Chapter 7 #2
With that declaration, she steps out of the car, but not before pausing and looking at me seriously. “I’m watching you, Wilder.”
I peer at her retreating figure.
Turning on her heels, she heads back inside the building. Sarah has given me a lot to think about. She’s an unlikely ally, but one I might need given the circumstances.
Starting the car, I begin the drive back to my penthouse. I’ve been spending most of my nights at the office since there’s a lot to get done, but tonight I want to sleep in my own bed.
As soon as I open the door to my penthouse, irritation flickers through me. The lights are turned on, and I can hear the living room television on full blast. The familiar sounds vibrating from its speakers of shredding tires and explosions drift down the hallway.
Only Nick has a key to my place. Somehow, I can’t imagine him leaving his pregnant wife and coming to crash here.
I set down my briefcase next to the door and make my way towards the living room.
To my surprise, I see the backs of three heads.
An action movie is playing on my television, and I can hear the crunch of chips.
Their feet are propped up on my coffee table.
“You all have two minutes to explain what you’re doing here,” I growl.
The first one to look over his shoulder is Nick.
He sighs. “This was not my idea. Elisha kicked me out, and these two offered me a ride to your place. I didn’t know they would stay over.”
Jake lifts his hand in greeting. “Nick and Elisha are having marital issues. I thought he might need a lawyer. ”
“You practice corporate law,” Nick snaps. “You’re basically useless, Jake. And my marriage is fine.”
“I started out to become a divorce lawyer,” Jake protests. “I only changed it to corporate because Mom said it was bad karma to become a divorce lawyer. And if your marriage is so fine and dandy, why did your wife kick you out?”
“God, you’re such a mommy’s boy,” Caleb gags. “Grow up, Jake. If you want to become a divorce lawyer, you should have pursued it. There’s more money in divorces these days, anyway.”
“And what about you, Caleb?” I walk around the couch, facing the three of them.
Caleb lifts his shoulders. “I just went to where the party was at. I figured you would be crashing at your girlfriend’s place.” He looks between me and Nick. “The two of you don’t have much luck with women, do you?”
“Natalie is not my girlfriend...” I pause. “...yet.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “It’s a bad idea, Ethan. Stop thinking with your dick.”
“Why do you have to be so vulgar?” Nick demands. “Kick them out, Ethan. I just need a place to sleep.”
I glower at them all. “My apartment is not a hangout spot. Get out. Why didn’t you just get a hotel room, Nick?”
“Elisha lost her temper. I didn’t get the chance to grab my wallet.”
I look at him with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation. Nick’s marriage is the most tumultuous one I’ve ever seen. I never understood why he chose to marry Elisha when he gets kicked out of his own home at least three times a week. But he doesn’t seem ready to give up on his marriage.
“Fine. You can stay. You two, out. I’m going to go fix myself a drink.”
“At this hour?” Caleb trails after me as I walk to the kitchen, which has an attached bar. “I want a beer. ”
“And I need to talk to you.” I take out a bottle of scotch from the bar and pour myself a glass. “I was serious about you coming to work for me.”
I see Jake rifling through the fridge and ignore him.
Caleb groans. “I can’t work with you, Ethan. You drive me crazy. You’re too anal about everything.”
“You need to be an employee.” I regard him from over the top of my glass. “I just want someone I can trust in the Marketing Department. People like you. They’ll talk to you.”
“Hold up!” My brother’s eyes widen. “You want me to join your firm as a normal employee? You do realize I play in billions, don’t you?”
“And you do remember that I am one of your biggest investors, don’t you?” I remind him.
He fixes me with a sharp look. “You can’t force me to do this.”
“I can. Join the Marketing Department of Thalvyn Maritime, or I withdraw the AG Environmental project you’re supposed to start working on next week.”
Caleb splutters, his face turning red. “Y-You can’t do that! That’s fucking blackmail! Are you hearing this, Jake?!” He turns to look at the only lawyer in the room.
Jake’s head pops up from the side of the fridge door, a popsicle in his mouth. “What was that?”
“He’s blackmailing me!” Caleb snarls.
