The Billionaire's Secret (8 page)

“Ah…maybe we should wait to taste my baguettes before we celebrate,” she said.

“Nonsense,” Andre said, leading her to the stairs. “You are using my dough. They will be perfect. Now, when you make your own dough…”

She saw where he was going with this. “It’s going to take practice,” she said and almost winced, wondering how much. But it was exciting too. She was learning how to make baguettes in Paris with a master baker. She needed to kick her perfectionism to the curb and enjoy this.

“You will get it right, with practice and my fine instruction,” he said with a laugh. “After all, you will be using
my
recipe. And it’s perfect, no? The angels weep when they eat my bread. Jesus himself might have—”

“I get it,” she said, climbing the steep stairs. “You’re a regular saintly baker.”

“There is already a Saint Andre,” he teased when they reached the top. “But I will figure something out to ensure I leave a legacy.”

“I have no doubt.”

Andre called out to Fabian and Ronan, and they climbed the stairs as well. In the small back room of the bakery’s first floor, Andre produced a bottle of champagne. His wife came through the swinging door with a huge smile.

“Success!” she said and hugged Margie. “There is no better feeling.”

“No, there truly isn’t,” Margie answered, accepting a glass of champagne.

Once everyone had a glass, Andre raised his to her. “To Margie from America. May she learn to bake bread like a Frenchman.”

“French woman, ma cherie,” Belle said, nudging him in the ribs.

“As you wish,” he said with a laugh. “To making the bread of life.”

The words held a spiritual significance she’d never fully understood before. Bread was life. She’d known that for some time. Now she understood the deeper nuances of that statement. Bread
did
give life. It had given her life. And now she wanted to share that life with others—like she had with Evan. Her new knowledge humbled her mightily.

“To making the bread of life,” she said and connected their glasses in the toast.

Chapter 4

Evan was counting the minutes until Margie texted him to tell him she was free. He had no idea how long her master baker would keep her today. He hadn’t been able to resist looking Andre Moutard up on Google. The guy seemed legit, but who knew if he was a good boss?

The events of last night had shaken his foundation, everything from their kiss to her revelations about her painful past. As he glanced around his luxurious penthouse apartment filled with every modern convenience—and not a hobbit door in sight—he felt a familiar fear rise up in him.

She wasn’t going to like him when she learned he was obscenely rich—billionaire rich—and had been entrenched in the same shallow circles as her parents until recently. He just knew it would ruin everything between them.

The ruse would have to continue…at least until he knew she cared about him as much as he did about her. Since she wanted to make love with him, he knew she cared. A lot. And it both humbled him and excited him.

He decided to call L’Hotel again to make sure everything was ready for them should she still want to be with him tonight. His body tightened with lust as he imagined slowly undressing her and kissing every inch of her glorious body. But they wouldn’t have the entire night together. She’d have to leave for the bakery before two a.m. Normally he didn’t stay with women afterward. He rather liked his space and solitude, but he wondered what it would be like to wake up with her all warm and tousled from sleep. And he found himself wanting something he’d never before thought to want.

The phone rang, and he snatched it up, seeing it was Chase. “Did you see the new prototype for the Paint Prep Mistress? It’s looking great, isn’t it?”

“Evan. I told you we can’t do this.” His friend paused. “I know you’re happy about the invention, but we need something else. Something that will complement the rest of what we do.”

This was an argument they’d carried on every day for a week—ever since Evan had diverted a few key staff in their Research and Development Department to work with him on improving the design.

“Chase, I know you don’t see this going anywhere, but it will. I can’t explain it, but there’s a defense application here somewhere. I can feel it. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“You keep saying that,” Chase said in an aggrieved tone. “And I keep trying to believe it. But most of our clients in the countries we currently serve don’t need help painting their buildings. Or their planes or their ships…”

Didn’t he know that?
But
there’s something there.
He kicked the desk, feeling the frustration well in his gut. The key that would unlock this whole thing was hidden from him. But he couldn’t find it. Right now it was like he was trying to walk the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral outside Paris in the dark. He couldn’t find the center.

