My Fair Billionaire(12)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Could he?

She was his lifelong nemesis. He’d said so himself. Not to her face, but to a friend of his. She’d overhead the two of them talking as they came out of the boys’ restroom near her locker at Emerson. The seniors had been studying Romeo and Juliet, and she’d heard him say that the Montagues and Capulets had nothing on the Mosses and Brenners. He’d told his friend that he and Ava would be enemies forever. Then he’d ordered a plague on her house.

Very carefully, she asked, “Peyton, why exactly are you here?”

He leaned forward in the chair, hooking his hands together between his legs. His gaze never leaving hers, he said, “Exactly? I’m here because I didn’t know where else to go. There aren’t many people left in this city who remember me—”

Oh, she sincerely doubted that.

“And there are even fewer I care about seeing.”

That she could definitely believe.

“And I’m not supposed to go back to San Francisco until I’m, um—” he made a restless gesture with his hand, as if he were literally groping for the right word “—until I’m fit for the right kind of society.”

When Ava said nothing in response—because she honestly had no idea what to say—he expelled a restless breath and leaned back in the chair again.

Finally, point-blank, he said, “Ava, I want you to be my Henrietta Higgins.”

* * *

Peyton told himself he shouldn’t be surprised by Ava’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction. He’d had a similar one when the idea popped into his head as he was escaping Henry Higgins’s office the previous afternoon. But there was no way he could have kept working with that guy, and something told him anyone else was going to be just as bad or worse.

How was someone going to turn him from a sow’s ear into a silk purse if they didn’t even know how he’d become a sow’s ear in the first place? He’d never be a silk purse anyway. He needed to work with someone who understood that the best they could hope for would be to turn him into something in between. Like a…hmm…like maybe a cotton pigskin. Yeah, that’s it. Like a denim football. He could do that. He could go from a sow’s ear to a denim football. But he was still going to need help getting there. And it was going to have to be from someone who not only knew how to look and act in society, but who knew him and his limitations.

And who knew his limitations better than Ava? Who understood society better than Ava? Maybe she didn’t like him. Maybe he didn’t like her. But he knew her. And she knew him. That was more than he could say for all the Henry Higginses in the world. He and Ava had worked together once, in spite of their differences—they’d actually pulled off an A-minus on that World Civ project in high school. So why couldn’t they work together as adults? Hell, adults should be even better at putting aside their differences, right? Peyton worked with people he didn’t like all the time.

The tension between him and Ava on Saturday morning had probably just been a result of their shock at seeing each other again. Probably. Hey, they were being civil to each other now, weren’t they? Or at least they had been. Before he dropped the Henrietta Higgins bombshell and Ava went all catatonic on him.

“So what do you say, Ava?” he asked in an effort to get the conversation rolling again. “Think you could help me out here?”

“I, ah…” she nonanswered.

“I mean, this sort of thing is right up your alley, right? Even if you didn’t own a store that deals with, you know, fashion and stuff.” Fashion and stuff? Could he sound more like an adolescent? “You know all about how people are supposed to dress and act in social situations.”

“Yes, but…”

“And you know me well enough to not to dress me in purple.”

“Well, that’s certainly true, but…”

“And you’d talk to me the right way. Like you wouldn’t say—” He adopted what he thought was a damned good impression of the man who had tried to dress him in purple. “‘Mr. Moss, would you be ever so kind as to cease usage of the vulgar sort of language we decided earlier might be a detriment to your reception by the ladies whom you are doing your best to impress.’ You’d just say, ‘Peyton, the Montgomerys are going to wash your mouth out with soap if you don’t stop dropping the F-bomb.’ And just like that, I’d know what the hell you were talking about, and I’d do it right away.”

This time, Ava only arched an eyebrow in what could have been amusement or censure…or something else he probably didn’t want to identify.

“Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t do it right away,” he qualified. “But at least I would know what you were talking about, and we could come to some sort of compromise.”

The eyebrow lowered, but the edge of her mouth twitched a little. Even though he wasn’t sure whether it was twitching up or down, Peyton decided to be optimistic. At least she hadn’t thrown anything at him.

“I just mean,” he said, “that you…that I…that we…” He blew out an irritated breath, sat up straighter, and looked her straight in the eye. “Look, Ava, I know we were never the best of friends…” Even if we were—for one night, anyway—lovers, he couldn’t help thinking. Hoping she wasn’t thinking that, too. Figuring she probably was. Not sure how he felt about any of it. “But I obviously need help with this new and improved me, and I’m not going to get it from some total stranger. I don’t know anyone here who could help me except you. Because you’re the only one here who knows me.”

“I did know you,” she corrected him. “When we were in high school. Neither of us is the person we were then.”

There was something in her voice that made Peyton hesitate. Although it was true that in a lot of ways he wasn’t the person he’d been in high school, Ava obviously still was. Maybe the adult wasn’t quite as snotty, vain or superficial as the girl had been, but she could still put a guy in his place. She was still classy. She was still beautiful. She was still out of his league. Hell, she hadn’t changed at all.

“So will you do it?” he asked, deliberately not giving her time to think it over.

She thought it over anyway. Dammit. Her gaze never left his, but he could almost hear the crackling of her brain synapses as she connected all the dots and came to her conclusions. He was relieved when she finally smiled.

Until she asked, “How much does the position pay?”