The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante
Chapter Fourteen
BRANDON
It’s going to be jarring, splitting my time between Redhill and Hawks Enterprises. I can already tell as I rush back to my office later that day to check in on things. Emma follows me to my desk, wearing her tell-me-more face.
“Well?” she asks.
I examine my hands, trying to look at them with Kyra’s eyes. “She has a crush on me.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
My PA’s reaction takes me by surprise. I am a catch, so her reaction is unwarranted. “Trust me on this.”
“Kyra Lewis has a crush on you? I find that somewhat hard to believe.”
“Careful, Emma.” Still, I find her reaction amusing. “It’s the end of the day, shouldn’t you be going home?”
“I can’t, not until you tell me how this saga is unfurling.”
“It’s hardly a saga.” I quickly look through the various folders that are lying on my desk, marked for my attention.
“It’s beginning to sound like one.” Emma perches on the armrest of the executive chair opposite my desk eagerly awaiting my update.
“Oh, I need a reference.”
“A reference?”
“And a resumé. I’ll type something up, but she needs a reference from people I told her I worked for. She wanted a couple, but I guess one will have to do. I’m going to give her your email.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Emma looks horrified.
“That I worked with you in San Jose. Just make it sound like I was a great worker, a team player.”
“I won’t lie for you, Brandon.”
I suck in a breath. “Fine then. I’ll type up something and can you at least use it to reply? You’re not technically lying then.”
“I’m an accessory.”
“I’m not committing murder.” Though sometimes Kyra makes me mad enough to feel like I could kill someone. “I spent most of today cleaning up the storerooms at the factory.”
Emma’s hands fly to her face in shock. “Cleaning up? Storerooms? You?”
We spend the next few minutes, Emma in shock, and me trying to convince her that I got my hands dirty, picking up huge crates and boxes and moving them around. “I don’t believe you.”
“I know, crazy isn’t it? But it’s true.”
“This. Isn’t. You.”
“I know.” It’s a miracle that I didn’t walk out and turn my back on this sorry situation.
“I’m shocked that you’re still there.”
“I’m on a mission. Trojan horse and all that. Undercover—”
“For all the wrong reasons.”
“For the right reasons.” I point my thumb at me. “The right reasons for me.”
“You’re going to break this girl’s heart.”
“I don’t care about this girl.”
Emma’s expression hardens. “This isn’t fair.”
“All’s fair in love and war.”
“You’re better than this,” she insists, before muttering, loud enough for me to hear, “Not much better, but better.”
“I’m going to convince her to relocate to another place, and who knows, it might work out better for her in the long-term. It might turn out that I’ve done her a favor.”
“That’s a lie you’re telling yourself, Brandon.”
“It will work out in the end, you’ll see.”
Emma won’t understand, but I do. Sometimes, things work out for the better, even though at the time it doesn’t seem like that.
I happened to have struck gold and I got lucky early on in my life, when the odds were stacked against me. I was adopted by a man who was filthy rich. Unfortunately for me, he only wanted to adopt one child.
That lucky break meant I had a lucky start in life, when the real circumstances couldn’t have been more different. That’s how I ended up being the son of a billionaire. It meant that I could reinvent myself and forget my past and everything in it.
I can’t force Kyra to move, not yet, but I do intend to persuade her to move. And if she does, that’s on her. The ultimate decision will be hers.
“I don’t like it,” Emma says, pushing off the armrest. “Good night.”
I wait for her to close the door behind her, and then I rub my eyes. It’s going to be a long night by the time I’ve checked all of this paperwork. I open a folder and look inside, but my mind isn’t on the work. It’s on my day at Redhill, and the work I did, something I never could have anticipated for myself.
And Kyra.
Lewis.
There’s something about her that grates on me. I don’t hit on women, especially on women like her, but there is something about us being together that rubs off on me and winds me up the wrong way. It brings out a side of me that enjoys riling her up.
I don’t even have this with Jessica. Jessica is all ice and water. Kyra is fire and sizzle. It confounds me more because it is so unexpected. Her short hair, slim frame don’t appeal to me. There is no height, no long legs, no ample bosom, no long hair, or twinkling eyes. No full mouth. No finesse. Nothing.
And yet, I enjoy pissing her off.
But I also see another side to her. She works hard. I can see it now that I’ve had to step into her shoes and do some work. And while from the outside, the factory looks like it’s going to fall apart, I am mildly surprised that inside it looks much better—aside from the buckets to catch the rain.
But my eyes are firmly on that coveted piece of land which I will turn into an acre of diamonds. A slice of paradise in the urban oasis. Not an urban jungle.
All I have to do is take down Kyra Lewis and the people of Greenways will follow her like a pied piper to a place far away from here.
By the time she finds out my part in all this, it won’t matter. It won’t matter because I’ll have amassed more wealth, more buildings, more real estate. All the things that really matter.