My Fair Billionaire(13)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

His mouth fell open. “Pay?”

She nodded. “Pay. Surely you were paying your previous stylist.”

“Well, yeah, but that was his job.”

She shrugged. “And your point would be?”

He didn’t know what his point was. He’d just figured Ava would help him out. He hadn’t planned on her being mercenary about it.

Wow. She really hadn’t changed since high school.

“Fine,” he said coolly. “I’ll pay you what I was paying him.” He named the figure, one that was way too high to pay anyone for telling people how to dress and talk and eat.

Ava shook her head. “No, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“What?”

“Peyton, if you want to make use of my expertise in this matter, then I expect to be compensated accordingly.”

Of course she did. Ava Brenner never did anything unless she was compensated.

“Fine,” he said again. “How much do you charge for your expertise?”

She thought for another minute, then quoted a figure fifty percent higher than what he had offered.

“You’re nuts,” he told her. “You could build the Taj Mahal for that.”

She said nothing.

He offered her 10 percent more.

She said nothing.

He offered her 25 percent more.

She tilted her head to one side.

He offered her 40 percent more.

“All right,” she said with a satisfied smile.

“Great,” he muttered.

“Well, I didn’t want to be unreasonable.”

This time Peyton was the one who said nothing. But he suddenly realized it wasn’t because he was irritated with their lopsided bargaining—as if Ava was any kind of bargain. It was because it felt kind of good to be sparring with her again. He remembered now how, despite the antagonism of their exchanges in high school, he’d always come away from them feeling weirdly energized and satisfied. Although he still sparred with plenty of people these days, none ever left him feeling the way he’d felt taking on Ava.

“But Peyton, you’ll have to do things my way,” she said, pulling him out of his musing.

Peyton hated it when people told him they had to do things any way other than his own. He waited for the resentment and hostility that normally came along with such demands to coil inside him. Instead, he felt strangely elated.

“All right,” he conceded. “We’ll do this your way.”

She grinned. He told himself it was smugly. But damned if she didn’t look kind of happy to have taken on the task, too.

Four

Scarcely an hour after Ava agreed to be Peyton’s makeover artist, she sat across from him at a table in a State Street restaurant. He’d asked her if they could get started right away, since he was eager to get on with his corporate takeover and had already lost a week to his previous stylist. And since—Hey, Ava, would ya look at that?—it was coming up on noon anyway, lunch sounded like a really good idea. After ensuring that one of her morning clerks would be able to pull an afternoon shift, too, Ava had agreed.

As surprised as she’d been by his request to help him out, she was even more surprised to realize she was happy to be doing it. Though not because he was paying her, since the figure she’d quoted him would barely cover the cost of the two additional salesclerks she’d need at Talk of the Town to cover for her. The strange happiness, she was certain, stemmed from the fact that she would finally be able to make amends for the way she had treated him in high school. It was that, and nothing more, that caused the funny buzz of delight that hummed inside her.

Anyway, what difference did it make? The point was that she would be helping Peyton become a gentleman, thereby ensuring he added to his already enormous financial empire. The point was that she would be performing enough good deeds over the next week or so to counter a lot of the mean things she’d said and done to him in high school. And the point was that, by helping him this way, she wouldn’t have to bare her soul about the specifics of her current lifestyle. Specifically, she wouldn’t have to tell him how she didn’t have any style in her life, save what she was surrounded by at work every day.

What would telling Peyton about what happened to her family sixteen years ago accomplish? It wouldn’t change anything. Why shouldn’t she just do this nice thing for him and make some small amends for her past? No harm, no foul. They could complete the mission, job well done, then he could be on his way back to the West Coast none the wiser.

Yeah. That’s the ticket.

She sighed inwardly as she looked at Peyton. Not because of how handsome he was sitting there looking at the menu—though he was certainly handsome sitting there looking at the menu—but because he was slumped forward with one elbow on the table, his chin settled in his hand. He had also preceded her to the table and seated himself without a second thought for her, then snatched up the menu as if it he hadn’t eaten in a week. Combined, the actions gave her some small inkling of what his previous Henry Higgins had been up against.

“Peyton,” she said quietly.

His gaze never left the menu. “Yeah?”

She said nothing until he looked up at her. She hoped he would realize she was setting an example for him to follow when she straightened in her chair and plucked the menu delicately from the table, laying her other hand in her lap.

He changed his posture not at all. “What is it?”

She threw her shoulders back and sat up even straighter.

“What?” he repeated, more irritably this time.

Fine. If he was going to behave like a child, she’d treat him like a child. “Sit up straight.”

He looked confused. “Say what?”

“Sit up straight.”

He narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth as if he were going to object, but she arched one eyebrow meaningfully and he closed his mouth again. To his credit, he also straightened in his chair and leaned against its back. She could tell he wasn’t happy about completing the action. But he did complete it.

“Take your elbow off the table,” she further instructed.

He frowned at her, but did as she said.

Satisfied she had his attention—maybe a little more than she wanted—she continued with her lesson. “Also, when you’re in a restaurant with a woman and the host is taking you to your table, you should always invite her to walk ahead of you and follow her so that—”

“But how will she know where she’s going if she’s walking ahead of me?” he interrupted.