The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante

Chapter Forty-Four

BRANDON

Ican’t tell if she looks enraptured or disappointed—that I live in a place like this. I also can’t figure out if the shock is from her seeing me in a new light, or if it’s the sheer shock of seeing this place.

The Water Tower Building does that to people.

“You kept this quiet,” she says, her guarded eyes assessing me carefully. I don't know where to look, or what to say. What can I say in my defence? I don't have a defence.

She walks in, her eyes darting around the limestone floors and the crisp, contemporary lines of all the decor. She walks around slowly, then glances out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, her jaw slowly sliding open as she takes in the views of the skyline and the navy pier.

For a man who has no problems negotiating or addressing a group of investors, for a man who is full of confidence, I am scared to admit what a nasty excuse of a human being I am.

She stops to admire a million dollar painting on the wall. Something I bought from Jessica. Crazy really, for a man who has no interest in art. But back then, all I wanted was to acquire things.

“I've always felt that you've held things back from me, but I never expected this.”

I swipe a hand across the back of my neck. “It's a lot to take in. You probably hate me.”

“I don't know who you are.”

I bite my lip, wondering how on earth I will ever reveal my plan to her. It won't matter that I didn't execute it. What will matter were my initial intentions and they were so wrong.

“My birth mom had mental health problems, and my dad was a domestic abuser. They were both drug addicts.”

Fuck. I said that out loud. My heart thumps as if a wildebeest is stomping inside my chest. I want to tell her that this is not who I have always been, I want her to see that I came from a completely different place, but letting the truth loose on her, like a boulder dropped from a great height, isn’t the best way to go about it either.

Kyra stutters. “Wh-wha-what?”

“I was adopted by a very rich man, a billionaire who had lost his teenage son in a skiing accident.” I find myself sinking into an abyss from which there is no return. She will see everything differently about me from this point on. Shock skates across her eyes, the cracks in her understanding of me slowly break, break, breaking like the cracks in a river of ice. Any moment now she’ll take me under with her.

But the suspicion and surprise in Kyra's eyes vanish and, in their place now lies concern. She's by my side in an instant. Her face is a question mark, because what I’ve just told her doesn’t tally up with this place.

I’m about to tell her his name, but then realize I can’t, because it would mean having to explain why I lied about my name. I brace myself, not wanting to lose her, but knowing I can’t hold onto her if she doesn’t want me. “His wife couldn't handle it,” I continue. “I don't think she ever got over her son’s death, and they adopted me because I closely resembled the son they had lost.”

She looks horrified and shocked. “Oh, Brad. I’m so sorry.” To my surprise she takes my hand and kisses it. I’m a lucky man, to have met a woman so caring. It was luck that enabled me to switch my life and insert myself into Philip Hawks' world. It’s luck now that has put Kyra in my life. I would never have met her in the usual circumstances. “It must have been so awful for you.”

Was it awful? To be rescued from the life I had, and to end up like this? I’ve spent decades wrestling with that very question. I walk across the expanse of the room and head towards the window, opening one of the smaller windows on the side because I need to breathe. If I had known what this mission would cost me, the unearthing of buried regrets, I would never have gone to Redhill in the first place. I would have done what Neville suggested, with Charlie Stagg, and done a dirty.

But the Fortuna Baths treatments have lowered my guard, made me flexible, soft and vulnerable. I stare out, not able to look Kyra in the eye. “My parents neglected me and I was taken away.”

“I’m sorry.”

I sniff. “It turned out well, though. I was adopted by a great couple. They’re who I call my mom and dad.” I struggle to explain, to keep my voice level, because as great as this life is, it’s empty.

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“Oh, Brad.” She stands in front of me and puts her arms around me. “I’m so sorry about your parents.”

We stand like that for the longest time. Looking out, I see lights and the city’s skyline, buildings, long and short, fat and thin, sprinkled with lights, some sparkling like burnished gold. “I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”

She lifts her head, her eyes darting from one eye to the other, as if she’s trying to read the code, desperate for more answers than I have given her. Then she kisses my chest. I need to hear her voice, but I see that she is letting me take my time. She’s giving me the space to let it out.

She’s a good person. This is why people relate to her. They see the goodness in her, and only a man like me would try to take advantage of that. But things are different now. That lie is dying, shedding like a snake’s skin. I care for her and I can’t have any harm come to her. I don’t want to derail her hopes and dreams. This is the real me, and that’s who I want her to know. That’s who I want her to see. “We went into foster care.”

