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  REVENGE

  A DARK BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

  BY E.M. COURIER

  PROLOGUE

  Alexander Novak II was named after his father. They adopted him when he was two weeks old. Nameless and new to life. His other siblings were taken in at a much older age.

  When his mother found out she could never carry children of her own, she cried for a week straight. Her dream to have a big family was dead and the heir to his father’s fortune now nonexistent. Alexander’s father threw himself into his business while his mother struggled to find purpose.

  Alexander was the first to win his mother’s heart. The oldest and his father’s new heir and namesake. He was five years old when four and a half year old Olive was adopted into their family. She was wide-eyed and scared, but Alexander loved her. Liam became his first brother and the two of them were inseparable. Then came Kai who was different from them all with dark hair and double-lidded eyes, but he fit in their family well. Olive was ecstatic the day the youngest of them all, Ellie, came home. A new sister for them to cherish. Not long after that, the last of them, Atticus, came. He was ten by the time they adopted him. He was the most troubled of them all.

  Alexander loved his big family. He loved his siblings and his parents. They gave him anything he ever wanted, including sending him to a prestigious college, and securing him a spot at Novak. Novak was founded by Alexander’s great great grandfather. A successful newspaper company that has outsold other newspapers such as The New York Times, making them the most popular newspaper, and mass media coverage outlet, in the United States.

  Alexander had a bright future ahead of him, everything was fitting into place, straight A’s, early college scholarships, captain of his baseball team, girls falling all over him. He was happy, he had it all—including a job at his family company waiting for him after college.

  Then Ellie died.

  Ellie died and Alexander lost his mind. Unable to cope with the grief of his losing his baby sister, his social life started to slack, then his grades went down, he stopped showing up to sports practice until he stopped trying all together. His family was able to move on but Alexander couldn’t. His heart broken and his mind unable to process the reason for why Ellie had to die so young.

  After contemplating giving up all together, he found a new purpose to keep him going. A new obsession to get back his scholarships, work hard to earn his own money to hire a private investigator. Because there was only one thing on his mind; finding the man responsible for the hit and run car accident that killed his sister. From that day on Alexander was fueled by one thing and one thing only...

  Revenge.

  ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  Scarlett rushes to find her pantyhose in her messy two bedroom, one bathroom apartment in one of New York City’s not-so-finest apartment complexes.

  Her roommate Josephine, who everyone calls Jo, is the disorganized of the two. Usually Scarlett is punctual and neat and is normally very anal about where things go. Jo had set off a bomb in her room this morning looking for something to wear on a date. Scarlett let her look while she was in the shower.

  Big mistake.

  Now she can’t find her pantyhose on the first day of her new job which she desperately needs. Her urge to clean is not ignored as her concentration shifts to the mess and she re-organizes everything while looking for the missing hosiery.

  She finds them halfway through cleaning, but she can’t stop. She doesn’t stop until her room is spotless and exactly the way it was before Jo detonated.

  Her watch tells her she is an hour and a half late. The city traffic tells her she’ll be close to two and a half hours late. She slaps her palm against her forehead cursing herself. This job is one step closer to her dream job as a journalist. She’s just a secretary for Novak but if she could make friends and make herself known to the bosses, maybe they’ll see her potential and let her write for the paper.

  She takes the subway to get everywhere, it wasn’t the best option with her distracted mind as she nearly missed her stop. Rushing down the tunnel and walking up the stairs, the sun above blinds her. The Novak building is just a few blocks away as she follows the crowd across the street. As she approaches the Novak building she is intimidated by its height, her neck strains trying to look at the top.

  The lobby is elegant and filled with men in expensive suits and women in designer dresses. Rushing to the elevator the people inside give her a frantic look closing it just inches before she can get on. Sighing, she wants to cry. She’s lost this job, she just knows it.

  And now she has no way to get home.

  The elevator opens and she presses the 75th floor with her elbow. Her legs shake anxious wishing the elevator would go faster. Becoming hyper aware of her watch ticking and her lateness growing with every passing second, she begins to panic.

  If she loses this job she’ll have to move back with her father and that is the last thing she wants.

  The elevator doors open and sitting at the desk that is supposed to be hers right outside Mr. Alexander Novak’s office is no one. No one to take his calls or order his lunch or make his appointments or even remind him for his meetings. No one.

  Taking a deep breath she knocks on his office door.

  “Come in,” the deep voice calls back.

  She creaks the door open, her legs shaking, her heart beating and her teeth chewing the skin at her lip until it’s bleeding.

  “Hello, uhm,” she shuts the door behind her. “I’m Scarlett, your new assistant.”

  The beautiful man sitting behind his large oak desk scratches the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “Are you? You see I had an assistant about two hours ago. She never showed up, so I no longer have one.”

  Her heart drops to her stomach. “Please, Mr. Novak, I’m terribly sorry. Traffic was horrible—”

  He holds up his hand, stopping her. “Let me guess, you’re new to New York?”

  She nods her head.

  “Obviously,” he guffaws. “Everyone here knows to leave much earlier to be on time.”

