Collateral Damage (Teaser Chapters)

Chapter 3

Muse almost choked on air, and her father’s mug hit the top of the old battered coffee table hard enough for some of the liquid to slop over the rim. Normally, Muse would have gotten up to get a paper towel to wipe up the mess immediately, but she was rendered incapable of movement at the moment.

“What?” her father choked out, as if he hadn’t heard the man properly.

“Just what I said, sir,” Clay told him, his eyes unblinking. “You get to keep this home, my architects would work around the new proposed perimeters, and I get your daughter.”

“When you say ‘get’ my daughter, what precisely do you mean?”

Muse silently thanked her father for asking.

“She would live with me, and eventually we would marry.” Clay spelled it out for him.

“I…I cannot promise my daughter’s hand in marriage just to keep my home, sir,” Bryant spluttered out, his eyes shifting between Muse and the man with the ridiculous proposal. “I… It wouldn’t be right of me to do that.”

Muse took short, uneven breaths, her mind flooded with thoughts that seemed to jumble together until there were no coherent words to be found amongst them.

“Okay,” Muse heard herself say. “I’ll do it.”

Bryant looked over at his daughter and blinked rapidly several times. “Muse? A-are you sure?” he asked her. He couldn’t have heard her correctly. She was willing to live with a man she had just met and eventually marry him? Possibly forever? And just so her father could keep his house, ramshackle as it was.

“Y-yes,” she stuttered out, and suddenly realized she was telling the truth. She loved her father enough to do this for him, though he probably didn’t deserve it.

Hell, he didn’t. Of that she was certain.

Still. He had raised her and made sure she was fed and clothed, and that was enough for her. She didn’t know anything more of so-called fatherly love.

“Excellent.” Clay’s face widened in a roguish grin as he clapped his hands together. “I will send my personal assistant, Jim, over tomorrow with the paperwork and give you the weekend to pack. I trust that will be enough time to get your things in order? I could have Jim or my housekeeper come and pack your stuff if you need the help.”

She smiled wanly at the man whom she almost hated and yet would have to someday share a bed with. “I-it’s fine. I can get it done in time. I don’t have much besides clothing and some knick-knacks.”

“That’s alright then. Would 10 AM tomorrow work for you on the paperwork?” Clay asked Bryant as he stood to shake the man’s hand. Bryant scrambled to his feet slowly, and sealed the deal as he shook the hand offered to him.

“I’m going to go and finish the dishes,” Muse murmured, and walked quickly into the kitchen. She needed space. Space to figure out why she had blurted out what she had so readily. There seemed to be some disconnect between her brain and mouth that evening.

She could hear the two men chatting lowly in the other room as she numbly washed the dishes, humming to herself as she often did when she wasn’t paying attention. She was about to put away the last dish when she felt a presence behind her and turned around.

Drew.

“What are you doing?” he asked her, his eyes inscrutably dark.

“Putting away the dishes,” she told him, as if he couldn’t already see plainly what she was doing. She moved to the cupboard and closed the cabinet after setting the last dish down.

“No, I mean with that Bennett character,” he explained. “You’ve been hating on him and his company this whole time, and now you’re practically engaged to the man.”

She just shrugged and shouldered her way past her brother. “Dad will get to keep his house, so I agreed to the deal,” she told him. “No more scrimping and saving to pay the mortgage. No more wearing the same old clothing from your senior year of high school. I get to finally give something back to him. Besides, Clay will probably get tired of me and let me go at some point. He doesn’t even know me. I might irritate him enough that he’ll toss me aside.”

“Men like him don’t give up on what they want.” Drew’s low voice was firm. “He’d break you down if he’s of a mind to. He’s worked hard for the money he’s spending on buying this house from the bank, and he won’t let you go without one hell of a fight. He…he’s just that type of man.”

“How would you know what kind of a man he is?” Muse asked him, her eyes narrowing on her brother.

“While I was getting ready for dinner, I googled the fucker,” Drew bit out. “I wanted to know everything I could before dinner so I could...could understand him. Do you know he once bought out swampland to build an entire fenced-in community? Everyone told him he was crazy, but he did it anyway just to spite them. Sucked out all the water and had it filled in with dirt to keep it from filling back up. He made a rash decision and turned it into a moneymaker. The man doesn’t know the meaning of surrender.”

Muse shrugged her shoulders again at her brother, uneasy. “And if I have to, I’ll bear his company,” she said. “Maybe I can go back to college and finish my degree. Stop working for nickels and dimes at a twenty-four-hour diner that pays me a pittance and customers who average 10% tips no matter how hard I bust my balls for them.”

Drew closed his eyes and shook his head at his sister. “I hope you know what you’re doing, little sis,” he stated before staring a bit at her and walking slowly out the door.

God, she hoped she knew what she was doing, too.

***

After bidding the man farewell at the door of her home, Muse hurried to her room so no one could speak with her. She got changed and placed the dress she’d worn in the hamper before taking out the old, weathered suitcases her grandparents had gotten her years ago when they had moved to Miami after retirement. It had come with a ticket to visit them, and she had used the luggage set very rarely since that one trip.

