Page 21 of Catching a Con Man

Ade’s eyes softened. “Didn’t mean…I didn’t mean it like that. Wanna come in and try some pastries? I promise it’s almost as good as Lidl.”

That tugged my mouth up into a smile, and I let him lead me by the hand into the little bakery. The smell inside was amplified, and I breathed it in deep.Damn. It was some good shit. Ade sat me down at a little table and went to speak to the woman at the counter, and brought back a tray of bread rolls with a little knob of butter, croissants with jam, and an apple strudel.

I reached immediately for the strudel and bit into it. “That’s some fucking good shit,” I said, perhaps a little loudly as the woman behind the counter covered her mouth and tittered. “I guess people speak English around here then.”

“That, and German. Though we’re only just over the border from Italy.”

“Wow. OK. The world must be smaller for rich people.”

Ade smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Never had one of these before,” I said around another bite of apple strudel. “I always saw them as a bit of a luxury.”

“You never…” Ade paused. “Pretend I haven’t already had my ridiculously tech savvy brother do a full background check on you. Tell me about your life.”

I took another bite of strudel. It really wasso fucking good. I wondered if the billionaire would notice if I stole his. He wouldn’t appreciate it as much.

“Not much to know,” I said. “Put up for adoption at birth. No idea who my birth mother was, but it seems no one wanted me. So I got shepherded from foster home to foster home. I think they thought that would be my best chance of getting adopted, but it just seemed…no one clicked.”

Ade’s smile had completely inverted. “So there was no one…no one you felt at home with?”

“Not as such. There were a couple of false starts. There was a couple when I was about twelve…they were nice. Made me feel at home. Never made any promises to adopt me, but, y’know, I fantasised. First time I’d let myself do that. But then Mr Benson got a job offer out in Australia and they just…moved on. And I was left behind. So I stopped hoping.”

I could feel the resentment rising, and I grabbed a bread roll and took a big, vicious bite out of it. “It’s OK though, really. It made me tough. And when I was released from the system at eighteen, I made my own way. I’d done OK in school. I got a shitty part-time job, but it was a job. I got a room in a flat. Statistically, I am doing fan-fucking-tastically for someone who got shuffled from home to home. I should be in prison, or on benefits, or…but you know. I can’t help but wish I’d done more.”

“I think you’ve done brilliantly,” said Ade. “You’re twenty four. My youngest brother is your age, and he’s done sweet fuck all with his life.”

“The difference being, your brother has daddy’s billions to fall back on,” I muttered. “Sorry. That was rude.”

“True though. When I was thirty, Forbes ran an article where they listed me as one of the youngest self-made billionaires, because I’d only taken a ten million pound investment from my father rather than stay in his company.” Ade smiled ruefully. “I asked my lawyer to send an order to retract the article. It’s fucking ridiculous that anyone could ever think of me as self-made. I’m even less self-made than Kylie Jenner. I will note that she didn’t care about the definition, though.”

“You’re rich, I’m not. There’s nothing I can really do about that,” I muttered.

“Except try to scam me out of my billions?” Ade teased.

“None of that would have gone to me,” I protested. “Every single penny would have found its way into charity before I ended up in prison. I promise, I wasn’t trying to use you for some get-rich quick scheme.” I felt my stomach drop as I said it. “So what’s the plan, then? We get back on that plane, and the police are waiting for me as soon as we get back to the UK?”

Ade’s mouth quirked upward, and he gestured at the almost empty tray. He’d left his apple strudel. “Done here?”

“If I can take that with me, then yes.”

Ade took the tray back to the counter and returned to the table with a paper bag, which he stuffed into one of his coat pockets. He reached out a hand to me and I took it like I was on automatic.

“I’ll tell you the plan,” Ade said as we stepped outside into the cold. “We’re going to shop ‘til we drop, I’m going to buy you lunch, and we’re going to take the helicopter back to Holden’s and lounge in the hot tub with a bottle of wine until our fingers and toes look like prunes. And then, when you decide you want to go back to the UK, you can do that.”

“So I’m like a prisoner of war, then?” I challenged. “Treat me well until it’s time to get rid of me?”

Ade laughed. “I don’t know what’s made you think I have any intention of turning you in to the police. I’m not a complete and utter bastard, you know.”

“I tried to scam you out ofmillions,” I protested.

“And youdidn’t succeed. Stop trying to get me to arrest you.” Ade swung our arms between us. “As I said last night. Life dealt you a shit hand. I’m not holding your hatred for people like me against you. In your position, I’d hate me too.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. He led me through the resort to a brightly lit boutique, where the suits in the window were priced up in Swiss Francs. I hadn’t ever needed to brush up on my exchange rates before, but the amount of zeroes was still pretty scary.

“What are you shopping for?” I asked. Ade raised an eyebrow as an attractive — if bland — young shop assistant rushed forward.

“Sirs, is there any way I can help you? Measurements? Recommendations?” he asked in heavily accented but fantastic English.

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