Page 9 of Obeying Mr Kingsley
I defended her and was happy for Jack.
Sure, I figured there was some part of her that liked him for his money.There were a heck of a lot of wealthy guys at Harvard, so why did she choose him?
They seemed to be happy.
I was wrong.
So fucking wrong.
And I live with that every day.
When the call arrived while they were on their honeymoon that he had died mysteriously, I think that was the first time I really opened my eyes.
God.
I could have saved him.
If I hadn’t argued with Seb, if I’d spoken to Jack...if I’d...done anything, I could have saved his life.
He’d be with us right now.
But I didn’t.
I trusted blindly, and I’ll never do that again.
Sandy took Jack from us.That we are sure of, but we’ve never been able to prove it.
When you lose someone that young, it affects you.The anger we all had watching Sandy get away with murder, taking away a rich man’s life and all his fortune, stuck with us.
The pledge was made.
“Never,” I said one day when we were sitting on a yacht on the Hudson, not long after Jack’s funeral.“I’ll never fucking trust a woman.Never getting married.”
“Amen to that,” Colt said, the wind flicking his hair in his face.
“We need to agree,” Sebastian nodded firmly.“All of us.Unless it’s real love, none of us will get married.We’ll hold each other accountable and protect one another.”
“Deal,” Zander said, holding out his hand.“If another Sandy even sniffs near one of you, I’ll lock you in a room until you come to your senses.”
I chuckled darkly.
“I can’t see myself marrying, so I’m fully on board.”Drew shook, and one by one we all did the same.
We had all lived and breathed our pledge since that day.
Growing our wealth, all of us had taken our inheritances and become billionaires by the time we were thirty.If we suspected a woman one of us was seeing had dollar figures in her eyes, we spoke up.
It wasn’t necessary often.All of us had been playboys, with Colt’s club—The Obsidian Club—offering a constant flow of women who were there for the same reason we were.
Sex.
Dirty, delicious sex.
But at night, it was Sandy’s face that haunted me.Her playing the grieving widow, a subtle glint in her eyes as she dabbed at them with her black handkerchief alongside his grave.
Jack didn’t die.He was a healthy young man.We were close, and I should have seen it.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am, Mase.”Jack grinned, tossing back a shot the night of his bachelor party.
