The Philanthropist (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Philanthropist

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Philanthropist

  GET A FREE BOOK!

  A Note About Reading Order

  Chapter One - Jamie

  Chapter Two - Aiden

  Chapter Three - Jamie

  Chapter Four - Jamie

  Chapter Five - Aiden

  Chapter Six - Jamie

  Chapter Seven - Jamie

  Chapter Eight - Jamie

  Chapter Nine - Jamie

  Chapter Ten - Jamie

  Chapter Eleven - Aiden

  Chapter Twelve - Jamie

  Chapter Thirteen - Aiden

  Chapter Fourteen - Jamie

  Chapter Fifteen - Jamie

  Chapter Sixteen - Aiden

  Chapter Seventeen - Jamie

  Chapter Eighteen - Jamie

  Chapter Nineteen - Aiden

  Chapter Twenty - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-One - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Aiden

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Aiden

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Jamie

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Aiden

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Jamie

  Want to know what happens next?

  Sneak Peek: The Guru

  Chapter One - Anthony

  Shit You Should Know

  Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Philanthropist

  Aubrey Parker

  Copyright © 2017 by Aubrey Parker. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.

  Thank you for supporting Aubrey Parker

  For my readers.

  GET A FREE BOOK!

  THE BURNING OFFER is the first book in my “Trevor’s Harem” series — a hot and suspenseful billionaire’s game of tested limits and forbidden temptations that’s like nothing you’ve ever read before. It normally sells for $2.99, but I’d like to give you a FREE copy. Just click the link below to get it!

  http://aubreyparker.net/aubreyfb/

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  Aubrey Parker

  A NOTE ABOUT READING ORDER

  All of the books in the Trillionaire Boys’ Club series are meant to be read as standalone novels. That’s why I haven’t numbered the books: the number really doesn’t matter much for most readers, and I don’t want to imply that it does.

  In each book, you’ll read the story of one of the Club’s members and the woman he comes to love. The romance is self-contained and does not require knowledge of earlier books.

  However, some readers will want to read the books in the order I wrote them because behind each book’s love story, there is a slowly-building master plot. You don’t have to worry about this “big arc” to appreciate or enjoy any individual book at all, but you may want to see that slow build as it originally unfolded. If that’s the case, you’ll want to start with The Connector — the story of the Club’s founder, Nathan Turner.

  The suggested reading order for all of my books — including the Trillionaire Boys’ Club series — is on my website here.

  So yes, you may choose to read that way if you’re particular about order … but I promise: this book stands alone just fine, so you absolutely don’t need to.

  Happy reading!

  - Aubrey Parker

  CHAPTER ONE

  JAMIE

  IN ANTHONY’S HOUSE, WITH HIM gone on one of his seminar tours, I feel like a little girl again. I’m a lot taller than when I last played hopscotch and jumped double-dutch, but Anthony’s castle on the hill is so big it’s like the whole world has grown around me. I’m tiny in this palace. And with Caitlin beside me, I’m giggly, light as air.

  We chase each other through the enormous rooms and around the many balconies looking down upon the Del Mar waves. We’ve been drinking, but not too much. It’s like I’m a child all over again.

  “Okay, time out,” Caitlin says, stopping by a column, holding her chest and fighting for breath. “If I keep laughing and running like this, I’m going to pee my pants.”

  “Do it and I’ll tell Rudy.” This threat is about making fun of Rudy more than embarrassing Caitlin. Her boyfriend has said that he thinks girls peeing their pants is hot. Neither of us knows if he’s joking — and Caitlin, who sleeps with him, is half certain he’s going to go gross-fetish on her.

  “Do it and I’ll tell your dad,” Caitlin counters.

  She means Anthony. My dad died when I was little, and Caitlin isn’t cruel enough to bring him up.

  “What are you, eight?”

  “You started it,” she counters.

  “So you are eight. Are you rubber? Am I glue? Does everything I say—”

  “You’re retarded,” Caitlin slumps to the floor and, with this sage proclamation, I deem the topic closed. I also decide that perhaps we are more than a little drunk.

  Anthony has been like a father to me for most of my life, but it’s only in the past ten years or so that he became famous … then stupid famous. I’m not used to his new place, even though his insane wealth has become surprisingly comfortable. I don’t live large, just like I don’t (and never did) live with Anthony, so being in such an opulent house — a damn castle — is new enough to make me giddy. The place is filled with secret passages. It’s like spending the night in a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

  Tonight’s recipe was always going to be one of excitement and mischief — left alone to explore the billionaire life on my own. But when I found out that Caitlin was in town and that we could do a Girls’ Night Out? Well. That’s when the tequila appeared and shit got real.

  “I’ve had too many margaritas,” Caitlin says.

  “There’s no such thing as too many margaritas.”

  “I’m a junior partner at an LA law firm. I’m a professional. And you? You’re an architect.”

  “I remember,” I say, “but thank you.”