Jake blinks. “Oh, well. You shouldn’t do that, Ethan. That’s not very nice. Nick, let’s put on another movie.”
Jake makes his way back to the couch, and Caleb hisses in frustration. “Figures he’d have your back.”
“Look, I’ll pay you the salary of your choosing, but I need somebody I can trust. There is something going on in the Marketing Department of this company. At most, it’ll take a couple of months. I’ll compensate you fairly. ”
“How much?” Caleb asks sullenly.
“How much do you want?”
“A blank check.”
“Try again.”
Caleb searches my gaze intently. “How bad is it?”
I drain my glass and set it down on the bar. “On the surface, it looks like simple stealing, but I have a feeling it’s more than that. I’m still investigating, but I need somebody to be my eyes and ears on the inside. You’re young and likable.”
“And this has nothing to do with the fact that if I start working for your company, your Marketing Department will boom?” Caleb sneers.
I give him a faint smile. “It’s a convenient byproduct. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t completely necessary, Caleb.”
He sticks his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I don’t like working for family. You in particular. But I guess I can give it a shot.” He sighs, looking aggrieved. “I’m going to go home now and think over how much I’m going to make you bleed for this.”
I don’t stop him from leaving, knowing he’ll make me pay heavily for this favor. When I look towards the living room, Nick has already retreated to the guest bedroom, and Jake is sitting on the couch, eating his popsicle and doing something on his phone. The television has been turned off.
I head over to where he’s sitting. “How bad are things between Nick and his wife?”
He glances at me, no mirth in his eyes. “Bad. She doesn’t want the kid.”
I sit down beside him, peering at the dark screen. “Didn’t he marry her because she was pregnant?”
Jake looks disgruntled. “She told him that she wants Dad to sign over some of his properties to her because she doesn’t trust us not to throw her away once the kid comes along.”
Disgust fills me. “How convenient. What did Nick say? ”
“He refused. She told him she wants all the buildings on Park Avenue. He said he wasn’t going to force Dad to sign them over, and that those buildings belonged to our parents, not him. She’s not happy. That’s why we stayed around. He wants his happy family, but...”
“...She wants his money. Why not just divorce her?”
Jake doesn’t have an answer to that, but knowing our brother, Nick isn’t one to give up because things are hard.
However, I don’t think he understands that human relationships are vastly different from how businesses work.
Every relationship needs a foundation. His relationship with Elisha has none.
He was introduced to her through a friend, and he ended up sleeping with her and knocking her up.
Although he wanted to do the honorable thing by marrying her, I don’t think marriage is all his wife had in mind.
“There is something I wanted to talk to you about.” I glance at my twin.
He sets his phone aside, spreading his arm over the back of the couch. “If it’s about the interior decoration of this apartment, I have a few pointers. Everything in here is ugly. Get rid of it.”
“Thanks for the pro tip. I’ll keep that in mind,” I say dryly. “No, there’s a private investigator you use sometimes. I want to make a few inquiries.”
“About?” Jake’s eyes are sharp.
“Natalie.”
My brother slaps his hand against his thigh. “I knew it! You couldn’t trust her! That conniving?—”
“You better be careful about what you say next,” I warn icily.
He frowns. “You’re the one investigating her?—”
“I’m not investigating her, Jake. I want to know what happened five years ago. And I want to find out the relationship between her family and her.”
“Five years ago?” Jake blinks. “Why? ”
“Just get me his number, will you?”
My brother examines me before sighing. “You don’t need his number. I already looked into her.”
I go rigid. “You did what?”
My brother moves his shoulders casually. “You may not like it, but I don’t need your approval to watch your back.”
“I don’t need you doing things behind my back, Jake,” I growl, displeased.
“Yes, well, it’s done.” My brother waves dismissively. “What do you want to know?”
I normally don’t struggle with moral dilemmas, but I hesitate to answer. If Natalie ever finds out what I’m doing, she’s not going to be very happy about it.
“Why did she move five years ago?”
“Move?” Jake shakes his head. “The apartment wasn’t hers. It belonged to her mother. She was evicted a week after your fling with her. From what I found out, her belongings were thrown out. It was a family dispute.”