“We?”

“I did,” I say quickly. I can’t talk about Kane yet. It’s too much. “My mom was committed.”

She looks at me like I’m a damaged, no-good thing that she can’t wait to fix and put right. “I’m so sorry. This is all so tragic. You never said.”

I shrug.

“How long did you go into foster care for?”

“Not long.” I don’t like to talk about my time at Grampton House. “It was supposed to be temporary, but my dad got worse, and social services knew we … I … couldn’t go back home. Then my mom died … and so I got put up for adoption.”

“Brad.” The tenor of her voice is soft and caring, her fingers flutter over my chest. Her touch grounds me even as my past flows into my present in waves heavy as tar.

“I’m so sorry.” She kisses my chest, then hugs me tightly. Her touch sets me aflame, and as her hand skates over my bare skin, I wonder if she can hear my beating heart.

Falling for Kyra is like being hit by a car, I didn’t know until it was too late. My mind was elsewhere, on a goal I thought I wanted, while she rammed into me with her goodness, sexiness and faith. How am I supposed to walk away from this? She is no fickle, shallow, malicious Jessica. “Like I said, my adoptive parents were the best. I never went hungry again.”

“Hungry?” Her eyes fill with horror. Now is not the time to tell her that I rummaged through trash cans to feed us.

“Yvette’s boy, he reminds me of …” I can’t say his name. Each time I think about him, I think of Kane. I dream about Kane. I have nightmares about Kane. The memories weigh me down, a heavy anchor chaining my soul.

“Of you?” Kyra offers.

“What’s his name?” He’s been ‘The Boy’ to me forever. Maybe if I take the time to remember his name, I can erase the parts I want to forget.

“Stefan,” Kyra replies. “You didn’t know?”

I let the name sink in, repeating it silently in my head. I shake my head. I might have been told but I’ve forced myself to pay no attention. Details like that do me no good.

She presses a hand into my chest. “I always wondered why you were so subdued on those nights.”

“I don’t like talking about that time.” I really don’t. And if I’d known that this pathetic little project of mine would lead me down the path of my past and stir up memories I had long buried, I might not have chosen to pursue it.

But it’s too late now. I’ve met this wonderful woman who makes everything seem so much better, even when I didn’t think my life needed to be better.

I’d come to believe that I had it all, but meeting her showed me how wrong I was.

This experiment hasn’t failed—though maybe by Neville’s standards it has—because what I’ve found instead has been priceless. No amount of money could buy what Kyra brings me.

“Do you want to go? Or stay?” I ask her. It’s her choice. This is a big deal to me. I’ve changed her perception of me. In this weekend, I’ve tried to tell her things slowly, to prepare her, but maybe I’ve revealed too much, too fast.

I’ve brought her back to my place, but nothing has to happen unless she wants it.

“I want to stay.”

“I want you to know that I was born into the kind of life the people we see every Wednesday were born into.”

“It makes sense now,” she says, softly.

“What does?” I lead her over to the sofas, feeling loose, and listless, and needing to sit down.

“Why you worked on those community projects. Why you went in search of something else.”

My skin tightens, my throat turns dry, the contents of my stomach churn, and I am reminded of what a con artist I am. The type of man someone like Kyra doesn’t deserve.

“You have such heart.” She perches on my lap, her legs on either sides of my thighs as she presses her lips against mine. My heart bottoms out of my chest cavity. The lies and shame, the reality of the situation heats my skin. I turn hard, and harder still by her sitting on me, kissing me and staring at me with her eyes full of undeserved admiration.

“My heart isn't so good, so clean, so decent,” I caution. She has a vision of me that is the complete opposite.

“You were twelve years old, and you'd had such a bad start, Brad.” She presses her soft lips on mine, injecting hope and goodness in one fell swoop. “I'm so happy that you got adopted and were given a better life.”

“Only because I resembled his dead son,” I remind her.

She chews her lip. “Do you hate him?”

I had reason to hate him, right from the start when, a few months after I'd been adopted, I asked him when we could get my brother.

“You don't have a brother,” he’d snarled, his voice chilling my blood and turning it to ice. “We have one son, Brandon. You don’t have a brother. Do you understand? Never ask me again, or I will send you back.”

