Page 16 of Vengeful Seduction
“I’m serious and I’m sure.” I smirked a little. “She kept giving me these little looks, and she held my hand to show me how very sorry she was about my grandfather’s death.”
Brent winced sympathetically.
“Oh, God. Yeah. That sounds like she’s gold digging.” He shook his head. “There’s a reason I don’t have much to do with women. They’re all like that.”
I nodded. That had been my experience too. I’d never met a woman who didn’t try to get something out of me.
“Well, that’s good news for you, right?” Brent’s lips tugged up at the corners with his amusement. “I mean, she wants your money and she doesn’t know that you want hers. You have the upper hand there.”
I smirked right back at him and nodded. He was right, after all.
“She won’t know what hit her,” I agreed.
No, she wouldn’t. She had no doubt gotten my grandfather to fall prey to her charms. Maybe she’d found it so easy that she was going to go after me now. But there was a bit of a difference between a sick old man and someone like me, young and dominant, who was used to having things his way.
I had to wonder how many other men had fallen for her charms. My grandfather, definitely, but she was a nurse. She had access to all sorts of rich, old men.
But then why was she living in that tiny apartment?
Well, either this was the first time she’d tried it, or she was such a spendthrift that she went through money too fast and had to find a new sucker. Whatever the case was, I honestly didn’t really care that much.
The important thing was, I was on to her. She could throw her sweet, innocent, naive act around all she wanted. It was never going to fool me. I had never been the kind of man to be taken in by a woman, no matter how gorgeous she was.
She’d fooled my grandfather, but she would never fool me. Never, not in a million years. I promised myself that right then and there.
Kaye James might think she had another sucker on her line, but she would find out this wealthy man could fight back. She’d made a pretty critical mistake if she thought she could manipulate me like she had my grandfather and who knew how many other lonely men.
She would never have me.
I would give her every reason to think she’d convinced me of her sweetness—that I believed her act and had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I would keep on guarding my heart, as I had always done, and in the end, she’d end up with nothing.
It actually sort of pissed me off, thinking about what she’d done. She’d not only stolen from me, but she’d taken advantage of an old, dying man. This revenge was no longer just about the money.
It was personal, and while I had felt a little bit bad for her before, that was all swept away with righteous indignation now. Steal from a Black family member? Lie and misdirect us?
No way was I going to let her get away with that. I hoped she would suffer when I took everything from her.
It would be no more than what she deserved.
Vengeance would be sweet.
Chapter 5
Kaye
The whole story broke my heart.
I had known, somehow, that it was bad. I had known it from the moment Theodore had asked me to dial the phone for him. Strange to think it had only been about a week and a half ago.
It had actually hurt to listen to. After hearing everything David had been through, it was impossible for me to dislike him anymore.
Yes, he’d been scared, but he’d had good reason to be. He’d been so hurt. It all made so much more sense to me now.
The only thing I regretted from his visit was that I hadn’t been able to talk with him about whether he’d be interested in taking half of the money. I hadn’t expected him to show up at my house and my cold had kept me from thinking straight about the whole thing.
Maybe I’d see him again, though. He’d asked me to, and I liked the idea. Much more than I expected to.
“Earth to Kaye,” the laughing voice of one of my friends from work, a lovely lady with golden skin and laughing black eyes named Joan, called out. She was the one I was closest to at work.