  “We’ve had too many margaritas for such professional women.”

  “This is the age of liberation. Professional women are allowed to have as many margaritas as we want.”

  Caitlin stabs a finger at me as if tallying a point. She used to do the same thing when we were girls. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear we still were. Instead of being 25-year-olds who wear suits to work, we could be pre-teens with pigtails. Margaritas have rewound the clock. Removed inhibitions, made us happy, urged us to rush through the halls looking through all the rooms, and reduced our maturity by at least an order of magnitude. Soon, if we keep this up we’ll start contemplating the finer points of cooties. Especially with me on leave and Caitlin on vacation — both of us temporarily irresponsible in the big house where no one is home. We have a week. Empires could fall in that amount of time, and with that much evening tequila.

  “You shouldn’t drink to forget your problems,” I tell her.

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “I don’t have any problems.”

  “Yes, you do. Your childhood best friend is fucking your fake daddy.”

  “Who’s …?” But then I realize she means herself. She’s probably not technically my childhood bes
t friend, but she’s close. We grew up together, and if she hadn’t moved to California, we’d probably have grown the rest of the way up together back home in the Falls. She’d know my current best friend, Mia, better. She’d have met her on-again, off-again boyfriend Onyx who co-founded the Forage search engine and became a billionaire, too.

  Billionaires are everywhere these days. There’s Anthony, there’s Onyx and his partner Aiden, who I’m in the middle of tormenting as best I can.

  Well, not right now. Right now I’m drinking and playing hide-and-seek. I’ll get back to cockblocking Aiden’s attempts to cozy up to Anthony in the morning.

  He doesn’t stand a chance.

  “You’re not fucking anyone,” I reply. “Except Rudy. Who wants you to pee on him.”

  “He hasn’t said that.”

  “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t.”

  “Gross.”

  I shrug. “Well, I think we both know that Rudy is gross.”

  There’s a moment where I think she’ll protest, but it’s true; Rudy is gross. He cleans up okay and isn’t bad to look at, but the man has zero ambition. He and Caitlin started at the law firm around the same time, but she’s close to adding her name to the marquee and he’s still just a step up from the mail room.

  And the shit she’s told me he likes in bed? Gross.

  “I had to settle,” Caitlin says, “since I can’t ride your fake daddy any more.”

  “You never rode my fake daddy.”

  “In my dreams I did.”

  “Great.” I’d better end this. Caitlin doesn’t have the best filter, and this isn’t a discussion I want in my head.

  “He must have a huge dick,” Caitlin says. “I mean, you’ve seen the size of his hands.”

  “Ugh.”

  “And you know he’s all enthusiastic, probably uses his on-stage voice when he’s giving it to you.” She impersonates Anthony’s seminar voice — the one the world knows, from when he’s on stage doing his magic. It’s rough from his years speaking, but deep like thunder. A voice to match his larger than life personality.

  “‘I’m going to reframe your personal paradigm!’” Caitlin says in her horrible Anthony voice, gesturing with her too-small hands for emphasis. “‘Spread your legs so I can NLP your pussy!’”

  “Gross! You know I hate it when you talk about Anthony like that.”

  Caitlin slumps to the floor. Now we’re sitting. Refilling our margaritas will be that much harder — though honestly, I’m not sure I can find the kitchen without a trail of breadcrumbs.

  “Oh, come on,” she says. “He’s not your real dad.”

  “He’s basically my dad! And he’s 43 years old!”

  “So? 43 is the new 23.”

  “I didn’t grow up in his house, but every day for years, he taught me—”

  Caitlin interrupts, her brown eyes eager and irreverent. She has a tiny overbite. Guys think it’s cute. I don’t have the overbite, but otherwise we could be sisters. We both have brown hair, small frames, long legs, thin, slightly upturned noses. And the same big, curious brown eyes, based on what I see in the mirror and what I’m looking at now.

  “Did you ever go on vacation with him? With the Anthony Ross?”

  I don’t like where this is going. Caitlin used his full name and gave herself away. He’s usually just “Anthony” between us, and she’s not easily star-struck. She’s around famous people all the time — and her job often comes down to kicking those famous people right in their big giant egos. But “Anthony Ross” has sex appeal in the press, and right now it’s like my usually cool friend wants to taste his name on her tongue.

  “Yes.”

  “Sleep in the next room?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Ever hear him having sex?”

  “No!”

  Caitlin looks suddenly dreamy. “I would. I’d listen until I heard it.”

  “Cait, stop it! You know it freaks me out when you crush on Anthony!”

  “The whole world crushes on Anthony.”

  “You’re my friend. You grew up around him same as—”

  “Exactly. I grew up around him, too. If I hadn’t moved before my boobs started to grow, I could have seduced him right into—”

  “Caitlin!”

  She looks at me. “I’m sorry. Would you prefer I stop talking about your hot older man’s thick, throbbing—?”

  “Yes.”

