Chapter Six
THE HEAT AND humidity hit Ted full force as soon as they step out of the lobby.
He can feel his shirt quickly become sticky beneath his jacket.
Jill doesn’t speak as their Uber arrives and they get in.
They are both silent, brooding, on the way home.
But once they get inside, once Ted closes the heavy door behind them and they’re standing in their front foyer, Jill explodes.
‘What a pompous son of a bitch!’ she says, tossing her Celine purse onto the side table in the foyer.
‘That’s Greg, all right,’ he agrees.
She turns on him, fuming. ‘You don’t seem that bothered.’
‘It’s just that I’m not surprised,’ he says. She’d had her hopes pinned on Greg rescuing them; he hadn’t been so sure.
They walk into the front room, and Jill kicks off her heels and drops into the deep sofa facing the tall windows.
Ted moves to the sideboard near the double doors and pours her a stiff drink – a healthy shot of whiskey.
‘Here,’ he says, coming over and handing it to her, ‘you need this.’ Then he pours one for himself.
‘What are we going to do now?’ she asks plaintively. ‘Is there anyone else who might loan you that kind of money?’
‘Other than a bank with the brownstone as security? No.’
She says bitterly, ‘He doesn’t care that you’re in trouble. It’s like he was enjoying it.’
‘He’s always enjoyed seeing me fail,’ Ted says, then wishes he could take it back.
‘When we were kids, I mean. He loved it if he beat me in tennis, for example.’ He adds, ‘Which wasn’t very often.
’ He doesn’t tell her how Greg regularly bested him in school, bragging about his better grades.
How Greg did just that much better in sports, with friends, with girls.
She drinks deeply and says, ‘What would your parents think?’
Ah yes, his parents. His mother, dead from cancer almost ten years ago now, had tried so hard to make her sons get along, to curtail their competitiveness.
She modelled all sorts of kindly, even saintly, behaviour, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.
Their father had been okay with a little healthy rivalry, although he’d always seemed to favour Greg.
But even he would probably be appalled if he’d seen what happened today.
Ted is desperate, Greg could have helped, and he chose not to.
With their parents gone, Greg seems to feel like he can get away with anything, as if he’s been freed from the bonds of family, of decency.
Come to think of it, Ted is feeling the same way.
What would his mother think, he wonders now, if she knew he was planning to murder Greg?
‘They wouldn’t like it, I imagine,’ he says, answering her. ‘But they’re not here, so Greg will do what he likes.’ He tosses back a gulp of his scotch and looks at Jill.
‘I hate him,’ Jill says venomously. ‘I hope he gets hit by a truck.’
‘Wouldn’t that be nice,’ he agrees.
‘He’s so full of himself; he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. No wonder Min left him.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t suppose we could ask Min for a loan?’
‘No.’ The last time he’d seen Min was in his office mere days ago when she’d been yelling at him about losing her money. She’d moved her accounts, as she’d threatened to do.
Jill takes another sip of her drink and continues. ‘He could easily afford to help us out. I mean, how much is he even worth, do you know?’
‘I have a pretty good idea.’ He’s made a point of following Greg’s net worth, scanning various news articles and financial publications.
‘So, how much?’
‘About forty-five million, give or take.’
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’
He doesn’t want to explain. When they had each inherited equal millions on the death of their father, Greg had become the successful entrepreneur he was always destined to be and had grown his money.
And Ted had not. The brownstone was the best investment he had ever made, despite the fortune they’d spent improving it.
But it’s clear from everything that has happened since that he doesn’t have the knack for success that Greg has.
He hates his brother for it. Even when they were kids, he could see it, that Greg was destined for big things.
He was the right man for the times. Ted thinks of himself as living in the wrong age – he’s not suited for what today’s world requires.
He’s not smart enough. Nimble enough. Bold enough. Visionary enough. Cutthroat enough.
Interrupting his thoughts, Jill says, ‘What are we going to do? I don’t want to put another mortgage on this place. I am not going to risk losing our home. There must be another solution.’
He turns to her, his fingers tightening around his glass, and prepares himself.
Jill is feeling quite desperate. Just a short time ago, she thought her world was solid; how quickly things change.
And then – she hadn’t really believed that Greg would turn them down.
Ted is all the family he has. Maybe they should have asked for less.
