Page 60 of Owned By a Billionaire

She tilted her head, and her eyes misted over. “Really? Even after all the trouble I caused?”

I stroked her long, dark, lustrous hair. “What trouble?”

Manon hugged me. “I will do anything for this family. You know that, don’t you?” She stared me in the eyes, deadly serious. “Let’s get rid of him.”

I caught my breath. “We’d be the first suspects. The police aren’t that stupid. And he has friends in high places, darling.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure. But everything we’ve spoken about, including Cary’s sudden departure, remains within this room.”

“But what do I say if someone asks?”

“Just tell them I didn’t give details or something like that. By now, everyone’s used to my circumventions.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” She wore a sad smile.

“It means that I’m good at skirting issues.”

Chapter 19

Cary

Themirrorinmysad flat reflected a man I’d been escaping from for thirty years. I didn’t even recognize myself in the tattered tweed jacket I’d picked up long ago in some Australian charity store, its ripped lining revealing its hapless state of neglect.

Thanks to Lilly’s support, followed by Caroline’s considerable generosity, I hadn’t needed to wear that jacket for years. Maybe because of some kind of twisted sentimentality, I’d kept it. Lucky for me I had, because, along with my heart, I left all those fine jackets I’d amassed over the past two years at Merivale.

I brushed the lint off the jacket and studied myself a little longer. I’d aged at least ten years in a month. They say money can’t buy happiness—a platitude invented to placate the struggling many. In my eyes, however, an excellent wine or a visit to Venice helped ease the burden of depression.

Wealth had certainly weakened me. I’d gone from silk sheets to scratchy synthetic ones, from tender steak to its gristly inferior.

My aesthetic sensibilities had fared just as poorly. After twenty years of Lake Como, followed by the splendor of Merivale, I suddenly found myself surrounded by the manufactured ugliness of a city bursting at its seams.

Fortunately, the ten thousand euros arrived just as I’d used up the remainder of my topped-up credit limit. I couldn’t keep using Caroline’s money, especially now that I’d left everything behind.

The first week was the hardest. I’d used the card to stay at a three-star hotel in the heart of London, which still came at a hefty price. I’d been so spoiled in those past two years that I’d forgotten how expensive the city could be.

Then a small bedsit in the heart of Whitechapel became available, and I pounced on it to try and stretch out my money.

It wasn’t the fancy jackets or the first editions I’d left behind that weighed heavily on my heart. I didn’t care about those. It was Caroline I missed like mad.

I was a shadow of a man now. Almost numb, as though blood no longer pumped through me.

My spirit was so heavy that some days I could barely face myself, let alone humanity, as that mass of bodies treaded along cracked pavements like they were in a modern adaptation of a Dickens novel. More skin on display, genders somewhat undefined, but still a familiar cast of characters that, from no fault of their own or from blindly following their hearts, were on a path to a dead-end.

For me, wallowing beat facing the day, and self-pity quickly became my comforter, a kind of moth-eaten blanket that I clutched onto. My brain suddenly churned out purple prose by the ream—a death knell for any modern writer. But that didn’t matter, because my ‘winter of discontent’ reverie remained buried inside, and like some dysfunctional friend, gloom kept me company.

Audrey, my landlady, found me a good listener and had taken a shine to me. I’d only just moved in when she recounted her life story over cups of tea and cheap port. As the days blended into each other, she’d share wholesome stews or homemade scones while talking about her life and anything else that popped into her busy head.

I didn’t mind, because that sweet, kindly soul’s endless chatter gave me a break from my own restless thoughts.

Within two weeks of living at Audrey’s, I found work teaching literature at a college, and slowly I started to thaw out.

A week later, just as I was leaving campus for the day, I ran into Theadora. Much to my horror.

“Cary.” Theadora looked perplexed, as though I was the last person she expected to see.

I matched her awkward smile with a jittery greeting. I hadn’t expected to cross paths with the family, either. Whitechapel wasn’t exactly the sort of area the Lovechildes frequented—other than Caroline on one of her strange expeditions involving me and my dick.

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