Chapter 62
CHAPTER
MONTHS LATER RHETT SAT UP in bed and eyed the person sleeping next to him. Judith Nash’s body had grown doughy, robbing the woman of her sexiness, at least in his estimation.
Judith had constantly pestered him for his help in locating her daughter—who must be somewhere safe, she told him.
Rhett gave her platitudes in return, told her he was dispensing resources, making progress, a tantalizing tidbit here and there, when he was actually doing nothing.
But her constant neediness was getting on his nerves.
They’d had sex regularly since Maggie had vanished, always at his place, as her home was deemed too risky. All blame for everything that had happened was solidly on Walter Nash, and Rhett wanted to do nothing to change that impression, especially with the cops.
His father had been right. While he hated that Maggie had been taken and almost certainly killed, he was not going to risk his life to avenge her. He had his own problems. And sacrificing his life for another, who was most likely dead anyway, was just not on his bingo card.
His alibi, Laurel Burke, had never bothered to find out when his father had died.
If she had she might have put two and two together and tried to put the screws to Rhett for more money.
And then Rhett had headed that off by buying her a luxurious condo in Las Vegas and getting her a cushy job at a casino there that his father had partly owned.
She’d met a nice guy, which Rhett had actually arranged, and they were enjoying each other’s company.
But the guy was there to keep watch over the woman.
If Burke started disclosing things she shouldn’t be, Rhett would know about it.
And then he would have to take action. Before he’d killed his father he would never have contemplated doing the same to Burke. But now?
I’m pretty much capable of anything. And it feels good.
And on top of all that, Steers was still expecting him to hunt down Nash and bring him to her.
She constantly hounded him about that, even threatening to send some of her agents to help him.
So far he had managed to hold her off, but he wasn’t sure how much longer that would work.
Plus, he had an idea that the woman was searching for Nash herself.
And, with her resources, she might find him.
But Rhett wouldn’t necessarily bet against Nash.
The man was strategic and tactically brilliant, and never missed even the smallest detail.
His still being a fugitive after all this time despite the worldwide hunt for him was a testament to the man’s resourcefulness.
Rhett rose and poured out a drink from the bar in the other room. A G & T at six in the morning, it went down as crisp and smooth as the breaking dawn appearing through his penthouse floor-to-ceiling tinted windows. It warmly lit Rhett’s face like he was on a film set.
He smoked down a cigarette as he thought things through.
He had a meeting with Mindy tonight, and then a rendezvous with attorney Lindsey Cole to discuss legal strategy, but also something else.
He had bedded her numerous times now, and he had pleasantly found the seemingly reserved lawyer was a wildcat between the sheets.
He would use her for what he could, get some great sex in the bargain, and leave her in the dust like he did every other woman who crossed his path with a few dollars thrown her way to keep the woman in line.
He no longer found fault with himself for doing this.
Look at my gene pool. I come by it honestly.
To be fair, his mother had taught him to be respectful to women.
But his father had, mostly by example, counseled him to screw them, abuse them, and then deep-six them.
He knew that if Barton had lived, Mindy would have been kicked to the curb right before her prenup auto-ratcheted to a higher number.
And still the woman had the audacity to want a chunk of his old man’s wealth when she’d done nothing for it.
Even cheating on him with me. But she came on to me. What was I supposed to do?
He had put Mindy off for months now, resisting her pleas to meet, making excuses by telling her that he was working on a plan and that she had to be patient.
Cole had finessed it so the lawyers weren’t demanding the DNA sample until Mindy gave birth.
He had used that to keep Mindy hanging, telling her, truthfully, that he had orchestrated that.
But he’d really just wanted to string her along, make her desperate, while he had some fun.
And along with that, he hadn’t had to work his ass off at Sybaritic or deal all that much with Steers other than her complaining to him about finding Nash.
But now with his batteries recharged, he was going to put his plan into motion.
And what an interesting meeting he and his stepmother were going to have.
He snorted a fine line of coke right off the rim of his claw-foot bathtub and looked up to see Judith standing naked in the doorway.
She had had such a rocking body, he thought, but despair had ruined the vibe of it, like a film of gritty varnish on a fine piece of artwork. Compared to Lindsey Cole, or Mindy, Judith Nash was well past her prime. He wasn’t sure why he was sleeping with her anymore.
Well, I do feel sorry for her. I’m not a total prick.
“Do you have any more?” she asked, eying the razor on the countertop and then the short chrome straw he had used to snort it, a few white grains still clinging to the metal hide.
“My, my are we getting wild again?” he said, rising from the floor with a smile.
“Do you?” she asked again, without a corresponding smile.
“For you, anything.”
He expertly cut it for her, lined it up enticingly on the bathtub’s rim, and handed her the chrome straw.
She dropped to her knees, a move that managed to instantly arouse him, and did the line like a pro, taking a deep breath, seemingly savoring the toxin she had just downloaded into her bloodstream.
Rhett looked down and eyed his sudden erection. “I did you. Care to reciprocate?”
Judith did not look so inclined, she looked the polar opposite of so inclined. But still, she crawled over on her hands and knees.
And reciprocated.
When she was done, he bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I’ve got to go. Stay as long as you want.”
She crawled back to his bed and fell between the sheets.
He showered, dressed, and left her there, probably in a drug-induced dream of lost daughters and fugitive husbands.
That night Rhett sat next to Mindy on the spa level of his father’s mansion. He eyed the room where they’d had sex, while Mindy nervously intertwined her fingers.
