Net Worth by Amelia Wilde
7
Charlotte
I haveno idea what I’ve said to Leo Morelli or his wife. None. I could have said anything. All I remember is his brow knitting and the careful way his jacket lay against his shirt. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll never go back there again, or see them again. I’ll go to people in different cities. I’ll find an investor who’s never heard of Mason Hill, even if I have to drive this town car all the way to California. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.
I arrive home hours later due to the New York City traffic.
The day ends with me pulling the covers over my head and retreating into despair.
The rest of the weekend I simmer in a state of humiliation and rage.
It boils over when I wake up on Monday morning. I dress with exaggerated care, almost as if I’m as drunk as my father. Not with alcohol. With a sense of righteous indignation. How dare he? The town car doesn’t like starting today. I ignore the protesting sputter and gun it toward the city.
This asshole’s not going to strut around his office thinking he’s won.
He hasn’t won. I’ll win, and he can deal with it.
Adrenaline flows like sparkling wine all the way out of our suburb. All the way into the city. Up three levels of the parking garage until I find a spot. Every heartbeat pumps more angry heat into my veins. More acid humiliation. I’m all out of kindness today. I’m not out of hope.
People bustle through the lobby of the Phoenix Enterprises building, going in and out in the cool of the air-conditioning. Heads turn when I shove my way in through the rotating door, cheap cardboard heels loud on the floor. No, I’m not the most graceful person in the room. Not the most well-dressed. At the counter inside the door, I slam my ID down on the marble top. “I need a visitor pass. Please.”
The security guard presses his lips together like he might laugh, or might scold me. I don’t care what he does. “Who are you meeting?”
“Mason Hill.”
A low whistle. “I feel bad for him, then.”
He pushes a temporary pass across the counter to me. I’m not pinning it to my jacket. I’ll throw it in Mason Hill’s face. I’ll make him understand that he doesn’t need passes like this because he’s a terrible person who does terrible things and all of that will come back to him one day. A man at the elevator steps out of my way and doesn’t follow me in. Good. Good.
It lets me out onto the beautiful thirtieth floor. One wall is taken up with glassed-in offices. I stomp past two desks by the windows on the other side. Mason’s secretary sits at a rounded desk outside the big door to his office. The oversized door is meant to be intimidating, and maybe my stomach does clench at the sight of it. I’ll never let him know that.
His secretary’s eyes get wide, then wider, and she hangs up her phone call.
“I’m going in,” I tell her.
“Ms. Van Kempt, you’re not on Mr. Hill’s schedule—”
“I’m going in.”
She doesn’t have time to stop me because I’m already wrenching open the door to his office and bursting inside.
This might be the only time in my life that I catch Mason Hill by surprise. He stands up behind his desk in a rush, shoving the chair back with the force of his body. The angry motion is nothing compared to the complicated storm in his eyes.
My body reacts to it before my brain can figure out what I’m seeing. A bolt of fear. Dark leaves thrashing under lightning flashes in the sky. Impending doom. Immediate danger. Goose bumps spread like wildfire across my shoulders, pulling the hair on the back of my neck up. The hazy sky outside his huge, pristine office windows has turned from blue to iron gray. The muscles in my legs tense like I might take a step back. Like I might do the very smart thing and get the hell out of this room.
I didn’t come here to run away.
So I go toward him instead.
He won’t let me do it. Mason Hill is such an asshole that he won’t even give me the desk for comfort. He strides around in front of it, and through all my fear and anger and disappointment I see something. Something about the way his clothes move as he walks. It’s not like Leo Morelli’s clothes. Nothing like it. The only thing they have in common is the precise tailoring.
I plant my heels on the rug. God, he’s terrible. He hasn’t so much as touched me but he’s still bending this moment to his will. Blocking my path. I know there’s nowhere for me to go once I reach the desk, except for the windows on the other side. But I wasn’t ready to stop yet, and now he’s here. Keeping me off-balance. Keeping me right where he wants me.
“What the hell is your problem?” I’ve never been this pissed in my entire life. “You didn’t want to sign a deal with me, so you’re going to stalk me all over the city and sabotage everything?” I slice my visitor pass at him. “You are the worst.”
He covers his mouth with his hand, his eyes dark and glittering. “You stopped for a visitor pass.”
I throw it at him. It flutters to the carpet before it can touch his Burberry suit jacket. “You’re a prick, and everyone in the city knows it. Are you going to answer my question or not?”
“Did you ask one? You’re just so cute with your visitor pass and your righteous anger, it’s hard to pay attention.”
“What did I ever do to you?” I take another step toward him. A gust of wind curls against the tall pane of his window. This high up, the wind is stronger. “I came here with a way for you to make money, and you didn’t want me.”
