Highest Bidder

“Freya, I know who I am, and I will not apologize for it. Yes, I took control of your mother’s assets because I wanted you, but if I didn’t sense any interest from you whatsoever I wouldn’t have. Your reasons for holding back were based on your groundless and misinformed perceptions of me. I was fucking crazy about you, and hearsay was not going to stop me. And yes, I had quite a lot to do with the destruction of your father’s company. He stole a product from a kid and then got rid of him. That kid’s name is Bernardo Barros. He had only an elder sister whom he was fully dependent on. They lost their parents two years earlier. He had to drop out from university while his sister had to constantly hold down two jobs. In order to change their lives, he developed the VR program which is like nothing that exists in the world and your father wanted to steal it from him. I was a competitor at first. I was in contact with him too and suddenly, I couldn’t reach him anymore. He disappeared and after I found out what your father had done, I directed my attacks on his company. Yes, I wanted to destroy him, just as he had so mercilessly done to someone else. I’m only sorry that he took his life, and it in turn affected you and your mother so terribly.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I felt like I was being hit with too much information so instead, I recorded it all and gave up on trying to process it in the moment. “What about Liam?” I asked. “He died today… and you told him that he would. Does that mean … you had a hand in it?”

Something shifted in his gaze as he watched me. “Liam poisoned my mother, Freya,” he said. “Slowly and ruthlessly. He blamed her for my father’s maltreatment of his mom, and deemed himself fully entitled to everything that came with being the Duke of Leighton’s heir. And so he got rid of her, without thought, and would have done the same to me if I had been gullible enough. So tell me,” he said and leaned in, his fingers linked together as he rested his elbows on the table. “If I did in fact have a hand in his death, what would be your verdict of my actions in this case?”

“You might not have been able to forgive him, but ... this was too far.”

“According to whose standards? Yours? I watched my mother die. She was perfectly healthy before they came along, and then she began to develop sudden lesions on her skin. She was constantly in pain, constantly vomiting, and for the weeks leading up to her death, she became bedridden and died a slow and painful death. We couldn’t find any proof, until one day one of the housekeepers disappeared and she left me a note explaining all that Liam had instructed her to do over the course of a year. I watched him closely thereafter and that was how he was found out. My mercy to Liam was that I left his mother out of it.”

“Well, he’s gone now,” I said. “Does that console you?”

“It does. My only lament is that he is gone. He can no longer feel any pain.”

I didn’t have a word to say, so I just watched him, my heart bleeding for the boy that he was. The image of him the day he had almost killed Liam in their home came to mind and more than before I could understand the pain, I had seen in his hollow eyes, and the fury in his trembling hands. Right now, he was a grown man, fully confident but bearing wounds that only a few knew about and even fewer could understand. My heart hurt with the need to soothe it all away, but I knew that it could never happen. The wounds ran too deep, and had so molded him into whom he had become.

With a crumbling heart, I lowered my head and spoke with my heart, “What I want, Brent, is you.” The moment the words fell from my lips, I dropped my head at the complete vulnerability. “These words are not enough,” my voice broke. “I want you, your wounds, your arrogance, your passion, everything that you are. Is that an impossible request?”

“No. It isn’t.”

I raised my head and stared at him, my heart beating so fast I could hear it in my temples.

“Freya, I want to try for us and our baby.” His voice sounded strangled and torn out of him. “I just can’t let you go.” He raised his head.

My heart almost stopped at the sight of his reddened eyes.

“Deep down I always wanted you. I always remember the fire in your eyes all those years ago. I tried to pretend to myself, but it was always there. No woman was right because she was not you. I want to give you everything, Freya. All of my heart. I want to be everything that you’ll ever need, but I’m not confident enough. My father loved my mother, Freya, but in the end, he completely destroyed her. I never want to do that to you.”

His eyes were swimming with tears, but he refused to blink. He just stared at me right in the eye as he had always done. My chest filled with pain for him. He seemed so strong and aloof on the outside, but he had deep feeling.

Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I just can’t let you go, Freya. Life would be torture without you, so I’m going to do everything in my power to be a better man than my father was. But I don’t completely trust myself … I might hurt you. And the thought scares the shit out of me.”

I reached up and wiped the tears from his cheeks. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think a time would come when he would cry for me.

“Will you teach me? Please teach me how to be who you need me to be, Freya. Otherwise, I don’t have a chance.”

Slanting my head, I kissed him, softly, breathlessly, wholly.

His eyes remained shut as he savored my taste.