  “… veiny, hot, come-spurting …”

  “Stop it!”

  Caitlin shakes her head, acquiescing. She’s pretending this was just about goading me and mostly it is, but what she says is still true. Caitlin’s been hot for Anthony forever and, despite having a brain, she doesn’t understand why I won’t play her little game.

  I know Anthony is attractive. But to me, he’s Dad.

  “Fine,” Caitlin says in her you’re-no-fun voice. “Do you want to run around again like idiots?”

  “If we do that,” I say, “I’ll puke.”

  “And you don’t want to talk about Anthony’s hog.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Fine. Then maybe you tell me what’s up with Aiden Page.”

  “Nothing is up with Aiden Page. Except that he’s a predator.”

  Caitlin bobs her head, apparently accepting this disparagement. Then she turns to face me. “Do you know Clive Spooner?”

  “No.”

  “Microdyne. English guy?”

  “No,” I repeat.

  “You don’t know who Clive Spooner is.”

  “What do you want from me? I’m not a computer person.”

  “What about Evan Cohen?”

  “LiveLyfe’s founder?”

  Caitlin nods. “My firm represents them both. I don’t know Evan, but I’ve talked to Clive a few times. He has this idea about a privacy chip. It’s sort of nutty, but the guy hasn’t been wrong yet.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Clive has mentioned Aiden and Onyx. He’s also mentioned Evan, and he talks like Evan knows Aiden and Onyx, too. Tell you the truth? I think they’re in some sort of billionaire club together.”

  “Imagine the dues,” I say.

  “Anthony ever talk about any sort of a club? I mean, he must have a billion by now.”

  “Are you making this up?”

  “So he hasn’t said anything?”

  Now that I think about it, he sort of has. I haven’t pried, but there was a time I remember Onyx inviting himself to a dinner I was having with Anthony and Mia, and their discussion made me think they were already friends. Or associates, at least.

  I shrug.

  “Clive’s doing some shit with Aiden, I think,” Caitlin says. “And with Evan owning LiveLife, I think they’re both doing something with him, too. And the things I’ve seen in their legal paperwork —”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be, like, attorney-client privilege?”

  Caitlin makes a psssht noise and waves the issue away. “I was just wondering, if you have your eye on Aiden Page —”

  “I don’t have my eye on him. Not in the way you mean.”

  “You could do worse. He’s fucking hot.”

  “Do you think everyone is hot? You know, except for Rudy?”

  Caitlin plays along. “Poor Rudy. He has no idea I’m going to end up in a group scene with all these hot guys. I’ll have Anthony behind me, Clive in my mouth, and Evan and Onyx’s cocks in my hands.”

  “Onyx is spoken for.” I feel the need to clarify, for Mia’s sake.

  “Whoever, then. This ‘Boys’ Club’ must be a room of rich guys to choose from. I wonder if they know Mateo Saint. There’s a dude I’d go down on all night.”

  “You’re such a slut.”

  “I’m just ambitious.” And that’s true; she is.

  “I’ll handle those four. Or three. You’ll be over in the corner, fucking Aiden Page.”

  “Aiden Page disgusts me,” I say.

  “Mmm-hmm. So why does it sound to me like you’re st
alking him?”

  “I’m thwarting him.”

  Caitlin puts on her disbelieving face. “You. Thwarting one of the owners of Forage.”

  “Hey. I control access to Anthony Ross. I can thwart whoever I want.”

  “Well, look … if you control access to Anthony Ross …”

  “Stop it, Cait.”

  Again, she glances at me with her you’re-no-fun expression.

  We sit a while longer, then eventually stand up. We’ll go back to the kitchen, drink some more, then maybe continue our immature Girls’ Night In. There are giant rooms to explore. Enormous tubs to soak in. Views to absorb and crashing waves far below. Wall-sized screens, on which we’ve seriously discussed watching My Little Pony.

  “Okay,” Caitlin says. “Back to your hot dad’s kitchen, then.”

  I don’t take her bait. Instead I follow, knowing she’ll duck into each room to snoop.

  In the third room she stops, holding up something I can’t yet see.

  “Now, what the hell do you think this is?” she says.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AIDEN

  EVAN COHEN IS THE WORST kind of punk kid.

  For one, he really is a kid. Looks like one, too. He’s about the size of a high school quarterback, fit but not bulky, a few years off the gridiron. I know he’s 27, but time spent around computer nerds has made him a tad less jaded-looking, so he looks about 18 — like he belongs in a boy band rather than at the head of one of the world’s biggest companies.

  But it’s his money that makes him a punk.

  It’s obnoxious. Even if Onyx and I hadn’t co-founded Forage, and I held its entire value alone, I’d still be worth about 35 billion dollars to Cohen’s 52. I’m stupid rich but he’s even richer. At thirty-two years old, I’m ridiculously young for a billionaire — but Evan is younger by half a decade.

  Stupid fucking rich kid.