Page 31 of Vicious Arrangement (Alpha Billionaire Daddies #7)

Chapter Twenty-Six

NOAH

I fucked another thing up. Maybe I should be Captain Fuck Up.

I want to laugh, but it’s not funny, and without Aria in the room with me, it’s pathetic.

She’s gone to bed because I couldn’t let her in. I wanted to. But I was tangled, lost, trying to sort it all out, and she’s delicate, so I got tied up in knots, and every time I spoke, I said the wrong thing until I was mad and then kept saying all the wrong things all the time.

There’s a text from Asher, but I don’t even feel like responding to that, because I guess I’m still stinging from the lunch we had that day, where he told me not to screw up the best thing that’s happened to me.

It’s nothing new, and I get it’s said with love, but I don’t have to like it, do I?

Besides, I just screwed up all over again, and that’s really not what I need to concentrate on. Not my screw-up, not Asher’s words, but this Aaron guy.

I rub my temple. I’ve got a PI, one I use for corporate things and the occasional woman who’s come after me when that one night didn’t morph into more.

I’ve had the odd girl claim pregnancy, but I’m very particular, and I don’t ever go in without protection.

“Except with Aria.”

Yeah, she’s the one exception.

I could say the marriage is the reason, but I know it’s not. There’s something else that made me not even think about it, not once. I never even asked if she was on the pill, either.

Getting her knocked up wasn’t ever on my mind. I just…

Wanted her.

Lame, I know, but I stick with that, I stick with losing my head.

I scroll through my phone and call Devon, my PI.

“Hey, if I give you a name, can you get me everything on this guy?”

“Sure thing, Noah,” he says. “Fast or slow?”

That usually means meticulous with added fees or meticulous over time. I don’t care about the cost. “As fast as you can. If you need to drop something else, I’ll pay.”

“You got it. What’s the name?”

I take a breath and tell him, giving him the details I know, which admittedly aren’t many.

“I’ll get back to you when I have something. Sit tight.”

When I hang up, I sit back in my chair and rub my eyes. I’ve already run a search on my computer, but I didn’t find anything. But I also didn’t look hard. It’s easy for certain people to put up fake profiles or pepper the web with information they want someone to see.

And… I don’t want to know about him.

Or didn’t.

I’m a busy fucking man, so I’ll take what Devon finds and then I’ll proceed. I don’t want any surprises.

I fetch a bottle of bourbon, the Black Dirt I like, and proceed to work and have a drink. There’s a vibration in the air, like Devon’s going to get back to me tonight. And I want to make sure I’m not just ready for tomorrow, I’ve got the following day under my belt, too.

Three hours in, and I’m doing good.

My mind slips to Aria and the baby. But I start to shake from how huge it all is, how tangled up in her in ways I didn’t expect, and how the baby’s going to change our lives.

There’s hope and fear and?—

I push them away. I need to fucking focus, so I pour another drink and continue working.

It’s almost one a.m., and I’m thinking of getting ready to pack up work and go to bed when my phone buzzes. It’s Devon.

I’m still digging but I have some initial stuff for you. I’ll continue and send my report when done. Thought you should know. This Aaron’s mixed up in some bad shit .

Me: Bad? How?

Devon: He owed a lot of money to some shady people with strong ties to the mafia.

Me: Good work, consider a hefty bonus in this as given.

Fuck. Fuck. Mafia?

I don’t screw with anything like that. Are some businesses I deal with affiliated? Probably, but as long as no one’s breaking the law or being overt, I’ll do that business. I’ve cut ties before when the mafia’s presence got too much to ignore.

It’s business. And it’s New York.

Anything with me would be a legit branch, mostly, a moneymaker. But they have more opportunities, so I never get strong-armed and Grandfather certainly didn’t. We’re powerful and rich, and they have other fish to have fun with in the waters of the city.

But my chest tightens. We’re related by blood and accident, and while I don’t owe him, I don’t like it. Having someone related in deep with unsavory types for money is trouble I don’t fucking need on my doorstep.

If there’s more dirt, and there will be, it’ll come through tonight or tomorrow, so I pour another drink and take a swallow, weighing my choices.

Maybe I should have gotten back to Asher, but it’s too late to contact him now.

He’ll either be sleeping or neck-deep in work.

Either way, I’m not bugging him over something I should be able to deal with, and besides, I know what he’ll say.

Get the information and then just hand it over to authorities or whoever and wash my hands of it.

And he’d be right.

I’m going to.

But first, I need to make sure I know why Aaron reached out, other than what I already suspect, money. If there’s more, then I need to know.

I call him, and he picks up immediately. “Well?—”

“Let’s cut to the fucking chase,” I say, taking another swallow. “What is it you want? I’ve done my research, and I’m guessing you’re not trying to build bridges with long-lost family. Actually, I don’t think you’re interested in playing family at all.”

“Of course I am. I just found out I have a brother, one I’m eager to get to know, to spend time with, so I don’t want anything other than a chance to get to know you and your family.”

My mind snaps tight on that last one, and white hot heat scorches me, and I have to clench my fist on my thigh to stop hurling the glass at the wall.

“Cut the bullshit and tell me what it is you want, or this is the very last time you’ll speak to me, and if you try and come near me, I’ll slap a restraining order on you so fast your head will spin. ”

There’s a long silence, and Aaron sighs. “Fine, I need money. A lot of it.”

I start laughing. “And you think I’ll give it to you? A stranger or as good as? We’ve never spoken before. I never knew you existed. So why the fuck do you think I’d give you money?”

“Because we’re family.”

Is this guy insane?

Family’s a lot more than shared DNA. Family often has nothing to do with blood. Look at mine.

