The Man He Is
1267 Words
CASIMIR
“You’re joking, right?” Adrian chuckled as he gulped down what was left of his drink and slammed the glass back down on the counter.
I wish I was, but I wasn’t and the silence that followed was my answer.
“The woman from Elysium… is Camille’s sister?” The amusement drained from his voice and his eyes widened in shock.
As my oldest friend and business partner, he was the only one who knew the full, ugly truth of my life.
“What the fu—“ he choked out, “what are the odds? Does Camille know about this?”
“Do I look suicidal?” I hissed, running a hand through my hair in frustration, “I never should have touched her, I have no idea what came over me.”
But it didn’t matter how many times I told myself that, deep down, I didn’t regret doing that. I would f**k her all over again if I got the chance to.
No woman had ever made me feel that way before.
That blood rush, that desire to have her pinned against my wall all over again, knowing anyone could have barged in and seen us.
Adrian shrugged, sliding off his barstool and stumbled closer to me. He grabbed my shoulder for support to remain standing,
“What are you going to do now? You should just sign the divorce papers and let her take the kid. It’s cleaner that way, besides, she’s the mother and children are better off with their mothers.”
Cleaner? That word struck a nerve.
A muscle ticked violently in my jaw as I clenched down on it so hard, my teeth began to ache. I shoved his arm off angrily,
“No. I’ll rather die than let Camille take her away from me.”
“Casimir,” his voice dropped, as he tried to sound convincing, “think about this, the child isn’t even yours. That’s an opportunity, a logical exit to move past this divorce easily and quickly.” He slurred and I bit down hard on my tongue to stop myself from saying the words that rushed to my lips.
Bella was my daughter!
I didn’t care what the DNA test results had to say about that but she was mine. She was the only part of my marriage to Camille that ever felt real.
“I’ll burn this city to the ground before I let Camille use Bella as a pawn in her games. That girl is the only good thing to come out of the last six years of my life.”
It’s been six years since I married her, six years of constantly enduring a marriage that was nothing more than a beautifully decorated lie.
Six years of being married to a woman that did nothing but lie to my face the entire time. She let me build my entire world around a child she knew wasn’t mine.
A sharp pain shot across my chest at the mere thought of it.
Adrian ran a hand over his face as he sighed deeply,
“And the sister? Gwendolyn? What are you going to do about her?” He asked.
“Nothing.” I lied through my teeth.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Adrian that I had been crazy enough to dig into what had happened years ago so I could get something to blackmail an innocent woman with.
How do I tell him I needed Gwen to win against Camille?
He would think I was crazy and maybe I was…
A few minutes later, I helped him into the back seat of the ride I had booked for him before making my way back to my car.
“… 7pm. My hotel lounge.”
I re-read Gwen’s text over and over again, imagining what it would sound like to hear her say those words. I had texted back asking what hotel and she had snapped back at me, claiming if I had found a video from years ago then I could figure out what hotel she was in.
A small grin twisted the side of my lips as I stepped on the gas, unsure why the idea of seeing her again made my blood rush with excitement.
She was Camille’s sister… I should know better than to take interest in any woman with the surname, “Beckett” not after what Camille had done to me.
Shortly after I pulled up in front of the hotel, I walked into the lounge and my breath caught in my throat when I caught sight of her sitting on one of the chairs, with her hair wrapped up in a ponytail.
She looked nothing like the woman in the pictures online.
Watching her now in that comfortable oversized shirt she had on, the bloodthirsty divorce attorney the blogs constantly posted about, shared no resemblance with her.
As if she had sensed my presence, she glanced up and our eyes locked.
There was something about those beautiful piercing green eyes of hers that just sucked me in instantly.
“Well… are you going to just stand there or will you take a seat?” She snapped, her voice harsher than I remembered.
I walked closer and took a seat directly in front of her.
“So, what made you change your mind?” I asked because I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to know.
I didn’t expect her to accept so easily.
“Before we talk about anything else,” she began, cutting me off, “the day Camille asked me to come back, she told me she has ‘dirty things’ to bury you with, in court. Things that would ensure she walks away with everything. What is she talking about, Casimir?”
My entire body stiffened, partly because of what she had just said and the other reason was due to the way my name had rolled off her tongue with such ease.
“It doesn’t matter what she knows. I have everything under control.” I responded.
It was no surprise that Camille was already making her moves.
“If I’m going to be your counsel, I can’t defend you against things I don’t know. I need to know what she’s talking about if we’re to win. Is it about Elysium? Is there… more to it?”
I smirked, admiring how she was trying to remain professional even though it was as clear as day that she would rather be anywhere else than be here with me.
She hated me but that wasn’t new, everyone hated Casimir Thorne so why did the idea of her hating me, infuriate me?
“Elysium is a private club. Its membership agreements are ironclad. What happens there, stays there.”
“Don’t treat me like a fool,” she spat, her clipped voice cracking to reveal just how much I was beginning to get on her nerves, “I know my sister, she wouldn’t sound so confident if she wasn’t sure about what she knows. It’s more than the club, isn’t it? What did you do?”
I held her gaze, my eyes digging into hers, hoping to find something, anything at all but I found nothing.
A dangerous part of me was tempted to tell her. To see if she could handle the truth of what I was.
But there was no need to open up those can of worms, not when I was certain I had buried it deep enough to stop anyone from ever finding them.
Not even Camille.
- Writer
