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

  It’s funny; in a strange way, we owe everything to Parker Barnes: the deal, the future, even my relationship.

  My relationship.

  I look at Jamie. I can’t believe I’d use those two words together. I’m not the kind of man who has relationships. I don’t date. I don’t have girlfriends. I have girls. There’s a difference.

  But now, it seems, I do.

  And right now, I just want to get out of this boardroom, leave with my new partner and lover, then take her to bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  JAMIE

  AIDEN ENTERS THE DINING ROOM and says, “Caitlin called again.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “She’s called five times this week.”

  “And I told her: No.”

  “I think she just wants to talk to you.”

  “I don’t want to talk right now. I’m busy. Have you ever run a foundation before? Turns out collecting and distributing untold millions of charity dollars is a lot of work.”

  Aiden puts his hands on my shoulders and rubs them slowly. He knows I’m not actually stressed out, overworked, or anything negative. I love my work running Anthony’s foundation even more than I loved being an architect back in the Falls.

  It’s not even too much work. Combined with the Syndicate/Anthony Ross “big plan” stuff I’m not supposed to know about, I’ve exactly enough on my plate to keep me busy while still allowing plenty of free time. I hate being idle. Some people could live their entire lives lounging on beaches. Not me. I’m wired to work, so long as I love what I do. That’s why, since Anthony brought me on, both the foundation and his genius Syndicate strategies are bearing new fruit.

  But I’ll still accept Aiden’s rubs. Or any way he chooses to touch or kiss me.

  “She’s one of your best friends, Jamie.”

  I turn. “Don’t give me that guilt crap. She’s not calling for girl chat. She’s calling about the job, and I’m getting tired of the way she won’t accept no for an answer.”

  Aiden says nothing, but his hands pause, enough to make me look fully upward, fully into his faux-innocent face.

  “Oh, no,” I say. “Don’t tell me she’s got you convinced.”

  “We talked for a few minutes while I was pretending you weren’t here. Our old pal Rudy has been bugging her. Or he was. I guess she ran into Anthony and it came up. He took care of it.”

  “What, did Anthony have him killed or something?” It’s a laugh. Anthony is easily the most powerful, persuasive man I know, but he’s far from violent.

  “He talked to him. If you can believe that.”

  Anthony could talk Stalin into joining a hippie commune. He could talk blind people into seeing.

  I laugh.

  “But,” Aiden says, “she’s starting to hate her job. Restless, by the sound of it.”

  “She never really wanted to be a lawyer. But she’s great at it.”

  “Exactly,” Aiden says. “She wants to write.”

  I turn back to my paperwork. I was immersed in using Forage’s enormous recurring donation before Aiden came up behind me. It’s suddenly interesting again. I’m tired of this argument. I love Caitlin, but now she’s talked Aiden into joining her, by the sound of things.

  “Jamie?”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Come on. The foundation needs legal help and someone to write grants. If Caitlin wants a shot at filling both positions, I say you give her a shot.”

  “Forget it.”

  “You know she’s great at her job,” he says.

  “No way. It’s always a mistake to do business with friends or family.”

  “You work with Anthony, who’s basically family. And you sort of work with me, and I’m your fiancé.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Because I’m not her. Caitlin isn’t great with authority. She thinks she ‘calls people on their bullshit’ and is ‘unswayed by hierarchies so she can speak her mind and get things done,’ but … Oh, hell, Aiden, I love her. But in work situations, Caitlin is pushy and insubordinate.”

  “Anthony can handle her. She’d report to him, not you.”

  “That’s half the problem. She’s had a crush on Anthony her entire life.”

  He laughs. “Half the world has had a crush on Anthony Ross. Probably because he looks like that actor. What’s that guy’s name?”

  “I’m not hiring her, Aiden.”

  “He sure is hunky.”

  I turn around in my chair and punch Aiden in the leg.

  “She won’t stop calling, you know. If you don’t give her a shot at this lawyer/writer job, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  I roll my eyes and return to work. I ignore Aiden until he grabs me and pulls me bodily to my feet, facing him.

  “Give Caitlin a chance, or I’m going to do something terrible to you in front of the neighbors.” He nods toward the window wall of our dining room. The neighbors are practically a state away. But I get what he means, and the understanding makes me blush in all the right places.

  “Make you a deal,” I say. “I’ll give her a chance — but only if you do something terrible to me in front of the neighbors.”

  Our bodies press against each other. Aiden stiffens. I’m anticipating. I can’t believe I can go from work to sex so quickly. It’s a talent.

  “Fine,” Aiden says, “but only because I love you.”

  “Daring words from the king of mean.”

  “That hurts.” He pouts, but it’s put-on, ridiculous, and kind of adorable.

  “Fine.” Then, rolling my eyes and dripping with feigned sarcasm: “I love you too, Aiden Page.”

  “Do you have the time?” Aiden looks at our dining room table full of paperwork. “I don’t want to interrupt something charitably focus-intensive or anything.”

  “I have time.” I sigh. “In fact: Please. Save me from today’s obnoxiousness.”

  “I thought you loved your work?”

  “I do. But today …” Another sigh.