“I’ll use my personal funds on this, Chase,” Evan said in a hard tone. “I know I’m blowing your perfect corporate budget right now.” Some of the materials he’d ordered to modernize the invention and make it sleek and lightweight were astronomically expensive.

“Did you really need the specially insulated titanium?” Chase asked. “That seems kinda excessive for a painting tool.”

It probably was, but he hated working with inferior metals. And besides, the voice that kept telling him this was more than a painting tool wouldn’t be silenced—not by him, not by Chase.

“I’ll send you a check today.” They’d never done it this way, but if Howard Hughes could finance his own projects, so could he.

“Dammit, Evan, this is about more than money, and you know it.” Chase let out a tortured breath. “You’re taking our best R&D people away from their current projects. We have contracts, Evan, with strict deliverables. If you keep having them work on this project, we’re going to end up defaulting, and that’s a whole other ballpark of hell. One we cannot dig ourselves out of. Right now, all I can do is deliver your old designs. If we lose that, with nothing new to sell plus the defaults, we
will
lose this company, Evan. It won’t be quick, but it will happen.”

He crossed the room to the French doors leading to the balcony. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower speared the sky. After the inventor, a civil engineer named Gustave Eiffel, created it for the 1889 World’s Fair, he came under significant criticism for its design. People had said he was crazy. But he stuck to his guns like every other famous inventor, and look how things had turned out. No one could imagine Paris without his invention. Gustave had combined art and aerodynamics and a whole stream of other theories into an awe-inspiring collage of metal. Evan wished he could buy the man a beer for reminding him to press on.

“So money isn’t going to fix it,” he said, realizing he was seeing way too much evidence of this lesson in his life right now. “What will? I need my staff, Chase. And they are
my
staff.”

“Did you just hear what I said?” Chase asked. “If you keep diverting staff and funds in one of the most critical departments in this company, we’re going to hit rocky shores, Evan. I love this company as much as you do. Do you want this ship to go down?”

“Of course not,” he said, gripping the curved metal rails of his balcony as he thought through a solution. In some ways, it had been so much easier to invent things when his future had been the only one at stake. “How about this? We need more staff to accommodate this new project and our existing orders. How about you start hiring, and in the meantime, I’ll ask who wants to work overtime on my special projects?” He hadn’t unleashed his next idea on them yet. He was still fussing with the drawings in his head.

“There’s more?” Chase asked. He sounded downright appalled. “How much painting did you do in Dare Valley anyway?”

“A lot, and I liked it. Chase, every unnatural surface is painted.” He saw it now, everywhere he looked. Paint was a common thread throughout all modern life. “There’s something here.”

“You keep saying that!” Chase said, losing his usual cool. “Are you sure the fumes didn’t go to your head?”

It was enough to make him think of the chemical composition of paint. There was something about the polymers. They were trying to tell him something. He’d been playing with the equations, trying to decipher the secret.

“Chase. I want this to happen, so I’m telling you. Make it happen. I gave you a solution. If you don’t like it, find another one and run it by me.”

“You don’t usually play hardball with me, Evan,” Chase said.

“Do you call this hardball?” Evan asked. “If so, you need to take up poker.”

“I don’t share your appetite for risk,” Chase said, “which is why I manage the company and you invent. You know that, Evan. It’s why you hired me. But I’ll see what I can do about implementing your solution.”

“I’ll finance the employees’ overtime myself so it doesn’t cut into your budget,” Evan said. “As my way of not playing hardball with you.” His gut burned a bit. “I don’t like fighting with you, Chase.”

“I don’t either,” his friend admitted. “Usually we’re on the same page.”

But not this time. And damn if that didn’t make him feel alone. If not for Margie…

“Chase,” he said quietly, feeling the geeky boy he’d been emerge through the ether. “Do you trust me?”

The man blew out a breath. “Mostly. Evan, you know how much…oh hell…you know what I’m saying. I
do
trust you. It’s only that you haven’t been yourself these last couple of years.”

