My Fair Billionaire(22)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

“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

Ava 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…