Page 72 of The Reluctant Billionaire
I exhale. I really do not want to make a big deal out of it. ‘Yeah, but not full-time. They never let me miss any school. But Mum’s shifts were all over the place, so yeah, when I was older I had to step up so she could earn her salary. Even then, she ended up going down to part time because it all just got too much once Dad lost the use of his legs.’
‘Jesus,’ she groans. ‘Is that why you used to go to the community centre?’
‘It got us out of Mum’s hair when she was at home,’ I say, ‘and when she was at work, it meant she knew we could pop down there for dinner and not go hungry. Judy is a living saint. That woman was like a second mother to me.’
‘I’m glad you had her,’ Lotta says softly. ‘Thanks for telling me. I’m sorry you had a shitty time of it.’
‘It wasn’t unhappy,’ I say, anxious to make her understand. ‘It was just… stressful. I worried about stuff that I wouldn’t want my kids worrying about, and I saw my mum upset a lot. I’d never want that, either. But honestly, I’m amazed she didn’t fall to pieces. It was a lot for her to deal with. She’s so fucking strong.’
‘It must be amazing to know you can look after her now,’ she says, and I roll my eyes.
‘You’d think so, right? But she’s also fucking stubborn. And she refused to move away from this area. So she’s in a better house, but it’s nowhere near as nice as I’d like her to have.’
‘I mean, I get that,’ Lotta muses. ‘If she’s raised her family here, she’s probably got strong ties. Roots, even.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t think she’s staying purely for the right reasons. Sure, she knows this place—she didn’t want to start from scratch, which I get. But it’s also that shame thing again. She’s super proud of me, but when the neighbours start whispering about how Veronica Duffy’s getting too big for her boots because her son was on the news, or on breakfast TV, or any of that crap?
‘Her way of dealing with that is to show them she’s exactly who she’s always been, and she’s not going to put on airs and graces just because I’m doing well for myself. I swear to God, every working class person I grew up with seems to be terrified of putting onairs and graces, which is what I would call self-improvement or dreaming big, and it really fucks me off.’
Lotta’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, ‘Well, that’s shitty for her, because she’s kind of cutting off her nose to spite her face, but it must be really hard for you, too. I bet it makes you a lot more conflicted about what you’ve achieved than you’d probably like to be.’
I lie there and drink her in. The dark tendrils of hair curling over her neck. Her shoulder. That jaw-dropping face, its full lips parted and huge eyes fixed on me. Her extraordinary beauty makes it tempting to dismiss her as anything more than a stunning facade, but I’ve begun to think differently for a while now.
‘You nailed it,’ I say more lightly than I feel.
‘I mean, you do seem to have alotof airs and graces.’
I laugh. ‘I should probably work on being less of a poncy twat.’
She smiles at me, and it’s breathtaking. ‘You’re definitely too big for your boots. Maybe it’s time to remember your roots.’
‘She rhymes, too,’ I mutter.
‘Seriously. Do they give you shit for it? Or maybe it’s justyougiving yourself shit for it. There’s no way it’s easy to make the kind of money you’ve made and not have it raise a bit of existential angst.’
‘All of the above,’ I say, tugging her against me. She throws a long leg over my thigh and nestles closer.
‘Poor little rich boy. Do you have a therapist?’
‘Yep. I bore the shit out of her every week.’
‘Good.’
‘What about you, poor little rich girl? Do you lie in that fancy bedroom of yours every night full of existential angst?’
‘Nope,’ she says, popping thep, and I laugh. ‘But I grew up with it. It’s all I know. And you might think I’m over-privileged, but I’ve worked my arse off to be where I am. So, no. I’m very comfortable with my millions of pounds, thank you.’
‘You never worry about that sense of entitlement?’ I ask. When it comes out, it sounds more dickish than I intended it to, but she speaks before I can qualify my question.
‘Aide.’ Her plush lips are so close to mine.
‘Mmm-hmm?’ I ask dreamily.
‘Entitlement is not a dirty word. I know society’s turned it into one. If you’re asking me if I take my wealth for granted, no, I do not. But if you’re asking me if I’ve ever known anything different, also, no. I’ve never expected handouts, and my dad was never going to be that guy.
‘Yeah, his incubator gave me and Gabe our seed capital, but you should have seen them put us through the mill. It was terrifying. Our business plan was like a Harvard Business School case study. So, in my mind, we’ve earned every pound Venus has made for us and we areentitledto that money because we’ve earned it with a tonne of work and all-nighters and sacrifices.’ She pokes my pec lightly. ‘Just. Like. You.’
The world Carlotta inhabits is easy. Fair. Where hard work reaps just rewards. To use her own words, she is entitled to that perspective because it’s been born out of her own experience.
