Redemption (The Bet) (7 page)

Ellie glanced down at the ring encircling her finger and her grip on the phone tightened.

"Hello," Dina answered after four rings.

"Hi Mom!" Ellie greeted a little too cheerfully.

"Good morning, Honey, how are you? How are the kids?"

"I'm fine...the kids are fine..." Oh very nice Elli
e, way to avoid sounding suspicious. She rolled her eyes and settled back against the headboard.

"
Is everything alright, dear, you don’t sound yourself.”

"Everything’s great, in fact I think it’s about to get better
." Ellie bit her bottom lip trying not to fidget.

"Well out with it, Ellie.
"

"Dev
came over last night and…and he proposed. Mom, I’m getting married!" She announced then frowned seconds later when she heard something shatter. "Mom, are you okay?"

"It's just a glass," was Dina’s nonchalant reply
. "Married? Devlin proposed?"

"Yeah, last night he…" Ellie stopped when she caught sight of Sophie and her crestfallen expression.

"Oh Mom, you can’t marry him! You just can’t!” she took off then, tears in her eyes.

"Sophie!" but she was gone even before Ellie opened her mouth to scream. "Mom, I'll call you back later." She hurried her moth
er off the phone and hurried after Sophie.

Mergers and Acquisitions was all his life consisted of these days. He saw the inside of his bombardier jet far more than the interior of his Penthouses. Home was in the air, presidential suites, or the often purchased condos he would use if business provided him to do so.
Lovers he had by the dozen and like the adult version of a Pez dispenser they always came when he beckoned. Enemies were perfectly disguised friendships lying in wait for him to slip up and reveal his Achilles heel. So he didn’t do friends and those he considered as much were kept on his payroll to maintain his happiness.

It was an arduous task
pleasing a man who had everything in the world and still demanded more. The problem with wanting more was that eventually one could gorge himself to an early death if not cautious. Nicholas Grayson could use some lessons in exercising caution.

But then again his life had never been anything if not calamitous, so why start playing it safe now? It wasn
’t as though he had much to lose. It wasn’t as though life would cease to exist if his very existence was snuffed out from the world. People would go on living, never knowing the afflictions that had plagued Nicholas the man or the regrets that were never too far from his conscience.

The guilt, the agony, the
utter weight of his loneliness took a portion of his soul as the days passed, leaving him emptier than the day before. He owned the world but had no one to share it with. He had no one to mourn his departure if he ever passed away. There would no one to whisper endearments in his last moments of life. No one would be by his side except the vultures that would circle the skies in anticipation of his death ready to tear apart the empire he’d worked so hard to amass. They would peck at it and his fortune until there was nothing left but a legacy of bad memories and dried bones.

Morbid, yes, but Nicholas always took these moments, when the city died down to a droning, tolerable hum to contemplate the train wreck his life had become. Here, seemingly above the world, standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows of his skyscraper, he looked down to the city at his feet. This expanse was only a portion of what Tokyo had to offer, with it gleaming lights, bustling streets full of citizens and tourists from all walks of life. Here, Nicolas allowed himself to become lost in morbidly sentimental memories
that were otherwise locked out of his daily routines.

The hardened man
that was Charles’s heir was taken off the clock and locked in the closet until dawn breached the sky and he was let out to wreak havoc once more on the unsuspecting fools who dared to underestimate him. But between the hours of midnight and five forty-five, when insomnia permitted him to do nothing else but sit and stare at the four walls that cornered him Nicholas allowed the idealist in him reign to mourn lost love, wallow in self-pity and regret and wonder, futilely, whether second chances were only for protagonists in movies.

It had been there. He
’d tasted it, became irrevocably addicted to it. Better than the finest wine, greater than any exotic food that had ever touched his tongue and far more satisfying than sex. Happiness…love….it had been in his grasp. For a moment in time it had taken hostage of his heart and forced it in a vise. It had bled from him laughter, smiles and unmitigated happiness. He’d belonged to someone, for that ephemeral moment in time Nicholas had been loved by someone.

Years ago, Nicholas
had understood the reason why crooners sang of love songs. The lyrics of besotted fools had finally made sense to his enamored eighteen year old soul. And he’d rejoiced in it. He’d rejoiced in the gift of smiles. He’d savored the marrow deep yearning of submitting to her. Nicholas had worshiped the profound connection he’d shared with her. They’d been one unit, a singular entity, where she began he’d ended and together they’d moved as one. In those last hours of happiness, when he’d been so hell-bent of shattering them both, he’d loved her with desperation.

Nicholas had experience
d love, beautiful, untainted love that had driven him into delirium. But love, sweet, sweet, love had been a double edged sword he’d used to impale himself on. The scar remained now, with the wound festering just beneath.

Fear had stopped him from running after Ellie all those years ago and still to this day its chokehold persisted, preventing him from running to where his
entire being longed to be. Nicholas had left to protect her from himself, yes, but along the years cowardice had taken root inside his marrow. The world hailed him a business king, astute, ruthless and fearless. But in truth, Nicholas Grayson was a craven man who hid behind the mask of the underhanded, cynical tycoon because it was easier to face than reality.

It was easier to believe that he was being missed, that love still awaited him a safe return home, that ten years of life hadn
’t been spent wanting something that he was finding out was not exactly what he needed or even wanted anymore.

To get over lost love,
he had thrown himself, headfirst into the world that he had been born to rule. Excelling top of his class at Princeton had been a breeze. Becoming CEO of his father’s company had taken little to no effort. His first hostile takeover and acquiring a multi-million dollar account had happened on the same day.

