Younger Men
She always thought of herself as someone who can only be attracted to men older than her. Never had she imagined something like this could happen.
When she’s alone with Roman, their age difference never seems to matter. But when she’s with other people, the one thing she often thinks about was their age gap.
She was having brunch with the wives. The fact that they are Roman’s mother’s friends didn’t escape her, she could’ve been his mother’s friend too if they had known each other before.
The way those women talked about him was degrading by any measure, to themselves, to Roman, to reduce a person by their age and their looks and basing it on sexual attraction. It made her re-evaluate her own attraction to Roman, was it just physical?
“His abs.” “His tanned skin.” “The bulge on his pants.” “How long do you think he’d last?” “Hard.” “Long.” “A boyish smile.”
Yikes, she thought.
She forced a smile once in a while pretending that it was amusing to listen to them thirsting on younger men, their personal trainer, their gardener, their son’s teacher, even the pool boy. She cringed.
Roman was different, he has a certain depth about him, an old soul that understood her. There was a force that pulled them together in a way she never felt with anyone, but no one would listen to that. Not the women on that table anyways. They would never be able to see it as something other than physical attraction. Is that what it looks like from the outside?
“Big celebration coming up at the Murphy’s next week?” Helena said.
“Umm … I hear everyone’s invited,” Gloria replied.
“Finally … the big merge, Hunt and Murphy, can’t imagine what that will bring to your household in the near future,” Regina nudged Olivia’s elbow.
She wasn’t paying attention, “Hmm? Oh … the party … yeah, Declan’s leaving town for a few days that’s why the party is next week.”
“I heard he’s planning to invest a lot of money on Brian’s properties in the UK and soon they’re expanding to the oil business,” Gloria said.
Everyone was looking at Olivia for the juice, they expect her to know the details of her husband’s business, although she doesn’t. She finds Declan’s business boring, it was all about money, how to make more money to expand to other fields to make even more money. She smiled, “He’s planning to buy a summer home in London.”
Regina scoffed, “Understandably so, you might even be residing there when the new investment push through … urgh, what I’d do to live in London every other month in a year,” she sipped on her drink.
Of course. More work, more business, why would Declan buy something extravagant if it wasn’t in line with his business? Just like when he bought the brownstone to get away from Mimi’s house when he could’ve bought a nice home in the suburbs where Olivia would prefer it, but he talked her into buying a home in the middle of the business central because he needed it to be close to work.
It was fine though, she didn’t mind it, but there’s always something that profits him more than he was buying it for her. Except for the ring, maybe, the birthday gift was solely for her benefit. She twisted the ring on her finger, she hadn’t taken it off since the day he put it on her finger. He wouldn’t let her take it off, whenever he saw the ring on her dresser, he would put it back on her finger.
“He’s moving really fast up on that list, Livy, maybe even second to Brian Murphy soon,” one of the wives said.
“What list?” she wasn’t aware of a list.
Helena’s jaw dropped, it was what all their husbands had been talking about since Declan’s business deal, “The richest man in the world list … what other list is there?”
They all laughed. Out of amusement, out of envy, who knows which one. She knew she didn’t really have any friends, not among them, otherwise, she would be able to tell at least one of them how much she was torn about her marriage to Declan. None of them would understand why would she even think about a divorce when her husband was about to become the next mega-billionaire.
“To the next on the list … next on the throne,” Regina laughed, “And his beautiful Queen,” she lifted her glass for the toast.Text © by N0ve/lDrama.Org.
Everyone cheered. Olivia half-heartedly drank to that too. Next on the throne. They must’ve meant the Hunt family dynasty. If only they knew she will have to produce a child for that to happen. None of them knew what her smile holds either.