Net Worth by Amelia Wilde
6
Mason
It’s captivating,watching Charlotte get ahold of herself despite how ashamed she is. By the time we’re inside, the red on her cheeks has cooled. Her back is straight. Head held high.
The jewelry is helping. A woman like Charlotte Van Kempt belongs in jewelry like the pieces I’ve put on her tonight.
And the dress.
What the fuck.
The dress has already done several numbers on me, which is why it was so necessary to put her in her place out there on the sidewalk. That hint of defiance in her big blue eyes makes me want to drive her back to the penthouse and take it all out on her. All these years I’ve waited for revenge. All these years, and now it’s here, but it looks nothing like I thought it would.
She is so fucking sweet.
We’re the first to arrive at the table and Charlotte has all of a minute to prepare herself for the investors. Four men from around the city who deal in real estate. None of them are in my circle of friends. The only reason they’re here is to discuss whether they want to play a role in the Cornerstone project. Once the first building is completed, there’s more opportunity in the surrounding areas. I haven’t decided whether I want Phoenix to take on all of the risk.
Hence the dinner.
Charlotte greets each one of the men with a smile that makes their faces light up. I’d be jealous if I allowed myself to feel that kind of jealousy.
“Where have you been hiding her?” one of them says. John. Twenty years older than me and constantly hunting down women Charlotte’s age.
“Away from you.” He laughs at my joke as we take our seats.
“How did you meet Mason?” Brian. A guy who has too much money and not enough time on his hands. He’s good to tap for this kind of project.
She glances at me for help, and I drop my arm around the back of her chair and run my fingertips down the bare flesh of her arm. Charlotte leans into me. It’s an act. She’s doing what I told her to do. But it feels so real that something happens near my heart. Probably an artery shutting down. I don’t know.
“I saw her outside my office and had to know more about her,” I say, gazing into her eyes.
Charlotte goes bright red. Redder than I’ve seen her. “Yeah,” she says softly. “That’s how it happened. Isn’t it crazy, how things turn out like that?”
And then she smiles, and my entire heart leaps for it like it’s trying to reach the edge of a windowsill before a long, hard fall.
Someone at the table whistles. Charlotte laughs. I feel the strangest urge not to turn away from her, but I do it. This is a fucking business meeting. This is part of my revenge. I’m half-expecting her to lose it halfway through the meal. To let the truth bubble out of her. That I’m making her do this. That we’re not really dating.
I have a vision, clear as anything, of her rising from her seat and pointing at me. How can you believe him? Her voice would tremble. Her hand would shake. How can you believe I’d be with him?
None of that happens. What happens instead is that every man at the table wants to be the first to buy her a glass of wine.
Charlotte has three glasses, sip by sip. By then, she’s feeling awfully comfortable at the table. Jumping in to answer questions if I leave the smallest space. Talking up the Cornerstone project like it wasn’t dead in the water two weeks ago.
They can’t stop staring at her neckline.
Ican’t stop staring at the damn thing. I can’t stop listening to her voice. I can’t even bring myself to interrupt her thoughts about Cornerstone.
I even compliment her on a few of them.
Charlotte knows what she’s talking about.
She’s got excellent business sense.
I wouldn’t have taken this deal if it wasn’t for her.
That last one’s true.
Everyone at the table listens to her and to me with rapt attention. I offer my own commentary. Lay the groundwork for the future deal.
Charlotte inches closer and closer to me until, by the end of the meal, her chair is an inch from mine and my knee is a ball of muscle tension and pain. What the fuck? This is essentially a business meeting. It’s not any reason to get worked up.
“That was fun,” she whispers to me as everyone stands. There are handshakes all around the table. Pointed promises to see the both of us again soon. When we step away to leave, she puts her hand on my arm without hesitating.
Warm summer air greets us on the sidewalk. It feels so good after the too-cold chill of the air-conditioning that my knee reacts mid-step. I cover it by stopping to look for the car. My driver is a few cars down, getting himself out of traffic and to the curb.
“You’re nicer than I thought,” says Charlotte as I help her into the car.
It’s like hitting the ground from a great height.
Adrenaline spikes. I’d recoil from the SUV if it weren’t for my knee putting up a fight. I’ve made a mistake. I’ve made an error. This tipsy, giggly thing can’t start to believe I have any fondness for her beyond her usefulness to me. Charlotte Van Kempt is here so that I can use her the way I want. The way I need.
What was I thinking, looking at her like that in the restaurant? Praising her ideas? Giving her all the space she needed to talk to the investors?
I get in after her. “Charlotte’s house,” I tell my driver, a guy named Scott. Everyone who drives for me memorized her address after the contract was signed. I never want any hesitation on their part.
The corners of her lips turn down. “What do you mean?” She slides a little on the seat. Charlotte’s a lightweight. They were full glasses of wine, but still. She’s tipsier than I realized. I reach over her and she turns her head to follow my hand. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping you alive for the trip home.” I click her seat belt into place as the driver pulls out into traffic.
“My house? You’re taking me to my house?”
“Were you expecting to get behind the wheel and drive yourself home drunk? I think not.”
A giggle escapes her. It’s so light. So sweet. I can’t let her be like this. I can’t let her have that power over me. No one will ever have that kind of power over me. Turning my spine to pure warmth with the sound of one laugh? Fuck that.
This isn’t about kindness. It’s not about convenience. It’s not even about sex.
