My Fair Billionaire

One


T. S. Eliot was right, Ava Brenner thought as she quickened her stride down Michigan Avenue and ducked beneath the awning of a storefront. April really was the cruelest month. Yesterday, the skies above Chicago had been blue and clear, and temperatures hovered in the high fifties. Today, gray clouds pelted the city with freezing rain. She tugged her scarf from the collar of her trench coat and over her head, knotting it beneath her chin. The weather would probably ruin the emerald silk, but she was on her way to meet a prospective vendor and would rather replace an injured scarf than have the perfect auburn chignon at her nape get wet and ragged.

Image was everything. Bottom line. That was a lesson life hammered home when Ava was still in high school. April wasn’t the only thing that was cruel—teenage girls could be downright brutal. Especially the rich, vain, snotty ones at posh private schools who wore the latest designer fashions and belittled the need-based-scholarship students who made do with discount-store markdowns.

Ava pushed the thought away. A decade and a half lay between her and graduation. She was the owner of her own business now, a boutique called Talk of the Town that rented haute couture fashions to women who wanted only the best for those special occasions in life. Even if the shop was operating on a shoestring and wishful thinking, it was starting to show a profit. At least she looked the part of successful businesswoman. No one had to know she was her own best customer.

She whipped the scarf from her head and tucked it into the pocket of her trench coat as she entered an elegant eatery. Beneath, she wore a charcoal-gray Armani jacket and trousers, paired with a sage-colored shell she knew enhanced her green eyes. The outfit had arrived at Talk of the Town just this week, and she’d wanted to test-drive it for comfort and wearability.

As she approached the host stand, her cell phone twittered. It was the vendor she was supposed to be meeting, asking to postpone their appointment for an evening later in the week. So Ava would be on her own for dinner tonight. As usual. Still, she hadn’t taken herself out in a long time, and she had been working extra hard this month. She’d earned a bit of a treat.

Basilio, the restaurant’s owner, greeted her by name with a warm smile. Every time she saw him, Ava was reminded of her father. Basilio had the same dark eyes, close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and neatly trimmed mustache. But she was reasonably certain that, unlike her father, Basilio had never done time in a federal prison.

Without even checking the seating chart, he led Ava to her favorite table by the window, where she could watch the passersby as she ate. As she lifted her menu, however, her attention was yanked away by a ruckus in the bar. When she glanced up, she saw Dennis, her favorite bartender, being berated by a customer, a tall man with broad shoulders and coal-black hair. He was evidently offended by Dennis’s suggestion that he’d had too much to drink, a condition that was frankly obvious.

“I’m fine,” the man insisted. Although his words weren’t slurred, his voice was much louder than necessary. “And I want another Macallan. Neat.”

Dennis remained calm as he replied, “I don’t think—”

“That’s right,” the man interrupted him. “You don’t think. You serve drinks. Now serve me another Macallan. Neat.”

“But, Mr.—”

“Now,” the man barked.

Ava’s pulse leaped at the angrily uttered word. She’d worked her way through college at three jobs, one of which had been as a waitress. She’d dealt with her share of patrons who became bullies after drinking too much. Thankfully, Basilio and her waiter, Marcus, were on the spot quickly to attend to the situation.

Dennis shook his head at the others’ approach, holding up a hand for them to wait. In gentling tones, he said, “Mr. Moss, maybe it would be better if you had a cup of coffee instead.”

Heat splashed into Ava’s belly at hearing the name. Moss. She had gone to school—long ago, in a galaxy far away—with a Moss. Peyton Moss. He had been a grade ahead of her at the tony Emerson Academy.

But this couldn’t be him, she told herself. Peyton Moss had sworn to everyone at Emerson that he was leaving Chicago the moment he graduated and never coming back. And he’d kept that promise. Ava had returned to Chicago only a few months after earning her business degree and had run into a handful of her former classmates—more was the pity—none of whom had mentioned Peyton’s return.

