Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance) Read online

  YES, MR. VAN DER WELLS

  A Novel

  by

  S. Ann Cole

  LICENSE NOTES

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2016 by S. Ann Cole

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: S. Ann Cole

  Formatting: S. Ann Cole

  Editor: Cherie Macenka

  Proofreaders: Kay Karolyshyn, Robin H., Cherie Macenka

  Without limiting the rights under copyright(s) reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Making or distributing copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For permission requests, contact the publisher via email: [email protected].

  Visit my website at www.AnnCole.net

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  I Fell

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Noah

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Noah

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Hit Me Up Anytime!

  Social Media

  DEDICATION

  For all survivors of abusive relationships.

  Be it physical, verbal, or emotional abuse, abuse is abuse.

  You woke up one day, looked at yourself in the mirror, and thought, I’m too fly for this ish!

  For that reason, I dedicate this book to you.

  Congratulations on your freedom and newfound confidence! You are nothing short of awesome, so you deserve nothing less than a 10-star kind of love.

  Take the time to fall in love with yourself, find your identity, and let nothing define you.

  Tilt your face to the sky, smile back at the sun, wink back at the stars, and do you!

  I FELL

  I fell in love

  With a man.

  It was love

  And a triangle

  A love triangle.

  His love

  My love

  His fists.

  I fell in love

  With a man.

  Asked for his heart

  He gave me

  All the wrong parts.

  A bruise

  A crack

  A stitch.

  I fell in love

  With a man

  And found myself

  Three new friends

  To play with.

  Fear

  Fright

  Folly.

  I fell in love

  With a man.

  I fell out of love

  With a man.

  I fell in love

  With Freedom.

  Her arms

  protects

  Fear

  she rejects.

  I fell in love

  With Freedom.

  And found myself

  Three best friends

  To play with.

  Wisdom.

  Courage.

  Strength.

  I fell in love

  With Freedom.

  I stayed in love,

  With Freedom.

  Never will I

  Fall in love

  With a man.

  PROLOGUE

  Three Years Ago

  MY WIFE IS A WHORE.

  For every second I stood staring at that goddamn screen, I could feel my heart pounding faster, and ever faster. Sweat made my palms itch, my necktie like a noose, strangling, stealing every breath, wheeze by wheeze.

  “Do you want to make a move, sir?”

  A question was directed at me. I should answer. Shouldn’t I? When a question is directed at you, you’re expected to answer. Simple mechanics. Nothing complicated.

  Why, then, did I find it so damn hard to curl my tongue and form as little as a syllable? Why was my brain no longer doing its job? My only functioning anatomy are my eyes. Glued to the twenty-two inch monitor in my private investigator’s office; a screen, divulging to me the pixelated version of my perfidious wife and my equally disloyal twenty-year-old valet.

  An underprivileged emo kid I picked off the streets a couple years back, put him through school, gave him a roof, food, clothing, a job, and a future. This was how the ingrate chose to repay me. By screwing my wife. Five days a week, according to my private investigator. Apparently, my wife went home at noon each day, and they’d go at it like animals, before she skipped out for work again.

  Bitch.

  “Mr. Van Der Wells?”

  This shouldn’t have shocked me. After all, she had to be getting it elsewhere if she wasn’t getting it from me, right? Not because I wasn’t giving her the attention she deserved, because I did, I gave her the world; she just didn’t want it.

  I’d say it’s because she wasn’t attracted to me anymore, but it was time I started being honest with myself: She never was attracted to me to begin with. Understandable. Because—again with the whole being honest with myself—I wasn’t attractive.

  No, I didn’t have goddamn self-esteem issues. If I did, I wouldn’t have waited until my wife stepped out on me to start admitting my hideousness.

  My wife and I grew up as friends. Close friends. Two privileged kids from two insanely wealthy families on the Upper East Side of New York.

  Recession was blowing the hats off even affluent ones’ heads. To weather it out, our families sought to align. Thus, in a hoary and clichéd fashion, we were pressured into marriage, fresh out of college.

  However, “pressured” referred more to her, my wife. Not a lot of convincing was done on my part to get me on board. Here’s why: I had a crush on her since high school. While she crushed on older, college jocks. Me? I was just her chubby childhood friend that she ignored and shoved in the background the older she grew.

  Get it now? Yeah, imagine my elation at being “coerced” into exchanging rings with my all-time crush.

  Booyah! Score! Fist pump! My life is life made, I’d thought.

  L-U-C-K-Y. The happiest man alive after we got married, because, it didn’t ma
tter how rich I was, I knew I would never, in my life, score a knockout like Sienna Sullivan. One of the hottest, sexiest, wealthiest piece of ass in New York.

