Page 1 of The Reluctant Billionaire

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LOTTA

‘Acommunity 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 bestdon’t push melook. 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—’

‘Forone 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 spendtwo weekson this project. Nothing, and I meannothing, 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.

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