Page 48 of Owned By a Billionaire

Her lips tasted of sex, and my dick lengthened. Men of my age normally needed the help of a pill to get an erection so soon after fucking. That was my experience.

But I’d met no one like Caroline before.

Everything had changed. I was no longer that man.

Imovedmyfocusfrom a blank page on my screen to the window. That green room, as it was known, had become my favorite for its meditative view of the sea. It was there that I would spend hours tapping out the odd desultory paragraph before returning my eyes to the sky or the ever-changing body of water, imagining the many journeys it had made.

Caroline entered. “Busy working, I see.”

“Not so much. Just doing what I do best.” I chuckled. “Staring out the window.”

“Yes, the views here are rather distracting, aren’t they?”

I studied her and searched her eyes for judgement. Caroline missed little, and she’d noticed how I preferred to either walk or read instead of write.

“You’ve used up all your credit, I see.” She walked over to the sofa and took a seat.

I forgot to breathe for a minute. “Yes, well…” Money and that maxed-out credit card she’d so generously given me was a subject I preferred to avoid. “I had a few expenses.”

Her eyes trapped mine like a clairvoyant's might for one of those intense evaluations. “I’ve topped it up. No need to worry.”

“That’s good of you. I…” What could I say, that I was waiting for a piddly settlement?

Reading me well, she gave me a sympathetic smile, which only made me feel worse. “Think nothing of it.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t we marry?”

I nodded slowly, as if that idea was only just dawning on me, which wasn’t the case. I’d thought of little else.

“If we marry, you can dig deep into the Lovechilde fortune.”

I frowned. “I’m not here for your money, Caroline.”

She gazed at me. “I will have to get you to sign a prenuptial agreement, you realize?”

I shrugged. “That’s predictable.” I couldn’t hide my resentment at being seen as some money-grubbing layabout despite having done nothing to prove otherwise. “When do you want me to sign?”

Caroline wore a strained smile, the type a mother might give a petulant child. “Oh, Cary, please. Don’t be offended. I have a family to protect. You must understand.”

“Why marry then?” I asked. “Why not stay the way we are?”

She tapped her long red fingernails. Wearing a fitted floral dress and with her hair up in a bun, Caroline looked much younger than her age. I knew she’d had work done, despite her denials, but that didn’t temper the effect she had on me and my libido.

“I would prefer marriage. I’m a little old-fashioned, I suppose.” She looked up at me with a rare, shy smile.

“Oh, I wouldn’t describe you as that.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs.

Scrutinizing me closely, as though trying to read deeper meaning into my words, Caroline remained silent.

“You’re conservative on the outside,” I continued, “but on the inside, you’re anything but traditional.”

“An upholder of convention is hardly priggish, my love.”

“It can be construed that way. Often, the two are synonymous.”

“Anyway”—she released a breath—“I get this feeling you’re holding onto something. You can tell me anything. You know that, don’t you?”

Her floral perfume drifted over to me, and all I wanted to do was remove that fitted dress—which emphasized an hourglass figure women half her age pined for—and make her cry out my name again.

“This is coming from the queen of secrets.” I sniffed.

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