  What, you think that’s a turn-off? Lite confidence and zero percent arrogance does nothing for you? Apologies. But, see, in life, most of us choose to live in denial. Like the 300-lb women you see sashaying on the beach in two-piece bikinis, heads held high, thinking, “I’m thick, sexy and proud. Ain’t no skinny bitch gonna make me feel bad about my curves.”

  …And then there are those who are realistic. The ones who wear waist-trainers under their one-piece and volunteer to let their kids bury them under the sand.

  I’m realistic. I knew if I ever got a woman who looked like Sienna Sullivan to voluntarily spread her legs in my bed, she would either be: a) a hooker I handpicked and paid a hefty price for, or b) a gold-digger or social climber more interested in my net-worth than my cherub-like cheeks.

  So, yeah, I thought getting Sienna’s hand in marriage was nothing short of a miracle.

  My name? Nate. Nate Van Der Wells. Sounds hot, doesn’t it? I can imagine chicks, hearing the name Nate Van Der Wells, mentally sketching a profile that fits that name: Between twenty-seven to twenty-nine. Millionaire, at least. Suave, clean-cut, dashing debonair. Lean, cut, abs for days. Total chick-magnet. Master of his universe.

  Well…some of the above are true. I am twenty-eight. I am the master of my universe, because I am—not a millionaire, but a billionaire. What I wasn’t was suave or dashing. What I wasn’t was lean, or cut, with zero abs. What I wasn’t was a chick-magnet.

  Here goes: I weighed 290 pounds. And I’m not talking pounds of muscle mass. I’m talking fat. Flabby, jerky fat.

  In all my twenty-eight years, I’ve only ever slept with two chicks. A stripper I overpaid to murder my virginity in college, and my wife. Yes, I know, pathetic.

  I hated exercising. I loved eating. Despite Sienna’s suggestions that I shed some pounds, all I did was lie about going to the gym. Having a bombshell like Sienna Sullivan as my wife, I became complacent. Yanked the wool over my eyes. Disregarding the fact that she wasn’t happy with our union to begin with. Selfish bastard that I was.

  Maybe if I wasn’t a workaholic I would’ve paid more attention to the fact that we hadn’t had sex in almost six months. I traveled a lot, she socialized a lot, and each time we got some time together, she either had a headache or was on the rag.

  Seriously, shouldn’t I have seen this coming?

  Now, I know what you’re thinking right now: “Uh, this is not what I signed up for. I like my billionaires ripped, with tattooed brawns and an infamous, well-experienced dick; reticent, but bossy. My lady boner just shriveled up and retreated.”

  I’m sorry. Sorry you’ve been spoiled by that Grey dude with the whip and the nipple clamps and the helicopter lifestyle. Not only can I not fly a helicopter, I also don’t own one, and I don’t think my fat arm can rise high enough to crack a whip. But I can assure you that my pathetic story gets better. So stick with me. Don’t abandon me just yet.

  “Mr—Mr. Van Der Wells?”

  Something was happening. Not exactly sure what, but the panicked urgency in my P.I.’s tone told me something serious was going down.

  I could no longer see him. I could no longer see the monitor. I could see nothing at all. Nothing but blackness. In my chest, my heart constricted, as though it was being squeezed tight in a fist. Stopped pumping. Stopped beating. Just like my brain, it shut down completely.

  I clawed at my chest, trying to dig inside and revive my inactive heart. Before long, my hands fell lax, and I could no longer feel them, nor my feet. Next, I was falling. Falling. An icy chill flowing through my veins.

  And then there was nothing.

  I had a heart-attack.

  Don’t despair, I didn’t die. Obviously.

  Sienna Sullivan quite literally broke my heart. Alright, alright, I’m being dramatic. My wife’s affair was merely a small contribution to my near-death scare. The main reason, as warned by my doctor, was, of course, my weight, lack of exercise, and unhealthy eating. To prevent future attacks, I was advised to hop on a strict diet and a workout routine, stat.

  Whether or not I chose to heed those warnings meant life or death for me, but truth be told, the idea of chomping on a celery stick made me want to have a heart attack.

  The second I was released, I filed for divorce.

  After hearing the news, mom cut her Paris excursion short to spend some time with me.

  By spending time, I mean coddling me, annoying the hell out me, and perennially forcing me to eat the same bland “healthy” crap she used to force Dad to eat.

  Oh, Dad died from a heart attack two years ago.