Days before his twenty-fifth birthday, the joyous news had come that Charles had been repeatedly raped and murdered in his cell. Nicholas had been in Rome when he
’d heard the news from his mother. As fitting of an heir who’d essentially committed patricide, Nicholas had celebrated in kind, with a small, very private party of four. Three leggy lingerie models, himself and the world’s finest liquor. His twenty sixth, twenty seventh and twenty eight birthday, Nicholas acquired his first billion through less than scrupulous means---it’d been a bittersweet victory.

He had dea
lings with unscrupulous men who did not exactly fear him, but respected him because of the extent of his power. But ultimately, respect, money and power did not equate the wealth of a man. The love and appreciation of family was what made someone wealthy. What Nicholas had were meager substitutes. Possessions acquired to make the world believe he had everything, but really, he was bankrupt of anything resembling love or happiness.

It was a sad and pitiful existence he lived. One that
he’d fabricated and molded with his two hands. Each year that had passed had been of his making. Refusing to run back, refusing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe if he had shared his fears, if he had spoken about the deterioration of his mind and allowed Ellie to help him, maybe life wouldn’t have taken these turns and become what it was today.

And maybe Nicholas would
’ve found solace in the welcoming arms of the only woman who’d ever showed him the true meaning of happiness. But those were the fanciful musings of a condemned man. Absolution would never be granted to him. The chasm between him and Ellie was far too wide, far too deep. The hope for redemption had become bleak and unreachable.

These few moments, where he
could stand sober, head clear of anything but memories and dreams, Nicholas imagined himself the forgotten lover of a hazel-eyed beauty who put to shame every imitated whore Nicholas had ever slept with in the past ten years. If he closed his eyes and gave into the game of ‘
what ifs’
 he could imagine himself husband to a happily content Ellie and father to her children and Sophie. Sophie, a small smile tugged at his lips. Ellie’s daughter still held a special place in the hollowed ruins of Nicholas’s heart even after so many years.

Nicholas imagined lazy Sundays where he would chase his children around their home, laughing and playing childish games that would be the highlight of his days. They would be rambunctious, guileful children who would be shameless in taking advantage of the
love their Dad had for them. They would be filled with life, eager and ready to learn all the things that their Dad could teach them--- show them.

They would be excited over family dinners, chattering on and on about the things that made their world go round. They would plead for he and Ellie to read them bedtime stories when it came time for bed and finally they would whisper to them
‘I love you Mommy and I love you too, daddy’ before lulling off to dreamland. Afterwards Nicholas imagined himself sweeping his wife off her feet, going into their room and playing extremely grown up games of their own, where only the whispered sighs, stifled moans and the tempestuous rhythm of lovers could be heard orchestrated against the walls of their bedroom.

Life would be, in all sense of the word, perfect
. No pain, no tears, no regrets, just him, Ellie and their children, living their version of a fairy tale. He wanted that. There wasn’t a day in the past ten years that Nicholas hadn’t yearned for that life and always he told himself that he was ready to go get it, ready to ask for forgiveness…ready to love and be loved in turn.

But fear was a powerful opponent, one that continuously left Nicholas feeling weak and stupid for even daring to contemplate the idea of a life with Ellie again. So he remained stagnant, his days falling into mundane routines that had him playing the role of cynical mogul, while his nights were plagued with regrets and remors
e. Only when it became too much, only when he was unable to remain afloat within the waves that threatened to take him under did Nicholas seek out the pleasures of whores who were paid to look like the lover he had abandoned. Masochistic yes, but then, everyone was allowed a vice, this was one of many for him.

Thoughts having taken him awa
y from the window and onto the Aubergine colored leather couch the interior decorator had said was the ‘in’ color of the moment, Nicholas allowed his head to flop backwards as he limply held onto the short scotch glass containing the amber liquid of choice. He could bring the glass to his lips and began the steady process of inundating his misery to the furthest corners of his mind. He could tip the glass back and allow the slow burn of single malt whiskey to eradicate his memories into a drunken haze of numbness. He could get very drunk, very, very fast and have an Ellie look-a-like on her knees in less time than he could utter out her name in agonized plea.

But he won
’t. No matter how tempted Nicholas was, he would no longer imprison himself with alcohol and sex. The emotions he was feeling needed to be felt. It was real, it was raw and it was entirely his own fault. So if the ache in his chest did not abate when thoughts of what could’ve been bombarded him, Nicholas allowed himself to feel every bit of it. If tears pricked at his closed eyelids, and snaked from between his lashes and slithered their way down his cheeks, Nicholas was determined to let them fall.

Pride had no place here. Only the agony of a man who had loved and lost and was coming to grips with the debilitating fact that he was a scared and lonely man who had amassed nothing in life but meaningless crap that was to keep him company until the day he died. He would leave this world as loveless as he had entered it. Emulating his father to the very end.

‘God! Insomnia could be such a bitch!’ Nicholas thought morosely as he stood from the comforts of the couch and made his way to the contemporary styled kitchen he rarely used. He poured the contents of the glass down the drain and did so with an almost liberating smile. Crying, he realized, could have that effect on people.

The rapid ascension of dawn towards the darkened skies prompted Nicholas to search out his shower. Demons temporarily exorcised to the back of his mind, he was given momentary reprieve to be the bastard once more. This was his last day in Tokyo
. Loose ends had to be set in order before he left for the states. Of course he would return next month for his meeting with executives of Sato international, where he would also have to give audience to some up and coming tycoon who was much too eager to strike up a merger with Grayson Corp.

His PA was working on amassing a background portfolio on the man. Everyone who dealt with the CEO of Grayso
n Corporation underwent close scrutiny. Nicholas made it a necessity to have the upper hand in all business transactions and if that meant digging up family history then he had no qualms in doing so. Underhanded tactics was what made the business world go round.