A gorgeous, cutting grin curves the corner of his mouth. “I want you very much, Ms. Van Kempt. In many different ways. I thought you weren’t on the table.”
“I’m not.”
“You didn’t want me,” he mocks. “Are you hurt that I didn’t strongarm you into the contract? Did you dream about me touching you last night? Sometimes our words give us away when we’re not fully in control of ourselves.”
“You’re the one who’s out of control.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You have followed me around the city and interfered in my meetings. You told people to turn me down. You probably have surveillance cameras on the Cornerstone development. Or you have phone taps on Van Kempt Industries’ phone lines.”
“No, but that’s a good idea.”
“I saw you in Leo Morelli’s office. I know you told him not to make an offer.”
He laughs, and another burst of heat and ice spirals down through my core. It’s a beautiful laugh. He has a beautiful voice. The most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, and he only uses it to hurt me. “My god, you are precious. You’re quite sheltered, Ms. Van Kempt, so I’ll let you in on a little secret—no one tells Leo Morelli what to do. I simply gave him all the relevant information.”
“What information? If it’s about my dad—his drinking has nothing to do with this.”
Mason’s eyes widen. “You think I spent valuable time making calls and traveling around the city to tell my business associates information they already know?”
“No.” Blood bumps through my veins, thick and hot. “Yes.”
“It’s a well-known fact that Daddy’s a drunk who can’t finish a project to save his life. Or yours.” A smirk that cuts to the bone. “I thought they should know about the meeting I had.”
He’s too happy to tell me about this. Too thrilled. My burning, righteous anger falters under a cold wind. There’s something happening I don’t know about. “What meeting?”
“I met with the commissioner at the Department of Buildings.”
“About what?”
“About your project.” The green of his eyes darkens. A trick of the light. No—not a trick. It’s getting darker outside. A summer thunderstorm, rolling over the city. “Cornerstone isn’t just a half-finished eyesore. It’s a liability. Everyone who walks by is in danger.”
“It’s a construction zone. There are signs to warn people—”
“Are there?”
“Yes.”
“Are there enough? Are you sure?”
He’s the one to step forward now, and—what is it? What is it?—something about the way he moves is different. I would be curious if I wasn’t so angry, if I wasn’t so scared. More terrified by the minute. “No,” I admit. “I’m not sure. But I bet you are, because you’re a stalker with nothing else to do but ruin my life.”
“Ruin your life?” Mason puts a hand to his chest, a mockery of compassion. “I’m saving your life, Ms. Van Kempt. Can you imagine the lawsuits if a person were killed by your father’s recklessness? It’s not a construction zone if there’s no crew.”
“One contractor quit. Not everyone.”
“No, it’s all of them. No licensed contractor will work on a project that doesn’t have a permit.”
“We have a permit.”
He waits, and my stomach turns to knots, tighter and tighter until I can’t breathe.
“You got the department to revoke it.”
“Oh, yes. Safety is so important to the reputation of our city. Can’t have residents and tourists in harm’s way. I was only doing my civic duty.”
“We can’t build without that permit. Even if I—even if—”
“Even if you went to an outside firm, someone who had no knowledge of the city, they wouldn’t take the job.” A mean, beautiful grin. “The commissioner trusts me. I have been fucking meticulous when it comes to safety standards in all my projects. In all my investments. They won’t grant Cornerstone another permit unless and until I’m attached to the project.”
The air in the room is so thin, but the force of it presses in tight around my body. This was a trap. I should have known it was a trap the minute I met Mason Hill. But I didn’t know. I was foolish, and I was hopeful, and I thought this would be simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Signatures on paper. Notarized documents. Bank transfers.
There’s a knot in my throat. “And you won’t be attached until I agree to your terms.”
“It’s a pleasure to watch you arrive at this conclusion, Ms. Van Kempt. But you’ll have to do more than agree.”
“What more?”
Another dark grin. Not until you beg.
That’s what he said to me as I stormed out of his office, hot with shame and justified anger. I was sure I would never beg him—not for anything. But here I am, needing something.
I don’t know whether I’m numb or on fire. I think it might be both. I reach for my necklace without thinking and my fingertips brush over soft skin. Mason’s eyes track the movement. The suit, the office—it’s all to create an illusion that he’s not a dangerous man. That he’s not a predator hunting prey. But that’s what he is.
And I’m cornered.
The pressure intensifies. My parents are waiting at home right now in a house that’s falling to pieces around us. An empty, rattling house that won’t be able to keep itself standing. Cornerstone will crumble soon enough if the construction doesn’t continue. Every day that passes without construction crews makes it less likely that the project will ever be finished, and more likely that we’ll lose our house.
