Chapter 2

"Don't tell me my brother got to you again and offered you more money. At this point, I don't even think that's possible."

"You know, as rich assholes come, your brother is the kinder," I bit.

I know I hadn't given him the best impression, but did I really appear that shallow?

"Then take his offer. But you won't be seeing a dime of his money."

"Because you won't be fucking me?"

"Bingo."

I scoffed and sat down on his desk, crossing my legs. I was only wearing my bikini, which was about as flimsy as they came since I had been prepared to seduce when I got here, but now it only served the purpose of revealing everything to a man who paid his blackboard full of chalk more attention.

"Do you really think I'm that awful?" I asked.

I might as well know upfront, even if I felt as if I knew the answer already.

"I will let the evidence speak for itself," He replied, not even bothering enough to put inflection into his voice.

He was deep within his math problem and I watched him glance down at the papers in his hand before writing some more on the board.

"So just because I took your brother's offer, I'm an unredeemable bitch?" I rebuked.

"I think you have some very nice qualities to someone who's interested in them," He turned and shot me a brief glare as he picked something else up from his desk, the one I was sitting on.

"It just so happens that none of those people are in this room, Ms. Berry."

I was offended.

Actually offended.

I came here as the conceiving bitch, sure, but the second the jig was up, I hadn't bothered to try and pretend like I was something else than what I was; a broke girl, in need of some money.

He could judge me for the way I tried to get it, but he couldn't judge me for trying to improve my life.

"You're an actual prick," I declared, getting up from the desk when he leafed through some of his papers without regarding me with a single glance.

"All that brain, but nothing to show for it. Fine, I'm a bitch, but at least I stand by it instead of pretending that I'm not a ceremonious asshole who thinks winning over his brother by outsmarting him equals being the better one."

I turned and left for the door, but I saw him lift his head and shoot a look after me.

"Sorry for disturbing the peace."

I slammed the door on the way out, because I was angry, and even though I shouldn't be allowed to be, I was.

I knew I was the villain here. Or at least that's how he saw me, and for that I couldn't blame him. I came here to trick him into having his baby, and anyone would've been mad if they discovered that their life had just been rigged up by their own brother.

But he saw through it, didn't he?

He somehow found out, and the minute he told me, I stopped being that person. But not to him. I would probably always be the bitch who tried to ruin his life, and that was his prerogative to feel that way.

I angrily marched up to my room, knowing full and well my anger was misplaced. But was it, though?

Any person with an IQ would've asked what my motive had been for taking that offer. Even someone as resentful as Harry should've asked himself the question of why a person would agree to such a thing.

I was a bitch for saying yes, but he couldn't call me that before he had assessed my own reasons. Didn't I even deserve the benefit of the doubt?

Going into my room, I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. I was still mad, but I was in no mood to deal with it. Sleeping it off was my only option.

Exhaling a calming breath, I curled up and pushed the books on my bed away to get more space to stretch out on. It was too hot for sheets, but I still pulled them over my exposed body.

Fuck him, I thought.

Fuck Harry Xavier Devon and his narrow mind.

The next morning, like all mornings, I slept in and got served breakfast in bed by one of the sweet servants working there. A selection of jams for my fluffy pancakes, as well as butter, syrup and sugar was nicely plated on a silver tray with feet and got settled over my lap as I was reading.

I smiled to Giselle, as her name was, the French kitchen maid who had been working for Harry for three years, she had told.

Still in my night shirt and lace panties, I was halfway through my breakfast and morning coffee when there was a knock on the door. I yelled come in, thinking it was one of the other maids arriving with fresh towels.

But it wasn't. As the door opened, I nearly choked on my coffee when I saw none other than Harry himself enter my room.

He regarded me with a look, deeming my appearing appropriate enough, before coming further in and crossing his arms. Today he wore a plain white button up shirt with brown slacks and winged tips.

"I'll be leaving the house this morning," He told, watching me sit more straight up and putting my breakfast tray to the side.

"I'm meeting up with someone and won't be back until this afternoon."

"Okay," I simply replied.

What else was I supposed to say?

He turned to leave, seemingly only coming in here to inform me of that, but just as I turned to pick up my book again, he paused by the door.

"I'm not a forgiving man, Ms. Berry," He suddenly. said.

I lifted my eyes and looked at him with a raised brow. "I answer to logic, and forgiveness is not logical when the situation is unforgivable."

He moved to open the door, but just then, I sat up.

"If a man shoots a dog, is he a horrible person?"

He paused in the door again and I saw him slowly turn his head towards me.

"That's not a sensible question."

"Answer it anyway; is he a bad person?"

"The variables within the question are too unspecific." He told, turning his head back towards the door.

"One would need more information about the dog, the guy and the situation to determine whether or not the act of shooting it is deemed bad within the sense of logic."

"Exactly," I said.

He opened the door, but once again halted at my words. I saw his eyebrows twitch, and turning his eyes towards me, he looked at me for another short moment.

I stared right back, unwavering.

His eyes then clipped away, and with nothing more, he walked out the door and closed it behind him. I fell back into my bed, but pursed my lips as I heard his retreating footsteps outside.

