Nick: Justice Series
by Kathi S. Barton
Chapter 1
“I swear to you if you say that to me one more time, not only am I going to break your face, but I might just put you someplace deep and dark and forget about you.” Joel Delaney stretched his neck and felt it pop several times before he looked at the man in front of him. “Now. We’re going to try this again. Where the fuck is Addison West? And if you say one word about her being lost to me, I swear to Christ, I will kill you.”
“Last time anybody ever saw her was when she went to the dress shop and then the bank. There she cleaned out her account. And that was five years ago, or thereabouts. There wasn’t much in there, but she was in there for a while. I had me a look and so far as I can tell, she made one phone call to her grandmother. Then she just seemed to be gone. Nobody’s heard from her since. If she did any more, nobody is saying.” Joel knew about her account. Her parents had set her up a checking account when Addison turned sixteen. It had been their way of saying to the world that they trusted their daughter with money. But so far as her father and he knew, there had never been any more than about a grand in the account at any given time. “I tried to get in to see Mrs. Simon-English, but she’s not having it. Stubborn old broad if you ask me.”
Joel knew the stubborn old broad too. Evangeline Simon-English was the most annoying, pain in the ass woman he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. But he treated her like the queen that she thought she was to try to keep on her good side. She was frighteningly rich, and he wanted her to at least respect him enough to have a party in his name. He supposed with as much money as she had, she could be whatever she wanted. Evie to her close friends, she was the grande dame of all the world. But he’d had to call her Mrs. Simon-English since he met her, and made the mistake of calling her Evie when it was announced that he was going to marry Addison. That hadn’t gone over any better than him trying to kiss her hand. She’d slapped him right on the face for touching her.
“You will have respect for me, Joel Delaney. I’m not one of those women that you are frequently chasing around your desk.” He started to deny it, but she held up her hand and told him not to even try. “I know a great deal about you and your family. And I don’t like you one bit. If my granddaughter loves you, which I doubt, then I will have to tolerate you. But she doesn’t, so that will be the extent of our relationship. None whatsoever. You are not welcome in my homes, nor—and I daresay it will never come to this—will you be welcome into my family.”
“She doesn’t have to love me, Mrs. Simon-English, but she will obey me.” The old bitch, the fucking bat as he called her when referring to her, just huffed at him. “My influence and money will be enough to keep her in the style that she’s grown up with, but I will not tolerate you interfering in our lives once the wedding has taken place. And she won’t be coming to you for anything. I’ll cut that off as well.”
“You can dream a big dream, can’t you?” She moved away from him, but not before turning to stare at him. “You’d do well to remember who I am, Mr. Delaney. While you may have some money, I have a great deal more. And I’m not afraid to use it to get anything and everything I want.”
That had been nearly five years ago. The next day his fiancée was gone and no one had seen her since. Her parents, about as useless as some of the shits that worked for him, had no idea where their daughter had gone. And as far as he could see, they didn’t care either. Once she’d left, they’d cut her off without a dime and had written her out of their lives as if she’d never been there. But he had a feeling that the fucking old bat not only knew where she was, but was funding her as well. No way could Addison be without money. She was a rich woman and would want money all the time.
Joel knew next to nothing about Addison. Not that he cared, other than for what she brought to his home in the form of money. Other than he wanted her as his wife, and her money. He knew that she’d been twenty-one when she’d left him, and that she was beautiful beyond measure.
Not that he really needed her money, but the point was there was never enough of it. He had made good investments, owned a business that made money, and he had a lovely house that she’d be taking care of. He had plenty of money of his own, yes that was true. But having more, like her parents did, was something that he wanted and would have. And having the prestige of having the name West attached to his was going to open doors like he’d never realized before.