She looked at the man again. Peyton had been Emerson’s star hockey player, due not just to his prowess, but also his size. His hair had been shoulder-length, inky silk, and his voice, even then, had been dark and rich. By now, it could have easily deepened to the velvety baritone of the man at the bar.

When he turned to look at Marcus, Ava bit back a gasp. Although the hair was shorter and the profile harsher, it was indeed Peyton. She’d know that face anywhere. Even after sixteen years.

Without thinking, she jumped up and hurried to place herself between Peyton and the others. With all the calm she could muster, she said, “Gentlemen. Maybe what we need here is an unbiased intermediary to sort everything out.”

Peyton would laugh himself silly about that if he recognized her. Ava had been anything but unbiased toward him in high school. But he’d been plenty biased toward her, too. That was what happened when two people moved in such disparate social circles in an environment where the lines of society were stark, immutable and absolute. When upper class met lower class in a place like Emerson, the sparks that flew could immolate an entire socioeconomic stratum.

“Ms. Brenner, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Basilio said. “Men in his condition can be unpredictable, and he’s three times your size.”

“My condition is fine,” Peyton snapped. “Or it would be. If this establishment honored the requests of its paying customers.”

“Just let me speak to him,” Ava said, dropping her voice.


Basilio shook his head. “Marcus and I can handle this.”

“But I know him. He and I went to school together. He’ll listen to me. We’re...we were...” Somehow she pushed the word out of her mouth. “Friends.”

It was another word that would have made Peyton laugh. The two of them had been many things at Emerson—unwilling study partners, aggressive sparring partners and for one strange, intoxicating night, exuberant lovers—but never, ever, friends.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Brenner,” Basilio said, “but I can’t let you—”

Before he could stop her, Ava spun around and made her way to the bar. “Peyton,” she said when she came to a halt in front of him.

Instead of looking at Ava, he continued to study Dennis. “What?”

“This has gone far enough. You need to be reasonable.”

He opened his mouth, but halted when his gaze connected with hers. She’d forgotten what beautiful eyes he had. They were the color and clarity of good cognac, fringed by sooty lashes.

“I know you,” he said, suddenly more lucid. His tone was confident, but his expression held doubt. “Don’t I?”

“You and I went to school together,” she said, deliberately vague. “A long time ago.”

He seemed surprised by the connection. “I don’t remember you from Stanford.”

Stanford? she echoed to herself. Last she’d heard he was headed to a university in New England with a double major in hat tricks and cross-checking and a minor in something vaguely scholastic in case he injured himself. How had he ended up on the West Coast?

“Not Stanford,” she said.

“Then where?”

Reluctantly, she told him, “The Emerson Academy here in Chicago.”

His surprise multiplied. “You went to Emerson?”

Well, he didn’t need to sound so shocked. Did she still look that much like a street urchin?

“Yes,” she said evenly. “I went to Emerson.”

He narrowed his eyes as he studied her more closely. “I don’t remember you from there, either.”

Something sharp pricked her chest at the comment. She should be happy he didn’t remember her. She wished she could forget the girl she’d been at Emerson. She wished she could forget Peyton, as well. But so often over the past sixteen years, he and the other members of his social circle had crept into her brain, conjuring memories and feelings she wished she could bury forever.

Without warning, he lifted a hand to cradle her chin and jaw. Something hot and electric shot through her at the contact, but he didn’t seem to notice. He simply turned her face gently one way, then the other, looking at her from all angles. Finally, he dropped his hand back to the bar. He shook his head, opened his mouth to speak, then—

Then his expression went slack. “Oh, my God. Ava Brenner.”

She expelled an irritated sigh. Damn. She didn’t want anyone to remember her the way she’d been at Emerson, especially the kids like Peyton. Especially Peyton, period. In spite of that, a curl of pleasure wound through her when she realized he’d made a space for her, however small, in his memory.

