The Favor

My brows flew up. “Essentially, you’re saying Dane’s selfish?”

“Among many other things. He wasn’t always like that. But Dane … our father messed up each of us, but Dane worst of all. Oliver’s death only made it worse. Dane turned cold and self-centered. And either his sense of right and wrong is warped, or it has ceased to matter to him if he goes against it.”

Wondering who Oliver was, I made a mental note to ask Dane about him. “He’s ruthless when it comes to business, sure—”

“And when it comes to every other aspect of his life. Dane never does anything for anyone unless there’s something in it for him. He has so many people in his pocket because he swoops in when they need aid and then makes them indebted to him.”

My scalp prickled. When Dane helped with the whole sextortion thing, I hadn’t thought he’d done it specifically to ensure I owed him a favor. But was it in him to be that cunning? Yes. Yes, it was.

“If he sees something he wants, he takes it, even if others will be hurt,” Travis added. “Take Jen, for example.”

I felt my brow furrow. “Kent’s wife?”

“She’s been part of our lives since we were kids. Kent’s always adored her. Dane knew that, but he fucked her anyway. It was years ago, before she got married. He fucked her a few times, actually. And then he walked away. He never intended to keep her. She meant nothing to him. And yet, he didn’t keep his distance and let her be only Kent’s. He didn’t care what that would do to Kent. Dane wanted a piece of her, so he took it.”

My stomach twisted as I recalled what Dane had said to me at the gala …

“Vienna, I’m a man who gets what he wants. Always. No exceptions. I never stop or back down until I have it.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

“Because Jen looked at him the same way you do,” replied Travis. “You know better than anyone that he’s a huge user when it comes to women. Maybe it’s different for him this time; maybe you truly do mean something to him. But you’ll never be everything to him—no woman will be. He sees himself as the king of his castle, and others are just lowly people to be used. He doesn’t view them as his equals.”

Dane did use people, and he did seem to consider himself superior to most. But I didn’t believe he looked on others as pawns in a game or something.

I folded my arms. “And you think I should break up with him?”

“I think you should just be wary. I didn’t warn Jen, and I wish I had. Just like I wish I’d warned Senator Whitman’s daughter. Like Jen, we’d known her for years—our uncle was friends with her father. Lorraine was a mess after she miscarried Dane’s baby.”

“Miscarried?” I echoed, my chest tightening.

“Yes. When she told him she was pregnant, he said the baby wasn’t his; he wouldn’t take responsibility for it. She was devastated. Then she miscarried and … I’ve never seen a woman so cut up.” Sorrow glimmered in Travis’s eyes. “She was only nineteen, Vienna. Can you imagine going through that at nineteen? At any age? Can you imagine going to the father of your kid, afraid and pregnant, only to have him send you on your way?”

I wasn’t sure if the temperature had dropped or if it was simply me, but I felt cold all of a sudden.

Travis let out a weary sigh. “If I’d warned her that he wasn’t the good man she thought he was, maybe she’d have turned him down, and then maybe she’d never have had to lose a baby. But I didn’t warn her. That was a mistake. And so I’m warning you. Do what you will with that warning.”

The following afternoon, I sat across from Dane in the seating area of his office while we had our weekly half-hour meeting to review his calendar and broach any issues. I still hadn’t told him about Travis’s visit the previous evening. I’d decided to take the night to think everything over and work through it in my head; to dissect his story and try to separate fact from fiction.

There was no way that he’d care if Dane hurt me. But there was just enough truth in his story to make the whole thing sound utterly believable. I was far too suspicious of Travis and his intentions to buy his account as pure truth, though. He’d had an ulterior motive in coming to “warn” me about Dane; he wanted me to break up with his brother.

Of course, I could be wrong in thinking that Travis had tossed the occasional lie into his tale. Just because he had an ulterior motive didn’t mean he was lying. But I didn’t trust him even a little, so I didn’t trust his word.