Page 29 of Someone Like You

Casimir

Three Days Later

“. . . a

re down. This latest discovery will surely have a larger impact on their stock prices, Ned.”

“Yes, Darla. It seems that former COO Casimir Perez got out just in time before everything spiraled downward.”

“This isn’t a good look for Glenco Energy at all. The incumbent COO, Will Jennings, will have his hands full trying to save this company from the brink of destruction and assist CEO, Senator Rob Bradwell, with cleaning up the company’s image.”

“I doubt that he’ll be able to do that. His background shows that he has experience in turning failing companies around, Ned, but this isn’t just a failure of catastrophic proportions.

This spells doomsday for the company. Board chairman Preston Willcott, CEO, Senator Rob Bradwell, James Carson, the COO of Carson Gas and Electric, and Peter Tinsdale, the COO of Carson Gas and Electric, were all in this meeting. ”

“People, if you’re just tuning in, we’re discussing the release of taped conversations between the heads of two major energy and gas companies in the country that have been colluding to boost energy prices.

We all remember the energy blackouts we’ve experienced over this last summer.

Well, it seems that they weren’t just some random acts of failure, but a planned strategy to spike energy prices across the country,” Darla Samuels, the reporter, informed newcomers to the channel.

“It won’t happen overnight, but this will surely spell the end of Glenco and Carson, making room for Tandem and Powerhouse to become the top energy and gas providers in the country,” Ned Evers explained.

“And it’s all on the heels of those pictures of Senator Bradwell and lobbyist Anne Partham coming out. ”

I switched the TV off and spun around in my seat. A wry smile twisted my lips as I stared at my ex-wife, who fumed in the chair across from my desk.

“I know that it was you behind all of this, Casimir!”

“I had nothing to do with this, sweetheart. It seems that your father and a few of these men have crossed up the wrong enemy, and it ain’t me, darlin’. If I were you, I would check with that lobbyist your father was having an affair with. Didn’t you tell me that he forced her to have an abortion?”

Bethany fumed as she bolted out of her seat. “This isn’t over, Casimir. You may not have done all of this, but I know that your hands aren’t clean in it either.”

“Oh, it’s over, Beth.”

“It’s not over until I say it’s over.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked as I slid a yellow envelope across the desk to her.

Bethany glanced down at the envelope and then back at me. “What’s this?”

“Open it.”

She lifted the envelope with trembling fingers and carefully opened it. When she removed the pictures, her tanned face turned pale, and her eyes widened. She looked back up at me and asked, “How could you?”

“I think that’s the question that I should be asking. After all, we were married when you started this little affair.”

She looked up at me.

I jutted my chin at the pictures and smirked. “Keep going.”

She flipped through the pictures and her face grew even paler as she realized how far back they went.

Bethany had cheated on me the night before our wedding and the night of our wedding.

The night of our wedding, she left our hotel room to have one final “goodbye drink” with her friends.

She never met up with her friends but slipped me to have a rendezvous on another floor of our hotel room.

One of her friends, who was all too eager to try to slip in the room with me that night, was more than happy to provide pictures of Bethany and the man she’d been having an affair with.

It was her way of proving why I should cheat on my “new wife.” I hadn’t gone for it, but I had texted the pictures to myself while I held the friend’s phone.

Although our marriage was arranged, we both agreed to be faithful and make our union work. We agreed to have sex only with each other.

“Those pictures of you on your knees in your wedding dress would be a very compelling story to share with the media about how America’s princess gets down.”

“Where did you get these?”

“That’s no longer relevant. I heard that you were in the business of negotiations now. So, let’s talk about prices.”

The fury in her eyes was real, and her lips thinned out, but she spoke no words.

“Leave. Giselle. Alone.”

“Is that what you’re asking in order for you not to share those pictures?"

“That’s it. I know that you’re planning to marry Senator Dennis Oaks.

You can let the world know that you were cheating with him during your first marriage and his, destroy his career, or you can mind ya business and live a happy life with him.

And remember, it doesn’t stop at just destroying his career.

Don’t forget who he’s married to. There’s a penalty for that type of betrayal in their world, Beth. It’s your choice, really.”

“All this for her?”

I smirked. “One day, I hope you learn the meaning of true love, Beth. And I hope you find your happiness.”

