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It was a list of children with their ages typed beside their names – names she was having a hard time pronouncing. The title of the email caught her attention: THE NEW INTAKES. It was a simple title yet it made the warning hairs at the back of her neck rise. She had once had a segment on her show where she talked about him being a slave driver, working the native kids on his diamond mines in Gabore to death. He never acknowledged her accusation but that was much like everything in his life. Nathaniel Madden was known as a private man – he was probably the most private public figure she knew – one who gave the media a field day but never tried to deny or confirm any of the rumors about him.
She admired him for that but it was one of the things that had frustrated her about him. Who was Nathaniel Madden?
The title of the email nagged at the corner of her mind. Why would he need a list of new children in Gabore? New children for what? She suspected it had something to do with his diamonds. After all, he was one of the biggest dealers of diamonds in the whole country.
But there wasn’t anything to go on in the email besides the name and age of the children, all of whom were within the age range of 9 to 16. With nothing to go on from there, she closed the email and was about to stand when she saw something else that made her heart jump.
No freaking way!
There was a file named Vera. She double-clicked it and it opened to reveal a series of folders with more folders all of which contained contracts, at least 4 of them, videos, and then there was a last one titled Court Proceedings. Her heart was an excited little bitch in her chest. This was her chance to find out what really went wrong with their marriage.
Should she open a folder? Should she not? Oh, how she wanted to!
But then yet another folder caught her eyes. It was the last folder in the group. She would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking carefully. Her heart dropped suddenly, almost faltering. Then it picked up pace again. This time her hands shook with fear as she read the title of the folder.
RACHEL RIVERS.
Why does he have a folder in my name?! This time there was no holding back. She double-clicked on it and almost knocked over the chair in alarm. There were folders, three of them; CONTRACTS, VIDEOS, and MOTIVE.
Rachel’s breath was hot and heavy, an ache began in her head. Motive? What did that mean?
With shaky hands, she dragged the cursor to the folder labeled MOTIVE and double-clicked. There was a voice recording. She tapped on that with the mouse. It opened and she heard Nate’s voice.
“Rachel River’s doom,” he said. She heard the sound of brandy falling over ice rocks and the clinks of the ice in the glass. “I am your doom, Rivers. I promise you.”
She swallowed hard. It was a short audio but in the background, she heard her voice from her show. It was faint but she could repeat verbatim everything she said about him.
There was another audio, this one she recognized as the first time she came to his office.
She frowned. Her mind was running wild, forming thoughts that were too difficult for her to accept. No, there’s no way this is what I think it is, she told herself. Yet her pulse hammered and the blood rushed in her ears as she clicked on the folder named VIDEOS. In the first video, there was a clip from her show. She watched but barely heard herself speak her caustic words against him. The next video was of her entering his office for the first time. It was their first close encounter. The next video was the both of them coming out of Sheldon’s, she walking drunkenly against him, holding his arm and staring into his eyes. The video showed the both of them entering his car. Then it switched to them in his bedroom, her feet spread wide with his head between her legs. She stared at the screen, her throat tight and heavy with bile as she watched herself undulate under his touch. The next video played and it was of them signing the first contract.
Rachel’s blood roared in her ears. The pictures on the screen flashed before her eyes – it was her life flashing before her eyes. The Mainland’s fashion week, the bedroom, Nate spanking her ass, she on her knees deep throating his cock, the ROOM…
It went on and on. She clasped her hand over her mouth unable to scream as the truth dawned on her. It was all a ruse. It was all a ruse. He had planned it all from the beginning. It was all a ruse. He had planned it all and like a fool she had walked right into his trap. Like a rat staring at a block of cheese in a trap, she had walked right into it. Like fish swimming towards the bait hanging from a hook, she walked right into it. Like a…she couldn’t think of all the analogies to depict her foolishness. She had walked right into his trap.
This was not about getting her back on her feet. That had been a lie.
It wasn’t until hot liquid fell on her hand that she realized she was crying. Her tears flowed unchecked from her eyes. She wanted to die, she wanted to scream. She couldn’t.
She was so lost in the depth of despair that she didn’t hear the tires crunching the gravel outside, she didn’t hear the sound of Nate’s footsteps on the stairs but she had just shakily turned off the laptop and was about to lift herself off the chair when the study door opened and he came in. She looked up, the sight of him a blur in her teary eyes.
His eyes took in the scene before him, his expression was as unreadable as ever.
“You bastard!” was all she could mutter. “You fucking bastard!”
She pushed the chair back and rose, her entire body shaking with righteous anger. She trembled so badly that she could barely walk.
“Rachel calm down.”
“Calm down?!” she hated that his calm hated that he could be so cool and collected even after she just discovered that he had been planning to ruin her life. His actions were the final blow to her coffin. “You sick bastard. You planned this all along!”
“Rachel…”
“Don’t you fucking call my name,” her tears dropped even faster, every drop hotter than the last. “You kept the records to punish me. You couldn’t forgive me after one year, Nate.”
“What did you expect me to do?” his voice was still calm
“Be honest with me! I – I,” she was choking on her words. “You recorded every single second, every movement, every sex.” Her voice dropped. She would not embarrass herself further in front of him. “You need help, Nate."
“I was trying to avoid another Vera situation.”
“That’s a lie Nathaniel and you know it. You kept those old clips. You wanted to punish me, that was your plan all along. You wanted to punish me for something that happened over a year ago!” she was shaking as she took a step forward. “For all your talk about trust, you are nothing but a sad, lonely, deceptive bastard.”
She pushed past him, with no direction in her mind, and started to leave. When he made to hold her back she slapped him heatedly across the face.
“Don’t you dare touch me! Don’t you fucking dare! You won, do whatever you want with the videos, sell them to the media! I have nothing else to lose," She spat in his face and wept out of the room in a whirlwind of anger and heartbreak. Nate called her name, but she ignored him. He kept shouting her name but luckily he made no move to follow her, instead he slammed a fist into the wall, breaking the skin on his knuckles. He ignored the pain, his chest constricted so tight that he could not breathe.
How had it all gone to hell?