Resigned, she replied, “Yes. It’s me.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, his tone belying nothing of what he might be thinking.

He collapsed onto a barstool, gazing at her with those piercing golden eyes. A rush of conflicting emotions washed over her that she hadn’t felt for a very long time—pride and shame, arrogance and insecurity, blame and guilt. And in the middle of it all, an absolute uncertainty about Peyton, about herself, about the two of them together. Then as well as now.

Oh, yes. She definitely felt as if she was back in high school. And she didn’t like it now any better than she had then.

When it became clear that Peyton wasn’t going to cause any more trouble, Dennis snatched the empty cocktail glass from the bar and replaced it with a coffee mug. Basilio released a slow breath and threw Ava a grateful smile. Marcus went back to check on his diners. Ava told herself to return to her table, that she’d done her good deed for the day and should just leave well enough alone. But Peyton was still staring at her, and something in his expression made her pause. Something that sent another tumble of memories somersaulting through her brain. Different memories from the others that had plagued her tonight, but memories that were every bit as unpleasant and unwanted.

Because it had been Ava, not Peyton, who had led the ruling social class at the posh, private Emerson Academy. It had been Ava, not Peyton, who had been rich, vain and snotty. It had been Ava, not Peyton, who had worn the latest designer fashions and belittled the need-based-scholarship students who made do with discount-store markdowns. At least until the summer before her senior year, when her family had lost everything, and she’d suddenly found herself walking in their discount-store markdowns herself. Then she’d been the one who was penniless, unwanted and bullied.

Peyton didn’t say a word as Ava studied him, pondering all the things that had changed in the decade and a half since she’d seen him. A few threads of silver had woven their way into his dark hair, and the lower half of his face was shadowed by a day’s growth of beard. She couldn’t remember him shaving in high school. But perhaps he had, even if that morning when she’d woken up beside him in her bedroom, he—

She tried to stop the memories before they could form, but they came anyway. How it had all played out when the two of them were forced to work together on a semester-long project for World Civ, one of the classes that combined seniors and juniors. Money really did change everything—at least at Emerson, it had. School rules had dictated that those whose families had lots of money must belittle those whose families had none, and that those who had nothing must resent those who had everything. In spite of that, there had always been...something...between Ava and Peyton. Something hot and heavy that burned up the air in any room the two of them shared. Some strange, combustible reaction due to...something. Something weird. Something volatile. Something neither of them had ever been able to identify or understand.

Or, ultimately, resist.

It had culminated one night at her house when the two of them had been working late on that class project and had ended up... Well, it hadn’t exactly been making love, since whatever they’d felt for each other then had had nothing to do with love. But it hadn’t been sex, either. There had been more to it than the mingling of two bodies. It had just fallen short of the mingling of two souls.

The morning after, Peyton had jumped out of bed on one side, and Ava had leaped out on the other. They had hurled both accusations and excuses, neither listening to the other. The only thing they’d agreed on was that they’d made a colossal mistake that was never to be mentioned again. Peyton had dressed and fled through her bedroom window, not wanting to be discovered, and Ava had locked it tight behind him. Monday morning, they turned in their assignment and went back to being enemies, and Ava had held her breath for the remainder of the year. Only after Peyton graduated and took off for college had she been able to breathe again.

For all of three weeks. Until her entire life came crashing down around her, pitching her to the bottom rung of the social ladder among the very people she had treated so callously before. People whom she quickly learned had deserved none of the treatment she had spent years dishing out.


She turned to Basilio. “I need a favor. Could I ask one of your waiters to run back to my shop for my car so I can drive Mr. Moss home? I’ll stay here and have coffee with him until then.”

Basilio looked at her as if she’d lost every marble she possessed.

“It’s only a fifteen-minute walk,” she told him. “Ten if whoever you send hurries.”

