But then she’d asked for money, just like all the others.
Not that all of them wanted money. Some of them wanted the cachet of having slept with the notorious bastard billionaire. It wasn’t actually me they wanted. But I’d thought Ellie was different.
Christ, why was I still obsessing about this? I wasn’t some sixteen-year-old kid hurt because some girl rejected him. I was thirty-two. I’d grown up on a grotty council estate with meth dealers in the stairwells and gangs roaming the hallways. My mother had spent her days constantly worried for me and my safety, grovelling to my father for money to at least send me to a private school—and he had.
But after that night when I’d realised how little he actually cared, I’d decided I was done apologising for myself. Done cowering with my mother, terrified she would get hurt.
I’d decided to make myself the biggest, baddest motherfucker out there. I’d have the drug dealers and gangs scared of me.
So that was what I’d done.
And then later, I’d had Seb. He hadn’t yet shown me his true colours and I’d thought he had my back to hell and beyond.
Sadly, hell had come sooner than I’d thought.
You think that excuses you being shitty to her?
My jaw ached. Behind me I could hear Petra and Doug talking, Petra flirting a little in the way that she did when she wanted to get someone on her side.
Fuck, I was shitty to everyone. Why should Ellie be exempt?
Yet all I could see was her face as she’d talked about her family’s company, genuine worry glittering in her eyes. Then she’d mentioned that special project, the one that pulling my investment dollars would put at risk.
It was important to her, wasn’t it?
I was supposed to help people when they needed it, not deny them the way I’d been denied. That was why I’d set up my charitable foundation in the first place. And yet, what had I done?
I’d refused her.
If my company had been small and in its infancy, it might have been a different story, but it wasn’t. Evans Investment was just one of a number of companies in my portfolio and giving someone some time before requiring promised returns would have absolutely no impact on my bottom line.
I shouldn’t have denied her.
On the other hand, business was business and if she wanted a favour...
Something clicked into place in my head like pieces of a perfectly constructed building.
I could give her what she wanted, while at the same time solving my own problem. Not that I couldn’t give her what she wanted without making it dependent on me, but I hadn’t got where I was today by being soft. Everything was a deal. Everything was give and take.
I’d give her something and she could give something to me.
Such as her presence as my serious girlfriend in Dubai, for example.
I wouldn’t have to act as if I was into her the way I would have struggled to with someone else. Our chemistry would take care of that. Certainly it should be convincing enough for Delaney.
Hell, I could even sweeten the deal by giving her access to The Billionaires Club and their contacts. There’d be plenty of peop
le there who’d be interested in her electric car project.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the better an idea I found it.
All I needed to do was put the proposal to her.
I didn’t waste any time, putting through a few calls there and then. Bill was more than happy to take an evening off and the chauffeur company was more than happy to accept my exorbitant offer for one night of Ellie Little’s services. It was very late notice, but they could certainly accommodate me.
That sorted, I shoved my phone back into my pocket and turned to rejoin the meeting, trying to ignore the way the lightning in my veins had become hot, electric.
Nothing to do with the prospect of seeing Ellie again, definitely not. I was simply pleased to have solved the problem of how to get Delaney on my side.