Sold to the Billionaire for £10 Million

Chapter 8

Thursday afternoon. The living room.

I was on the sofa, reading that book about the decline of Edwardian country estates. The front door opened. Instead of heading for the study, he walked straight over to me and placed a single sheet of paper on the coffee table.

“Your social media accounts. They've been set up. The content team will handle the updates.”

I put down the book. On the paper: an i********: handle — e_ashford_london — and a string of passwords.

“The content team handles the updates?”

“They'll post photos of London and glimpses of your daily life, to maintain a public image.”

“What do they photograph?”

He paused. “You having coffee. Walking. Standing by the window. You don't have to do anything yourself — just confirm whether you're happy with the pictures.”

“And if I'm not happy with any of them?”

He looked at me, thought for a moment. “Then they'll send another batch.” With that, he walked into the study.

I pulled out my phone and logged in. Three posts were already up: morning mist over the Thames, a coffee cup on the windowsill, a stack of second-hand books at Portobello Market — the stall I'd actually visited. None of the photos showed a face, but every one of them announced: Mrs. Blackwood lives in London, leading a quiet, respectable life.

I switched off my phone.

Later that night, I went downstairs for water. The television, which was almost never on, was glowing. The channel was BBC News, the volume muted to near silence. He was sitting on the sofa, staring at the silent screen — not watching the programme, just killing time.

He didn't notice me approach. I stood at the turn of the stairwell and watched him for a few seconds. The blue light from the screen fell across his face, softening its sharp lines.

“Alexander.”

He blinked, returning. His gaze pulled itself back from somewhere far away.

“You're still awake.”

“So are you.” I walked over and sat down at the other end of the sofa, leaving two seats between us.

About ten minutes passed before he spoke first. “My father is seventy this year. He gets up at three in the morning out of habit. When he can't sleep, he sits in his study in the dark. When I was a child, I thought he was thinking. Later I realised — he was just waiting for dawn.”

The midnight weather forecast came on. A blue rain band moved slowly across the map from the west.

“I can't sleep either these days. But I don't want to wait for dawn anymore.”

He stared ahead. I didn't say anything. The rainfall probability numbers flickered on the screen.

“Then what are you waiting for now?”

He didn't answer. But the hand resting on the armrest tilted slightly in my direction — a shift so small it could have been a weather vane turning in a breeze.

The next morning, I opened i********:. The profile picture had been changed to a silhouette of me — backlit, my entire face hidden in shadow. In the photo, I was sitting by the window, reading.

I asked Mrs. Yates. She knew nothing about it. I didn't ask him, either. But I recognised the angle: the only place that view could have come from was the corridor near the study.