As a child Zachariah had been given a full seven years to think that one day the Asher Empire would be his. But then, out of nowhere his uncle and his wife had managed to conceive. Until the wretched woman had given birth, it had been a forgone conclusion that Asher Industries would one day be his. But along had come Tristan and it had all come crashing down.
For a while, Zachariah had hoped that his cousin would be an idiot. Or prove himself to be incompetent, therefore restoring things to their natural order without Zachariah having to get his hands dirty.
But unfortunately for him, Tristan had proven himself to be a threat. Not only had his cousin proven himself to be business savvy over and over through the years. He had also proven himself to be incredibly boring. The type of boring that made a person impossible to manipulate. And Zachariah had tried. He had sent prostitutes.
The most gorgeous women that he could find who were firmly in his pocket. He had tried slipping the man drugs. He had tried getting him involved with embezzlers, fraudsters.
People with a dark side to them.
But Tristan was too far on the straight and narrow to even be tempted. He barely drank, he respected women. And he valued things like hard work and integrity, instead of choosing employees who would suck up to him at every given opportunity.
Normal everyday things that enticed the normal man. Goodness knew Zachariah was partial to a nice pair of legs and gorgeous cleavage. But Tristan liked pretending like he was above all that. And it made Zachariah hate him even more. And throughout the years, he had never really stopped dreaming of reclaiming what was rightfully his.
But even if he had never admitted it to himself out loud...Zachariah had begun to lose hope.
His silent acceptance of defeat had rankled and though he had tried his best to keep it hidden. To lose himself in the pleasures of the flesh. It had eaten away at him. But now, for the first time in his life, Zachariah truly believed that the universe had a way of setting right things that had gone wrong in the past. The position of CEO should have been his.
But he had lost it all because he had been born to the wrong parents. Now he had the opportunity to get it all back.
When Riley, that walking corpse of a lawyer, had demanded a meeting with him. Zachariah had nearly refused on principle, but he was very glad that he had gone. The music that had come from the old man's mouth was something that he would not be forgetting any time soon.
"In accordance with the rules of the contract that I carry with me. I am to inform you that you have the possibility of becoming the chief executive officer of Asher Industries should your cousin Tristan Asher not marry within the stipulated period of time, which is by the end of this month,"
At first the meaning of the words had not really clicked for Zachariah. But then all of the wheels in his head had started turning and he had been so incandescent with joy that he had nearly gotten up and hugged Riley. Luckily he had been able to contain that urge. But still, even days after learning that his uncle had all but handed him the company on a silver platter. Zachariah still could not contain his joy. When he'd called the board meeting, he had wanted to tell everybody there outright, but only Mr. Riley's warning that if he were to do something like that, he would automatically forfeit his chance at the
CEO post had kept him silent.
Finally, he was going to get what was rightfully his.
There were only two outcomes that he could see for his cousin.
If by the end of the month Tristan was not married, he would be forced to step down and let Zachariah ascend. Or his cousin would think he had found a way to remain CEO by arranging a marriage with one of the powerful families. Zachariah intended to beat him even at that. He would prefer for option one, which would be faster and painless, to be the most likely scenario, but he knew his cousin. Most likely, Tristan had a list of potential brides in place. His poor, cousin was probably thinking that all he had to do was find somebody to marry and everything would be resolved.
But Zachariah had a countermeasure for that.
Zachariah knew his cousin, he knew his tastes, so it would be easy to come up with a list of the women that Tristan was most likely to pick. And from that list, Zachariah would be very diligent in doing background checks. He would dig and dig until he hit skeletons buried so deep in that closet that the women most likely thought nobody would ever find them. But he would. And once he had those skeletons, blackmail would be the name of the game. He would have a direct link to his cousin's everyday life. And in doing so, he would use the women to help him find the chink in Tristan's armor. It would be slow going, but it would be worth it.
That was the motivation that kept Zachariah going as he searched.
As he whittled down the list. He did so by pretending to be his cousin, not judging them by his own standards. If it were up to him, all of the women would have gotten a tiny tick beside them. But Tristan was very picky, so Zachariah could not afford to be his none discriminatory self.
He went through the list without mercy , disqualifying women.
"Too dumb, too flirtatious. Money hungry, power hungry..."
It hurt to do, like he was cutting out bits of himself by doing such horrible things. But he forced himself to persevere. Halfway through the list, his mind began to wander. And for some reason, he found himself thinking on the strange encounter he'd had with his cousin and the strange woman with the lunch box.
What had been her name again? Avril? Aurora? Something with A.
But whoever she was, it was strange.
Sure his cousin loved being the knight in shining armor to everybody. But there had been something off about the way in which he had hovered close to her. Glaring daggers at Zachariah like he was daring him to just make one move and he would cut him down.
Could it be?
Did the cousin that Zachariah thought of as somebody who would die single have been dating all along? Dating somebody poor for that matter? Sure, she'd had nice curves to her, but that had not been enough to distract Zachariah from the fact that she was clearly of a lower class. Could it be, was his cousin actually dating a poor woman?
Shaking his head to dislodge such a horrible thought, Zachariah resumed his work in earnest.
Tristan might have been many things, but not even he would stoop so low as to start dating the help. It just was not done. In an effort to clear such a thought from his mind completely, he redoubled his efforts until in the end he was left with just three possible candidates.
One was Miranda Lowe, a CEO with a stellar reputation. The other was Anna Zhao an heiress with
a heart of gold and the third was Anna Reyes, a self-made woman who was known for being fair and honest in her judgment.
Looking at them, Zachariah nodded to himself.
These three were where he would focus most of his attention. No doubt they had secrets just waiting to be unearthed. He would find those secrets, keep them to himself, and then use them to bring his cousin down. Simple. But as he closed his laptop and stretched, he was once again reminded of the way his cousin had looked standing next to that woman, like they belonged together. Shaking his head, he rubbed his eyes. He was tired. That was why he was thinking such crazy thoughts.