But then she remembers that Ted just told her Greg is worth about $45 million, a shocking amount of money.
She doesn’t think it would have mattered how much they asked for; he turned them down because he wanted to lord it over his brother.
She’s never liked Greg much, but now she hates him.
She has quickly transferred the blame for the impending loss of her home and her lifestyle from her husband to his brother.
She gulps down the rest of her drink and silently hands her empty glass to Ted for a refill.
He takes it from her and walks to the sideboard, the bottles glittering in the afternoon sunlight coming through the tall windows.
She loves this brownstone; they have carefully made every inch of it their own.
It reflects who they are. It is their sanctuary. They can’t lose it. They can’t.
She loves Ted too, although she might love the house more.
If she had to give up one or the other, she thinks she would choose to give up Ted and keep the house.
Still, Ted was easy to fall in love with.
She was twenty-eight and looking for someone to love.
She’d been rather predatory about it, something Ted doesn’t know.
They’d met at a gallery opening – always a great opportunity to meet men of means.
She’d long ago decided that it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it was to fall in love with a poor one.
Much easier, in fact. Especially for a girl who loves nice things and nice places.
She’d had nice things, growing up, until her alcoholic father pissed it all away.
Then there had been hard times. She’d gone to college on brains, hard work, and loans, determined to make a way for herself.
After graduating with a degree in fine art, she got a job at a small gallery in Manhattan, bought perfect dresses at designer sales, and did her research.
Ted had caught her eye initially because of his good looks.
She’d been prepared to sacrifice on looks, if absolutely necessary, but there were things she would not budge on, like children.
She’d inquired discreetly about Ted, after meeting him at the gallery opening – he hadn’t asked for her number, although he’d flirted with her – and learned that he’d recently inherited a lot of money from his father.
After that, she contrived to meet him again.
The second time, she gave him her card and invited him to come see what they had at the gallery where she worked. He took the card and said, ‘How about I take you out to dinner instead?’
After that they had a whirlwind romance – fine dinners, and trips to Paris, St Lucia and Istanbul.
He showered her with gifts, and after six months, asked her to marry him with a very respectable diamond.
She said yes. They began looking for a place to live and chose the very house they’re in right now.
He had fallen in love with it too. She was delighted that he hadn’t wanted children either.
For the last several years, they both had everything they wanted.
They were happy. They were in love. She hadn’t known they were living beyond their means.
They had the perfect life. Until now. She wonders if she will ever be able to forgive him.
There must be another solution. She gulps her drink, staring at the wallpaper, lost in its intricate pattern.
Suddenly she can see another way forward – it comes to her as the liquor burns down her throat.
She knows that Ted is Greg’s heir; they have talked about it.
Sometimes she has even thought about it – what if Greg were to get bone cancer, like their mother, and die quite young?
But these were always idle thoughts, quickly swept away, because she’d thought they had lots of money and Ted shared the same genes, and she hated to think of Ted being the one to get bone cancer instead.
But now a different option presents itself.
Something could happen to Greg.
She lifts her eyes and looks appraisingly at her husband. She tells herself that Greg should have loaned them the money. It’s his own fault. Now Ted is looking at her as if he can read her mind.
She decides to throw out something to test the waters, something she can pull back from if he takes it the wrong way.
She says, ‘It would serve Greg right if he had an accident and you inherited all his money.’ She says it with a sarcastic tone and a rueful smile, but he stares back at her as if he’s taking her seriously.
‘It would,’ he agrees.
‘He should have loaned us the money,’ she adds.
‘Yes, he should have,’ Ted says. He adds intently, ‘You know I love you, more than life itself.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she says, impatient with this. She has something more important on her mind.
‘And we’ve always been a team,’ he continues.
‘Yes,’ she says automatically. But she’s thinking, Have we?
‘We could tackle this together,’ he says.
She looks up at him, trying to read him. The liquor has gone to her head, and she feels emboldened, reckless. ‘Tackle what, exactly?’
‘Greg.’
‘Forty-five million is a lot of money,’ she says.
‘And I’m his sole heir,’ Ted points out.
There’s no mistaking his meaning now. Her heart skips a beat. ‘He might marry again some day,’ she continues, ‘and then you’d get nothing.’
‘So maybe we need to act sooner rather than later.’
She puts her drink down on the coffee table. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
‘That bastard deserves it.’