My Fair Billionaire(18)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

She leaped on that realization. “But you know, Peyton, I’m not sure you’re ready to meet any prospective dates just yet. We still have a lot of work to do to get you ready for that.”

“How much more do we have to do?”

He’d actually come a long way in four days, Ava had to admit. And not just because of his stylish new wardrobe and excellent new haircut—which he had finally agreed to get at her salon, but not after much haggling. Haggling that, in hindsight, hadn’t been all that unpleasant, especially when he seemed to be enjoying it as much as she did.

At any rate, his faded jeans and bulky sweater of the day before had made way for expensive dark-wash denim and a more fitted sweater in what she knew was espresso, but which she’d conceded to Peyton—after more surprisingly enjoyable haggling—was actually brown. His shorter hair had showcased the few threads of silver amid the black, something that gave him a definite executive aura—not to mention an added bit of sexiness. Ava’s charcoal skirt and claret cashmere sweater set—both by Chanel—should have seemed dressy, but he made denim and cotton aristocratic to the point where she felt like the palace gardener. He was the kind of client that would make a matchmaker drool—never mind the effect he would have on his prospective matches. It was amazing what a little polish would do for a guy.

Then again, it wasn’t always the clothes that made the man. What made Peyton Peyton was what was beneath the clothes. And that was something even teaching him about the finer things in life wouldn’t change. Yes, he needed to learn to become a gentleman if he wanted to impress the sisters Montgomery and acquire their company. But there was too much roughneck in him to ever let the gentleman take over for very long.

It was a realization that should have made Ava even more peeved, since it suggested that everything she was doing to help him was pointless. Instead, it comforted her.

Remembering he’d asked her a question that needed a response, she said, “Well, I was kind of hoping to cover the arts this week. And we still need to fine-tune your restaurant etiquette. And we should—” She halted. There was no reason to make him think there was still tons more to do, since there really wasn’t. For some reason, though, she found herself wishing there was still tons more to do. “Not a lot,” she said. “There’s not a lot.”

Instead of looking pleased about that, he looked kind of, well, peeved.

“I should go,” she told him. “What time do you think you’ll be finished?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I could call you when we’re done?”

She nodded and started to turn away.

“Unless…”

She turned to face him. “Unless what?”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “Unless maybe…” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, a restless gesture. “Unless maybe you want to come with me?”

It was an odd request. For one thing, Caroline the matchmaker would be curious—not to mention possibly peeved—if Peyton showed up with a woman. A woman who, by the way, Caroline had had no part in setting him up with, so she wouldn’t be collecting a finder’s fee. For another thing, why would Peyton want Ava with him when he considered a potentially life-changing decision?

As if he’d heard her unspoken question, he hurried on, “I mean, you might be able to give me some advice or something. I’ve never worked with a matchmaker before.”

Oh, and she had? Jeez, she hadn’t even had a date in more than a year. She was the last person who should be giving advice about matters of the heart. Not that Peyton needed to know any of that, but still.

“Please, Ava?” he asked, sounding as if he genuinely wanted her to come along. “You know what kind of woman I need to find. One who’s just like—”

You. That was what he had been about to say. That was the word his lips had been about to form, the one hanging in the air between them, the one exiting his head and entering her own. Ava knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

After an almost imperceptible pause, he finished, “—Jackie Kennedy. I need to find a woman like Jackie Kennedy.”

Oh, sure. As if there were any women in the world like Jackie Kennedy. How Peyton could have jumped from thinking about Ava to thinking about her was a mystery.

“Okay, I’ll come with you,” she said. She had no idea when she had made the decision to do so. And she was even more uncertain about why. What was really odd, though, was how, suddenly, somehow, she didn’t feel quite as peeved as she had before.

* * *

The office of Attachments, Inc. had surprised Peyton on his first visit. He’d thought a matchmaker’s office would be full of hearts and flowers, furnished with overblown Victorian furniture in a million different colors, with sappy chamber music playing over it all. Instead, the place was much like his own office in San Francisco, twenty stories above the city, with wide windows that offered panoramic views of Lake Michigan and Navy Pier, furnished in contemporary sleekness and soothing earth tones. The music was jazz, and the only plants were potted bamboo.

Caroline, too, had come as a surprise that first time. He’d expected a gingham-clad grandmother with a graying bun and glasses perched on her nose, but the woman who greeted him and Ava was a far cry from that. Yes, her hair was silver, but it hung loose and was stylishly cut, and her glasses were shoved atop her head. In place of gingham, she was wrapped in a snug, sapphire-colored dress and wearing mile-high heels that click-click-clicked on the tile floor as she approached them.

“Mr. Moss,” she gushed when she came to a stop in front of him and extended her hand the way any high-powered business CEO would. “It is so nice to see you again.” Her gushing ebbed considerably, however—in fact, the temperature seemed to drop fifty degrees—when she turned to Ava and said, “Now who are you?”

Before Ava had a chance to answer, Peyton replied, “She’s my, ah, my assistant. Ava Brenner.”

Caroline gave Ava a quick once-over and, evidently satisfied with his answer, immediately dismissed her. She turned to Peyton again. “Well, then. If you’d like to come back to my office, we can get down to business.”

Confident the two of them would follow, she spun on her mile-high heels and click-click-clicked in the direction from which she’d come. Peyton turned to Ava and started to shrug, but stopped when he saw her expression. She looked kind of…peeved. Although that wasn’t a word in his normal vocabulary, he couldn’t think of any other adjective to describe her. She was looking at him as if he’d just insulted her. He backtracked the last few seconds in his brain, then remembered he’d introduced her as his assistant. Okay, so maybe that suggested she was his subordinate, but he was paying her to help him out, so that sort of made her an employee, and that kind of made her a subordinate. And what was the big deal anyway? Some of his best friends were subordinates.