“But, Ms. Brenner, he’s not—”

“—himself,” Ava quickly interjected. “Yes, I know, which is why he deserves a pass tonight.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

No, she wasn’t. This Peyton was a stranger to her in so many ways. Not that the Peyton she used to know had exactly been an open book. He might not have thought much of her kind when they were in high school, and maybe he hadn’t been much of a gentleman, but he hadn’t been dangerous, either. Well, not in the usual sense of the word. Whatever had made him behave badly tonight, he’d calmed down once he recognized a familiar face.

Besides, she owed him. She owed him more than she could ever make up for. But at least, by doing this, she might make some small start.

“My keys are in my purse at my table,” she told Basilio, “and my car is parked behind the shop. Just send someone down there to get it, and I’ll take him home. Please,” she added.

Basilio looked as if he wanted to object again, but instead said, “Fine. I’ll send Marcus. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

Yes, well, that, Ava thought, made two of them.

* * *

Peyton Moss awoke the way he hadn’t awoken in a very long time—hungover. Really hungover. When he opened his eyes, he had no idea where he was or what time it was or what he’d been doing in the hours before wherever and whatever time he was in.

He lay still in bed for a minute—he was at least in a bed, wasn’t he?—and tried to figure out how he’d arrived in his current position. Hmm. Evidently, his current position was on his stomach atop a crush of sheets, his face shoved into a pillow. So that would be a big yep on the bed thing. The question now was, whose bed? Especially since, whoever the owner was, she wasn’t currently in it with him.

But he concluded the owner of the bed must be a she. Not only did the sheets smell way too good to belong to a man, but the wallpaper, he discovered when he rolled over, was covered with roses, and a chandelier above him dripped ropes of crystal beads. He drove his gaze around the room and saw more evidence of gender bias in an ultrafeminine dresser and armoire, shoved into a corner by the room’s only window, which was covered by billows of lace.

So he’d gone home with a strange woman last night. Nothing new about that, except that going home with strangers was something he’d been more likely to do in his youth. Not that thirty-four was old, dammit, but it was an age when a man was expected to start settling down and figuring out what he wanted. Not that Peyton hadn’t done that, too, but... Okay, so maybe he hadn’t settled down that much. And maybe he hadn’t quite figured out everything he wanted. He’d settled some and figured out the bulk of it. Hell, that was why he’d come back to a city he’d sworn he would never set foot in again.

Chicago. God. The last time he was here, he’d been eighteen years old and wild as a rabid badger. He’d left his graduation ceremony and gone straight to the bus station, stopping only long enough to cram his cap and gown into the first garbage can he could find. He hadn’t even gone home to say goodbye. Hell, no one at home had given a damn what he did. No one in Chicago had.

He draped an arm over his eyes and expelled a weary sigh. Yeah, nothing like a little adolescent melodrama to start the day off right.

He jackknifed to a sitting position and slung his legs over the bed. His jacket and tie were hanging over the back of a chair and his shoes were on the floor near his feet. His rumpled shirt and trousers were all fastened, as was his belt. Obviously, nothing untoward had happened the night before, so, with any luck, there wouldn’t be any awkward moments once he found out who his hostess was.

Carefully, he made his way to the door and headed into a bathroom on his right, turning on the water to fill the sink. After splashing a few handfuls onto his face, he felt a little better. He still looked like hell, he noted when he caught his reflection in the mirror. But he felt a little better.

The mirror opened to reveal a slim cabinet behind it, and he was grateful to see a bottle of mouthwash. At least that took care of the dead-animal taste in his mouth. He found a comb, too, and dragged that through his hair, then did his best to smooth the wrinkles from his shirt.

Leaving the bathroom, he detected the aroma of coffee and followed it to a kitchen that was roughly the size of an electron. The light above the stove was on, allowing him to find his way around. The only wall decoration was a calendar with scenes of Italy, but the fridge door was crowded with stuff—a notice about an upcoming Italian film festival at the Patio Theater, some pictures of women’s clothing cut out of a magazine and a postcard reminding whoever lived here of an appointment with her gynecologist.

