Read Ambition: A Dark Billionaire Romance Anthology for Free Online

Patrick McCaffery was pretty cute. A little over six feet, he was bigger than Mark by about twenty or thirty pounds, I'd say coming in at a solid looking two hundred and ten pounds or so. With black hair and green eyes, he was definitely handsome. Thinking back to my comment the day before about cloning Mark with black hair, I could do worse. "I seem to also remember the local news loving your speeches."
    "Not so much the news as one particular editor at NBC," he replied with a cocky grin. He knew he was handsome, and wasn't shy about acknowledging it. "She sort of has a thing for me."
    "Along with half the cheerleaders," the General Manager joked. One of his players, the starting linebacker who had gotten All-Pro awards the year before, came over after wrapping up a news interview and whispered in his ear. "Sorry, the press wants a comment from me before the ceremony begins. Just a moment."
    With me and McCaffery left alone, I was able to take a closer look at him, and realized why he was carrying a Spartans jacket. His right arm was covered in tattoos, some of them ones I recognized from the training that Mark had given me. "Interesting ink, Councilman," I said. "Where'd you pick all that up?"
    McCaffery pulled his jacket on quickly and shook his head. "A reminder of a lot of stupid decisions when I was a teenager," he said. "I keep them to remind myself of not making those same mistakes. Still, not exactly the sort of stuff you sport during a City Council meeting."
    "I can see that. So how'd you turn things around? You're not much older than I am, right? Those bad decisions couldn't have been all that long ago," I asked, thinking. "Not that I don't have some bad decisions in my past too."
    "We all do, Miss Williams," McCaffery replied. "I don't have time to go into it now though, but if you really want to know, maybe we can get together at either my office or yours? MJT has been doing some amazing community outreach work, and I'd like to talk about ways we could maybe work together and maximize our efforts?"
    "I don't know. I just had a meeting with Bishop Traylor that started the same way."
    McCaffery leaned his head back and laughed. "Yes, I've heard about that. He came by my office to protest, see if he could weasel his way into a podium slot for today's activities. I told him to take your advice and get the hell out of town."
    "Interesting choice of words."
    "I speak honestly. People only say I have charisma because they agree with what I say," McCaffery replied with a smile.
    The press conference slash ceremony began, with most of the speeches being made by the Spartans. They were the celebrities after all, and the local media ate it up. The crowd was especially loud when some of the Spartan cheerleaders came out to lead the assembled group in a few cheers and put on a short little dance performance. The biggest applause of all was for McCaffery however, who was called to the microphone by the Spartans' MVP quarterback.
    "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not here today as a City Councilman," he said, starting his speech. "I'm not even here as a Spartan fan, even though I've been cheering for these guys since I was five. I'm here as that five year old, who was born in Mercy General not two miles from where we stand today, and grew up not in a loving home, but in a series of foster homes and orphanages. I stand here as the kid who did a lot more than just sneak into Municipal Stadium as Gene fondly recalls. I stand here as the one percent. Not the one percent that a lot of people associate with the term, but the one percent of kids who somehow claw and scratch and climb their way out of places like where I started. I'm proud today, not just of our team the Spartans, but people like who I'm going to call up here in just a minute. People who know that there is more to making money than just seeing how large you can make your bank account.”
    "When I first thought of running for city council, I was inspired to make a difference.