The Mathematician (Book 1)

Prologue

We all had morals. I did too. 

But the money I got offered if I succeeded in this... well, it blew all my morals to shit.

Glancing out of the car window as the black Lexus drove along a long country road surrounded by serene trees, I let out a deep sigh that fogged the glass.

A few days ago, I was approached at my job at a coffee house by a guy who introduced himself as one Mr Richard Anthony Devon the Third. An owner to some big and apparently successful empire that couldn't survive without an heir. Only, due to recently performed tests, it appeared the guy who seemed to be mid-forties had no more good swimmers left to provide him with said heir. That blows, were my words.

But, to every problem there is a solution, Mr Richard Anthony who-gives-a-crap the Third then said to me. And that solution turned out to be human and in the shape of his younger brother, Harold Xavier Devon, next 'king' of the so-called empire he was running, should Richard die before his time. If Harold was to say, oh, I don't know, get a woman pregnant and she would have his child, then the magnificent Devon-clan would have an heir and their bloodline would pompously continue.

And that's where I inexplicably came in.

"Why me?" I had asked, staring absolutely damn confused to my core at Mr Devon. If he had that much money, why not contact Beyoncé or the Queen herself? Why some lowly barista at a coffee house?

"Why not you?" He had replied. He had lifted his espresso cup and then tasted it with a look of disdain. He put the cup back in its saucer. "You're young, you're healthy and you got your whole life ahead of you. Why shouldn't you take the offer?"

Ah, yes. The offer; To sleep with his brother and conceive his child.

"You're kidding me," I said. Because he was. He had to be. Nobody was this insane. Right?

And that's when he had pulled out the check. The check that—and this was putting it nicely—held a motherfucking, cocksucking, ass-wiping amount of money on it, should I accept the offer to get his brother to sleep with me and, yes, impregnate me. He was paying me, a complete stranger, to fuck his brother and to have his child.

How's that for an offer you 'can't refuse?'

At first I laughed – loudly. Then I stopped because I realized he wasn't kidding. Then I had proceeded to laugh again because I couldn't actually believe he wanted me to do that. I wasn't a goddamn prostitute and I certainly wasn't a baby-maker. I was 18 for crying out loud. Some days I felt I wasn't even done being a baby myself.

– And then he had handed me the check and it shut me up better than a ballgag.

So I knew it was horrible to even think about it, but it was just so much money. More money than I had ever held in my hand before in my life and probably ever would again. With it I could not only buy my own entire island, but probably also get a lapdance from the fucking Queen of England herself. And, more importantly, I could secure myself a good future for just the 'tiny' unethical act of getting a guy to knock me up.

"Seriously, why me?" I had asked again. He couldn't just have spotted me on the street and thought 'oh, she looks nice, let's make her have a baby with my brother'. I seriously doubted that. I mean, I wasn't a bad looker, but I was no Megan Fox either. I was more like a Mila Kunis, but she was a hot piece of ass too, just not... you know.

"Like I said, you're young and you have your whole future ahead of you," Mr Devon said with a debonair smile. "Have you ever heard of the Devon Scholarship?"