The coffeemaker must have been on a timer, because there was no evidence of anyone stirring but him. Glancing down at his watch, he saw that it was just after five, which helped explain why no one was stirring. Except that the coffeemaker timer must have been set for now, so whoever lived here was normally up at this ungodly hour.

He crossed the kitchen in a single stride and exited on the other side, finding himself in a living room that was barely as big as the bedroom. Enough light from the street filtered through the closed curtains for him to make out a lamp on the other side of the room, and he was about to move toward it when a sound to his right stopped him. It was the sound a woman made upon stirring when she was not ready to stir, a soft sough of breath tempered by a fretful whimper. Through the semidarkness, he could just make out the figure of a woman lying on the couch.

Peyton had found himself in a lot of untenable positions over the years—many of which had included women—but he had no idea what to do in a situation like this. He didn’t know where he was, had no idea how he’d gotten here and was clueless about the identity of the woman under whose roof he had passed the night. For all he knew, she could be married. Hell, for all he knew, she could be a knife-wielding maniac. Then his hostess made that quiet sound of semiconsciousness again, and he decided she couldn’t be the last. Knife-wielding maniacs couldn’t sound that delectable. Still, if she was sleeping out here and he’d spent the night in her bedroom, he had nothing to feel guilty about, right? Except for tossing her out of her bed when he should have been the one sleeping on the couch. And except for passing out on her in the first place.

What the hell had happened last night? He mentally retraced his steps from the moment he set foot back on his native soil. Although he’d left Chicago via Greyhound bus more than fifteen years ago, his return had been aboard a private jet. His private jet. He might have been a street dog in his youth, but in adulthood... Ah, who was he kidding? In adulthood, he was still a street dog. That was the reason he was back here.

Anyway, after landing, he’d headed straight to the Hotel Intercontinental on Michigan Avenue. That much Peyton remembered with crystal clarity, because the Hotel Intercontinental was the sort of place that A) he never would have had the nerve to enter when he was a kid, and B) would have tossed him out on his ass if he had tried to enter when he was a kid. Funny how they’d had no problem accepting his platinum card yesterday.


He further remembered walking into his suite and tossing his bag onto the massive bed, then going to the window and pushing aside the curtains. He recalled looking out on Michigan Avenue, at the gleaming high-rises and upscale department stores that had always seemed off-limits to him when he lived here. This whole neighborhood had seemed off-limits to him when he was a kid. In spite of that, he’d come to this part of town five days a week, nine months a year, because the Emerson Academy for College Preparatory Learning sat in the middle of it. For those other two days of the week and three months of the year, though, Peyton had always had to stay with his own kind in the rough South Side neighborhood where he’d grown up.

Yesterday, looking out that window, he had been brutally reminded of how his teenage life in this part of town had been juxtaposed to the life—if he could even call it that—that he’d led in his not-even-marginal neighborhood. As much as he’d hated Emerson, it had always felt good to escape his home life for eight hours a day. Yesterday, looking out at the conspicuous consumption of Michigan Avenue, Peyton had, ironically, been transported back to his old neighborhood instead. He’d been able to smell the grease and gasoline of the garage he and his old man had lived above—and where he’d worked to save money for college when he wasn’t at school. He’d heard the police sirens that pelted the crumbling urban landscape, had seen the roving packs of gangs that considered his block fair game. He’d felt the grime on his skin and tasted the soot that belched from the factory smokestacks. And then...

Then had come memories of Emerson, where he’d won a spot on the school hockey team—along with a full scholarship—thanks to his above-average grades and his ruthlessness on the rink. God, he’d hated that school, teeming as it had been with blue-blooded trust-fund babies who were way too rich for his system. But he’d loved how clean and bright the place was, and how it smelled like floor wax and Calvin Klein perfume. He’d liked the quiet during classes and how orderly everything ran. He’d liked being able to eat one decent meal a day. He’d liked feeling safe, if only for a little while.