  “I did,” she pleads. “There was an incident with my roommate.”

  “What was the incident?” He crosses his arms.

  “What?” She wasn’t expecting that.

  Alexander gets up from his chair and walks around his desk to stand in front of her. He is well over a foot taller than her five foot four. “I want to know what incident made you two and a half hours late on your first day.”

  “S-she,” how can she explain what really happened? The truth to the incident is a ridiculous one. He would never forgive her tardiness because her pantyhose were missing and she had to clean her entire room. “She was throwing up. Vomit everywhere. She must have had too much to drink. Alcohol poison probably. I had to take her to the hospital and traffic from there to here was unbelievable.”

  “I have a meeting I have to get to in...” he checks the Rolex watch on his wrist that costs more than her entire apartment and everything in it combined, “...five minutes. When I come back, my office better be organized and your desk better have a calendar full of dates of when and where my project are, reminders for my meetings, due dates, flight and hotel details for conferences booked. I want it all on your desk. I want you to prove to me in the hour I’ll be gone that you can handle this job.”

  Her smile grows. “I can!” Enthusiasm and determination fill her tone.

  “Good,” his tense shoulders slump. “I feel people deserve a second chance, Scarlett,” her heart skips a beat at the sound of her name. “But I do not believe in a third.”

  Her boss exits through the elevator leaving her to stand like an idiot.

  She can do this, she reminds herself.

  Walking into his office her eyes widen upon looking a
t the mess of manilla colored folders and papers everywhere. There is no way she can get this done in an hour, but she has to try. Organizing is one of her favorite things to do, maybe it is possible. Organizing is what keeps her mind at bay, cleaning helps her buzzing and empty mind stay occupied.

  When Scarlett was seven years old she was in a car accident that left her with permanent amnesia. Since then, her mind has always felt hollow searching for seven years of memories lost forever. She knows some stories of her childhood, but only what her father told. She left him at age eighteen to come to New York City. They moved every few months, he claims it was for his job, but the older Scarlett got, the more she realized he would quit a temporary job, pack up but little they had, and left for a new state. She lived in forty-one different states, some of them they returned to, but never the same town.

  Her father begged her not to go, said the city would be too much for her. It is true, lots of stimuli overwhelms her mind. She easily get distracted and her concentration is the same as a goldfish, sometimes it is hard for her to recognize objects or even faces and often times she has severe mental confusion. There are two things that make all those symptoms go away; writing and cleaning. Her focus is sharp and she feels at her prime when doing either of them. The consequence of having her cleaning tick can best be described from the events that happened this morning. When there is a mess, she hyper focuses on it unable to do anything else—like making it to work on time—until the mess is cleaned and her mind can resume focusing on her next task.

  Scarlett was always homeschooled due to their nomadic lifestyle. Hating it more than anything, when she was finished she applied for colleges in New York getting accepted to SUNY New Paltz where she decided to major in English. Her first semester there she met Jo, the two of them bonded and four years later they moved to New York City together. Jo was smart and go a job quickly after college and took to the night scene in the city, Scarlett was still living off of minimum wage, hoping to find a better job to help pay half the rent for their expensive, shitty apartment. It was a miracle when looking through the mail there was a flyer saying Novak was hiring a secretary for twenty dollars an hour to start. She couldn’t believe it when they called her back to tell her she got the job just one day after she had an interview with them.

  A knock on the door startles her. A man with blond hair and green eyes—similar to Alexander’s—is standing in the doorway staring at her. “I see you got off on the wrong foot with my brother,” he smiles extending his hand to her. “I’m Liam.”

  Liam Novak the third Novak child. The Novak family is one of the most talked about families in the media, the press, magazines, and social networking. Their entire lives are public.

  “Scarlett,” she shakes his hand. Her mind wanders to the mess she didn’t finish. “His new secretary.”

  “Well hopefully you’re better than the last one.”

  “What happened?” She asks curiously.

  “Don’t know,” her shrugs, “I just know her fired her on the spot and the next day he was looking at applications and now four days later here you are.”

  “Is he always so hot-tempered,” she mumbles and then realizes how stupid she is for saying that against her own boss to his own brother.

  He laughs. “Yep. Don’t worry, try and get on his good side. Butter him up—give him lots of compliments.”

  He must be joking judging by the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

  “Don’t look so tense,” he sighs. “I’m messing with you. I know Alex is intense but I’m not. Someone has to have a sense of humor in the family and it seems to be me. I’m just a floor below if you need anything—or if Alex fires you, I might give you a job as my own secretary,” he gives her a kind look. “See you later, Scarlett. Good luck with my brother.”

  She waves goodbye to the beautiful man and quickly resumes putting papers in folders, alphabetizing, organizing piles into contracts, needs to be signed, and mail.

  Nearly finished, Alexander walks in. She opens her mouth to plead her case, there’s no way he’d give her another chance after failing to complete her first task.

  “I’m impressed,” he says in a not-so-impressed tone. His voice is gruff when he speaks and sends shivers down Scarlett’s spine. “I see your desk isn’t organized…”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just your desk was cluttered and papers were everywhere and—”

  He raises his hand stopping her rambling. “It’s fine. Go to you desk and leave me alone. I have work to do.”

