MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE (8 page)

But he didn’t have Ava waiting at home for him, he reminded himself. And he didn’t want her waiting at home for him. So what was the point of even thinking about it?

“Well, if you change your mind...” Caroline said, leaving the statement incomplete but her intention stated.

“You’ll be the first person I call,” Ava promised.

Peyton did his best not to wish he could be the first person she’d call. Even though he kind of did.

Dammit, what was wrong with him? He’d just been paired up with a modern-day Jackie Kennedy. He should be over the moon. He was just distracted, that was all—too much going on. The takeover of Montgomery and Sons, massive self-improvement, the hunt for the right woman, the ghost of high school past...it was no wonder his brain was scrambled.

“Are we finished here?” he asked, more irritably than he intended.

Both Caroline and Ava seemed to notice that, too. But it was Ava who replied, “You tell me.”

“Yes,” he snapped.

Without awaiting a reply, he made his way to the door. Let the women draw whatever conclusion they wanted from his behavior. As far as he was concerned, any lessons Ava might have in store for the rest of the day were canceled. He had work to do. Work that didn’t include anything or anyone with more than one X chromosome.

Six

A
va and Peyton sat on a bench at the Chicago Institute of Art studying Edward Hopper’s
Nighthawks,
neither saying a word. She had instructed him to spend five minutes in silence taking in the details of several paintings that morning, but none of them had captured his attention the way this one had. It almost seemed as if he wanted to walk right into the painting and join the people sitting at the café bar for a cup of late-night coffee.

As he studied the painting, Ava studied him. He was wearing a different pair of dark-wash jeans today, with another fitted sweater—this one the color of good cognac that set off his amber eyes beautifully. She’d opted for a pair of tobacco-colored trousers and a dark green tailored shirt. She couldn’t help thinking that, fashionwise, they complemented each other perfectly. But that was about the only compatibility the two of them were enjoying today.

He’d barely spoken to her after they left the matchmaker’s office yesterday, barring one angry outburst that had left her flummoxed. After saying they were finished for the day, he’d offered to have his driver drop her at her house on the way back to his hotel, wherever her house was, since she hadn’t told him her address, and why was that, anyway, did she still think he wasn’t fit to enter the premises the way she had when they were kids, since he’d had to climb out the window when he left her house that one time he was there, not use the front door like a normal—meaning blue-blooded, filthy-rich—person would?

Ava had been stunned to momentary silence. Until then, they’d seemed to have an unspoken agreement that they would never, under any circumstances, specifically mention that night. Then she’d gathered herself enough to snap back that he could have used the front door if he’d wanted to, but he’d chosen to go out the window because he’d been too ashamed to be seen with her, reeking of old money as she was, which was at least better than reeking of gasoline and gutter scum.

What followed might have been an explosion of resentment and frustration that had been steeping for sixteen years. Instead, both had been too horrified by what they’d said to each other, by what they knew they could never take back, that neither had said another word. Neither had apologized, either. They’d just looked out their respective windows until they reached Talk of the Town. Ava had hopped out of the car with a hastily uttered instruction for Peyton to meet her at the Art Institute this morning and slammed the door before he could object.

Neither had mentioned the exchange today. Their conversation had focused exclusively on art commentary, but it had been civil. In spite of that, a stagnant uneasiness surrounded them, and neither seemed to know what to do to ease it.

She glanced at her watch and saw that the five minutes she’d asked Peyton to give to the painting had become eight. Instead of telling him time was up, she turned her attention to the painting, too. It was one she had responded to immediately the first time she’d seen it, during an Emerson Academy field trip when she was in ninth grade. The people in the painting had always looked to her as if they were displaced and at loose ends, as though they were just biding their time in the diner while they waited for something—anything—to change.

The painting still spoke to her that way. Except that now the people looked lonely, too.

“I like how the light is brightest on the guy behind the counter,” Peyton said suddenly, stirring Ava from her thoughts. “It makes him look like some kind of...I don’t know...spiritual figure or something. He’s the guy providing the sustenance, but maybe that sustenance is more than coffee and pie, you know?”

Ava turned to look at him, surprised at the pithiness of the comment.

Before she could say anything, and still looking at the picture, he added, “What’s also interesting is that the only real color on the people is with the woman, and both times, it’s warm colors. The red on her dress, and the orange in her hair. Although maybe I only notice that because I’ve always been partial to redheads.”

