Page 22 of The Reluctant Billionaire (Love in London #5)

Aide

I ’m pacing at my treadmill desk in the corner of my office, trying to ignore the building feeling of disquiet I’ve had since Carlotta kicked me out on Friday night.

Another few peeks at her Instagram feed tell me she spent Saturday night hanging off that classical singer Mum loves, Santiago Vale, on some roof terrace somewhere.

She looked breathtaking.

He looked smug as fuck.

I ramp up my pace just as Tish pops her head around the door.

‘There’s someone at reception to see you. She’s not in your calendar.’

‘And?’ I ask distractedly. My laptop is perched on the high desk rigged up in front of me, and I’m attempting to pour over why our subscriber acquisition costs have drifted up year to date.

I have a meeting with Permira, one of our largest investors, later today, and I want all my ducks in a row before I get on the Zoom with them.

Unusually, though, the numbers swim before my eyes.

‘She’s called Carlotta Montefiore-Charlton,’ Tish says.

That has my attention.

My head snaps up, and I stare at my assistant in horror.

‘She says she runs Venus, the company you’re doing the community project with? She also says she’s not leaving till she’s seen you, and that if you don’t want all the funding pulled you should let her come up. She seems really, really angry.’

Tish’s facial expression tells me exactly what she thinks of being railroaded like this.

‘Send her up,’ I say, punching the stop button on my Peloton Tread.

‘I can get rid of her like that if you want.’ She clicks her fingers.

Despite the growing sense of doom in the pit of my stomach, I swallow a smirk. Tish against Carlotta would be a lot of fun to watch.

‘Send her up,’ I repeat. ‘Thank you.’

After Tish has pursed her lips and left, I pace my office.

Fuck fuck fuck.

She’s outed me, and she’s going to see me like this, in my wanky corner office, which is the absolute worst.

I’m a dick. I thought I’d ease her into my truth.

She’s made it very, very clear this past week what kind of kink I’m fulfilling for her, and the billionaire kink it is not .

I was the backstreet guy to her glossy uptown girl, to paraphrase Billy Joel, and that dynamic certainly did it for her, and I was delighted to oblige.

But my little lie of omission has backfired massively, and I may have done myself out of a chance of ever being inside her beautiful body again.

I straighten up my shirt collar and stick my hands in my pockets for something to do, and I wait.

Jesus Christ.

She’s a vision.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s a knockout in a t-shirt and cutoffs, but like this, in full battle mode, she takes my breath away.

I am so fucked.

She sashays through the doorway in a slim-fitting, fire-engine-red dress.

It’s sleeveless and it skims over her curves in a way that’s feminine and sensual and powerful.

Her heels are sky high and red. Her full lips are painted scarlet, and her dark hair is all sleek curls, billowing out behind her.

She’s wielding an enormous handbag like it’s a kettle bell.

I’m sure she’d like to take a swing at me with it.

Best of all, she’s spitting fire. Those gorgeous eyes are huge and dark, and I can practically see flames coming out of her nostrils.

She is fucking spectacular.

I would very much like to relieve her of that dress and gather up that all that hair in my fists and get her on her knees, but I’m not delusional.

In this mood, she’d probably take a chunk out of my dick.

‘You look beautiful,’ I say softly, both because it’s true and because I’m a fucking coward and I’d like to disarm her.

Doesn’t work.

Obviously.

She drops the dangerous-looking handbag at her feet, which I have to say is a relief, and eyes me up and down as she plants her hands on her hips.

There’s no vest and steel-capped boots today.

Instead, I’m in my standard investor-friendly uniform of black trousers and a white shirt, courtesy of Mr Ford.

I tolerate spending money on good clothes, primarily because they last and also because people seem to expect it of ‘someone in my position,’ or so my team tells me constantly.

‘Aidan fucking Duffy,’ she says. ‘Well, well, well.’ She looks around, taking in my oversized office, as I try in vain to keep my eyes off her nipples, which, in a shocking twist, have come to join this little party.

‘How fascinating to see you in your natural habitat,’ she goes on. ‘Quite the office you have here.’

‘I like my own space,’ I say, which is both lame and true. I despise the implied status commandeering this much square footage gives me while absolutely loving the privacy it affords me. The space to think amid the circus.

She ignores my comment, meeting my gaze, which I’ve managed to drag back to her beautiful face, defiantly.

‘You must think I’m really stupid,’ she says. The determined tilt of her jaw hints at vulnerability, which has me feeling even worse.

