Page 90 of The Reluctant Billionaire
His words are poetic, and inspiring, and achingly beautiful, but they’re not pompous or exclusive. Maybe that’s his greatest gift—that he can speak to everyone’s hearts. He’s Aidan Duffy, but he’s also Aide, and whatever he says about his inner conflict, about his discomfort at straddling both sides of him, I know they’re one and the same.
Ladies and gentlemen. I give youAide Fucking Duffy.
There isn’t a person off their feet when he finishes. The soaring ceilings of the museum echo the resounding applause and cheers of what must be close to five hundred bastions of industry, politics and education. Because my Aide has touched everyone in this room tonight.
When he gets back to the table, which is a tougher journey than it sounds given the number of people who stop him for back slaps and handshakes en route, he’s smiling and bashful and emotional, but I can tell he’s proud of himself.
And so he fucking should be.
As for me? I’m a shaking, teary mess as I sit there with his Totum colleagues (Aide turned down the top table, apparently. Course he did). I feel shallow and inadequate and star-struck. I make a great living in a very frothy part of the market, catering to people richer than God.
My boyfriend changes lives and pools knowledge and transforms industries.
I give back and pay forward in a perfunctory, efficient and duty-fuelled way, because I know it’s the right thing to do, and I know how lucky I am, and I low-key believe in karma.
My boyfriend gives back and pays forward because he has a fire in his belly, and that fire is altruism. It’s a desperate desire to do better by the people who have less than him.
It’s almost laughable to me now that I saw his attraction as skin-deep at first. Sure, I came for his pecs.
But I stayed for his heart.
And I’m falling forhim.
When he gets back to the table, I jump up before any of his colleagues can get to him and throw myself smack against his chest. ‘You were amazing,’ I breathe against his neck. I’m sobbing. I’m totally bowled over. I hug him tighter. ‘So, so bloody amazing. I’m so proud of you.’
‘Hey,’ he whispers, his hands moving over my bare back. ‘Thank you. And I’m proud of you, too. Every day. But there’s a problem.’
‘What’s that?’ I ask with an unsexy gulp. I am in real danger of ruining my eye makeup like this. Aidan Duffy and his panda-eyed girlfriend.
He moves his mouth closer to my ear and slides a hand down over my bum. ‘It’s a glass-topped table,’ he says, and I burst out laughing.
CHAPTER 34
Aide
Ineedher. Now. I’ve needed her all night, in fact, and I cannot wait another fucking minute.
Gabe’s away, thank fuck, so the moment she closes the door of her flat behind us, I’m on her. Claiming her sweet little mouth. Clawing at her clothes. Trying to work out how the fuck to get this dress off.
Tonight was a good night—a rare work occasion where I really enjoyed myself and got swept up in the atmosphere in the room. I’d usually come home and succumb to an exhausted, introverted crash, but I hold Lotta accountable for the desire coursing through my body right now as much as I held her accountable for the grand time I had earlier.
Having her by my side all evening, watching her dazzle everyone in her path and allowing myself to drink up all that energy she shed, transformed my night from samey to special.
She’s been getting me worked up in the car the whole way home, too. I’m not enough of a dick to have tried anything with the driver sitting right in front of us, but simply having my hand on the warm, smooth thigh that slit in her sexy-as-fuck dress exposed for me as she told me over and over how proud she was,how amazing I was, had happiness and hunger burning through my veins.
She also had her hand too high up my thigh in that car. Far too high.
Good job it was a fifteen-minute journey.
It seems I’m not the only one worked up. She shoves my jacket down my arms and tugs my bowtie loose and begins unbuckling my belt, her movements unusually clumsy.
‘Just take my dick out,’ I grunt, trying to get her hand away so I can undo my zip, but she slaps it away.
‘No. Want us naked,’ she practically sobs, wrenching my trousers down my legs.
That makes two of us.
‘Take your dress off then, sweetheart,’ I plead. ‘I can’t fucking get it off.’