He’d said the same thing at the matchmaker’s, she recalled. Or, at least, Caroline had said that was what he’d stated on his questionnaire. Just as he had yesterday after the comment, he turned to look at Ava...then at Ava’s hair. Warmth oozed through her belly, because he looked at her now the way he had that night at her parents’ house. The two of them had been sitting on the floor in her bedroom, bleary-eyed from their studies, when Ava had cupped the back of her neck, complaining of an incessant ache. Peyton had uncharacteristically taken pity on her and moved her hand to place his there, rubbing gently to ease the knot. One minute, the two of them had been overtaxed and stressed by their homework, and the next...

“I mean...” he sputtered. “That is...it’s just...uh...”

“That’s so interesting, what you said about the light and the guy behind the counter,” she interrupted, pretending she didn’t understand why he suddenly seemed edgy. Pretending she didn’t feel edgy herself. “I’ve never thought about that before.”

Instead of turning his attention back to the painting, Peyton continued to look at Ava. Oh, God, that was all she needed. If they followed the pattern from sixteen years ago, the two of them were going to end up horizontal on the bench, fully entwined and half-naked. That was how it had been that night at her parents’ house. The first time, anyway—they’d been on each other so fast, so fiercely, that they’d only managed to undo any buttons and zippers that were in their way. The second time had been much more leisurely, much more thorough. Where the first time had been a physical act intended to release pressure, the second time had been much more...

“In fact,” Ava hurried on, looking back at the painting herself, “it’s the sort of interpretation that might lead to a discussion that could go on for hours.”

Her heart was racing, and heat was seeping into her chest and face. So she made herself do what she’d done in high school whenever she started reacting that way to Peyton. She channeled her inner Gold Coast ice princess—who she was dismayed to find still lurked beneath the surface—and forced herself to be distant, methodical...and not a little bitchy. She was Peyton’s teacher, not his...not someone who should be experiencing odd, decades-old feelings she never should have felt in the first place. She’d never be able to compete with a modern-day Jackie Kennedy anyway. She was the last sort of woman Peyton wanted or needed to accomplish his goals.

“Which is exactly why,” she said frostily, “I don’t want you saying things like that.”

Sensing his annoyance at her crisp tone, she pressed on. She didn’t dwell on how she was behaving exactly the way she had sworn not to—treating him the way she had in high school—but she was starting to feel way too many things she shouldn’t be feeling, and she didn’t know what else to do.

“What I really want for you to take away from this exercise,” she told him coolly, “is something less insightful. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

“
Less
insightful?” he echoed. “I thought the whole point of this museum thing was to teach me how to say something about art that wouldn’t make me sound like an idiot.”

She nodded. “Which is why I’ve focused on the works I have today. These are artists and paintings that are familiar to everyone. For your purposes, you only need to master some passing art commentary. Not deep, pithy insight.”

“Then tell me, oh great art guru,” he said sarcastically, “what do I need to know about this one?”

Looking at the painting, again—since it was better than looking at the angry expression on Peyton’s face—Ava said, “You should say how interesting it is that the themes in
Nighthawks
are similar to Hopper’s
Sunlight in a Cafeteria,
but that the perspective of time is reversed.”

“But I haven’t seen
Sunlight in a Cafeteria,
” he pointed out. “Not to mention I don’t know what the fu— Uh...what you’re talking about.”

“No one else you’ll be talking to has seen it, either,” she assured him. “And you don’t have to understand it. The minute you offer some indication that you know more about art than your companion, they’ll change the subject.” She smiled her cool, disaffected smile and told him, “I think you’re good to go with the major players in American art. Tomorrow, we’ll take on the Impressionists. Then, if we have time, the Dutch masters.”

Peyton groaned. “Oh, come on, Ava. How often is this stuff really going to come up in conversation?”

“More often than you think. And we still have to cover books and music, too.”

He eyed her flatly. “There’s no way I need to know all this stuff before my date with Francesca. I don’t need to know it for moving in business circles, either. I think you’re just stalling.”

Ava gaped at him. “That’s ridiculous. Why would I want to spend more time with you than I have to?”

“Got me,” he shot back. “God knows it’s not like you need the money I’m sure you’ll charge me for overtime. I think I’ve got all this...stuff...covered. Let’s move on.”

Well, at least he was abiding by the no-profanity rule, she thought. She decided not to comment on the other part of his charge. “Music,” she reiterated instead. “Books.”

