Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

Chapter Two
Calvin
When I invited Jackson Price—an employee of mine who isn’t bad at his job, but certainly has
room for improvement—to come out with us tonight, my CIO thought it was merely because I was
taking a measure of the man. Using an unorthodox method of taking a peek inside and seeing what he’s
made of so I will have a better idea of how to make the best use of him professionally.
He’s not completely wrong about my wanting to assess the man, but it had more to do with his
recent breakup than any professional intentions.
I guess the breakup isn’t really recent anymore, but I only found out about it recently.
It wouldn’t matter to me at all, but at the office Christmas party last year, Jackson’s girlfriend
caught my eye. I never got a chance to talk to her. I knew I couldn’t just steal her from an employee
because I liked the look of her, and I was there with somebody else, anyway.
When I overheard him griping about her to someone at the office the other day, I knew there was
an opening. A small one. They were broken up, but still in contact—though judging by the way he
spoke about her, she should not be answering his calls.
It says something about her that she is, though. Something I like, because maybe it indicates
she’ll suit me better than she suited him.
I know men like Jackson Price, and I may not be a perfect man myself, but I’ve made it a point
not to be like him.
Jackson is spoiled rotten, obtuse about the good things he has right in front of him. He believes
he’s owed everything and she’s owed nothing. He thinks Hallie was out of line for finally getting sick
of his shit and leaving him, but he most assuredly does not think he was out of line for heaping his
attention upon the many other women he seemed to find much more fascinating than his own.
I think he was sitting on a diamond mine and lusting after costume jewelry.
Tonight, watching him do coke off a pain slut’s tits, I was utterly disgusted by him. Even halfway
to fucking someone new, he couldn’t stop bitching about Hallie—and it’s unclear what she ever did to
him that was so egregious, other than come to the conclusion that his spoiled, shallow ass wasn’t
doing it for her.
I’m a lot of things, but shallow and faithless are not among my more problematic traits.
Spoiled is up for debate. I live a life of excess, but I’ve worked hard for every bit of it. I even
shunned my birthright and built something entirely of my own instead.
Whether or not you want to call me spoiled, I am a man accustomed to getting what I want, and