''Exactly," I repeated silently, before picking up my book again and continued to read.

He was gone all day, as promised, and didn't return until the late afternoon.

I was just coming up from the downstairs pool, wrapping a towel around myself, when he walked inside and spotted me coming up from the basement in my skimpy bikini.

Stopping in his tracks briefly, he glanced at me as I halted as well, still slightly dripping from the water.

He looked me up and down with a short look, then turned his eyes away again and started walking down the hall.

"Have you ever heard of proper dress wear, Ms. Berry?"

"No," I feigned to his amusement, glancing after him.

"What's proper dress wear?"

He wisely didn't comment, but merely continued onwards towards his office, holding two thick briefcases. But I could've sworn I saw his lips twitch.

Smirking to myself, I then walked towards the kitchen after he was gone, where I found the staff preparing dinner.

Clam bisque and homemade garlic bread for starters and a seared tuna steak for the main course.

"Smells good in here," I said and walked towards the chef, Jean.

He greeted me with a smile as I came up to his pot that was simmering on the stove.

"Can I have a taste?"

"It needs to cook for another two hours, but you can tell me if the creaminess is there," He offered and found a clean spoon from one of the drawers.

I grinned and then watched with impatience as he poured a little on and let me blow on it before tasting it.

This was what money could buy you; fresh scallops and clams that tasted so fresh, you hardly tasted the saltwater at all.

"God, that's amazing. I'm going to need the recipe for that."

Jean chuckled and I then moved on from the kitchen, quickly asking the maids to bring me a clean towel to shower off the pool water before dinner. I then ventured up into my room and took myself a long, hot shower.

I was a neat freak when it came to cleaning my body, meaning all hair below the neck had to go, and all hair above it had to be rinsed and soaped twice. I had long brown hair that went down to the middle of my back, and thanks to some great exotic ancestor I never knew, it had some thickness to it and a tiny bit of texture.

My skin was the color of cream, but had a soft warm glow to it, thanks to the weeks spent lying under the sun. I looked sun-kissed and healthy, like I had just come home from a vacation in the Bahamas.

Coming out of the shower, I toweled my hair dry and moisturized my face and body before dressing in some comfortable cotton shorts and a loose t-shirt. I didn't bother with a bra until dinner and therefore curled up in my bed with my book again. I found my worksheet and continued working on what would hopefully get me to where I needed to be.

I had always hated studying, but mostly because it had always come down to numbers in the end. And I wasn't good with numbers.

Having recently graduated high school, I knew all about exam pressure and how studying for weeks could mean nothing if panic hit you the second you stepped into that room.

My grade point average hadn't been too bad, but it could've been better and it needed to get better if I wanted to get into a good college with a fair tuition.

My plan before all of this had been to take a few summer courses in the subjects I had needed improvement in, but then, the day before the applications were due, that was when Harry's older brother had approached me.

I came from a broke family. Broke, as in in every sense of the word. I was an only child. I never knew much of my dad.

He left my mom when I was 5, and I only saw him two more times after that whenever he bothered to come and visit his daughter. My mom had been diagnosed with borderline and a touch of schizophrenia, which meant I from a very early age had to learn she couldn't always be relied upon.

I had been working on my own since I was 13, all the way up through high school where I fought to get good enough grades to apply to a decent college.

I wanted to get into med school, but that had only been a far away, expensive dream, until Richard Devon approached me at the coffee shop.

If anyone else had been in my shoes, what do you think they would've done?

I was at a point in my life where money was running low, college fees were too high, and chances of getting into an esteemed college that didn't have the word community in front of it were low.

I couldn't afford extra tutoring, and I had barely been able to afford the summer courses I had been set to apply to.

Then a stranger with a handful of money shows up, with just the term of getting pregnant with a guy.

I knew women out there who did it without any money offer at all, so the question had really been, how desperate was I?

I was 18 and I was young and I was healthy. I didn't want a child yet, but Richard VonDuck had promised the child the highest education and the finest care. In

truth I would just be a surrogate mom, and then the child would be off to a better place than where I currently was.

It had seemed like a straight forward answer, even if it was unethical and meant sacrificing a few principles, but hell, with the way things were going in the world, it was almost impossible to move up without doing just that, unless you were extremely talented in some way.

I wasn't. I had my face, my tits and my ass, and, despite evidence, an okay sense of logic inside my head, and that was all I needed in this case. Richard Devon promised me gold if I could deliver a healthy baby.

So, the money I took and I accepted the Devon Scholarship. Sitting in my bed, now reading the material I needed to cram up on before enrolling to a university of my choice, I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

It was almost ironic, wasn't it?

The one person who could possibly help me was sitting downstairs in his study and was loathing my guts. I think I had embarrassed myself enough to go down and ask his pretentious ass for help, and that's why I was currently staring into my book, reading the same paragraph over and over again, making less and less sense for every time.

"Karma is what they call it," I muttered to myself with a dry chuckle.

Fucking karma, but even karma couldn't break my stubbornness. I was going to manage on my own, just like I had done since I was a kid.

I was a survivor, and not Harry, Richard or any polynomials were going to change that fact.