She snatched the packet, turned around, and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Beth?”

She turned back and glared at me.

“I just want you to know that the same way your lawyer is holding on to that letter for you, my attorney and Giselle’s attorney are holding on to the original and copies of those pictures. We even have some audio and videos that accompany them.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I shrugged.

“Play the game of Russian Roulette if you dare. I won’t be the loser in that one, sweetheart,” I replied with a wink.

I stood and quickly moved behind her.

“You may want to watch your back and tell your father to watch his. Those thug-ass friends of mine you despised so much . . . they’re back in my life. And one or two are in prison.”

Her eyes widened in horror. I watched as she walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

I had called Bethany and demanded that she meet me today.

I told her to meet me at the hotel and to stop by the front desk, and they would direct her to where I was.

She assumed that we would be meeting in a room, but I wasn’t about to screw up my good thing at home.

I met with her in a conference room around the corner from my office. She had no idea that I owned the hotel, and I had no plans on letting her know that. Not anytime soon, anyway.

I stood and headed out of the conference room and hopped in my car. My first stop was at an undisclosed location in the woods. When I exited my vehicle, I took a look around as I had done the entire drive to make sure I wasn’t followed.

I walked to the cabin and knocked twice before the door immediately opened.

“Travis.”

“Cas.”

We dapped it up before I took a seat on his worn gray and white couch.

“Everything work out for you?”

“Everything went according to plan. Those pictures blew her ass away. Thanks, man.”

“Any time. I knew all those years ago when you first connected with that family that they weren’t nothing but trouble.”

“And you told me that.”

“Glad your ass listened,” he replied and pulled two beers out of the refrigerator. He handed me one and then dropped into his recliner and popped open the other one.

We sat in silence for a while, drinking our beers, and although a basketball game played on TV, I suspected he didn’t watch it.

“I checked out your new girl,” he finally spoke up.

“Impressed with what you see?”

He sighed and set his beer down.

“I am. She’s had a hard time of it, man. She’s close to her family and friends but not close to her husband’s family. It seems like he wasn’t close to them anyway, so she didn’t see a need to keep up the relationships once he died.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“I spoke with Beth’s attorney earlier.”

“Yeah?”

Travis nodded. “He destroyed the letter.”

“Thanks.”

“I saw that Nathaniel dropped those bombs,” Travis stated.

“That company’s about to shut the fuck down. Ain’t a gahdamn thing they can do to save it either. Feds already up in that bitch investigating everything.”

“And your name cleared, man?”

“Yep. Thanks to all those memos that got leaked to the Feds and not the press, I’m all good. They spoke with my attorney yesterday, and my shit is on the up and up.”

Travis Cunningham, a private investigator, was also a childhood friend.

His father was a retired CIA operative who worked closely with my father in their glory days.

Travis was the one who obtained the pictures of Bethany’s affair throughout our four-year marriage.

His brother, Nathaniel, worked as an administrator at Carson, and he had been the one to record those meetings.

It was Nate’s duty to set the conference rooms up for meetings.

With Travis’s help, he was able to get some bugs and bugged the conference rooms and executive offices at Carson.

When I’d initially cut them off to marry into the Huffington-Bradwell clan, they were dead set on proving to me that I had made a bad decision.

In the beginning, I ignored them. But after two years, at Jude’s urging, I hooked up with my boys again.

I didn’t let anyone know that I was friends with them again, but in time, they were able to give me enough information to prove that the Huffington-Bradwells didn’t have my best interests at heart.

In fact, they were able to convince me that Bethany’s family was using me as a scapegoat to swindle millions of customers on a larger scheme than the one they’d been caught conducting.

“I’m glad your ass got out before you did get stuck with kids. You got out fairly easy for this one, especially considering who you were involved with,” Travis stated before he took another swing of his beer.

“I know. I damn sure dodged a bullet on that shit.”

“This doctor you’re dating has a clean record across the board, and she hasn’t been involved with anyone since her husband.”

“I already know, man.”

“You ran record checks on her?”

“No,” I stated and stood. I turned my beer bottle up and finished it off. “She told me these things, and I trust her word.”

It felt good to be able to say that because I had never trusted Bethany.

I dapped Travis up, and we said our goodbyes before I hopped in the car and headed out.