  “What?”

  “Do you really want to talk about this now?”

  Aiden slips his hand down my pants, inside my panties. My pussy is already wet, waiting. “Make you a deal. Talk until you can’t talk anymore.” Then his fingers slowly roll across my clit.

  “Remember how we decided we didn’t need Eros’s AI, so we could cut them out of Anthony’s plan for the Syndicate?”

  “I changed my mind. If you’re going to keep talking about this, I’ll need you to rub my cock.”

  I do as he says. “Anyway …”

  “Really? You’re going to keep talking?” His fingers move faster.

  Holy shit, can this man turn me on. I’m not far from being unable to continue, lost in pleasure.

  “We’re going to need Eros after all, Aiden. It’s a problem.”

  “You aren’t allowed to talk about problems when my hand’s on your pussy.” He rubs me faster to sharpen his point. I’m close. I don’t want to think about my problems, and soon I won’t be able to. But for now, it bugs me.

  “Dealing with Eros, untangling the bugs in their AI so we can use it … Just the negotiation is going to be tricky, now that we’ve pissed them off.”

  “Only the board. Daniel matters more.”

  “The board, then.”

  “Will you fucking come already? I’m done with this conversation.”

  His words turn my legs to erasers. Sensations are building. I unzip Aiden and plunge my hand inside his pants, gripping his hot, hard shaft, working it.

  My eyes close. “You started this,” I manage between breaths.

  “Fuck the Eros board. Fuck them while I fuck you.” And with his other hand, Aiden opens my shirt. His hand is under my bra, kneading my breast. His fingers on my clit are amazing. I’m going to lose it, just thinking about him spreading my legs to fuck me on my paperwork — right here on top of all this philanthropy.

  “I hat
e …” I pant. “… negotiations and conflict.” But it’s getting hard to think about that as my pussy begins to clench, wanting him inside.

  “Put Caitlin on it,” Aiden says. “Your only job, right now, is to come.”

  So I lean into Aiden. I close my eyes.

  And I do as I’m told.

  WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

  (Read on for a sneak peek of The Guru)

  The story of the Trillionaire Boys’ Club continues in The Guru.

  SNEAK PEEK: THE GURU

  Continue reading for a sample chapter of the sixth book in the Trillionaire Boys’ Club series:

  The Guru

  CHAPTER ONE

  ANTHONY

  “DO YOU TRUST ME?” I ask.

  The woman across from me is named Rena. She’s 46, attractive and fashionable, wearing clothes that manage to be both casual and a little too nice for something like this. She has blonde hair that’s been dyed well and suits her. I’d guess her natural color is something a little browner and a little redder but still in the ballpark, and if I had to guess, she’s dyed it not so much to change colors as to hide her first strands of grey. She’s applied just enough makeup to cover some of her skin’s natural flaws, but not enough to draw attention, like someone younger might. She’s worn a charcoal skirt and peach-colored blouse, and is perched on the front edge of a rather ordinary auditorium chair with her hands lightly clasped, chest artificially high, knees pressed together, canted to the right.

  There’s a smile on her face, but it’s clearly forced. That little smile tells the crowd she’s got her shit together, but we all know she doesn’t — or won’t, once we truly begin.

  I sympathize. This part is never easy.

  “Yes,” she says. She doesn’t really speak into the microphone, and what comes out is more like an exhalation than a word.

  That’s okay; the event crew has done enough of these to know when to boost the gain so the crowd can hear.

  Rena blinks a little and reinforces her tiny smile, and now it’s my turn to be a little nervous. It’s not that I doubt what’s coming, or that I think she honestly doesn’t trust me. Quite the opposite. I think I know exactly what Rena has inside, and I’m positive she trusts me. That’s what always makes me a little uneasy, no matter how many events I put on: the idea that I no longer have to build trust. These people come to me now with trust built in, and the burden of that trust is like a weight on my back.

  I didn’t start any of this to be a guru, and I don’t want to be one. But now that I’m a bit older myself, I’ve come to accept a truth: People need guidance and I’m a fair guide. It’s better that help comes from me than from someone who might take advantage.

  “Do you mind if I stand?” I ask. I always ask. Most people tell me to go ahead, but asking breaks any impression that standing — particularly at my height — establishes dominance. Everyone has triggers. You never know who had to sit in a chair as a kid while a father stood over them, furious, belt at the ready.

  Rena nods. Now she’s not really looking at me. Her triggers are already firing, unspooling what’s inside as if we’ve already begun. It’s a little like picking a lock by removing a key from your pocket, not even inserting it into the hole. People like Rena’s unlock just seeing the key approach.

  I move to Rena’s side. I’d never touch her without her trust — especially in the way I’m about to — but she’s said I have it. Still, my eyes go to Caitlin, sitting in the Gold Circle right up front, as if I need her permission, too. It’s always a bit strange, having someone I know personally in the crowd — and Caitlin’s friendship with my surrogate daughter Jamie makes her more than just “someone I know.” I know Caitlin quite well, and based on hints Jamie has given, I suspect that what I’m about to tell Rena is going to ring some of Caitlin’s bells.

