My Fair Billionaire(37)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

She wasn’t shallow, either, because she knew a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Had she been shallow, he could have tallied her interests on one hand. She’d introduced him to things he’d never thought about before, a lot of which wasn’t even related to social climbing. And she wasn’t snotty, because she’d shared that knowledge with him, knowing he would use it for social climbing, not caring that his new money would mix with old. Not once had she criticized him for being nouveau riche. Only Peyton had done that.

Yep, he definitely knew now what he liked about Ava. And, at the moment, it was all wrapped in gold and walking right toward him.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked by way of a greeting when she came to a halt before him.

“I’m waiting for you.”

“You were supposed to leave my name at the door as your plus-one and go in without me to start mingling. We’re not together, remember?”

How could he forget? She’d made clear this morning that last night hadn’t changed anything between them. “But I don’t know anyone in there. How am I supposed to mingle when I don’t know anyone?”

“Peyton, that’s the whole point of mingling.”

But mingling sucked. It sucked as much as having to tame his profanity. It sucked as much as having to pay ten times what he normally did for a haircut. It sucked as much as not being able to wear ten-year-old blue jeans that were finally broken in the way he liked.

Why did he want to join a class of people who had to do so many things that sucked? Oh, yeah. To increase his social standing. Which would increase his business standing. Which would allow him to take over a company that would increase his monetary standing. That was the most important thing, wasn’t it? Making money? Increasing his value? At least, that had been the most important thing before he landed back in Chicago. Somehow, over the past couple of weeks, that had fallen a few slots on his most important stuff in the world list.

Huh. Imagine that.

“Just promise me you won’t slip out of view,” he told Ava.

“I promise. Now get in there and be the status-seeking, name-dropping, social-climbing parvenu I’ve come to know and lo— Uh…I’ve come to know.”

Peyton’s stomach clenched at the way she first stumbled over the word love, then discarded it so easily. Instead, he focused on another word. “Parvenu? What the hell is that? That’s not one of those upper-crusty words you taught me. See? I told you we still have a lot to do.”

“Just give them my name and get in there,” she told him, pointing toward the door. “I’ll count to twenty and follow.” As he started to move away, she hissed under her breath, “And no swearing!”

Peyton forced himself to move forward, ignoring the flutter of nerves in his belly. He had nothing to be nervous about. He’d been entering fancy, expensive places like this for years and had stopped feeling self-conscious in them a long time ago. Even so, it surprised him when a doorman stepped up to open the door for him, welcoming him to the Palmer House Hilton, punctuating the greeting with a respectful sir. Because in spite of all that Peyton had achieved since the last time he was in Chicago, tonight he felt like an eighteen-year-old kid who had never left. A kid from the wrong side of town who was trying to sneak into a place he shouldn’t be. A place he wasn’t welcome. A place he didn’t belong.

The feeling was only amplified once he was inside the hotel. The Palmer House was an unassuming enough building on the outside, but inside it looked like a Byzantine cathedral, complete with ornamental columns, gilt arches and a lavishly painted ceiling. The place was packed with people who were dressed as finely as he, the men in black tie and the women in gowns as richly colored as precious gems. Catherine Bellamy, he remembered. That was the name of his former classmate who had asked him to look for her. Except that now her name was Catherine Ellington, because she married Chandler Ellington, who’d been on the Emerson hockey team with Peyton, and who was the biggest…

He tried to think of a word for Chandler that would be socially acceptable but couldn’t come up with a single one. That was how badly the guy had always treated Peyton in high school. Suffice it to say Chandler had been a real expletive deleted in high school. So had Catherine. So they were perfect for each other. Anyway, he was pretty sure he’d recognize them if he saw them.

He followed the well-heeled crowd, figuring they were all destined for the same place, and found himself in the grand ballroom, which was every bit as sumptuous—and intimidating—as the lobby. Chandeliers of roped crystal hung from the ceiling above a room that could have been imported from the Palace of Versailles. A gilt-edged mezzanine surrounded it, with people on both levels clutching flutes of champagne and cut-crystal glasses of cocktails. A waiter passed with a tray carrying both, and Peyton automatically went for one of the latter, something brown he concluded would be whiskey of some kind, a spirit he loved in all its forms.

He took a couple of fortifying sips, but they did nothing to dispel his restlessness. So he scanned the crowd for a flash of gold that was splashed with sapphire. He found it immediately. Found her immediately. Ava had just entered the ballroom and was reaching for a glass of champagne herself. He waited until he caught her eye, then lifted his glass in salute. She smiled furtively and did likewise, subtly enough so that only he would see the gesture.

It was enough. Ava had his back. Taking a deep breath, Peyton turned and ventured into the crowd.

* * *

Ava managed to make it through the first hour of the fund-raiser without incident, mostly by tucking herself between a couple of potted topiaries on the mezzanine. That way, she could keep an eye on the crowd below and still snatch the occasional glass of champagne or canapé from a passing server. Even if Peyton moved from one place to another, it was easy to keep an eye on him.

It quickly became evident, however, that he didn’t need an eye on him. He was a natural. From the moment he flowed into the sea of people, he looked as if he’d been one of them since birth. She kept waiting for him to make a misstep—to untie his tie or ask a waiter for a longneck beer—but he never did. Even now, he was cradling a drink with all the sophistication of James Bond and smiling at a silver-Givenchy-clad Catherine Bellamy as if she were the most fascinating woman he’d ever had the pleasure to meet.

He’d located her within moments of his arrival—or rather, Catherine had located him—and had yet to escape her. Catherine was clearly taking great delight in escorting him through the crowd, reacquainting him with dozens of their former schoolmates. Peyton had greeted each of them with one of his toe-curling smiles, never once hinting at how appallingly they had all treated him in high school.