“She sounds like a gold digger.”
He nodded. “That’s exactly what she is. When she didn’t get what she wanted from me, she went to him. Unfortunately, my brother is too stupid to see it. She’ll own half of his shares, and when they divorce, she’ll be a legal shareholder in the company. She’ll get enormous checks for the rest of her life—and make my life a living hell.”
“I can’t believe your brother is so naïve.”
He shrugged. “Pussy does strange things to men sometimes.”
“Now it all makes sense…” I expected their disagreement to be something small that was blown out of proportion, or maybe a disagreement over money or company choices. I never expected a betrayal of this magnitude. “He’s an asshole. A real asshole.”
“I think so too. Not that this really matters, but…she was the girl I lost my virginity to.”
“Then you’ve known her for a long time.”
“On and off throughout the years.”
“Does Coen know that?”
He nodded. “He knows everything. I used to tell him everything. There were times when we would go out to the bars and women would make passes at me, but I never did anything since Simone was in my life. But during that exact time period, Coen was sleeping with her. It’s memories like that that make me despise him. He didn’t even have the balls to tell me himself.”
“No, he didn’t have the loyalty to say no to begin with.” This story was worse than the first one. Family wasn’t supposed to betray each other like that. Brothers weren’t supposed to be assholes to each other.
“If she and I’d broken up, and then he told me he liked her, I wouldn’t have stood in their way. Like I said, it was never about her. I was never heartbroken over the thing she did. But the way everything unfolded…just made me hate him.”
I didn’t want to encourage that hatred, but I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. What Coen did was wrong, wrong on so many levels. It was unforgivable. And now it might affect their company. “Why is your brother so stupid?”
“I have no idea.”
“So after Simone left, you started doing this…?”
“Yes.” He lifted his gaze and looked me in the eye. “Simone was the only relationship I ever had, but it taught me that relationships aren’t real. People can’t be trusted. She only wanted me for my money, and then my own brother stabbed me in the back without thinking twice about it. I wanted to have my fantasy without risking anything. So…now I pay for sex. It’s easier this way.”
I couldn’t tear him down for his reasoning, but his perspective was heartbreaking—and wrong. “Not all people are like that, Slate. Not all women would betray you. And not all men would be so disloyal. I know those people hurt you—”
“They both turned me into a fool. When the media picked up the story, I looked like some loser who couldn’t keep a woman.” He spoke without emotion, speaking of the past like it didn’t bother him anymore. “This way, there’s no way a woman can get to me at all. If she’s a virgin, I’ll fuck her. But that’s it. I just wish I could get my brother out of the company.”
“Could you buy him out?”
Slate shook his head. “He might be stupid, but he would never be dumb enough to take that deal. The company is too lucrative. If we sold it to a third-party buyer, that would be different. But selling his half to me isn’t the smart move.”
“What if you sold your half to him?”
He sighed. “I’ve thought of that before. But I put in a lot of effort to make that company great. Frankly, I did a lot more work than he ever did. It would suck to give that up when he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Yeah…”
“So now I’m stuck with both of them. When my mother passes away, I’ll never spend another holiday or celebration with him. We’ll just see each other when we have to at work—nothing more.”
“That’s so sad…that a woman destroyed you like this.” If she really cared about either one of them, she wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have gotten in between two brothers and forced them apart. It was selfish and cold.
“I always thought money would come between us…not pussy.”
I rubbed his chest and felt his cock soften underneath me as the arousal disappeared. His story was heartbreaking, enough to make anyone depressed. “I’m sorry. That must be so hard…”
“There are good days and bad days. But I think I hate my brother…” He shook his head. “My mother always told me that hate is too strong for people to feel. It has no place in our vocabulary. It has no place in our hearts. But I do…I hate him.”
I rubbed his chest then his shoulders. “You know, if you hate someone, that’s usually because that person had a piece of you, a piece of your heart. They meant something to you, which is why they were able to hurt you in the first place. So, if you hate someone…that could be because you also love them.”