She placed most of her clothing in the luggage, along with shoes and her underthings. She would only need to have a few sets of clothing out for the next few days, so everything else could go into the cases until her things were sent for. However Clay decided to do that. She was almost done packing when a knock came from her closed door.

“Come in,” she called out as she folded some of the last of her items into the suitcase. Most of the clothing was so threadbare that her whole ensemble easily fit into the luggage. It was her shoes that took up most of the room since they were so much bulkier.

Much to her surprise, her father came into her room. It was something she couldn’t remember him ever doing unless she was in deep s**t with him, and that hadn’t happened in quite some time.

“I gave Mr. Bennett your cell phone number. His assistant will be here around 10 AM to sign the papers. You’ll have to sign them as well. Bennett insisted.”

Muse’s shoulders were getting a workout today. She shrugged them again and simply said, “okay.”

Bryant lingered in his daughter’s doorway, unable to say much else. What she had done for him…well, it was laudable, and yet he was surprised that she had done more for him with this one gesture than he had for her in all of her 21 years.

“Thank you,” he spoke when he finally found it in himself to open his mouth. “Doing what you did—it means a lot to me. I can’t imagine how this would make your mother feel, but I wanted to let you know I am grateful to you.”

Muse sighed. Her father was grateful. He didn’t say he loved her or that he was even proud of her. He was grateful. If saying yes to Clay hadn’t also been her way of freeing herself from her father’s domineering nature and mere presence, she would have told him to get stuffed and call up CBC to tell them the deal was off.

“You’re welcome,” she replied softly. He hadn’t said thank you, but the words he did say were close enough.

She didn’t say anything more, and her father eventually wandered away to his room, probably to thank God he was going to be rid of his least favorite child, and then watch more home videos of himself with his only love.

Hours later when she was curled up in her bed with a book, she received a text message.

Clay. Or at least she assumed it to be. No one else spoke to her in such a stilted tone, and her father didn’t use text messaging to communicate.

I will have a driver pick you up on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 PM. Be ready.

No hi. No introduction. He expected her to instinctively know who was texting, and she narrowed her eyes at the words on her cracked cell phone’s screen.

Okay, she texted back her brief response.

If he was to be cold with her, she’d throw it right back in his face.

And with that thought, she put the book she was reading away and snuggled under her covers to try and get some sleep.

***

Clay opened the door to his home, documents in hand. Jim looked up from his own work to study his friend.

“Did it not go well?” he asked, interpreting the scowl on Clay’s face incorrectly.

He didn’t answer his friend in so many words. “I need you to rewrite some of the contract,” Clay instructed. “Also, you will go to the man’s house at 10 AM sharp to have it signed by Mr. Anderson and his daughter, Muse.”

Jim’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “And why must the daughter sign as well? Is she on the mortgage papers now, too?”

“The plans have changed, Jim.” Clay took off his jacket and placed it on an old-fashioned coat rack before loosening his tie. “He is to keep his house while I get the daughter.”

If you had tried to come up with a word to describe Jim’s face in that moment, it would have been a nearly impossible task. Surprise wasn’t sufficient, nor was total shock. It was beyond that.

“What? You...” Jim always had words, but they didn’t come readily now. It actually amused Clay a bit. He hadn’t ever seen his friend and assistant fumble with the English language before.

“She will come to live with me starting this Sunday, and after a time we will wed,” Clay’s cold voice explained.

“Man, if this is about your parents wanting you to get hitched already, I’m sure—” Jim started. Clay interrupted, rudely as always.

“Just...just fix the contract and have me sign it before you go to their house. The address is on the top, and add a co-signer under the area for a Miss Muse Anderson. Have the daughter sign below the father’s signature,” he added as he started toward the stairs to his room. “Have it ready for me at 9:30 AM at the very latest.”

Jim’s eyes followed Clay’s form as the man stalked to his bedroom. He felt bad for this Muse woman. She was in for one rough ride with Clay’s cold ass.

***

After a warm shower, Clay got into his pajamas and sat reading the blueprints for the soon-to-be-constructed mega-mall. He had texted the head architect a little over an hour ago, and they were set to meet the next day at noon in downtown Tampa. If the man gave him any flack on the new dimensions, he would simply fire him and get Makenna to do the work. She was just as good, though busy with another project at this time.

Clay fired off another text, this one to Muse. Her father had had to look up her phone number in his cell phone in order to remember it. f*****g prick. Didn’t even care enough about his daughter to fight for her to stay or know her phone number by heart. When he had kids someday, he wouldn’t be as distant to them as Bryant Anderson was to his.

He imagined what his children might look like. Hopefully, a bit like the both of them, but preferably the girl (or girls) would take after their mother. Thoughtful yet sometimes feisty with the same hazel eyes and soft chestnut-colored hair.

He received another text, this one from Muse. Okay, was all it read and he had to smile. She was being compliant now, but he was sure it was an act on her part.

Clay went to bed with a smile on his face, finding himself looking forward to this upcoming Sunday.