He expelled an exasperated breath. “Fine. I’ve been a huge Charles Dickens fan since high school. How’s that?”

She couldn’t quite hide her surprise. “You read Charles Dickens for fun?”

He clamped his jaw tight. “Yeah.” More icily, he added, “And Camus and Hemingway, too. Guess that comes as a shock to you, doesn’t it? That gasoline-reeking gutter scum like me could have understood anything other than the sports stats in the
Sun-Times.
”

“Peyton, that wasn’t what I was think—”

“The hell it wasn’t.”

So much for the profanity rule. Not that Ava called him on it, since she was kind of responsible for its being broken. She started to deny her charge, then stopped. “Okay, maybe that was kind of what I was thinking. But you didn’t exactly show your brainy side in school. Still, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed that. Especially in light of what you’ve accomplished since then.”

He seemed surprised—and a little confused—by her apology. He didn’t let her off the hook, though. “And in light of what I accomplished then, too,” he added. “Which was something you never bothered to discover for yourself.”

Now it was Ava’s turn to be surprised. He still sounded hurt by something that had happened—or, rather, hadn’t happened—half a lifetime ago. Nevertheless, she told him, “I wasn’t the only one who didn’t bother to get to know my classmates. I was more than I appeared to be in high school, too, Peyton, but did you ever notice or care?”

He uttered an incredulous sound. “Right. More than just a beautiful shell filled with nothing but self-interest? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t
think
so?” she echoed. “Present tense? You still think I’m just a—” She halted herself, thinking it would be best to skirt the whole
beautiful
thing. “I’m just a shell filled with nothing but self-interest?”

He said nothing, only continued to look at her the way the teenage Peyton had.

“You think the reason I’m helping you out like this is all for
myself?
” she asked. “You don’t think maybe I’m doing it because it’s a nice thing for me to do for an old...for a former classmate?”

Now he barked in disbelief. “You’re doing it because I’m paying you a bucket of money. If that isn’t self-interest, I don’t know what is.”

There was no way she could set him straight without revealing the reality of her situation. Of course, she
could
do that. She could tell him about how she had walked in his figurative shoes her senior year. She could tell him how she understood now the battles between pride and shame, and desire and need, and how each day had been filled with wondering how she was going to survive into the next one. She could tell him how she’d listened to her mother crying in the next room every night, and how she had forbidden herself to do the same, because nothing could come from that. She could tell him how she’d stood in the yard of the Milhouse Prewitt School every morning and steeled herself before going in, only to be worn to a nub by day’s end by the relentless bullying.

Just do it, Ava. Be honest with him. Maybe then karma really will smile upon you.

But on the heels of that thought came another:
Or maybe Peyton will laugh and say the same things you heard every day at Prewitt, about looking like you live in a box under a bridge, and stealing extra fruit from the lunch line—don’t think we haven’t seen you do it, Ava—and not being fit to clean the houses of your classmates because no one wants their house smelling the way you smell, and maybe you don’t live in box under a bridge, after all, maybe you live in a Dumpster.

She opened her mouth, honestly not sure what would come out. And she heard herself say, “Right. I forgot. Money and social standing are more important to me than anything.” Conjuring her before-the-fall high school self again, she cocked her head to one side and smiled an icy smile. In a voice that could freeze fire, she said, “But that’s because they
are
more important than anything, aren’t they, Peyton? That’s something you’ve learned, too, isn’t it? That’s what you want more than anything now. Guess that makes us two of a kind.”

His mouth dropped open, as if it had never occurred to him how much he resembled the people for whom he’d had so much contempt in high school. The two of them really had switched places. In more than just a social context. In a philosophical one, as well. She understood better than ever now that what defined a person was their character, not what kind of car was parked in their garage or what kind of clothes hung in their closet. She was poor in an economic sense, but she was rich in other ways—certainly richer than the integrity-starved girl she’d been in high school.

Peyton, on the other hand, had money to burn, but was running short on integrity, if what he’d told her about his business methods were any indication. He’d thrust plenty of families into the sort of life he’d clawed his way out of. And he was currently trying to take a family business away from the last remaining members of that family, to plunder and dismember it. He’d be putting even more people out of work and more families on the dole. And he was going to do it under the manufactured guise of being a decent, mannerly individual. Really, which one of them had the most to feel guilty about these days?