  I know, I know. That alone should have scared me straight into getting my shit together. But here’s the thing, I didn’t have a reason to care if I lived or died. I no longer had Sienna, which meant I had nothing. Sienna had been everything I wanted and more. I woke up, worked, and lived for her. To be honest, a part of me hoped she’d fight the divorce. She didn’t. She scrawled her signature on those papers without protest, hurt, or hesitation. Didn’t ask for a thing. The whole process over in about five minutes. She was relieved.

  And that…that was just depressing as shit.

  As I’ve been doing for the past couple of months following the heart attack, to appease Mom, I begrudgingly ate the insipidly healthy, all-organic breakfast she prepared for me, before slinging my gym bag over my shoulder, kissing her on the cheek, mumbling that I was heading out for the gym.

  Gym, for me, was actually Pete’s Pastry.

  Every morning, instead of the gym, I went to Pete’s and had a proper breakfast to erase the taste of my mother’s rabbit food.

  Mind on a warm, sugary cinnamon roll, I whistled as I trotted through the lobby.

  “Good morning, Mr. Van Der Wells,” the concierge chirped at me.

  I nodded, whistling all the same, stomach grumbling for something sweet, something deep-fried, something greasy.

  “Morning, Mr. Van Der Wells,” greeted the ever-chipper doorman, tipping his hat at me as held the door open.

  In acknowledgment, I tipped my imaginary hat right back at him, stepping out into the noisy, bustling, fume-filled air of New York.

  Just outside the door, I paused a moment, warring with my conscience. Go left for the gym, or go right for Pete’s Pastry. Gym, my conscience screamed. Pete’s, my stomach growled.

  Someone bumped into me from behind, sputtering out an immediate apology. I turned, my gaze falling on the offender.

  Charlotte Cooley.

  Jailbait Charlotte Cooley.

  “Oh, hey, Mr. Van Der Wells!” She beamed at me, light, cheery, and bouncy as always.

  Charlotte was the sixteen-year-old daughter of Raymond Cooley, a billionaire investment banker.

  The apartment building had only two penthouse suites; one inhabited by me, and the other by the Cooley family. Our families got along well—well, except for Charlotte’s mother.

  “Hey, Little Lotty,” I muttered, before turning right, Pete’s winning the war.

  Charlotte bounded up to my side, stretching one arm across her chest and pulling at it with the other; I assume as some kind of warm-up, seeing as she was covered from head to toe in fuchsia workout gear. Her voluminous blonde hair was held up in a ponytail by fuchsia hair-tie; a fuzzy fuchsia sports-band around her head. “You’re going for a run now?”

  “Nope,” I clipped, jerking at my gym bag. “Off to the gym.”

  She began stretching her opposite arm across her chest. “No, you’re not.”

  At those words, I stopped short, turning slightly to look down at her.

  I shouldn’t have. I should have kept walking. Men on this side of town knew by now to hold their head straight and squeeze their eyes shut whenever they saw Charlotte Cooley coming. Like I said: Jailbait. But I looked, and found myself staring a little too long. Hell and damnation, what the hell is
wrong with me? She was sixteen, for Christ’s sake.

  Sixteen, yeah, but an early bloomer. In every sense of the term. Not even Sienna Sullivan had a rack that perfect. Charlotte was half-Brazilian on account of her mother, so trust me when I say she had some insane curves.

  “Excuse me?” I ask, stamping the guilt, stifling the pedophilia in me.

  Twinkling sapphire eyes laughed at me. “Your workout gear is a facade, and that gym bag is a prop. You’re not going to the gym, Mr. Van Der Wells. You’re going to Pete’s Pastries.”

  Biting the inside of my cheeks, I stared at her for a moment, asking the question with my eyes. How do you know that?

  “I run in the mornings.” Bending one leg behind her, she pulled it up and inward, so her heel pressed against her shapely ass. I made the effort to keep my eyes on her face this time around. “On my way back, I always stop at the newspaper-stand outside Pete’s to get the day’s paper for Dad. You’re always there, trying to be inconspicuous in the corner seat just behind the window. You spend approximately one hour and seventeen minutes at Pete’s each morning, letting Gloriel think you’re at the gym working on your health.”

  “You make it a habit of yours to nose around in people’s lives?”

  She switched to stretching her other leg. “As a matter of fact, I do. When I grow up, I want to be a spy.”

  “Interesting career choice,” I mused. “Well, you busted me—not that it’s any of your business. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Run with me!” she suggested, lit up at the prospect.

  “Ah, yeah—no.” I moved around her and resumed walking, quickening my steps.

  She caught up with me. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m allergic to anything athletic.”

  “Have you ever tried running?”