Page 56 of Vengeful Seduction
Part Four
Chapter 16
David
I was very, very busy. Yes, I was. Completely occupied with staring down at piles of paperwork as I tried to make sense of everything.
When the door was pushed open, I looked up sharply, expecting Kaye. Expecting her to tell me off again or to beg me for the baby that I—if I were completely honest with myself—wished desperately to give to her.
But it wasn’t Kaye with desperate pleas on her lips. It was Brent, and he looked more out of sorts than I could ever remember seeing him before.
Brent wasn’t the sort of guy who took anything very seriously. He sort of floated through life, seemingly untouched by most things. So to see him on edge, as he so obviously was, instantly made me nervous.
“What is it?” I asked, and gestured for him to come in. He flopped down in the chair opposite mine, the one across the desk, where Kaye had been sitting not so very long ago.
“It’s hopeless,” Brent murmured, and it startled me badly to hear him say those words. I didn’t know hopeless was a word he even knew. Much like me, Brent was pretty amazing at getting what he wanted, regardless of who or what was set against him.
Why was Kaye so different?
“It’s not hopeless.” I tried to cheer him up, but he just shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. It was usually so neat. I’d never seen him this agitated.
“It is. I can’t do it. She knows. I don’t think she knows everything, but she knows I’m trying to get her into bed.”
There was more to it, though. Brent wouldn’t be so upset about this otherwise. “She can’t possibly know,” I argued.
“She knows, and she’ll never go for it,” Brent continued, raising his eyes to meet mine. “Damn it, David, she’s too damn smart for her own good. I swear I didn’t push her too fast. I just tried to comfort her, hug her, tell her she was too good for you, and she flipped out at me.”
Too good for me?
The words made me faintly sick to my stomach. Weren’t they true? Kaye was a genuine person—maybe the first one, male or female—I had met in my entire life. I could hardly claim to be the same way, not with what I was pulling.
She was too good for me. It would be better for both of us when all of this was over, so she could move on and maybe find someone who actually did deserve her.
Even thinking about it made me angry, but I tried to push it away. I had no claim on her. I didn’t want a claim on her. The whole point of this was to get her to give herself to someone else.
What was wrong with me?
“We have to push harder,” I realized. We would both lose out on all of this if she didn’t cave. We’d been treating her too gently, but clearly a bolder approach was called for.
It was risky. It could end up costing us everything, but when I thought back to the night at the BDSM club, I thought I might have a way to minimize the risk. I thought about how Kaye had moaned and writhed for us, how she’d been so wet, hot, and tight as she clenched around me.
“What are you thinking about?” Brent asked, and there was hope in his voice again. I was glad to see it, in a way. He had never been the type to give up and seeing him so close to surrender was odd and unsettling.
I took a deep breath. This was yet another chance for me to back off, I knew that for sure. For me to just accept the wonderful wife fate had tossed into my lap. It was tempting—more tempting every time the thought came up.
Kaye was loyal. I had thought a woman could never be, but she was. She had shut Brent down before he’d even gotten very serious about going after her. Getting her to cheat on me was going to be harder than expected.
It made my heart lighten in my chest to think about it. She would never betray me. I tried not to be so happy about the whole thing, but I was. If I let myself, I could be downright ecstatic.
However.
It was an awful lot of money for me to let go and we had come so far.
Brent was still waiting for me, and I pulled myself together. Who was I kidding? As tempting as it was to just forget about the whole thing, I wanted what was mine, even if part of me did still wonder if it wasn’t too late to take her up on her offer of giving me half of what she’d inherited.
Probably. How would I bring up the conversation? Besides, it would make her suspicious because we were married.
What a mess.
