Babysitting the Grumpy Billionaire

Prologue

Seven Years Ago

Idon’t like the shoes.

Mera tells me they go perfectly with my outfit, but I’m not loving the whole ensemble. But what can I do? My girlfriend picked it for me to wear to the Met Gala, and while I might know fashion, I don’t know fashion for this event.

The theme is fashion fantasies, and Mera Michelle, my girlfriend for the last six months, got her designer friends to outfit me as well. I’d be more grateful if I looked better in it, but I’m sure it will show up great for pictures.

I may be a billionaire—or at least the son of one—but Mera has got me beat when it comes to performing for the press.

It doesn’t hurt when she looks so good. I don’t really understand what she’s wearing, but it’s sort of greenish with a bare shoulder, and drapey fabric that manages to hug her curves as it flows, and lots of skin showing.

It’s an interesting look, but she pulls it off.

Mine makes me feel like a reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte, only taller.

The jacket hits at my waist at the front but flows down the back with tails that skim the floor.

It’s an iridescent purple colour, which I like because it brings out the colour of the blue in my eyes.

The rest of it—not so much. Flashy gold buttons crisscross the chest in a random pattern, and oversize epaulettes keep hitting my ears when I turn my head.

They are gold and gaudy, with fringe and feathers.

The pants are even worse than that, bagging at my hips and thighs in sort of a barrel shape but narrow at my knees to hug tight to my calves.

The pants—also gold coloured—do nothing for my butt, which is too bad because I have a nice butt. And then there are the shoes. Pointy.

I’m not much for pointy shoes. For the first time in my life, I understand a bit of what women go through with their high heels. Not sure I’m going to be dancing in these things.

Not that Mera looks like she’s into dancing. After we do the red carpet—it’s tiresome being told to step aside so they can get pics of Mera on her own—I prop up a wall looking pretty while Mera flirts and talks and mingles and makes the most of this career burst that she’s in the middle of.

I watch her work the room, her honey brown hair floating behind her.

Her hair is what first attracted me. Then her eyes—cat-shaped and bright green. And then the curves…

When we met six months ago, she was just a model that I met when we were both doing a Tom Ford show. I was with my sister, Fenella, and Mera was with her boyfriend.

The next morning, the boyfriend was gone, and Fenella flew home.

Mera and I spent a week in Paris before heading to Greece.

I like to think it was the picture of me and her on a yacht that really brought her to the public attention, but it could’ve been the Victoria’s Secret ads, and then there was the Louis Vuitton billboard in Times Square with Mera standing there naked, holding a suitcase in front of her with an expression that can only be described as why don’t you unzip me?

She’s been in a Kendrick Lamar video. She did New York Fashion Week. Paris fashion week. She’s friends with Taylor Swift.

And she’s dating me.

More than dating; we’re exclusive. We’ve mixed the friend group and set up Rupe with her roommate Shayla, Fenella with a photographer. I did Easter at her mom’s place. Mera changed her status on social media.

I said the L word.

She said it back.

That’s never happened before.

I’ve never said it before—I’ve had women, men, and everything in between confess their love to me when I’m in a race car, or on the catwalk. But my telling a grown woman that I love her, that I want a future with her, is a new ball game.

It’s… a lot.

It’s worse than taking the first step off the bungee jump at Victoria Falls. Or skydiving. Or my first race. It’s terrifying at first… but exhilarating when you’re in it.

It’s amazing.

It’s like the first taste of an In-N-Out burger after giving them up. Watching the Dodgers win the World Series. The first time you kiss a girl you really like.

I’ve been paired with so many women—less than you think, but a considerable number. Miley. Zendaya. Olivia and Sabrina both—who do you think caused the feud between them? Kendall Jenner and I were more than friends. And then there’s the wild weekend with Eva Longoria that I will never forget.

But I have never once said those three words to any woman.

I don’t even tell my sister, and we’re twins. Fenella is closer to me than anyone, and of course, I love her, but I don’t feel the need to tell her. She knows.

And now, Mera knows, because I told her I love her.

It gives me a tingle just thinking about saying it.

But now, wearing this ultra-fashionable get-up with the pointy shoes at the Met Gala where everyone is watching and talking and judging… I feel something very un-tingle like watching my girlfriend talk to Bradley Cooper.

Yes, that Bradley Cooper.

I still hold her bag, the tiny little thing that surprisingly has room for a multitude of makeup. She still holds my heart, but I can almost feel fingers squeezing it.

I’m joined for my wall propping by friends Lavina—she of the one-word name—and Milo Stapleton-Shak.

“Ashton,” Milo greets me with the hint of a British accent. He has that in common with Lavinia. “Bradley Cooper.” He jerks his chin toward my Mera and that Bradley Cooper, like I might have missed the scene playing out.

Bradley Cooper has his hand on Mera’s arm. It slides around her waist as he gestures to someone. He smiles with those teeth and dimples and blue eyes that are even brighter than mine, and I feel—

Nausea.

Everyone sees them together; they look at them and then over at me. And then they look past me.

“What’s going on there?” Lavinia asks with an eagerness that annoys me.

“What does it look like?” I snap.

A reasonable man would know that they are most likely talking about some movie Bradley wants to make with Mera, and it’s nothing more than a mild flirtation happening. It’s Bradley freaking Cooper—I’d flirt with him if it meant getting into one of his movies.

But I am not a reasonable man. I am a man in love and imagining all the ways I could lose her.

Because I’m going to lose her. Mera is going to step away from Bradley Cooper and look at me, and she’s going to wonder what she saw in me. She’s going to think about that stupid fight we had last week and wonder why she’s bothered with me.

She’s going to realize she’s not really in love with me.

And then the world will see that I’m not worth loving. That I am nothing but a spoiled brat who spends daddy’s money and has nothing to show for himself. That I am too grumpy, too growly and too much of an arse to love.

And the world will judge me as not being worthy of a woman’s love.

It’s going to happen any minute. Any day now, Mera will dump me, and I’ll be alone. Humiliated.

That can’t happen.

Milo watches me watch Mera laugh with Bradley Cooper. “Looks cozy.”

“Yeah.”

“Is she talking movies with him? Because I would love an intro,” Lavinia says. She’s a model, same as Mera, but she’s not on the cusp of greatness like Mera.

Lavinia isn’t as hungry. Mera is ambitious and slightly greedy for more. My friend Lavinia—and Milo, too—are both children of billionaires.

Same as me.

It brings us closer together as well as sets us apart from others.

We’ve all got our thing—Lavinia is a model, Milo plays with start-ups, and I race cars for a living—but the world sees us as the billionaire brats.

There’s five or six of us in this group, who hang together, understand each other, and offer support on the bad days.

You’d think there aren’t bad days when you’re a billionaire, but nothing can be further from the truth.

Somehow, watching Mera laugh with Bradley Cooper, I manage to harden my heart. How could I ever think that I could love someone like Mera? Or anyone? It’s not worth feeling like this, or how I’m going to feel when she leaves me, which is going to be worse.

That can’t happen.

And it won’t, because I’m going to end it first.

“Go ahead,” I tell Lavinia, pushing away from the wall. “Want to get a drink?” I ask Milo.

“There’s a lineup at the bar, which is a pain,” he says.

“I say we get out of here,” I decide. “I’ve got to ditch these shoes.”

“What about your girl?” Milo glances back at Mera, still working her magic.

It’s no longer magical for me. “Her, too.”