Not that he would have admitted any of that back then. Not that he would admit it to anyone now. But he’d been smart enough to know that an education from a place like Emerson would look a hell of a lot better on a college application than the decaying public school he would have attended otherwise. He’d stomached the rich kids—barely—by finding the handful of other students like himself. The wretched refuse. The other scholarship kids who were smart but poor and determined to end up in a better place than their parents. There had been maybe ten of them in a school where they were outnumbered a hundred to one. Peyton hadn’t given a damn about those hundreds. Except for one, who had gotten under his skin and stayed there.

Ava Brenner. The Golden Girl of the Gold Coast. Her daddy was so rich and so powerful, and she was so snotty and so beautiful, she’d ruled that school. Not a day had passed at Emerson that didn’t revolve around Ava and her circle of friends—all handpicked by the princess herself, and all on eggshells knowing they could be exiled at her slightest whim. Not a day had passed that Peyton hadn’t had to watch her strolling down the hall, flipping that sweep of red-gold hair around as if it was spun copper...and looking at him as if he were something disgusting stuck to the bottom of her shoe. And not a day had passed when he hadn’t wanted her. Badly. Even knowing she was spoiled and shallow and vain.

He opened his eyes. Yeah, he remembered now that he had been thinking about Ava yesterday. In fact, that was what had made him beat a hasty retreat to the hotel bar. He remembered that, too. And he remembered tossing back three single malts on an empty stomach in rapid succession. He remembered being politely asked to leave the hotel bar and, surprisingly, complying. He remembered lurching out onto Michigan Avenue and looking for the first place he could find to get another drink, then being steady enough on his feet to convince the bartender to fix him a couple more. Then...

He tried harder to remember what had happened after that. But all he could recall was a husky—sexy—voice, and the soft scent of gardenias, and a pair of beautiful sea-green eyes, all of which had seemed oddly familiar somehow.

That brought his gaze back to the woman sleeping on the couch. In the semidarkness, he could see that she lay on her side, facing the room, one hand curled in front of her face. The blanket with which she had covered herself was drooping, part of it pooled on the floor. For some reason, he was compelled to move to the couch and pick it up, to drape it across her sleeping form. As he bent over her, he inhaled the faint scent of gardenias again, as if it had followed him out of his memories.

And just like that, he was pummeled by another one.

Ava Brenner. Again. She was the one who had smelled of gardenias. Peyton remembered the night the two of them had— Well, the night they’d had to finish a school project together at her house. In her room. When her parents were out of town. At one point, she’d gone downstairs to fix them something to eat, and he’d taken advantage of her absence to shamelessly prowl around her room, opening her closet and dresser drawers, snooping for anything he could discover about her. When he came across her underwear drawer, he actually stole a pair of her panties. Pale yellow silk. God help him, he still had them. As he’d stuffed them into his back pocket that night, his gaze lit on a bottle of perfume on her dresser. Night Gardenia, it was called. That was the only way he knew that what she smelled like was gardenias. He’d never smelled—or even seen—one before that night.

As he draped the cover over the sleeping woman, his gaze fell to her face, and his gut clenched tight. He told himself he was imagining things. He was just so overcome with memories of Ava that he was imprinting her face onto that of a stranger. The odds of him running into the last person he wanted to see in Chicago—within hours of his arrival—were too ridiculous to compute. There were two and a half million people in this city. No way could fate be that cruel. No way would he be thrown back into the path of—

Before the thought even formed in his head, though, Peyton knew. It was her. Ava Brenner. Golden Girl of the Gold Coast. Absolute ruler of the Emerson Academy for College Preparatory Learning. A recurring character in the most feverish dreams he’d ever had as a teenage boy.

And someone he’d hoped he would never, ever see again.