. Not something that I’ll ever fall for. Especially since there is one goal on my horizon—to bring down the man responsible for my ruin.
Arpad tilts his head, "Jace and I were never in competition. Besides," he cracks his neck, "I hold the record for maximum ROI in a quarter amongst all of us. So," he flexes his fingers, "I stake the claim to the biggest share of the profits."
"Don’t you want to hear what Sin’s proposing?" Damian aims the ball in my direction.
I snatch it up, bounce it once, then balance my foot on it.
"I’ll tell you, on one condition."
Saint scowls, "Baron?"
I widen my stance, "Fucking Baron."
Arpad’s jaw hardens, "Bastard always manages to insert himself into our conversations without being present."
"He is annoying that way." Edward concedes.
Saint jerks his chin. "The seventh wheel, but clearly, whatever we are planning, he needs to buy into it too."
I tilt my chin up. "He’s in."
"You spoke to him?"
"In a manner of speaking." I’d had to follow the security protocol he’d laid down, which involved old fashioned snail mail, and an unsigned typewritten note, to a PO Box. Apparently, physical mail leaves less of a trail than communicating in a clandestine electronic method. "He’s happy with whatever we decide."
"Fucking Baron." Arpad snaps his fingers, "Always knows how to use his time most efficiently, while the rest of us are working our asses off."
"Not you" Saint snickers. "You’re too busy sailing around the world in that dinghy of yours."
"It's a sailboat." Arpad curls an eyebrow. "And PS, it’s called generating passive income, baby." He spreads his hands, "What can I say? I have a knack for investing in exactly the right start ups… Speaking of which..." he stabs his finger at me, "...you going to tell us what it is?"
"FOK Media."
