The Billionaire’s Valet Read Online Lucy Lennox

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, M-M Romance, Novella Tags Authors: Lucy Lennox Advertisement1

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Thanks to meeting an actual royal valet while there, the indomitable Arthur, I’d done my job well. Eight years later, I’d brought Iggy home safely with an Ivy League college degree as well.

I’d assumed Iggy would let me go then, no matter how fond we’d grown of each other, but I’d been pleasantly surprised.

He’d made me his valet and social secretary, entrusting me with everything related to his personal life—his house, his wardrobe, and his calendar. Moreover, he’d made me his friend, sharing with me a decade’s worth of dreams and aspirations, endless sexual conquests and near-misses, and all the failures and triumphs of the work he’d chosen to do.

Ignatius Corbridge was passionate about being out. He was loud and proud about his bisexuality and did his best to make sure others could do the same by lobbying European governments and advocating for global victims of hate crimes. With his high-level political connections, Iggy had become a force to be reckoned with.

In short order, the rebellious teenager I’d been fond of had become a determined, witty, kind, joyful man I needed like oxygen. I’d fallen deeply in love with him, despite our age difference. Despite being his employee. And I’d treasured every moment in his company so damn much that I’d thought, This is enough, Jon. If you only get to love him this way, you can be satisfied.

Which only made it harder to witness what happened next.

I couldn’t point to the time when his partying lifestyle began changing from simple good fun to something more. Maybe a few years ago, when his friend Lio had fallen in love with an American and shocked the world by coming out and marrying him. Perhaps more recently. But suddenly, the brilliant man who could do or be anything he chose had… changed.

Iggy no longer spent time with people like Felix and Lio who loved him, or with his sister and nieces and nephews, whom he adored; but with a crowd of hangers-on who only valued his name and status. He’d stopped encouraging me to attend events with him—invitations I’d always appreciated, though never accepted.

He didn’t talk to me about the parties he attended or the people he’d met, let alone the people he went home with on a near-nightly basis.

In fact, he hardly spoke to me anymore at all.

On the rare occasions he was home, there was a kind of restless energy to him, like he couldn’t wait to be away again.

It was clear that whatever place I’d had in his life was no longer mine. I couldn’t stop it, and I’d known, as certainly as I knew I loved him, that I couldn’t stand by and watch distance grow between us.

So I’d smoothed the tattoo over his chest, taking way too much time to press it against his hot skin. I’d waited for him to walk out the door. Then I’d packed my things and left.

For four straight days, I’d had to practically handcuff myself to the hotel bed to keep from flinging myself at his feet in apology and begging to come home.

I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted Ignatius Corbridge, but he wasn’t meant for me. There were a million reasons why—the twenty years of personal service between us, the fact that I was a former soldier with no degrees and no pedigree, while he was an elite member of the posh set, born with a silver-and-diamond chandelier shining down on him from above. But the most important was that Iggy was going places, and I was so very bone-tired of watching him go without me.

It was high time I went somewhere myself.

The train platform was busy, but not nearly as crowded as a commuter platform would be. This luxury liner carried fewer than a hundred passengers, which was good. I was in South Africa searching for peace and quiet.

The beginning of a new life, I thought as I stepped into the car. My fresh start.

Working for the Corbridge family had been lucrative. It was one of the reasons I stayed for so long, even when it started to break me. Taking a safari train through Africa was a dream come true, and I wouldn’t have been able to afford it without Iggy and his family. I was grateful, truly.

Now, I would use this journey to plan my future—a cozy life in a small, picturesque village somewhere outside of London where I could afford a cottage with a garden. A life where I wasn’t Iggy’s valet or Iggy’s friend or Iggy’s… anything. I would simply be—

“Jon!”

I closed my eyes and told myself I was imagining the familiar voice. I refused to waste this trip with a detour to a mental facility.

I opened my eyes and took another step, and then I heard it again.

“Jonathan Banks.”

I turned around slowly to see both the best and worst thing that could possibly be following me onto this train.


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