My Fair Billionaire(35)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

“But what?”

This time, it was Peyton’s turn to hesitate. “Couldn’t you come with me as my guest or something?”

He’d thought she would jump at the chance. Wouldn’t it be the perfect opportunity to stick it to whoever had kept her off the guest list, showing up anyway? Invited, nonetheless, even if by default? She could swoop in with all that imperiousness that was second nature to her and be the center of everything, the same way she’d been in high school. Peyton even found himself kind of looking forward to seeing the old Ava in action.

But she didn’t look or sound anything like the old Ava when she replied, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Then I’m not going.”

She drove her gaze back to his, and for an infinitesimal moment, he did indeed see a hint of the old Ava. The flash of her eyes, the ramrod posture and the haughty set to her mouth. But as quickly as she surfaced, the old Ava disappeared.

“Fine,” she said wearily. “I’ll go. But only as an observer, Peyton. You’ll be on your own when it comes to mingling.”

“Mingling?” he repeated distastefully. That sounded about as much fun as taking tea.

“And anything else that comes up.”

He wanted to argue, but backed down. For now. It was enough that he’d convinced her to come with him to this thing. Okay, to come, even if it wasn’t technically with him. They could work on that part later. What was weird was that Peyton discovered he actually did kind of want to work on that part. He wanted to work on that part very much. Which was totally different from how he’d felt on that morning after sixteen years ago. In a word, hmm…

So now that he had the who, the when and the what, all he had to do was figure out the why. And, most confounding of all, the how.

* * *

Ava studied her reflection in the mirror of a fitting room at Talk of the Town, feeling the way her clients must. Mostly, she was wondering if she would be able to fool others into thinking this was her dress, not a rental, and that she was rich and glamorous and refined like everyone else at the party, not some poser who was struggling to make payments on the business loan that had bumped her up—barely—to middle class.

That was why most women came to Talk of the Town. To look wealthier and more important than they really were. Sometimes they wanted to impress a potential employer. Sometimes it was for a school reunion where they wanted to show friends and acquaintances—and prom queens and bullies—that they were flourishing. Others simply wanted to move in a level of society they’d never moved in before, even if for one night, to see what it was like.

Fantasies. That was really what they rented at Talk of the Town. And a fantasy was what Ava was trying to create for herself tonight. Because only in a fantasy would she be welcomed in the society where she had once held dominion. And only in a fantasy would she and Peyton walk comfortably in that world together. Sixteen years ago, that would have been because no one moving in her circle wanted to include him at the party. Today, Peyton was welcome, but she wasn’t.

Before Peyton’s return to Chicago, Ava hadn’t given a fig about moving in that world again. But since his arrival two weeks ago—and making love with him last night—she’d begun to feel differently. Not about wanting to rule society again. But about at least being welcome there. Because that was Peyton’s world now. And she wanted to be where he was.

Over the past two weeks, she’d begun to feel differently about him. Or maybe she was just finally being honest with herself about how she’d always felt about him, even in high school. She’d remembered so many things about him that she’d forgotten over the years—things she had consciously ignored back then, but which had crept into her subconscious anyway. Things that, for that one night at her parents’ house, had allowed her to let down her guard and feel for him the way she truly felt and respond to him the way she truly wanted to respond.

She’d remembered how his smile hooked up more on one side than the other, making him look roguish and irreverent. She’d remembered how once, in the library, he had been so engrossed in his reading that she’d enjoyed five full minutes of just watching him. She’d remembered how he’d always championed the other scholarship kids at Emerson and acted as their protector when the members of her crowd were so cruel. And she’d remembered seeing him stash his lunch under his shirt one day to carry it out to a starving stray dog behind the gym.

They were all acts that had revealed his true character. Acts that made her realize he was none of the things she and her friends had said about him and everything any normal girl would love in a boy. But Ava had chosen to ignore them. That way she wouldn’t have to acknowledge how she really felt about him, for fear that she would be banished from the only world she knew, the only world in which she belonged.

Even with the passage of years and the massive reversal in his fortune, Peyton was still that same guy. He still grinned like a rabble-rouser and could still hone his concentration to the exclusion of everything else. He still rooted for the underdog, and he couldn’t pass a busker on the street without tossing half the contents of his wallet into the performer’s cup. He hadn’t changed a bit. Not really. And neither had the feelings she had buried so deep inside her teenage self.

She expelled a soft sound of both surprise and defeat. Sixteen years ago, she and Peyton couldn’t have maintained a relationship because their social circles had prohibited it—his as much as hers. No one in his crowd would have accepted her any more than her crowd would have accepted him. And neither of them had had the skill set or maturity to sustain a liaison in secret. Eventually it would have ended, and it would have ended badly. They would have burned hot and fast for a while, but they would have burned out. And they would have burned each other. And that would have stayed with them forever. Now…

Now it was the same, only reversed. Peyton’s success had launched him to a place where he wanted and needed the “right” kind of woman for a wife—the kind of woman who would boost his image and raise his status even more. Someone with cachet, who had entrée into every facet of society. Someone whose pedigree and lineage was spotless. He certainly didn’t want a woman whose father was a felon and whose mother had succumbed to mental illness, a woman who could barely pay her own way in the world. He’d fought hard to claw his way to the level of success he had—he’d said so himself. He wasn’t going to jeopardize that for someone like her. Not when the only thing she had to offer him was a physical release, no matter how explosive.