Salt stings the corners of my eyes. My chin is doing that thing it does when I’m about to cry.
Nothing has ever been this bad.
He’s so close now that the scent of his skin is in the air between us, already touching me. And worse than the obvious glee he’s taking in doing this to me, far, far worse, is that he smells so good that I’ve shifted my weight forward. Like my body wants to be closer to him.
“It won’t be the same offer as before.” I manage to say this without shedding a tear. It won’t be long, I don’t think. “It’ll be worse now. Won’t it?”
“A matter of perspective.” Mason is like a magnetic field. I feel pulled toward him, almost desperate to touch him, to see if he’s real. If a person can actually be this cruel and this attractive at the same time. “It’ll be significantly more entertaining for me.”
“Tell me what it is.”
He puts one big, strong hand under my chin and tilts my face up in a firm grip. I shiver in it, though his hand isn’t cold. His touch is warm. Possessive. As if this is already a done deal and not something I could walk away from.
Right. Because I can’t. I have no other choice. No choice but to agree. No choice but to look into his eyes. They take my breath away. Not just green—a sunburst of yellow around his pupils.
“Not just one night, Ms. Van Kempt. Every Friday until the project is complete.”
I swallow, and his eyes drop down to where his hand is a quarter inch from my beating pulse. “And you’ll make sure Cornerstone gets built? There will be a schedule? We’ll sell the property after it’s done?”
“Your cut will be enough to dig Daddy out of debt and then some.”
A nod that he barely allows. “What are you going to do to me?”
The smile is a sunset that burns down into a glittering night. All of those grins, all of those smirks—they were hiding what was underneath. His expression now makes my pulse race. It makes my face burn.
I’m terrified. Humiliated.
And...
I can’t say it. Can’t think it. Can’t let him be right one more time.
“Are you sure you want to know, Ms. Van Kempt?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He leans in close and lets his breath brush the shell of my ear. Lets his grip on my chin tighten by slow degrees until I gasp. “Whatever I fucking want.”
Mason seals this promise with a deep, vicious kiss. So hard that I cry out into his mouth. So violent that I kiss him back.
He pulls back far enough to study me. His eyes burn my skin. “You’re not finished yet,” he says.
I know what he wants.
He told me himself at our very first meeting. He’d planted the vision in my head. Me, on my knees. It might be better that way. His bruising grip on my face means I can’t hide. There’s no distance.
He wants me to beg.
My mouth goes dry. “Please.”
Mason scoffs. “You don’t want this.”
It feels like blades on my insides. “Please. Offer us a deal. Offer—offer me a deal.”
“I’m still not convinced, Ms. Van Kempt.”
“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know.” I’m not a person who gets panicked, but he makes me feel that way. He makes uncertainty rise until it crests. “No one has ever made me—”
“Figure it out,” he snaps. “You’ll do many things for me that you haven’t done before. Start now, before I lose interest. You’re very pretty, but too proud.”
Tears prick my eyes. “Please sign a deal with me. Please, please, please.”
He shakes my face, a quick, possessive jerk that makes my skin combust. “If you’re going to beg, you’ll need to include a reason. What do you want, Ms. Van Kempt, and why?”
A single tear escapes and runs down my cheek. “Please sign a deal with me,” I beg, my voice choked with fear—with more than fear. “Please. Because you’re the only one in the city who can—you’re the only one who can save us. We need you. I need you.”
He drops his hand and steps away, and I almost do it. I almost drop to the floor and keep begging. My entire body trembles. My knees—they want to give out.
Mason walks back to his desk, his expression verging on bored, and picks up a leather folio. He holds it out to me without a word. “Don’t come back without the correct signature.” My dad. My dad is the one who will have to sign off on it. He’s the CEO, if only in name. “He won’t make it easy, I’m sure. But that’s okay. Lord knows you need the practice.”
“Practice with what?”
“Begging.”
I have no choice but to approach his desk and take it from him. When my hands make contact with the leather, he holds on. I don’t want to look him in the eye. I do it anyway.
What I find in his green eyes isn’t boredom.
It’s an unreadable, unnamable expression. It’s like a forest fire. It’s too much for words. It’s a promise of all the things he’ll do to me this Friday—and for many Fridays after that. In that blaze I see both sex and ruin. I see sensual violence. I work so hard to craft these clothes, but he’s going to peel them away from my skin. He’s going to see everything, touch everything. Own everything.
Mason releases the folio, and releases my balance with it. I catch myself just in time.
What will be left for me?
Not dignity. Not pride. Not even a majority share in my family’s company. Nothing. That’s the answer written in his green eyes. They’re hard as emeralds.
He’ll take and take, until there’s nothing left of me.