‘I don’t think you’re stupid in the slightest.’

‘Were you ever going to stop lying to me?’ she asks. ‘Or did you just feed me whatever you needed to feed me to get me into bed?’

That has my hackles rising. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve never lied to you. Not once.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘You tell yourself that. Failing to mention something this big is a lie in my book. You let me believe you were someone very different.’

‘Carlotta,’ I say, attempting to keep my temper, ‘you took me at face value, and you saw exactly who you wanted to see. I’m not stupid. You actually told me in your bathroom the other night that you were sick of rich guys and wanted a quote-unquote real man .

‘You’ve objectified me since the second you laid eyes on me, and I think I represented exactly what you wanted and needed in the moment. That’s fine by me, but don’t try to tell me any of that is my fault.’

‘I’m pretty sure you objectified me, too,’ is all she has to say to that truth bomb. ‘I’m not sure you looked away from my boobs long enough to see much more.’

I flinch, because it’s not strictly inaccurate. ‘I was dazzled by them at first,’ I say, ‘and I fully admit I may have underestimated you at first. But I don’t now. I think you’re fucking spectacular in every way. Every single thing about you impresses me.’

She crosses her arms, but she shrugs like she’s dubious. Like she wants to believe me but can’t quite risk it.

‘Do you think,’ I say tentatively, ‘maybe we both underestimated each other at first? You saw a rough-and-ready builder, and I saw a spoilt princess, and we were both a little hasty?’

She nibbles on her scarlet lip as she takes in what I’m saying. I brave a step forward and put my hands on her bare upper arms. ‘Do you think if we took the time to get to know each other better, it would be worth it?’

Silence. Her deadly glare tells me I’ll have to work a lot harder to convince her.

I hesitate, choosing my words. ‘I know you think I deceived you, but quite honestly, the version of me you’ve got to know this week is the real me.

It’s the part of me I keep hidden from most people, and it’s felt really fucking good to be on site with my old mates who know me as Aide and don’t fawn or do me any favours.

‘All this stuff is fine, and it’s fun, but I don’t do it for the money, and the money is a major issue for me. So forgive me if I don’t like bringing it up when I have a chance to forget it for a while.’

‘Most people wouldn’t want to forget they had four billion pounds,’ she says.

I laugh at that. ‘That’s a paper valuation. It could all be gone tomorrow if this thing blows up.’

‘It won’t,’ she says quietly. She uncrosses her arms and places her palms flat over my pecs, her eyes watchful. It feels like she’s a stray I’m coaxing out into the open. Any adverse moves from me and she could flee.

Or bite.

Of that I have no doubt.

‘I have something to tell you,’ I say. I close my hands over hers.

She rolls her eyes again. ‘Now what.’

‘We’ve met before, you know.’

‘Oh, come—’ she starts to say, but stops when she sees my face.

‘We have.’

She frowns. ‘Where? I definitely would have remembered you.’ She accompanies that line with a squeeze of my pecs.

‘Thank you, but clearly not. I’ll let you off, though. You were only sixteen.’

I have her well and truly confounded now. ‘What?’ she asks in disbelief.

‘Your dad invited me for dinner.’ I laugh at the shock on her face.

‘You know my dad?’

‘And your mum—well, I’ve met her. And your brother.’

‘I know that after this weekend,’ she says in a way that makes me think there’s more to the story. ‘Go on. So you know my entire family, basically. Excellent.’

I release her hands and wrap my arms around her waist, drawing her into me.

‘I was twenty when I came over, and I’d just dropped out of uni because Totum was growing like crazy, and uni was costing my parents so much.

I just wanted to get to the bit where I made some money and paid my way, you know?

‘Your dad was amazing about it all. I met him through a mentorship programme at uni.

He was the first person beyond my professors who saw the potential in Totum and in me.

He held my hand when I took the jump and dropped out.

Even got on a call with Mum, who was hysterical—I was the first person in my family to do any kind of further education, so it was tough for her to see me walk.

‘Anyway, he talked her off the ledge, and he gave me my first chunk of seed capital. Introduced me to two of his friends who invested, too. I met them that night at your house.’

‘I have no recollection of this,’ she says, shaking her head in wonder. ‘Literally none. Were you a late bloomer? If you were this hot at twenty, there’s no way I would have forgotten.’

I smirk. ‘I did alright for myself.’

‘Ugh, of course you did,’ she groans. ‘Judy and Gaz told me that. But what was I doing at the dinner?’