He leans forward. “She was in the hospital for two weeks, Ethan. That’s all my PI managed to find out. She’d been in some sort of accident. It was pretty bad. She moved immediately after she was released from the hospital. I can forward you everything else I have, but it’s not a lot.”
An accident? Why would her mother evict her so soon after an accident?
“What about her finances?”
Jake raises his eyebrows. “Now you’re asking the right questions.
Her mother likes the track a little too much.
She’s a gambler. Your girl is paying her debts.
She transfers more than half her salary to her mother, then some.
She barely has any left over for her car payment.
Her savings are depleted. Natalie Thorne is broke, to put it nicely.
That’s why I’ve been telling you to stay away from her. You’re her new piggy bank.”
My jaw becomes rigid. “Do you ever think before speaking? ”
“Not when I don’t have to.” Jake waves his hand dismissively.
“You don’t know Natalie, so don’t assume what she wants from me.”
“I know she needs money, and I know she knows you have a lot of it,” my brother points out bluntly.
“The difference is that she can’t stand to be in the same room as me, and I’m the one trying to get her back!” I snap.
“Really?” Jake drawls. “So you two weren’t sucking face by your car just a few hours ago?”
“I kissed her,” I scowl. “And she wasn’t very happy about it.”
“She’s leading you on, Ethan. Women do this. I’ve been with a lot of them. I know the mind games they play.”
“Don’t you dare lump Natalie amongst any of those women!” I grab him by the front of his shirt, furious. “She’s not them. You don’t know her.”
“And neither do you,” Jake counters, his hand wrapping around my wrist and pushing me away. “You slept with her all of one time, and now you’re obsessed. Come on, Ethan!” He gets to his feet, pacing. “She can’t have been that good of a lay?—”
My fist flies, catching him in the jaw, and he goes down.
The sound of the coffee table breaking has Nick rushing out of the guest bedroom. “What the hell’s going on?!”
There’s glass everywhere from the broken table.
“Ask him!” Jake snarls, rubbing his jaw as he lets Nick help him to his feet. He’s got a few cuts from the glass on his arms, but Jake ignores them. “He’s panting after a girl who just wants his wallet. You know nothing about her. You fucked her one time, Ethan! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Get out,” I say coldly.
Jake’s jaw slackens. “You’re turning on me over her?”
“I’m telling you to leave before I break your fucking nose. My relationship with Natalie is nobody’s business but mine. If I need your two cents, I’ll ask for them. ”
“Okay, enough!” Nick gets between the two of us. “That’s quite enough. Jake, go home. Walk it off.”
Jake shoves him away and storms out.
Hearing the apartment door slam shut, I decide to pour myself a whiskey this time.
“I’ll take one, too,” Nick sighs.
He observes me grab another glass for him. “So the girl you brought to dinner, that was Natalie?”
I don’t answer him.
“Jake’s just worried about you. He’s a pain in the ass, but he means well.”
“I don’t like my judgment to be questioned, especially when it comes to my private life.”
Nick regards me thoughtfully. “Jake’s always been overprotective when it comes to you. You know that. And let’s be fair, he’s always had your back. You don’t have to like everything he’s saying, but he watches out for you. He didn’t deserve that.”
“I don’t like my woman being portrayed as a gold digger.”
Nick lifts an eyebrow. “Aren’t you doing the same for my wife?”
I shoot him an annoyed look. “The difference is that your wife is actually demanding money. Natalie doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. She’s not the kind of woman who plays games. Jake just doesn’t want to see it.”
Nick drains his glass in one go before slamming it down. “And you’re not the kind of man to go after a woman who doesn’t want him back. Sort out your life, Ethan. And if it matters, I liked her. I think so did Mom.”
He heads to the spare bedroom, leaving me alone to dwell in my thoughts.
Maybe Jake is right, and this is obsession.
But Natalie Thorne did something to me that night, and I won’t rest until I have her under me again.
The taste of her skin, the sounds of her cries, they’re imprinted on every part of my soul.
The sound of her laugh still rings in my ears, the sight of her smile appearing before me every time I close my eyes.
I have to have her.
Maybe it’s time I stop taking things slow.