“Not going to fly. We’re not family. There’s common DNA, but that’s it, nothing more. So I ask again, why the fuck do you think I’d give you money?”

“Because I can take everything from you.”

“You’re not a Templeton.” A surge of glee rises in me. “So you don’t get a dime.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But not only did your mother put our dear father’s firstborn as sole heir to her fortune and all it entails in life and death, but your name wasn’t mentioned. And guess what? I’m the firstborn.” He laughs.

I close my eyes, temples throbbing. “That isn’t how it works.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve a copy of our father’s will and the one he stole belonging to your mother, to keep her compliant, my mom said. To stop her ripping him off.”

“You are insane,” I say. “Seriously.”

“No, I’m smart, see the thing is I don’t have to win this, but because I have that will, it’s enough to be able to challenge your dear, dead grandfather’s will.

There are shares he thought went to him but your mother put them in my father’s name.

I have them, rather, my mother did. In other names so she could live off the earnings and still get money from her ex. ”

“This isn’t how things work,” I say, the anger back, pulsating inside me. “You’re not a Templeton.”

The courts will hear this, I’ll probably lose in the end, but that’ll be years from now.

I’ll challenge it, put on a sob story, flip the script, say your grandfather knew and murdered my father, and had it staged like he died by suicide.

You know our father had millions that your grandfather invested in Templeton’s? I’m owed that.”

“You won’t get it.”

“I don’t have to. Imagine the case tied up in the court system for years, imagine all the stories I could spin to destroy you, the business, and your family.”

I down the rest of my drink. “I’ll think about it.”

There’s no way this is happening. He’s trying to scare me into giving him money. He has no leg to stand on. Even if what he said were true, I’m my mother’s only child. I’m the heir to the actual fortune. Not him. His father took the money my mother had.

But I need him gone, off my back.

He’s not, however, getting even one fucking cent.

“You have forty-eight hours.”

He hangs up.

I go to throw the glass but stop myself, pouring a drink instead, and I down it. Then another.

He might not have a leg to stand on, but he could take it to court and definitely cause damage to Templeton Properties.

So I need to think through my next move. Depending on how good his lawyers are, it could be tied up for years until it gets thrown out. Civil cases are a fucking bitch.

And I didn’t miss the underlying threat, the real issue.

He mentioned my family a few times, which makes me uneasy. He knows I’m married. I never announced it but it’s easy enough to find.

I close my eyes.

He probably knows what Aria looks like.

I make a note to look into security, to get her a guard, but even as I write it down, I fucking know she’s never going to go for it. And then there are logistics with the hospital.

Aria already feels trapped. A guard might be the last straw.

Is it worth it when I don’t know just how far he might go? I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want her to leave me.

I’m betting this Aaron prick is fucking sure I’m, at my core weak, and worried about image. He thinks, I bet, I’ll cave.

The drink isn’t enough, and I pour one more.

I’ve never dealt with the abuse, why should I?

It happened, it’s done, it’s in the past. But I suffered and moved on, Grandfather never dealt with mom’s death and neither did I.

Like him, I pushed my feelings down, covered them, and pretended they weren’t there even when they bubbled like acid and ate at me.

I had Asher, my saving grace, a good kid, a good man. A friend. A real brother.

This Aaron is no one. He never suffered like I did, never had to hear his mother suffer, had to live with knowing she died to protect him.

And he never had to stare for hours into her dead face and not cry. Not make a fucking sound or even move.

Now they’re pushing out, and I can’t stop the memories. I remember the pee running down my leg, I remember the hunger and nausea, and trying to be quiet and ignore the accusations, the blame my father put on me. The blame for Mom’s death.

A blame that’s followed me in Oscar’s years of coldness, indifference, harshness. I’d rather have been poor and loved than rich and hated.

My vision blurs and?—

A new email pops up, and it’s from Devon. It’s the early hours of the morning, the world’s actually quiet outside, just the occasional car on the road below coming through the open sliding door to the terrace.

I open it.

The file on Aaron.

With shaking fingers I open it. Yeah, he’s a year older than me. I skim family crap as his mother’s greatest crime was fucking a lot of rich men before getting a few to marry her.

But the thing that snaps hold of my attention are the names of the men who Aaron owes money to.

And how much.

It’s a suck punch.

He’s going to be fucking serious. And I have a feeling he’ll go to all kinds of measures to get his hands on my money. I’m betting if I don’t help him out in forty-eight hours, he’ll start the lawsuit and try to use my wife as a fear tactic.

There’s no way in hell I’m letting this prick derail my life or attempt to threaten Aria.

I can’t have an endless court case with some fuck spinning stories, and slanting the truth and ruining my child’s future. Aria’s future.

There’s only one way to stop him, and that’s by sharing Aaron’s location with the men looking for him.

I shut down the computer and head to bed, but first, I go to Aria’s room and ease the pocket doors open.

The door’s open, and it’s a small comfort to know she at least likes the fact here she can have indoor and outdoor space for her and the hound.

They’re both asleep on the bed, Angus wakes as I stand there and sees it’s me, yawns, and drops his head on his paws, closing his eyes. My gaze goes back to her, golden hair spread on her pillow and my heart twists.

I… I care for her. More than I’ve cared for anyone, especially in this way. I could fall for her if I were capable, and regret rolls through me, dark and heavy for my behavior earlier.

I should have been grateful she wanted to help, and I was touched, but how the fuck do I handle that? Because caring and offering help feels a lot like pity.

And instead of making her feel good, I alienated her, pushed her away.

Asher’s words play through my head, an ominous warning.

If I don’t watch myself, I’m going to lose her before I ever really have her.