Marrying Her Older Billionaire

He was a little excited to meet her. She had been very sweet a decade ago. He had been a friend of the whole family and he had really enjoyed watching Angie grow. She had had a bit of a crush on him and it had been really cute to see the evidence of this crush appear in front of him every now and then. He wondered what she looked like now. He wondered what she would be like. Had Kenya changed her in any way? Had it made her any different? It probably had. He hoped that the change would be for the better. Regardless, he was excited to be seeing her again.

He was going to have lunch with her and her father today, but he had a feeling that Matthew had not invited him to lunch simply because he wanted his best friend and partner to meet Angie. No, Richard had a feeling that Matthew was going to tell him something that would end up rocking his entire world. He was the kind of person to do such a thing. Richard had noticed that his partner had started getting rather pensive in recent times. The return of his daughter had given him a sense of… agitation. He never seemed to want to be where he was, rather he wanted to be somewhere else entirely.

Richard wondered what it was that Matthew was going to tell him. Whatever it was, it was probably going to end up making Richard feel very differently about the near future. It would probably end up making Richard change up a lot of things about his life. He did not fear this change. No, on the contrary he relished the opportunity. This life had become routine. He wanted to change things up a bit, he wanted to be able to enjoy his life in a different way now. Yes, whatever it was that Matthew was going to tell Richard today, Richard was more than sure that he would be able to handle it. Whatever it was, Matthew was going to be able to deal with it no matter what happened, no matter what it was.

The lift stopped at the ground floor before heading to the basement which was where the archives were. Richard looked up and saw Angie.

“Richard!” said Angie, stepping into the lift.

“Angie,” said Richard, smiling widely when he saw her. He was genuinely happy to see her, genuinely happy that he had run into her this way. Suddenly, the work that he had been doing seemed a lot less important, it became all about the person that had just stepped into the lift with him.

Angie threw her arms around him and hugged him. Richard hugged her back. He really liked that she was so open about her feelings. He really liked that she was not afraid to hug him properly, that she was not afraid to show physical affection to someone that she had not been close to for an entire decade. Ten years was a very long time to be away from somebody, but Angie clearly didn’t care. She felt the way she felt, and she was not going to let something as arbitrary as time get in the way of her expressing herself.

She had always been this way. She had always been the kind of person that would wear her heart on her sleeve. Richard was really glad that she was this way, because it meant that she had not changed in Kenya. Spending a decade in Africa had not taken this away from her, and it was one of her best qualities. Perhaps she had not changed at all. Perhaps she was still the same sweet girl that she had always been. Perhaps she would still be just as innocent as she once was.

Richard looked at her and realized that this was not the case. He realized that, with everything that had gone on, he had been living in his little bubble and the sweet girl that he had once known had grown into a real woman. She had grown in ways that he couldn’t even comprehend, and she was know a complete woman that was mature. She did not have any of the childish innocence that she had once had. She did not have any of the immaturity. No, she had grown up completely now, and Richard was a little disappointed that he had missed it. Still, he was able to gaze upon the end result of all of that growth before him, and he had to admit that it was a sight for sore eyes.

Angie looked absolutely stunning.

“I’m so glad I ran into you!” she said. “Aren’t you coming to lunch with us?”

“I am,” said Richard. “I just needed to get something from the archives before I got ready to leave. Work, work, work, you know how it is. Your father has always been better at having a life and working at the same time, even though he didn’t have much of a life to live because he didn’t seem to want to do anything but work.”

“I know how it is,” said Angie with a smile. “You two really need to get a life, you know that? There’s a lot more to life than work. There’s a lot more to life than all that you guys get up to. It’s a big world out there, you guys need to step out and smell the coffee for a change!”

“I agree completely,” said Richard, “Which is why I agreed to have lunch with you guys. I generally have lunch while working, I don’t really take a break until seven in the evening. You guys are too important to miss, however, so I decided to give the work that I am doing right now to my team of lawyers and let them handle things for a change. They’re big boys, after all. I have groomed them well. They are going to be able to handle anything and everything the client and the opposition throws at them. Besides, it’s not every day that you come back after an entire decade in Kenya!”

“A decade,” said Angie, as the lift doors closed. She pushed the button, deciding to join Richard for the ride down and then head up to her father’s office.

“That’s a long time. It honestly doesn’t feel like it’s been that long if I’m being very honest. It… it feels like only yesterday that I’ve left.”

“You’ve grown so much though,” said Richard. “That’s proof enough that time has passed. You look like a woman now! Little Angie, a woman. I can barely grasp the thought.”

“Yes, very much a woman now,” said Angie, wrinkling her nose in mock annoyance. “I suppose I should get used to people talking this way. I was only nineteen when I left. I mean, I was an adult but at the same time I was still barely out of my teens. You guys really need to get with the program, though, I’m a big girl now!”