AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sticks and stones, and all that,” Dalton mumbles, clearly put out.
Daisy smirks. “You just keep on pretending that you’re happy messing around with women who are more interested in your inheritance than what little you have to offer, and I’ll enjoy spending my time with real men who aren’t afraid of their feelings.”
“What men?” both me and Dalton question at the same time.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she replies cryptically before busying herself making tea. I make a mental note to ask her about these men when I next get the chance.
Beside me Dalton’s mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water, until eventually he says, “Well as much as I’d like to stick around and exchange insults with a prickly, unicorn-loving, flower, Drix and I have business to attend to.”
“You’re going out?” Daisy asks, ignoring Dalton and focussing on me.
“Just for a bit. Got to check in at the gym and swing by Carl’s place,” I explain.
“Well don’t be long, okay?”
“I won’t. I’ll have this wrapped up soon, and be back in time for dinner.”
“You’d better.”
Twenty minutes later we’re pulling up the drive to Carl Gunn’s stately mansion. Overlooking Princetown, it’s prime real estate worth over twenty million pounds. With enough bedrooms to sleep thirty couples, a ballroom that can comfortably seat over a hundred, a huge indoor swimming pool, gym, library, cinema room, elaborate gardens and stables, it’s as obnoxious as it is beautiful, just like the heir to the family fortune.
“I can see the whole gang's here,” Dalton comments, eying the other expensive cars parked in his drive. Whilst I appreciate the beauty of Dalton's very own matte black, Aston Martin Valour, Benedict’s sage green Bentley, and Robert Blade’s silver Rolls Royce Sweptail, I’m not into overly flashy vehicles worth a shit ton more money than most people could ever dream of earning in a lifetime. Hubert may have been a relatively wealthy man himself, but he was also a humble one. Flashy, outlandish cars weren’t his thing, and they’re not mine either. I’d take his ten year old Landrover that he left me in his will any day of the week.
“Sterling’s here?” I question, surprised to see his car—a top of the line Tesla—amongst the others.
“He was ordered home for his dad’s wedding next month.”
“Wedding? Since fucking when?”
“Since Robert found a younger version of Sterling’s mum to keep him company until he tires of her too.”
“Bet Sterling was happy about that,” I comment. “The ink has only just dried on his parent’s divorce papers and Robert’s already replacing her with some self-absorbed gold digger, no doubt.”
“About as happy as I am about my dad’s obsession for a grandchild.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledge. “Let’s get this shit over and done with, shall we?”
Heading inside, we exchange pleasantries with each member of the families present. They’re all sitting around the huge table in the billiard room, repurposed for business meetings just like this one.
“Ben, Sterling,” I nod, greeting my friends. It’s been a few months since we’ve all been in the same room together, and whilst Sterling and Benedict are five years younger than Dalton and me, we’ve all been friends since Hubert adopted me.
“Drix,” they reply in unison.
Neither of them look happy about being here. Can’t say I blame them.
“You were supposed to be here half an hour ago,” Sterling’s father, Robert Blade, says sharply, his countenance as cold and unyielding as his steel grey eyes.
With as much money in the bank as Carl Gunn, his patience for time wasters is zero. He believes that being a billionaire alone should garner immediate respect, and for the most part he gets it from all the fake-arse, simpering people that he surrounds himself with. I, on the other hand, am polite to him out of respect for Hubert. I don’t like him. Never have. Pretty sure his son feels the same way given the tight look he throws his way. The guy’s an arsehole, no wonder Sterling bailed as soon as his mum left their family home.
“You can blame me for that,” Dalton retorts. “I got sidetracked.”
“Yeah, with pussy,” Ben coughs, his emerald eyes dancing with amusement. Beside him, his dad chuckles. Of the three older men sitting around the table, he’s the only one I like.
“You good, Walter?” I ask.
“As good as an old man past his prime can be. You?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
