The Seduction Game

“The boss. Of course,” Chris spat, wiping away the blood now flowing freely from his nose, “and it’s all okay for you, with your massive bank balance and your flashy cars. When have you ever had to worry about anything?”

Will reared back, a nasty suspicion filling him that the truth was coming out at last and it was all about the money. It had always been about the fucking money. “What do you mean?”

“How the hell do you think it feels for me?” Chris demanded, the recriminations now tumbling from his lips. “To know you paid for the house I live in. You pay my children’s school fees, Jen’s tuition. It all comes from the great and good Will Thornton. You know when I first met you I thought that you’d be a different guy. Jen always called you her bad boy brother. Still does—the millionaire bad boy. Like hell you are,” he scoffed. “You’re soft, Will. You always have been. Look at the way you’ve dealt with that geek. All kid gloves and dinners and explanations, and sure you might have bedded her eventually, but me? Well, I’d have taken care of it weeks ago and she’d have liked it. Believe me I was tempted, that hot little ass of hers—”

“You watch your mouth when you speak about her.”

“You should have fucked her into signing weeks ago. God knows she looks like she needs a real man to give it to her. Though I doubt you’d get much out of it. She’s a frigid bitch—”

Will grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “I’m warning you.”

Chris laughed, almost manically, blood dripping down his chin. “I’ll make sure she signs. I’ve taken care of it, Will. I took care of it weeks ago, just like you should have.”

“What are you talking about?” Will demanded.

He laughed again. “The geek will sell because she’ll have no choice but to sell. There’s nothing of her business left as of today. Fucking men were supposed to have done it weeks ago, before you got home. But here’s the thing, Will, you just can’t get good help these days. You might have noticed that yourself.”

Panic hit and Will pushed Chris back. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I gave her a little incentive, shall we say. After all, if there’s no store left, what can she possibly have left to save? She’ll see when she wakes up,” he taunted. “I only wish I’d managed to get it done sooner.”

Will shook his head, unable to believe the lengths Chris was stooping to, and Kate, her precious business…he’d get this dealt with, he thought frantically. Kate was still at his place. He had plenty of time to get to K.I.T, assess the damage, and send a cleanup crew in. She need never know what had happened. That he’d allowed to happen. Because he had.

How had he not seen it sooner? How had he managed to miss the fact that his brother-in-law was a complete bastard? Will recalled all the times Chris had gone to see Kate, how he’d leered at her, and he wanted to smash the bastard in the face all over again, but his last little bit of reason kept him in check.

“Why? Why the fuck do you need this so badly?” he demanded.

Chris wiped the blood from his chin. “It was all supposed to be sorted before you got back. Done and dusted before you started to question the figures.”

“I always go over the figures.”

“And they always add up. I made sure of that, but with this?” He shrugged, pulled a napkin from the coffee tray, and wiped his nose. “I got a little greedy and you would have picked up on some of the discrepancies. The bitch needed to sell. Once it was all wrapped up you wouldn’t have looked into it so closely.”

Will couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He’d never suspected it was as bad as this. “You’ve stolen from the company.”

“No. From you,” Chris said. “I deserve it. I work hard. This company wouldn’t even be half of what it was, if not for me.”

Will gaped, unable to believe the level of Chris’s delusion. “How much?” he demanded.

Another shrug. “Over the last two years? Not a lot. Over the last few months? About a half a mil.”

“Where is it?”

“Nowhere that you’re going to find it. It’s my insurance policy.”

“Insurance against what?”

“The day your sister kicks me out,” Chris said. “You think I don’t know it’s coming. That I can’t tell she’s a step away? And then what? We both know you’ll fire me the moment she does. That you’ve only kept me here for her.”

“You’re fired now,” Will growled. “I want that money returned to company accounts immediately or I’ll be calling the police.”

“You wouldn’t do that to Jen.”

No, Will wouldn’t. But he saw no reason for Chris to know that. “I’d be a whole lot more worried about what Jen is going to do to you when she finds out what you’ve done. Because believe me, Christopher, this won’t be staying between us. Return the money immediately and pack your fucking bags. Then get out of my sight.”

“I—”

His cell started vibrating. Will’s chest tightened, hoping to God it wasn’t Kate. Not before he had a chance to get everything sorted out for her. “You have one fucking hour,” he roared at Chris, his anger almost overwhelming him. “And believe me, if it’s not done, you will find out just how bad things can get around here.”

“I—”

“One fucking hour,” Will repeated, then he picked up his cell, cast his former brother-in-law the filthiest glare he could summon, and strode from the room.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Kate took little notice of her surroundings when she jumped out of the taxi blocks away from where she lived. She was so desperate to get home that her feet carried her to the familiar place without any sort of direction from her brain. She walked and she walked and every so often she had to lift a hand to her eyes to dash away the tears that continued to fall. Stupid fucking tears. She was angry at herself for allowing them. Angry that they didn’t seem to be in on the situation. Aka the fact that Will Thornton was a complete and utter shit!

That he’d used her in the most awful way possible.

That everything had been a lie.

She played back the words she’d heard. The laughter and the taunting between him and Chris. Chris! The man she loathed. The man who’d made her life a misery, and there was Will, filling him in on the plan. Telling him exactly what he’d been doing to get her to hand over her building.

A seduction game.

It had always been about The Risings. Nothing more. And she, like a fucking fool, had fallen for it. Fallen for it all.

Seduction certainly works better than bullying…

Kate cringed as the words beat in her brain. She rounded the corner to her street, without even realizing she was doing so. Her heart ached for the way the area used to be, the way everything had been before Will Thornton had set his sights on it. And there had been so many changes to the area that Kate did not notice something was wrong until she felt a crunch underfoot. She looked down blankly, her brain taking a moment to process what she could see.

There was glass, shards of it, everywhere, and as she took it all in realization hit. She looked up and gasped. The main window of her store was broken. No, not broken, it was completely absent, now decorating the floor in pieces rather than protecting her space.