Billion Dollar Bastard: An Alpha Male Step Brother Billionaire Romance (14 page)

KYLE

Karen and I planned to have coffee three days after our encounter in her office. We chose a tiny town in the middle of southern Connecticut, a sleepy sea-side town with a harbor, where no one knew us.

I sat in the town’s only coffee shop, a place where I’m sure I stuck out, if only because I hadn’t been coming there everyday for five or more years.

And then Karen strode in, wearing a long, tallow colored dress and tights.

“Hey you,” she said, shifting her sunglasses down flirtily. I smiled and just sipped my coffee.

“So, after you thought more about my proposition?” I asked.

“Coming to the Cape? This weekend? I’ll… Yes. Yes, I’ll come.”

I reached out and took her hand.

“Good. It’ll be great to get away. I think that’s the secret… You know. To making this work.”

She bit her lip.

“There’s… Something I have to tell you, Kyle.”

My heart froze. What the hell was it going to be? That she was actually a man? A mutant? That she was already married? Or that we were actually biologically brother and sister, somehow, some way?

No. Fortunately, it was nothing like that.

“People know… About us,” she said slowly as I savored my coffee, thinking over what she was saying. “Towson had spread it around. I… I don’t know what will happen but…”

“But this is great!” I declared suddenly, maybe a bit too loud for the casual, slow-paced small town coffee shop. But I didn’t care.

“Uh, great?” Karen asked. She was skeptical. But as far as I was concerned, this was perfect. This was exactly what we had needed.

“Don’t you see? We can be together. No one can stop us. Everything we were worried about—it’s happened. There’s no reason not to.”

I watched her beautiful face think, imagine the possibilities—the possibilities offered by this newfound freedom, the freedom of being out in the open.

“Kyle… I hope it’s that simple,” she said finally, with a sigh.

“How isn’t it that simple?” I demanded. She bit her lip.

“We just… We don’t know. I don’t know how this will affect my career. I’m already hearing things from my publisher. They want me to write a book about this, of all things.”

I raised an eyebrow. I’d never been the subject of a potential book.

“A book? Really? What’s supposed to go in it?”

Karen laughed.

“I’m supposed to make it look like… Like I’m using you for your money, manipulating you. Kind of a feminist thing, you know.”

For the second time that morning at that coffee shop, my heart froze. It felt like Liana all over again. I felt like I was being used, all over again.

“But don’t worry—I’m not doing that. I’m not writing it. I refused. I don’t want to be defined by my personal life, don’t want to be defined by… By… Sex scandals.”

“So, this is a sex scandal?”

She scowled.

“Well, yes, sort of…”

“How does it feel,” I asked, teasingly. “To be in a sex scandal.”

The question caught Karen off guard.

“It feels… Feels good,” she said finally.

“So, you’re going to come to Cape Cod?” I said once again.

“Yes,” she said and I could tell her face was flushing. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

We chatted a bit more and then Karen had to go. After we kissed goodbye, I paid and as I stepped out to my car, I saw an email from Liana’s lawyer pop up on my phone:

“Kyle,

“I’m writing to let you know that Liana is coming by the Cape Cod house tomorrow to drop off her set of the keys. She’s not planning on entering the house or spending much time on the property. I had offered to make the drop off for her, but she insisted on doing it herself. If there are any issues, please give me a call right away.”

I sighed. I couldn’t stop her from going but at the very least there wasn’t much trouble she could get into there: no one was at the house right now and all Liana had to do was hurl the keys in the general direction of the mailbox. Hell, I could have a cleaning crew stop by before the weekend just to make sure she hadn’t thrown up on the lawn…

KAREN

The drive up to the Cape, even though winter was fast arriving, was still stunning. Long fields gave way to dark, primordial forests, the sunlight filtering through them desperately, casting long, spooky shadows as I sped up through Massachusetts, to the playground of the rich and famous.

It was an unusually warm weekend for the first weekend in December, and so I cracked my windows, letting the fresh, chilled ocean air invade the car. It seemed to wash over me. It seemed to revitalize me. It relaxed me, gave me time and space to breathe.

It gave me a place to think.

The fallout from the gossip about Kyle and myself was still developing. Anthony had called me into his office that morning, catching me as I ducked into the department to pick up my mail before leaving.