Truer words were never spoken. “I know. But I’ve found a lost piece of myself. Only this time it’s better.”

The long pause made Evan shuffle his feet. He could feel Chase gathering himself to say something unpleasant.

“I know Margie Lancaster is in Paris, Evan,” Chase said. “And I know you care for her. If you’re falling for her… Don’t mistake love for creative inspiration.”

Chase was wrong. What he felt for Margie had opened up his creative inspiration, but the two things were still separate, like hydrogen and oxygen. Both interacted to become water under the right circumstances, but they still retained their separate properties. And when added to other elements, each could become something else, something new.

“You’re still jaded after your divorce, so I won’t try to explain this to you.” Chase’s wife had taken him for all he was worth in the divorce. His friend’s private wealth had suffered, but it was his spirit Evan was still worried about.

“All I can say is prenup,” Chase said in a harsh tone. “If the paint fumes have you thinking that far ahead.”

Evan was surprised to find the thought of marriage didn’t freak him out…not like it did when it was mentioned by one of the gorgeous gold-diggers who had hoped to snag him so they could have access to his billions. Margie would never be like that.

In fact, she would rather hate his money.

For a moment, he let himself imagine what it would be like to be married to her. As he gazed across Paris’ rooftops, he could see them strolling along the Seine hand in hand. Every morning she would greet him with that sweet smile of hers when she woke. Of course, he would have to wake up well before dawn for that to happen, but this was his fantasy, so there was no need to account for her unusual hours.

Her kisses would anchor him in a whole new level of happiness. And she would bake her cinnamon rolls, which she could sell to a bakery in Paris, while he worked on his inventions. And after they both finished doing the work they loved, he would sweep her off her feet and make love to her until neither one of them wanted to move. Yeah, he liked that.

“Evan,” Chase urgently said. “You’re scaring me with all this silence.”

“How did you know Margie was here?” he asked even though he suspected he knew.

“You know I have a few people keeping an eye on you due to corporate espionage,” Chase said. “I get a call every time a new person comes into your circle. Especially in Paris, your hometown.”

He understood Chase’s paranoia. His wife had taken some important corporate documents from him and used them as leverage in the divorce proceedings. Chase had feared one of Evan’s shallower girlfriends might do the same even though Evan had promised to keep everything confidential in his private R&D room in the penthouse or the special security box he’d designed for travel. Unlike some inventors, Evan still liked to hand draw until he was ready to start designing his work in AutoCAD. Of course, they were supposed to abide by these protocols anyway due to their security clearances, but things happened.

“So your guys did their job, and now you know she’s not a threat to me. You can stop following her or whatever it is they’re doing. If you knew her, Chase, you’d laugh at the ludicrousness of the thought.” He didn’t think Margie would laugh though. She’d be insulted, and rightly so. It was another secret he’d definitely be keeping.

“Are you sure about her, Evan? She grew up super rich, so she’s used to the lifestyle, but her parents disowned her years ago. She currently has just over twelve hundred dollars in her personal banking account. If she landed you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Chase. Right now.”

There was a shocked silence on the other end. Evan’s heart rate lurched from normal to anaerobic in seconds. He’d never said anything like that to Chase before. But hearing him say those things about Margie…

“You do love her,” the man finally said with a groan. “I’ll excuse what you just said. But I’ll tell you this once, Evan. No one talks to me like that. Not even you.”

The younger boy in him, the one Chase had cultivated and helped grow into a man, wanted to kowtow, but he planted his feet on the balcony and stared off into the horizon. “Then promise me that you’ll never say one more bad word about Margie—to me or anyone else—ever again.”

“I apologize,” Chase said easily. “I was out of line. I’m only trying to protect you, Evan.”

“You’re not my father, Chase,” he said. But as he said it, he realized something—for a long time, he had looked to Chase to be his friend, brother, and dad all in one. “At least I don’t need you to be anymore. How about we just agree to look after each other as friends?”