Masquerade (Swept Away #2.5)(14)

The moment Bianca London stepped into the meeting all eyes were on her. As I turned to look at her, I felt my stomach unfold in anticipation. I had to mask my surprise as I gazed at her. She looked completely different from her everyday appearance, made-up and perfectly styled. I smiled as I looked over her figure. She wasn’t wearing baggy clothes today. In fact, her expensive-looking suit accentuated her shape nicely. Looking at her face, I saw that her lips were a bright red, beckoning to be kissed. I wondered if her lipstick would leave traces of red on my cock if she were to go down on me. I shook my head in bemusement as I walked toward the bar. I wasn’t sure why I always had sexual thoughts about her. My ultimate goal was anything but sexual.

I grabbed a glass of wine from one of the waiter’s trays and sipped. It tasted cheap, and for a second I wondered if it was the wine from the Bradley vineyards. Another bad investment on David’s behalf, but one I was going to bail him out of. I was in the middle of taking over a national grocery chain and I knew it would increase my margins if I could add a cheap wine to every store.

Like a hawk I watched Bianca walking across the room and looking around. She was most probably trying to find Mattias. I took another sip and turned around as she looked in my direction. I didn’t want her to recognize me: not that I thought that she would, anyway. She seemed so focused on Mattias that I doubted she’d given me a second glance. After a few seconds I looked around the room to see what she was doing. She was talking to some fat guy whom I vaguely recognized. I hid a smile as I stared at her slightly perturbed face and he moved closer to her.

She was still uncomfortable in this setting, then. I was debating going over to rescue her when I saw her moving away quickly and fixing her hair. I was glad that she had walked away; I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking by going over to her. If she’d recognized me or seen my face, there was no way that I could be a part of the kidnapping as well. I turned to see whom she was staring at so intently. It was David. My stomach churned as he made his way through the room, his familiar charming smile plastered on his face. To everyone else, he looked like a carefree playboy, but I knew the calculated man he was beneath. I watched in slow motion as Bianca spilled her wine onto his shirt and then as they left the room. So the plan had worked. Bianca and David were now in contact. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that everything was moving forward. I still felt hesitant about agreeing to the kidnapping plan with Larry and David, but I knew that this was the best opportunity I had to play every side. It was pretty sad that Bianca had no idea that she was being played. I was confident that Bianca would think that it was her plan that had been successful. Only she didn’t know that her plan had also been ours. I sighed, feeling strangely unhappy as I made my way into the meeting and took a seat at the front of the room. I was reluctantly sitting in for David as planned during his absence so that I could note down everything that occurred. He was dumb enough to think that I was sitting in the meeting for him; however, my reasons were much more nefarious. David thought that I only cared about what was going on with Bianca, but my plans were much bigger. My plans involved eventually taking the reins of Bradley, Inc. and showing him just who was the boss.

I stood there for a few minutes, wondering where David was going to take Bianca, and frowned to myself. I should have been happy that everything was going according to plan even better than I’d hoped. I might even be given the opportunity to speak to the shareholders before I took over. Little did David know that my greater plan was to usurp him and that I couldn’t care less what he said or did with Bianca. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself of.

*

“Jealousy is one of the worst emotions you can have, Jakob,” my mother had scolded me once after I’d broken a neighbor’s toy. “Why did you break it?”

“He wouldn’t let me play with it, Mother,” I’d cried out in despair. “You said that I should share my toys.”

“But it wasn’t yours to share, Jakob.”

“Daniel should have shared it with me.”

“He didn’t have to, though.”

“But I wanted it!” I cried. “It’s not fair, he has toy robots and I have none.”

“That didn’t give you the right to break it, though, did it?” she asked me softly.

“No,” I finally conceded. “But I wanted to play with it as well, Mother.”

“I know, son, but just because he said no didn’t mean you had to break it. You shouldn’t let your emotions affect your actions.”

“I know.” I looked at her with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

“I know you are, Jakob. Just try to remember to never let jealousy guide you into doing something you shouldn’t.” She kissed my head and looked away with a sad expression. “I once let jealousy guide me and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

“What did you do, Mother?”

“I once said something to someone out of jealousy, hoping to cause harm, and it all backfired on me. I lost everything in that instant.” A tear fell from her eye and she wiped it away quickly. “I pray every night that I could take it back.”

“What was it, Mother? What did you say?” I looked up into her face, my heart breaking, seeing her so upset. “Did it have to do with Father?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It had to do with Father and a family called the Londons. You don’t know them, but . . .” Her voice trailed off.