Page 1 of The Reluctant Billionaire (Love in London #5)

Lotta

‘ A community centre ?’

I hope the way I’ve repeated my brother’s words back to him conveys my intense distaste for the merest concept of a community centre.

While I’m not entirely clear on what community centres actually are, or what purpose they serve beyond being, presumably, centres for their, um, communities, I know they’re not for me.

He sighs. ‘Don’t start with your shit.’

‘But why? It sounds grim.’

‘Of course it’s fucking grim. That’s why they need our help. Fuck’s sake, Lotts.’

‘Why do I have to be the one to do it? Why can’t we just write a cheque and send some of the guys down to help with the heavy lifting, or bulldozing, or whatever they need?’

He gives me his best don’t push me look. It’s pretty effective, actually. Gabriele Montefiore-Charlton is good at making people feel like dog shit under his Gucci loafers when they piss him off.

‘Optics,’ he grunts.

He makes it sound like an unwilling concession, because he’s basically admitting that my smiling face is a far more valuable commodity for our company’s PR machine than his miserable one.

But because my brother is a commercial shark and never one to unwillingly concede anything, I suspect he’s playing me.

Appealing to my ego will net him the exact result he wants in this and every instance, and we both know it.

Still, I’m made of the same stuff as my brother. Our arguments can be as strategic—and as endless—as chess matches when we’re both spoiling for a fight. Dad’s suggested many times that we should have been lawyers.

‘You’re the CEO,’ I counter lamely. I’m on the back foot here and clearly not at my best.

‘And I oversaw that thing at Tower Hamlets last month. I showed my face?—’

‘For one day. ’

‘I shook hands and tousled kids’ hair and gave a pep talk. Made myself seen. Philanthropy at our level is more than just writing a cheque. You know that, for God’s sake. If Dad and I can grin and bear it, you can definitely suck it up.’

He’s right. I do know that.

As the children of a painfully introverted and usually reclusive software-engineer-turned-billionaire, Gabe and I are well versed in the importance of giving back.

Luckily for our quiet, British father, he’s had a secret weapon all these years: Mamma, aka Chiara Montefiore-Charlton, his flamboyant and wildly sociable Italian wife who loves nothing more than throwing a party for any cause.

Gabe’s as underwhelmed as Dad is by other people, though he lacks Dad’s good nature. I, on the other hand, definitely take after Mamma.

It’s no surprise I’m the Chief Marketing Officer of my and my brother’s massive property development company, Venus Holdings, and even less of a surprise that I frequently find myself the face of the brand, too, even if he’s the commercial genius.

I mean, I have a much prettier face than my brother does, so there’s that.

But I understand all too well that my high profile comes with strings attached, and that those strings don’t just require me to cut ribbons and attend polo matches in head-to-toe couture.

They require me to show up, to advocate for those less privileged than my family in a city with an endemic housing crisis, especially at the affordable end of the spectrum.

Not only do I get it, but I truly believe in the importance of giving back. It’s been ingrained in me for my entire entitled life.

I’m still not clear on how that ties in with this community centre, though.

Or why I have to spend two weeks on this project. Nothing, and I mean nothing , pisses me off more than Gabe’s inference that my time is less valuable than his. It’s arrogant and sexist and flagrantly uncommercial, because my time is expensive.

‘You’re asking me to do a lot more than make myself be seen,’ I complain now. I’m not rolling over without a fight. ‘Two weeks isn’t a good use of my time. You put in half a day.’

He swivels around in his chair, the South Bank behind him hazy in the London sunshine. One great perk of running a property development firm is that the office porn is seriously excellent.

‘The Tower Hamlets thing is ongoing,’ he points out with irritating logic.

‘I’ll pop back down there in a month or two to monitor the progress and pat some backs.

This project will be done and dusted in a fortnight—less—and you don’t need to be there the whole time.

You can go back and forth. You know the council needs to see us pull our weight.

You sat there and looked them in the eye and promised them this. ’

He’s right.

Again.

Our newest development, Elgin, was a fucking nightmare to pull off, and I have to admit Gabe worked miracles to get it over the line.

A futuristic, eco double block of purpose-built flats bang in the centre of the Georgian and Victorian ice-cream-coloured streets of Notting Hill was always going to ruffle some feathers.

The good councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, under whose remit Notting Hill falls, were hell-bent on turning us down.

The two main areas where we won out in the end were on the promises we made around environment and community outreach.

I have a horribly hazy memory of sitting in one of the endless meetings with pale, male and stale pen-pushers and blithely (or maybe even flirtatiously) agreeing to front the complete overhaul of some hall-slash-centre-thingy up near Avondale Park.

The park and its surrounding streets are squarely on the poorer side of an area where jaw-dropping wealth and equally shocking poverty sit cheek-by-jowl.

‘I did, didn’t I?’ I moan, slumping in my chair in defeat. I push my foot against the white marble floor so I can simultaneously swivel the chair and take a smidgeon of comfort in the gloriousness of my new baby-pink Prada heels.

Happily, my brother’s victorious smirk is interrupted by a cursory knock at the open door before his assistant, Charlie, steps in.

‘They’re ready for you,’ she tells him with an admiring smile.

I roll my eyes internally. Yet another secretary plotting how to put a ring on Gabriele Montefiore-Charlton’s finger. She needn’t bother. He’s made that mistake once before and he won’t make it again. I give her a month before he’s got sick of her suggestive glances and given her the boot.

‘How do I know what to do on this job?’ I demand as my brother pushes himself up to standing, clearly dismissing me.

This kind of hands-on stuff is way outside my comfort zone.

I’m far happier signing off on multi-million-pound media budgets and glossy brochures and exclusive influencer events.

‘How many of us do they need? I haven’t got the first clue what?—’

‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ he replies, flicking my hair as he walks past in a way that’s puerile and irritating in equal measure. ‘The foundation has it all sorted. Khalid will brief you—you just have to show up and try to be vaguely helpful. Aide’ll look after you.’

‘Aid?’ I ask his retreating back. ‘What kind of aid?’ Is that some new department I’m unaware of? I mean, Aid isn’t a bad name for our outreach efforts. It’s a bit on the nose, but it’s punchy, succinct.

Hmm.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he mutters. ‘Just speak to Khal. And don’t wear heels like that. They’ll get trashed.’

I stare at him in horror as he disappears down the corridor, Charlie click-clacking adoringly behind him.

He’s not possibly suggesting I wear flats, is he?