Anthony was looking tired, his handsome old face creased even more so than usual with wrinkles, the proof of his worrying, his exhausted thinking over what was happening to the department.

“So, you’ve probably heard by now…” I said slowly, uncertainly as I took a seat. He had a stack of ungraded student papers sitting on his desk, next to a stack of unread books, and more. He clearly had enough work to deal with without my relationship scandals taking up more of his time.

“The university is considering an investigation,” he said curtly.

“An investigation?!” I all but shrieked.

“Calm down, calm down,” he said with a sigh, shaking his head. “It doesn’t mean anything… Yet.”

“No, it does mean something, Anthony…” I sputtered. “It means we’re being investigated for impropriety… When it should be Towson…”

“That’s right. He’s being investigated too. The entire department. They think the atmosphere might be… Less than conducive to scholarship now.”

I knew what that meant. That meant that likely, it was Anthony who would lose his job, who would take the fall for the trouble his professors had gotten into.

“We have to fight this.”

“There’s nothing to fight yet. I doubt it’ll go anywhere but…” Anthony put his hands up in the air.

“I’m so, so, so sorry it came to this…” I said, my heart pounding. I couldn’t believe the pain this was causing my mentor, what this was putting him through.

“I don’t blame you for this, Karen,” Anthony said, shaking his head once more. “If anything, it’s Towson… You just did what you could for your career, for the department. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

An uneasy silence descended over the room.

“May I ask what the actual status of your relationship with Kyle is?” Anthony said finally, unable to make eye contact with me.

“What’s the facebook status? ‘It’s complicated.’”

“Of course. Of course it is.”

“We weren’t together when I approached him about the fund, and I don’t even know if we’re together now…”

“But you were… With him? Here, in the department?”

I hung my head.

“Yes.”

He chuckled.

“And you know, it was totally consensual, I’m sure, which is more than Towson can say… But regardless, you didn’t strictly do anything illegal, and neither did Kyle. Nor did you do anything that invalidated or broke your contract. You’re not the first professor to secure funding from a powerful relative and you won’t be the last.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It just looks bad. It just looks like we’re a less a company of scholars and more a den of…”

“Sex-crazed maniacs?” I offered, surprising even myself. Anthony paused, stared at me, and then threw back his head, laughing.

“That’s right. That’s exactly right. Now that you phrase it like that…”

“Listen, Anthony, I’ll talk to Kyle. He can make all the trouble go away. He can… He’ll do anything for me. We’ll just throw money at the problem until it goes away.”

“You know, for all the troubles English professors face, deciding whether or not to throw money at a problem usually isn’t one.”

“But that’s something we could do.”

Anthony shrugged.

“Sure, it is. But someday, you’re going to learn that in this profession, your reputation is worth far more than money. That’s the reason Towson is still around: years of good scholarship have given him a pass for his more recent mistakes.”

Reputation. Career. It was all too much for me. I closed my eyes and sighed.

“It’ll all be fine,” Anthony said heavily, the exhaustion in his voice indicating that he didn’t really believe it would be.

“Really? Can you promise that?” I asked seriously.

“No,” he replied with a smile. “Worst case scenario, I’ll be dismissed. I’ll find a new job easily enough, I suppose—I still have a good reputation, after all.”

“And what about me?”

“I imagine you’re secure—no one’s going to give back Kyle’s money, after all. But your reputation…”

“I was actually approached to write a book about my relationship with Kyle.”

“A book? What kind of book?”

“You know, a tell-all book… It sounds trashy but…”

“But if you wanted to be a serious, intellectual, nonfiction writer…” Anthony said carefully. “Well, that is a route you could take.”

My eyes widened.

“Really? You think so?”

“Not that I recommend it. If you care for Kyle, that is. But if I were you, and I were younger and I cared less about my friends and family… I might do it. Notoriety can be helpful, if it’s the right kind of notoriety—if you put the right spin on it.”

Of course. That’s what Lori had said too, essentially. The right kind of notoriety. The idea terrified me, not for itself, but because it was so seductive, sounded so easy…

“I… I couldn’t do that to Kyle. He’d hate it.”

“Well, then I think you have your answer,” Anthony said, a smile on his old lips, a true smile, a serious smile.

And there. I had my answer. He was right.

