Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) Read Online Free
Author: Aimee Easterling
craving for salty snacks (bound to raise my blood pressure and give me a stroke before I saw my fourth decade), I fled back into Cuadic's core group. For once, I wished that I was at home where I could consider my Cuadic membership in private, but the best I could do at the moment was to pull up a happy face and pretend to be having fun.
No one else seemed to notice my silent misery as I rejoined the masses jostling around the snack table, but Ms. Cooper's astute eyes took in my flushed face and down-turned lips. "Is everything okay?" the teacher asked, her words making it clear that she cared about me as a person, not just as a soldier in the battle against dirty power. And, for a minute, I wanted to let my tears gush out and to tell Ms. Cooper that I'd realized I didn't fit in at Cuadic any more than I did in the outside world. Instead, I just gave a humorless chuckle and admitted: "I lost my job today."
"Oh, you poor thing!" my mentor exclaimed, making as if to give me another hug, but stopping short when she saw the don't-touch-me tension in my shoulders. "But maybe it's a blessing in disguise," she added. "After all, you're too smart to work at Food City. Maybe you should take your time finding another position, wait until something shows up that's worthy of your talents."
Usually, Ms. Cooper's pep talks buoyed me up, her faith in my abilities shoring up my own. But now, the teacher's words were yet more proof that even my mentor had no idea what it was like to be entirely on my own with no safety net to fall back on. Ms. Cooper regularly overflowed with praise for her niece, who was teaching English as a second language to kids in Bolivia, but I couldn't even imagine how I'd buy a plane ticket to a gig like that. I couldn't spend time shopping around locally for a better job, either, not if I wanted to keep a roof over Florabelle's head. Instead, I had to take whatever position I could get and count myself lucky if I found another minimum-wage position before my landlord tossed me out on my ear.
This was why I persisted in calling my ex-teacher Ms. Cooper instead of Claudia. But the distinction between my lifestyle and that of her relative was too hard to explain, so I used the only defense I had and contorted my face into that fake smile that no one ever seemed to see through.
"Sure," I agreed. "Of course you're right."
Chapter 3
Three long days later, I hadn't found a job, but I had used my last twenty bucks to fill up my gas tank anyway before heading over to the high school to help sway the community over to Cuadic's point of view. I was doing my darndest to yank the huge posters I'd decorated out through the tiny door of my car (how had I gotten them in there in the first place?), when a large hand landed on my shoulder.
"Here, let me."
"Mr. Fish Sticks?" The embarrassing words were out of my mouth before I realized I was actually speaking instead of just thinking. And even though I mentally berated myself for the slip of the tongue, I was glad that I'd gone for that title rather than for some of the more flattering ones that had rolled through my head as I dreamily fingered the stranger's business card over the last few days. Your Highness . Mr. Beautiful . Hunky Guy . Yep, I would have been truly mortified if I'd let one of those monikers slip.
It had seemed safe to let my imagination wander on lonely evenings since I'd known that a man like this wouldn't spend much time in our tiny, rundown county. The movie-star look-alike had to have been merely passing through, never to be sighted again, so why not turn him into a European prince in disguise or a Silicon Valley millionaire? Except, here was the enigma in the flesh, looking at me quizzically as my face turned beet red.
"I guess the nickname is my own fault for failing to introduce myself," the stranger replied after a minute of silence, during which I tried vainly to think of a way to build a time machine that would let me take back my words.
No one else seemed to notice my silent misery as I rejoined the masses jostling around the snack table, but Ms. Cooper's astute eyes took in my flushed face and down-turned lips. "Is everything okay?" the teacher asked, her words making it clear that she cared about me as a person, not just as a soldier in the battle against dirty power. And, for a minute, I wanted to let my tears gush out and to tell Ms. Cooper that I'd realized I didn't fit in at Cuadic any more than I did in the outside world. Instead, I just gave a humorless chuckle and admitted: "I lost my job today."
"Oh, you poor thing!" my mentor exclaimed, making as if to give me another hug, but stopping short when she saw the don't-touch-me tension in my shoulders. "But maybe it's a blessing in disguise," she added. "After all, you're too smart to work at Food City. Maybe you should take your time finding another position, wait until something shows up that's worthy of your talents."
Usually, Ms. Cooper's pep talks buoyed me up, her faith in my abilities shoring up my own. But now, the teacher's words were yet more proof that even my mentor had no idea what it was like to be entirely on my own with no safety net to fall back on. Ms. Cooper regularly overflowed with praise for her niece, who was teaching English as a second language to kids in Bolivia, but I couldn't even imagine how I'd buy a plane ticket to a gig like that. I couldn't spend time shopping around locally for a better job, either, not if I wanted to keep a roof over Florabelle's head. Instead, I had to take whatever position I could get and count myself lucky if I found another minimum-wage position before my landlord tossed me out on my ear.
This was why I persisted in calling my ex-teacher Ms. Cooper instead of Claudia. But the distinction between my lifestyle and that of her relative was too hard to explain, so I used the only defense I had and contorted my face into that fake smile that no one ever seemed to see through.
"Sure," I agreed. "Of course you're right."
Chapter 3
Three long days later, I hadn't found a job, but I had used my last twenty bucks to fill up my gas tank anyway before heading over to the high school to help sway the community over to Cuadic's point of view. I was doing my darndest to yank the huge posters I'd decorated out through the tiny door of my car (how had I gotten them in there in the first place?), when a large hand landed on my shoulder.
"Here, let me."
"Mr. Fish Sticks?" The embarrassing words were out of my mouth before I realized I was actually speaking instead of just thinking. And even though I mentally berated myself for the slip of the tongue, I was glad that I'd gone for that title rather than for some of the more flattering ones that had rolled through my head as I dreamily fingered the stranger's business card over the last few days. Your Highness . Mr. Beautiful . Hunky Guy . Yep, I would have been truly mortified if I'd let one of those monikers slip.
It had seemed safe to let my imagination wander on lonely evenings since I'd known that a man like this wouldn't spend much time in our tiny, rundown county. The movie-star look-alike had to have been merely passing through, never to be sighted again, so why not turn him into a European prince in disguise or a Silicon Valley millionaire? Except, here was the enigma in the flesh, looking at me quizzically as my face turned beet red.
"I guess the nickname is my own fault for failing to introduce myself," the stranger replied after a minute of silence, during which I tried vainly to think of a way to build a time machine that would let me take back my words.
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