“I was wondering when the hell you were going to get back to me, Rhett. It’s been forever. You said you were going to take care of things,” she added in a pouty tone. She rubbed her now large, protruding belly. “I’m not that far away from dropping this baby.”
“Well, I got the DNA deadline extended, so I had some time to work on things. And I have.”
“And I appreciate that. I really do. But now I need to know where I stand financially. And don’t you want to work something out?”
“Before I make important decisions I have to collect the facts, Min, which takes time. And in that vein, I had an interesting discussion with the estate lawyers. So now, like you just said, it’s time to move forward.”
Mindy looked relieved, he thought. That was certainly not going to last.
She said, “Okay. How?”
He gave her a patronizing look. “They filled me in on what I missed when I walked out of the will reading, Min. I was surprised, to say the least. You lied about where your share would go if you couldn’t prove the baby was my dad’s. It’s not going to the trust, it comes to me.”
Her face flushed and she wouldn’t meet his eye. “I… felt bad about lying to you, Rhett. I really did. But I… I was so scared. And I was going to tell you the truth. I swear.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. Now if the kid really is mine—and you’ll have to take the test to prove that—what are your expectations?”
“I don’t expect marriage, of course, but I would like you to be in our lives. And then there’s the matter of support.”
“But is that really a good idea? I mean, if people find out I’m the father of my stepmother’s child? And my dad took a dive off the balcony? Not a great look unless you want the kid to come visit Mommy and Daddy in prison.”
“I can move away from here if you don’t want me to stay in the house. Then maybe people wouldn’t talk.”
“Right, so just to clarify, the house comes to me, along with billions of bucks because that baby is not my dad’s.”
She assumed an aggrieved look. “So you’re just going to leave me with my prenup money? That hardly seems fair.”
His expression grew darker. “You were only married to him for about a year. I had to deal with the monster my whole fucking life. And twenty mill is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Not compared to billions. And you did murder him.”
“Correction, we killed him, Min, me and you. So you going to the cops would not be a smart idea. He said, she said. I turn state’s witness, you do the slow burn in a cell for the rest of your life, while I get probation and a new life with the billions.”
“Come on, Rhett, let’s not fight. Let’s work together. You couldn’t even spend a tenth of all that money if you tried.”
Rhett felt the time was right to cut the deal he needed to get done. “Okay, then let’s do something about that. When you married Dad I know that he had you named as Angie’s backup guardian, and that now, with him dead, you have a power of attorney for her.”
“That’s right. I was actually surprised when he made me the backup for her.”
“I’m not. It was a chip he used against me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He never gave a shit about Angie. He hated the idea that any child of his would be like that. But he knew that I actually loved Angie, and I believe he figured that you wouldn’t care for her half as much as I would.
And there would be nothing I could do about it.
He would have loved that, screwing me over from the grave. ”
Mindy looked stunned by his words. “My God, you two really had one fucked-up relationship.” She paused, watching him guardedly. “Look, Rhett, it’s not like I know Angie all that well. But I would always take care of her. I’m not heartless. She can’t help who she is.”
“That’s great, Mindy, and I am touched by that, I really am.
But here’s the thing—you won’t have to take care of her.
You appoint me as her guardian and you give me the power of attorney.
I’ve seen the documents and you have the ability to do that.
Then I’ll have the lawyers do their two-step legal dance, and increase your payout to a quarter of a billion dollars.
And you walk away with it all—no tax, since you were his legal spouse.
Well, it’s actually a little more complicated than that. But I’ll take care of it.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I want to take care of Angie, like I said, and I need those powers to do that.”
“I don’t understand stuff like this. What’s the process? How will it all work?”
“It’s simple. You first have to certify to the lawyers that you are not pregnant with my father’s child and thus are not entitled to anything other than the prenup settlement.
Then, to pay you the quarter billion, I have to liquidate some holdings from my inheritance, an inheritance I will now receive because you failed the condition in the will of carrying Dad’s child.
But we’re only talking a couple of weeks’ delay.
How would you like the payout, by the way? I assume by wire transfer?”
“Yes,” she said quickly.
“Okay, I’ll have the lawyers draw it all up. You sign what you need to sign for the estate lawyers and Angie’s guardianship and power of attorney, the wire goes off, and you’ll be set for life. You can raise our kid like a king. Or queen.”
“And will you ever visit?”
“You know what, Min? You can stay at Dad’s place. Well, my place now.”
“But you just said—”
“Forget that. People will assume the kid is Dad’s.
And it’s not like anyone will have the right to check because you won’t have to give DNA now.
Dad told me about the vasectomy, but I doubt he told anyone else.
And his doctor is bound by HIPPA, so he can’t reveal it without getting his ass sued off.
And the same for the lawyers,” he added, thinking of how he had revealed that fact to Lindsey Cole.
“When the time comes you list Dad on the birth certificate as the father, okay?”
“Okay, but I don’t get you, Rhett. You can be a real shit. Dump your dad off the balcony one minute and then worrying about your disabled sister the next.”
“That’s what makes a complex man, Min.” He kissed her on the cheek. “And I’m glad I could give you something my old man couldn’t. But if it’s a boy, for God’s sake, don’t name him Rhett Jr.”
He walked out, leaving Mindy sitting there and absently rubbing her swollen belly and thinking that Rhett had subtly outmaneuvered her.
But a quarter of a billion bucks was certainly worth it, she concluded.