  I almost want to ask Caitlin to leave, but of course I don’t. She needs to see this, same as any of the others. Sometimes you have to open an old wound in order to clean out the poison inside.

  I put my hand on Rena’s shoulder. Then I move it a little higher, so my fingers are brushing her neck. She exhales a little more when I do, but anyone watching could tell her reaction isn’t remotely sexual. This is her love trigger, as we established in front of the crowd earlier. Everyone has one. Sometimes it’s a word or a phrase; sometimes it’s a look; sometimes it’s a gesture; sometimes it’s a very specific touch as it is with Rena. Most people don’t know their own triggers, but they’re out there. They tell a person they’re loved, and put them in a good place before the cutting begins.

  “Close your eyes,” I say. She does. The audience is as quiet as the dead. With her eyes closed, Rena will soon feel like we’re alone together.

  Again I catch Caitlin’s eye. It’s curious that I look to her; usually I’d be trying to connect with my prospect for the night. But I don’t search for the woman I spoke with earlier — Erica, her name was. Erica and I were well on our way to making that connection, but now I can’t find her. It’s Caitlin that I find, and I see that her eyes are already wide, misty with anticipation.

  “How do you feel?” I ask Rena. My voice is soft: exactly the tone she told us earlier put her most at ease. The lavaliere on my lapel magnifies my voice for the auditorium, but it’s still so much quieter than I usually am. I have a booming voice and big hands. Done wrong, this speak-and-touch encounter with Rena could go very wrong.

  “Good,” she says.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Just a little.”

  I shift my hand slightly, brushing her neck a little higher. Personal triggers are so precise. “How about now?”

  “I feel good.”

  “Still nervous?”

  “No.”

  “What do your thoughts look like right now? Don’t think. Just describe them. Are they black and white? Or are you seeing in color?”

  She obeys and does not think. Thinking ruins most of this. “Black and white.”

  “Are they distant? As if you’re seeing them from far away?”

  “Yes.”

  My hand on her. Soft. My voice quiet. I say, “Rena? Do you still trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring those thoughts closer. Make them full-color. Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.”

  There’s a long moment of hushed quiet. I wait as Rena reassociates with the disturbing issues she’s worked so hard to keep at a distance. I wasn’t sure she’d be thinking in black and white, but of course she’s pushed them far away and of course, right now, it’s going to scare her to bring them close.

  I didn’t really have to bring Rena onstage to know her anxiety disorder was being caused by repression. Repression is written all over her, if you have a trained eye. Repression is in the careful way she dresses, the way she styles her hair and wears her makeup. Repression is in her gestures, and the way she won’t quite meet others’ eyes — normal enough for some people, but obviously not for the underlying personality of someone with Rena’s background.

  I barely need to ask her any questions to know what’s wrong, but the crowd needs to see it. And more importantly, Rena — who’s kept something very important inside, pushed down and festering — needs to see it.

  She’s wearing a wedding ring, but she touches it too often. There are very subtle scratches on her knuckle from where she’s taken the ring off over and over, but the finger where it sits is narrow enough that I can tell she wears it all the time. She fidgets with her hair. She constantly shifts the way she holds her hands, the way she positions her feet. She laughs when nothing is funny. She smiles when nobody is smiling. I already see the problem.

  It’s her husband.

  But more than that, it’s Rena’s reaction to her husband.

  “What do you see?” I ask her. “Now that your thoughts are all around you — now that you can see them wrap around you like a panorama, with you in the middle, seeing them through your own eyes and not as a movie that you see yourself in, in
color, with all the smells and tastes and sounds — what scene are you witnessing?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  Of course she knows. She just doesn’t want to say. Who would? But this is how you heal.

  “Is it … intimate?”

  A blush. A rise and fall of her chest. She smiles a little, nervously, with her eyes still closed. “Yes.”

  The crowd titters. It’s a kind sort of laugh, sharing Rena’s discomfort.

  “Would you like us to leave you alone?”

  This time the audience laughs a little harder, and Rena laughs with them.

  “No,” she says.

  I reaffirm my touch on Rena’s neck and shoulder. The crowd is already silent again, the house lights dim. Rena isn’t hypnotized, but she also sort of is — most people are, most of the time — so she’s breathing slowly and the mic can hear it, and at least half of the people watching us will fall into the same rhythm.

  She’s pacing them without realizing. She’s leading without meaning to lead. And because of that, they’ll all be feeling their own secrets.

  Their own hidden shame.

  “Pull back,” I say. “Bring the memory back through time. Don’t analyze, just do it. Don’t think. Just let your mind roll back. And as it does, let go of the idea of objective truth. I want you to let your thoughts settle where they want to go, but don’t concern yourself with whether they make sense or if whatever your mind wants to see actually happened. It may be a little tricky, but I want you to try. And when I ask you questions, I want you to answer those without thinking, too. Can you do that?”

  She nods.

  “Where are you?”

  “In … in my house?”

  “Don’t think. Just say what comes to mind. Don’t analyze what you think you see.”

  “O-okay.”

  “So where are you?” I repeat.

  This time she gives me an immediate response. “In a restaurant.”