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She’s calm and measured, and the club is a testament to that. It’s a behemoth of an organisation and she oversees all aspects of it, an impressive tribute to her hard work.
What is unexpected is the heat that runs just beneath her surface. The passion that makes her lose herself in the moment just as completely as I do—if not more so. She’s driven by instincts, and her instincts are fire and flame.
It isn’t that I haven’t had good sex. I have. But she’s on a whole other level. There’s nothing practised about her, there’s nothing overthought or contrived. She does as she feels, and she feels as she needs, and her body answers mine in every way.
It’s utterly surreal.
It must have been, for me to suggest we date.
Date! What the actual fuck?
I don’t date. I screw. I screw beautiful, available, temporary lovers then move on. A week here and there, sometimes longer, but always on my terms, and always only if my lovers understand my ballgame. I don’t do promises, I don’t do hearts and candles, love, promises of a future. If I date a woman, it’s because she knows how temporary and superficial it will be.
One day, I’ll marry, someone like Saffy, except I’ll never make the mistake of falling in love with them again. The pain of Saffy’s desertion has been muted by the passage of time but it’s still there, a pressure in my solar plexus whenever I remember it. When I think of how it felt to stand in front of the church and realise that she simply wasn’t going to show. It’s a pain that only grew when, a month later, I learned she’d fallen in love with someone else. While I was preparing for our wedding, she was working out how to leave me for some new guy.
I feel my tattoo restlessly. I am my own.
I’d forgotten that for a while. I’d let the union my parents had pushed me into, had championed and supported, become something else in my mind, so I’d actually let myself fall in love with Saffron. So much so that I was devastated when we broke up. Devastated, humiliated, burned to a crisp.
Never again.
When I get married, it will be to someone who wants the title I can give her and the money at my disposal, who understands that, beyond polite companionship, I’m not offering anything more and that, beyond a need for a couple of heirs, I’m not looking for anything further.
It makes me see my parents’ marriage through a new light. I used to think their lovelessness was kind of sad—the way they wasp their way through life. Now, I get it. It’s a practical marriage. They married because it made sense, they had their son and heir to carry on the family name and probably never touched each other again.
Yeah, it’s a well-worn blueprint for marriage in their circles, in my circle, and I have no doubt my own will be just like it.
But until then, for one month, I’m going to enjoy Imogen Carmichael, and I’m going to make it one of the best months of her
life. I’m going to take dating to the next level, set the bar so fucking high for the poor next guy that he has to spend the rest of his life working to make her as happy and fulfilled as I have in these four weeks.
Why? Because I’m Nicholas Rothsmore and I’m always, without fail, the best at everything I do, and now that includes dating Imogen.
* * *
A box arrives the following afternoon. It’s gunmetal-grey with white cursive script embossed across the top, proclaiming the name of an exclusive Manhattan lingerie boutique. My breath immediately speeds up. I ignore Emily’s curious glance as I take it from her, moving to my desk and placing it carefully on the corner.
‘RSVPs are coming thick and fast,’ I say. ‘Ticket payments are way ahead of where we were at this time last year.’
But, curious or not, Emily is all professionalism. She consults her clipboard for a moment. ‘And donations are great too. Sir Bennet Alwin has donated a guided tour of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on his own personal submersible.’
‘I wouldn’t mind winning that,’ I say with a smile. He’s one of the leading naturalists of our time, and the Great Barrier Reef is regrettably a dying wonder of the world.
‘You can bid,’ she points out.
It’s true, there’s nothing to preclude me from entering the auction bidding, but, much like dating members, I have my own little set of rules that stands me apart from the other club members. In the past, I’ve matched donations for items that can be replicated, so the charity wins twice.
‘I might. What else?’
‘There’s the private performance by the London Philharmonic, the flight over the Baltic in Yuri Ostromonov’s helicopter, the private cruise of the Antarctic and the custom diamond choker from Alec Minton.’
‘Wow. That’s quite a haul.’
‘That’s just in the last week.’
I shake my head, floored by people’s generosity, even when I know half of it is about advertising and the kudos that comes from being visibly associated with The Billionaires’ Club.
‘Seriously, you should see my inbox. It’s overflowing with offers.’