  Her first day she didn’t see much of Alexander. He shut his door and worked silently as people walked in and out of his office. She organized her own desk, making all the phone calls she needed for the day as well as sending and emailing documents that needed to go out today. She is exhausted by the end of her shift, but for once she feels like her mind is clear. She felt focused on every task and not at all scrambled or forgetful like usual.

  As the windows turned dark with the night sky and people began to pack up their briefcases and head home, Scarlett stayed organizing.

  The elevator opens and out pours Liam along with two other men and a woman. She knew them right away. Kai, Atticus, and Olive Novak. Suddenly her palms start to sweat. Liam winks at her before knocking on Alexander’s door.

  “What?” She can hear him call to them.

  Liam opens the door and they pile inside. The door is left open and Scarlett can hear—eavesdropping.

  “Mom prepared dinner. She wanted us to grab you and drag you home. Says you work too late and too much and we all agree.”

  “I have work to do and then I’m going back to my place,” Alexander sounds distracted, probably doing paperwork.

  “You know Mom wants just one day where we can all be together,” Olive says sadly.

  “Not today. I’m busy,” he dismisses them.

  They don’t argue and Scarlett feels as though they don’t argue back because they know there’s no point. As if they constantly beg him to do things with them and he constantly turns them down or stands them up.

  Of course she’s just speculating.

  When the Novak siblings leave Scarlett knocks on his open door. “You’re still here?” He briefly looks up from his paperwork.

  “Yeah, I just wanted to tell you I’m leaving,” she fidgets with her fingers.

  “Good night, Miss. Halloway.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  She turns on her heel to leave when she hears. “Don’t be late tomorrow.”

  “I won’t, sir,” she smiles before shutting his door, grabbing herself and leaving the Novak building feeling satisfied and excited for tomorrow work.

  Scarlett hates the subway but not as much as she hates cars. The subway is too crowded. Too noisy. The thought of all the hands who have touches the bars, seat in the seats…all the germs. She always carries antibacterial wipes on her and after a thorough wipe down on the seat, there is only ten minutes until her stop. One time she was so busy cleaning, she missed her stopped.

  Jo is waiting for her on their couch eating a bag of chips when she gets home. Her sleek black dress tells her that they are going out tonight. She would pass but Jo has a hard time taking no for an answer and after her long first day of work, she could use a drink. Jo has always been the more extraverted of the two, she loves to party, drink, talk, flirt, and take strangers to bed. Ever since she found this one club not too far from their apartment, her partying days have been becoming more and more frequent. That means Scarlett has been getting less sleep and has been cleaning to apartment more and more with her roommates late night snacking in-between fucks. Not to mention picking up her lacy underwear or the occasional pair of boxers.

  “Go put on your navy sparkly dress,” Jo says with a mouthful of chips. “The one that matches your eyes. It looks the best on you. Tonight we are getting you a man.”

  “I don’t need a man,” Scarlett sighs.

  Here they go again.

  Ever since Scarlett told
Jo their freshman year of college that she was a virgin she has been hounding her to lose it. Quite frankly, Scarlett never found any reason to want to lose it. There have never been any special boys in her life. No boyfriends ever. In college the only thing Jo helped Scarlett lose was her first kiss. A peck on the lips from a friend at a party who walked them back to their dorm. His name was Tom. She has butterflies just thinking about it.

  She wants romance not just pleasure.

  Her virginity never felt like a burden to her. It only felt like a burden when people bugged her to lose it or made her feel like a freak for never having taken a boy to bed. She always thought of sex as an intimate act. Her naked body meant to be seen by a man who will love, cherish her, and make her feel comfortable. How can she do that with a stranger? Maybe if she had a boyfriend, but there isn’t one and there never has been. That always hurt her when she was younger. In high school and college all her friends had partners, she always had to see them holding hands, kiss, and smile at their incoming text messages. She always wondered what that would feel like.

  To be in love.

  She craves it. Craves to be in the arms of someone who will whisper sweet nothings in her ear and make her feel special. Someone to be there when she needs someone to wipe away her tears or listen to her dreams and fears.

  She’ll go out, but there won’t be a man to bring back.

  A gin and tonic sounds really good right now.

  Putting on her navy dress that she hasn’t worn in nearly a month she realizes it is a little snug. She admits, hitting the gym hasn’t been her biggest priority lately. And comfort foods have been a soothing friend. The mirror shows off everything she hates about herself including her less than perfect figure, round face, thin hair, and the sparse spots of acne thanks to stress. Even though she is a size two, her body lacks curves in the right spot. Her body lanky, ass flat and breasts smaller than the desired D cup. Her light blue eyes have always been her best feature. Using mascara she makes her already long lashes even longer. She brushes back her wavy and slightly frizzy brown hair trying to make it look decently nice. She fixes the bangs cut below her eyebrows. Looking in the mirror at the final result she is less than happy, but doesn’t dwell long enough for her to really reflect on her appearance.