I found myself pulling off the winding forest road onto a private drive the wound intricately through trees and over streams. I could hear the ocean nearby and after a minute or two or driving, my car emerged from the trees onto a huge estate, situated on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. I could see beach in the distance; I knew from Kyle’s description that this was the house’s private beach, easily accessible via a path, a secret one, covered with brush, that led down from the house to the water’s edge.

I pulled up through the baroque gates and approached the house. I doubted Kyle would be here yet: he tended to arrive late when he had to come from work. Such was the life of a private equity billionaire, I supposed.

There was no staff at the house right now, which I personally found relieving. Kyle was happy to pay someone to wait on him, to take care of his every need, but I found it suffocating. I was used to doing things for myself, used to figuring out my own problems. The idea of having someone wait on me, of flaunting my wealth by paying someone to pamper me—it didn’t disgust me, but it did discomfort me, surely.

But that was the life that I would lead with Kyle. I knew it. I knew that’s what he would want, would want for me. He was fine to rough things a bit, but he liked to see me pampered. He kept offering to buy me things: a new car, new clothes, a better condo, either closer to the university or in the city with him—or both, if I really wanted it.

But I had refused them all. I still didn’t know where this was going, whether we could stay together.

I didn’t know if I wanted that.

All right. That was a lie. I certainly wanted that. I just… I just didn’t know if that’s what we SHOULD do. I didn’t know if that’s what I should do.

Maybe it wouldn’t be good for either of us. Maybe it was best to just… Say goodbye.

No. No, I did care for him. I did… Love him.

As I digested these thoughts, I parked my car and hiked up the steep steps into the old, gorgeous Cape Cod mansion. Kyle had told me about the history of the house: owned by a wealthy old Boston Brahmin clan for generations, it had been there for nearly a hundred and fifty years, built shortly after the Civil War. The family had made a killing (literally!) selling munitions to the Union Army, as well as smuggling weapons from the British and French south to the Confederacy. It was certainly reprehensible, but their wealth had allowed them to build a truly gorgeous house…

And now, it stood, proud in the late autumn air, the sun glinting off its windows, reflections of forest and sea blazing in those very windows as I knocked at the door.

No answer. Kyle wasn’t there yet. But he had told me that he always hid a key to the house in a potted plant near the door. After a big of digging, I found it and unlocked the massive double doors, giving me access to the spectacular home.

Room after room of unparalleled luxury stretched out ahead of me. What was this wonderland? How could people live like this? It was chilly in the house, since no one had bothered to turn on the heat, and I found myself shivering as I picked my way through the massive, ornately decorated rooms.

I found my way upstairs, ascending to year another floor of unimaginable luxury. I knew the master bedroom was on this floor—that’s where Kyle had told me to drop my things.

I saw a door ajar at the end of the hallway, a hallway which ultimately led to the sea. That would be it: I knew the master bedroom had, among other things, incredible ocean views. Such had Kyle told me, of course.

I eased the door open and the scene that greeted me struck me like lightning: I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

A skinny young woman, almost a girl, was passed out in the huge king sized bed. She was naked, her thin, almost malnourished body glistening with clammy sweat. She seemed to be bruised in a few places and her breathing came in slow, gasping spurts. There were a few bottles of champagne scattered around the room, along with clothes, a strange white powder, and needles…

I felt the tears coming to my eyes only after my legs had turned and started charging down, out of the house, away from this scene—away from the scene of my betrayal.

“No, no, no, Kyle, you bastard…” I growled, my eyes already leaking, my sobs already ripping out of my mouth as I stumbled down the stairs, whimpering, now gasping and weeping as I doubled over my car, over the hood, feeling sick.

I remembered that Kyle had fantasized about bending me over the hood of his car and fucking me. Well, now he was, in a way. He had had his ex-wife at the house, and then invited me over. What was wrong with him?

I hated him. This was it, I knew it. This was the last straw, the final offense.

I climbed back into the car, giving myself a few moments to steady my breathing. Finally, I took a single deep breath and reached for my cell phone. I called Lori.

I got her voicemail but that was fine. What I needed to tell her could be related via voicemail just as easily, because it was on me to start the work on it.

“This is Karen,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady, surprisingly stable for what had just happened.

“I’ll write the book. The tell-all book about Kyle. And let me tell you… It’s going to be juicy.”