His face blurred as tears welled in my eyes, threatening to spill over into rivulets of sorrow. I learned then to never show any emotion. I knew in that moment, that I had to forget my past, even if it meant forgetting the brother I loved more than life itself. I had to survive, and this was how I would.

So, to answer Kyra’s question. Do I hate him? No. Not really. “People react to things in different ways. They do things which seem cruel and indifferent, and are inexplicable, but there’s often a reason for it,” I reply. “I love him, and my adoptive mom. They gave me a good life. I can't complain.” Even though it came at a cost too heavy to bear.

She rests her forehead against mine, her hands bracketing my shoulders. I take all the goodness that seeps out of her and I absorb it, because I need something good to hold onto.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

Talking isn’t what I have on my mind right now.

KYRA

He is the best thing to happen to me. The worst thing he could have told me was that he was with someone. Instead, the truth I learned about Brad and his life, makes my heart ache.

He's showing me who he really is, and the shock I felt walking into this place, the fear of deception and lies which riddled my initial reaction, are gone.

Brad has had such a terrible childhood. The pain in his eyes rips me to shreds. When I think back, to all the unanswered questions, and his vague replies, they all make sense now.

“You're just a little rebel, after all,” I say, resting my palm against his face. His brows push together. His member pushes through and I can feel him against my flimsy dress. I wriggle, shifting on his lap, teasing him. “Working on those projects abroad. Was that you wanting to reject your upbringing?”

His mouth twists, he seems unsure. Hesitant to reply. I lean forward and drape my arms around his neck. I take a deep inhale of him, soaking in his essence, and everything he is. He opened his heart to me and told me everything. I want to share myself with him, and tonight there is nothing in the way. We have privacy here. Not a car, or the storeroom, but an entire apartment.

I unbutton his shirt, one button at a time, the heat in my body traverses up from between my legs, through my stomach, to my breasts, making my face flush. I lean forward, like a woman desperate to please, and kiss him for the longest time, as if that might help to make his pain go away,

“There's so much I want to tell you,” he murmurs as our wet lips brush and our breaths mingle. My body is slowly catching fire, heat spiraling and tunneling deep in my core.

“Tell me,” I whisper. “Tell me all.” I'm prepared to listen, even while I’m in a heightened sense of arousal, but then his tongue slips into my mouth and he drops his hand to my breast, massaging it.

In no time at all, he's undone the top buttons of my dress, his deft fingers making easy work of the tiny buttons and loops. He's so fast, the dress falls off my shoulders and in no time at all he’s unclasped my bra. It falls to my waist, along with the top part of the dress. He growls as he sucks, taking big, greedy mouthfuls of my breasts.

My nerves tingle with anticipation, causing my heart to dance out of my ribcage. It falls somewhere between my legs, the thumping and throbbing like a drumbeat signalling a mating call.

I cry out in surprise when he stands up with me hanging onto him like a limp doll, my legs hooked around his waist. But he sets me down, then turns me around, so that my back presses into his hardness. Before I can catch a breath, he pulls my dress down, over my hips. I barely register that the soft fabric is around my ankles when his lips trail around my lower back. His fingers make light work of my panties which also end up around my ankles.

I shiver with excitement, my knees in danger of buckling, as wanton heat courses through me. He lifts my leg, planting my foot onto the couch, his hand falling between my legs, and his fingers teasing, playing, stroking. Pleasure pumps through me as he licks the skin between my shoulder blades. His tattoo fetish makes my lips curl, and then he steps away. It’s only when his hard as steel erection pokes me from behind, that I realize he's completely naked. He slides, and slips and teases his cock around my back, as his fingers grab my breasts and pinch my nipples. My heart bottoms out when he tells me he loves my body, and that he loves my tattoos, and then he tells me exactly what he wants to do to me. How hard he wants to fuck me.

“Then do it.” It’s a voice I don’t recognize as mine. I am possessed by a need so feral, a desire so base that I can barely control my mouth.

He pokes his hot, hard member between my cheeks, making me instinctively push back, needing him inside me, but he moves it away each time I try.

We are a tangle of roaming hands, soaked desire, greedy lust. Searching, prodding, stroking; all the things we so desperately wanted to do before but never had the privacy or permission to fully do. Desperate, I reach back and grasp him, eliciting an involuntary gasp of shock as his length and girth shock me.

“Fuck,” he groans as I stroke him softly, then he turns me around and guides me onto the couch.