This is about revenge. All this is about is revenge, and I’ve been foolish. I’ve never been more frustrated with my brothers. With Gabriel, for making it so damn difficult to do the right thing and merge our companies. With Jameson, for losing himself to the city more often than not. It makes me a hypocrite. I haven’t been focused enough on the things that matter.
Like hurting Charlotte’s family the way they hurt mine.
She settles her body against mine and I let her stay there. The wine has gone to her head. Charlotte looks out the window the whole drive, pointing things out and giggling. This funny sign in a store window. A slice of beautiful sky, visible despite all the buildings. A woman in an incredible dress. “I’d love the pattern for that.” She reaches longingly for the window, but the woman is already gone. “It would look so good on me.”
I want her in the dark for this. That’s what I tell myself. I let her lean against me and laugh and be delightfully tipsy because I want her off guard for what happens next.
More of her weight falls against mine as the driver makes the turn onto the driveway. It’s a long-ass, pretentious-as-hell driveway and we rattle over it like it’s a dirt road on someone’s farm. They haven’t been keeping up with the property, then. No surprises there. The condition I found Cornerstone in was no better.
The driver pulls to a stop in the circle drive and Charlotte reaches for the door handle. I put my hand over hers. “Wait.”
Another soft giggle. “See? You are nice.”
I get out. Go around. Help her out onto the drive. Her heel catches in a missing cobblestone. It hurts to walk on the uneven surface. The rest of the house shows wear, too. Burned-out porch lights. Peeling paint. A rotting mansion.
“You don’t have to walk me any further,” she says at the door, more laughter in her voice. Bright as day in the dark of night. It’s not particularly late.
“Oh, I do. You have something that belongs to me.”
“What—”
I take the solitaire diamond in my fist and snap the necklace. No time for fucking with the clasp. Charlotte freezes, the only movement coming from her breath. I take the earrings too. Shove it all in my pocket.
“Those are only for when you’re with me.”
“Thank you,” she says, and my whole knee balls up into pain. “For letting me wear it tonight.”
“Aren’t you adorable? I wouldn’t thank me for anything just yet.”
I raise my hand and knock hard on the door, then go for the handle. It’s not locked. Charlotte grabs for my arm on the trip across the threshold.
“Mason,” she says, keeping her voice low despite her panic. I know why. This place is empty. It echoes. “Mason. What are you doing? We can’t—”
“We’re home,” I call into the cavernous house, and Charlotte whispers oh no under her breath. There’s nothing in the once-elegant hallway but a console table shoved up against one wall. I recognize the purple envelope on the top—tickets to the benefit at the botanical garden. No way. They’re so desperate to maintain the fiction that they’re still wealthy. Still powerful. “Cyrus. Victoria.”
Footsteps from a door off to the left, and Cyrus Van Kempt comes into view with his mouse of a wife close on his heels. A glass tumbler shines in his hand. “Charlotte? What is this?”
I brush her hand off my arm and stride over to them. He’s smaller than I remember. More pathetic. Still evil. The old bastard doesn’t know what to do when I extend my hand. He shakes it with a sneer. “Mason Hill,” I tell him, too loud. He flinches. He’s drunk. “We’ve met, but I’m sure you don’t remember.”
“It’s been years.” He drops my hand. “You were quite a bit younger then, weren’t you?”
“Yes. And I didn’t have quite so much money.” I reach past him to shake his wife’s hand. She’s wide-eyed and pale. There’s no guidebook for what to do if the person you’ve screwed over shows up fourteen years later with your daughter.
“Hello, Mason,” she says softly. “Were you two out for dinner?”
“We had a wonderful time.” I let her see in my face that it was the kind of wonderful time that involves her precious daughter getting fucked in more ways than one.
“Maybe it would be best if we talked later,” Cyrus says. He’s trying so desperately to regain control of the situation.
“Oh, we’ll talk.” I step back toward Charlotte and put my hand on her back. Run it all the way around to her hip, where her parents can see that I’m touching her. “I just couldn’t wait to introduce myself. Not after your daughter has been such a pleasure.”
Cyrus goes red at the mention of pleasure, but he’s too much of a coward to turn on me. “Charlotte,” he growls. “It’s time for your guest to leave.”
All the rosy joy is gone from her face. She’s so pale it makes her eyes stand out, but she looks me in the face anyway. “I’ll call you later, Mason.”
I take her chin in my hand, pull her close, and kiss her.
Hard, then harder, until she lets out a gasp into my mouth. Fuck, she tastes good. Fuck, I want her.
Cyrus and Victoria are horrified. He takes one step forward, like he might take a swing at me, but he’s too much of a coward to do it. “Get out of my house.”
The bastard doesn’t wait to see if I go. He steps back into the room he came from—his office, probably—and slams the door.
Victoria is bone-white, her hand at her throat. “It was…it was nice to see you, Mason.”
“Likewise.”
I don’t want to leave her here, in this decrepit has-been mansion with these assholes. She’s sick with embarrassment. Pliant. Everything about the way she stands, the way she looks at me, begs for rescue. If not from the house itself, then from the humiliation I’ve caused.
Rescue her, a better angel whispers.
I could take her out of here, dress her in diamonds, protect her from the harshness of life. And you would have her every night. That sounds more like me. I almost laugh. There’s no selflessness left inside. That was crushed the day my parents died. The day my knee shattered. Since then I’ve had two goals: taking care of my siblings and avenging my parents.
“You’ll see me on Friday.” I let the meaning settle into the air. A date for her parents to worry about. They’ll wonder what I do to her then. No, they’ll know. You don’t produce a daughter as lush and alluring as Charlotte without knowing what men want from her.
I leave without a backward glance.
