Page 20 of Billionaire Romantic
Most likely not. How could she? No one’sthatperfect.
I need to prepare myself for disappointment. Most likely it’ll happen the way it always does. She’ll have photoshopped the image. She’ll show up looking like a second-rate version of the original. She’ll be perfectly nice but completely…ordinary, like they all are. We’ll make polite conversation but there will be no fireworks, like I’m always hoping for but can never find. She’ll talk about her Instagram following. Or her therapist. Or her cat. She’ll flirt awkwardly and pretend she’s not already picturing moving into my Hamptons house or going on wild shopping sprees with my money so she can make her vapid friends jealous by posting photos of herself living the high life.
Damn it.
Colton’s right. I need to chill the fuck out.
It occurs to me though that, this time, my date doesn’t know who I am. She’ll have no idea about the money, the business or the family legacy.
I’m a totally blank slate to her.
I can make it up as I go along.
I can pretend, for a few hours, to be whoever the fuck I want.
So what if she’s not the love of my life? It doesn’t matter. None of them ever are.
So what if I don’t fall in love with her at first sight? Obviously, I won’t. Because that just doesn’t happen to me. It mightneverhappen.
I remember again my new resolution. To jump into bed at my very first opportunity without caring about the chemistry, just to get some of this pent-up frustration out of my goddamn system.
Watch out, Lucky Irish.
10
It almost makes me laugh.Lucky Irish. It’s even worse than Noah Steel.
By the time I get back to my apartment I’ve almost succeeded in psyching myself up for a night of dirty deeds done dirt cheap with no emotion involved whatsoever. If worse comes to worst I’ll close my eyes andpretendLucky Irish is just as beautiful as the enchanting girl in the photo.
My apartment lights turn on as soon as I walk in. Low back-lighting that gives the place a luxurious ambiance. The steel-framed glass wall that looks out over Fifth Avenue shows off the late afternoon city skyline, my spacious outdoor roof garden and the treetops of Central Park.
I bought this apartment when things began to go stratospheric for us, a few years ago now. I paid twenty-five million for it. It’s now worth forty.
I’m probably the most frugal of all four of us, but real estate is one thing I do spend money on. Actually, I don’t skimp on cars or boats either. I have seven houses and I use all of them.
This penthouse is where I spend most of my time, but I also have a saltbox “cottage” in Southampton, a beach bungalow inthe Bahamas, a waterfront villa on Lake Como, a small ranch with a house on the water in Austin, a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, and a beach house on the North Shore of Oahu. All the houses have several garages with a collection of cars, boats, jet skis and motorcycles that fit the driving and sailing conditions of the places they’re in and are fun to take for joyrides.
New York City is in my veins and I’ve lived here my entire life. But if I don’t get out of the city every now and then I feel like my sanity is starting to crack.
It was actually my idea to offer employees of Invested Enterprises a “creative” week each month. One week out of four, people can travel on the company. This way, we’re encouraging our staff to come up with the kinds of new, innovative ideas you tend to get when you’re visiting places you’ve always wanted to see and meeting people who challenge your own personal status quo.
We organize meetings with key people when we can, but not always. Sometimes they’re free to just explore.
It’s paid off. Almost forty percent of our new clients have been discovered and wooed that way. We’re also the most sought-after company to work for in New York City, partly because of that one perk—even though we offer a lot of perks.
I work a lot, but I also do my best to use all my houses as much as I can on these weeks away. All my properties are very different. Each of them has such a different architectural style, and the backdrops and the culture of the places have so many different things to offer, they refresh me in new ways each time I visit.
But it’s the same old story. I travel alone. If I take a woman to any one of my houses—including this one, and especially this one—she’s begging me to put a ring on her finger within the hour. They get needy and desperate and want more than I ever want to give them.
And my problem is, Idowant to give. I want to fuckingdrownin how in love I am for the one perfect girl I can never, ever find.
Which brings me back to my plans for the evening.
To forget about my spiritual cravings and focus instead on my feralanimalcravings.
I pour myself two fingers of whiskey and knock back the whole thing. Then I go out to my pool, strip down and dive in. No one can see me up here. The privacy is a big part of why this apartment was so pricey, but it’s worth it. As a Maddox, we tend to get a certain amount of attention. Not something I aspire to at all. None of us do, except maybe Colton. He’s the only one of us who really enjoys the publicity.
I do fifty laps. Then I grab a towel and go inside to take a long shower.