I lie, legs akimbo, watching him fiddle with a condom. I study his wide shoulders, all the more for me to hold onto, then I stare like a two-bit hussy at his engorged cock, all the more to pleasure me with.

“Here?” I express surprise, because I want a whole bed to romp around with him on. I want to fall into bed with him and never leave. His gaze travels south, rests on the wet space between my legs. He bites his lower lip, lust pooling in his eyes as his gaze soaks in every inch of my heated skin. I lift a leg, carelessly, shamelessly resting it against the backrest, opening for him.

“Fuck,” he pants.

I can wait no longer, frustration wars with desperation as our greedy eyes lock and hold.

My insides knot up in a tangled ball of frenzy, the longer he stands there, licking his lower lip, eyeing me as if he's unsure, the more I burn for him.

And then a thought, as random as a stray bullet slices through me. Doesn’t he want me? Anxiety slays my chest and, open and vulnerable like this, naked and ready, I start to doubt. But then he leans forward, a smile spreading on his lips, and I close my eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting. Instead he heaves me up by the wrists, lifting me easily. I’m feather light as he carries me, up the stairs. I nestle my face in the crook of his neck inhaling his scent.

He pushes a door open, then uses my body to shut it. I slide down him and over his shoulder see the biggest bed I have ever set my eyes on. He sucks my lower lip, before his tongue sweeps inside my mouth, the promise inherent in the way he claims me. We kiss as if this is the first and last time. I press against him, my hands clawing at his buttocks. I'm wild with need, hungry for him, and irritated by his dogged refusal to do the deed.

He has an effect on me. He always has, and tonight is the culmination of all our wanton lust for one another. I don’t think I can last any longer.

My hands cup his face, as our lips refuse to part, and somehow, we move towards the bed. I fall and sink into the downy cover. Softness caresses my back and Brad's hard, tense, corded body rests over mine, his weight shifting to his arms as he props himself up.

Before I can open my mouth to say something, he slams inside me. I cry out, in gratitude, in euphoria. He slams into me again and again. My muscles clenching around him, and my entire body rocking with each thrust.

“Fuck,” he grunts, thrusting his tongue deep inside my mouth, connecting to me on every level as he buries his hardness to the fullest. He groans, it sounds like a release, a long, slow, much needed release. “Fuck, Kyra.”

My fingers sink into the fabric, butterflies skittering inside my belly like they're on a high. I barely catch my breath as he sets up a rhythm, hard and fast, hard and fast. I curse when his fingers find my nub and tweak and play.

So much lingering, simmering passion seeps out and mixes in the hot musty air. It's the most beautiful feeling, Brad rutting into me like a battering ram. It’s too much. Too much feeling, too many nerve endings on fire. Too much, in one small place. I’m about to explode.

Up, up, up I float, rising to a peak, balancing on a precipice, as if I’m at the top of a rollercoaster before it dives down. Just as I’m about to plummet, he flips me over, then pulls me back on my knees. I take the hint and get on all fours, as his hands bracket my hips. It’s only a few seconds rest that I get, before he slams into me, the force shoving my face into the bed. Carnal instinct crashes over us. We lose ourselves, become feral, like animals. He rides me hard, hard, hard, before plunging in for the last time and staying there. We come apart at the same time.

We have sex three times that night. Hard, rough, glorious sex. Not just in the bed, but on his chaise lounge, up against the shower, on the bathroom floor.

He falls asleep before me, in the dimly lit room, with only the light from outside barely illuminating the contours of his face, I trace my finger ever so gingerly across his cheek. It barely touches his skin, because I don’t want to wake this beautiful, tender, complex man who has hidden so much pain from me. At last I have met a man who cherishes me and treats me well. Really well.

A man who is obviously hurt and is beginning to open up to me about his pain. I always gravitate towards people who are in pain. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but now that it has, I have no regrets.

I fight the urge to kiss his chest. I want to heal him, and my heart swells with love to think that he has revealed his real self to me at last. He moans something in his sleep. It sounds like ‘rain’. I turn to him, holding my breath, waiting for more. But he’s quiet then, so I let him sleep.

In the morning, I wake up in his arms, sore, but sated and in no mood to want to go to work. I try to drag myself away from him, but he reels me in and then makes love to me again. This time it’s slow, and gentle, our eyes lock together, our souls melded, as we move like one.