My Fair Billionaire(24)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

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?

“I think we’ve both had enough for today,” she said decisively.

“We finally get to escape the museum?” he asked with feigned hopefulness, still looking plenty irritated by her last remark.

“Yes, we’ve had enough of that, too. Since it looks like you have the literary angle covered, tomorrow we can tackle music.”

He looked as if he were going to protest, then the fight seemed to go out of him. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. What time should I pick you up?”

She shook her head, as she did every time he asked that question—and he’d asked it every day. She said the same thing she always said in response. “I’ll meet you.”

Before he could object—something else he did every day—she gave him the address of a jazz record store on East Illinois and told him to be there when they opened.

“And then I bet we get to have lunch at another pretentious restaurant,” he said, sounding as weary as she felt. “Hey, I know. I’ll even wear one of my new suits this time.”

She knew he meant for the comment to be sarcastic. So she only echoed his ennui back. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”

Ennui. Right. As if the tension and fatigue they were feeling could be ascribed to a lack of interest. Then again, maybe for Peyton, it was. He’d made no secret about his reluctance to be My Fair Gentlemanned to within an inch of his life. He really didn’t give a damn about any of this and was only doing it to further his business. Ava wished she could share his disinterest. The reason for her impatience and irritation this week had nothing to do with not caring.

And it had everything to do with caring too much.

Seven

Peyton gazed at Ava from across the smallest table he’d ever been forced to sit at and did his best to ignore the ruffled lavender tablecloth and flowered china tea set atop it. He tried even harder to ignore the cascade of lace curtains to his right and the elaborately scrolled ironwork tea caddy to his left. And it would be best not to get him started on the little triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off or the mountain of frothy pastries.

Tea. She was actually making him take tea with her. In a tea shop. Full of women in hats and gloves. Hell, even Ava was wearing a hat and gloves. A little white hat with one of those netted veil things that fell over her eyes, and white gloves that went halfway up her arm with a bazillion buttons. Her white dress had even more buttons than her gloves did.

She hadn’t been wearing the hat or gloves when she’d walked into the record store earlier, so he hadn’t realized what was in store for him. She’d pulled them out of her oversize purse as the two of them rode to the damned tea shop—except she hadn’t said they were going to a tea shop. She’d said they were going to a late lunch.

Still, the appearance of a hat and gloves should have been his first clue that “lunch” was going to be even worse than something he’d put on a damned suit for. Something that would, in Ava’s words, aid in his edification. He just wished he could believe this was for his edification instead of being some kind of punishment for his behavior at the museum yesterday.

He also wished he could think Ava looked ridiculous in her dainty alabaster frock and habiliments. Which was the kind of language to use for a getup like that, even if those were words he had always—before this week, anyway—manfully avoided. Hell, she looked as if she was an escapee from an overbudgeted period film set during the First World War. Unfortunately, there was something about the getup that was also… Well… Dammit. Unbelievably hot.

Which was just what he needed. To be turned on by Ava, the last woman on the planet who should be turning him on. He’d been so sure he could remain unaffected by her while they were undertaking this self-improvement thing. After all, they hadn’t gotten along at all that first morning at her apartment. Instead, with every passing day, he’d just become more bewitched by her.

Just as he had in high school.

It was only physical, he told himself. The same way it had only been physical in high school. There was just some kind of weird chemistry between them. Her pheromones talking to his pheromones or something. Talking, hell. More like screaming at the top of their lungs. People didn’t have to like each other to be sexually attracted to each other. They just had to have loud, obnoxious pheromones.