My Fair Billionaire(42)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Wouldn’t be the first time, Peyton thought, remembering how radiant Ava’s face had been that evening in her apartment when he’d asked her to keep her gloves on while they made love. There had been plenty of evenings—and mornings and afternoons—like that one since then. In fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t wait to get back to their hotel. She was wearing a pair of those white gloves now, along with a pale gray Jackie Kennedy suit and hat that were driving him nuts.

It was their last day in Mississippi. They’d met that afternoon with the Montgomerys and all the requisite corporate and legal types to fine-tune the deal Peyton had been fine-tuning himself for months. Now all that was left was to draw up the contracts and sign them. Montgomery and Sons would stay Montgomery and Sons, with Helen and Dorothy Montgomery as figureheads, and Peyton planned to keep the company intact. In fact, he was going to invest in it whatever was necessary to make the textile company profitable again, and it would become the flagship for his and Ava’s new enterprise. Brenner Moss Incorporated would produce garments for women and men that were American made, from the farm-grown natural fibers to the mills that wove them into fabric to the couturiers who designed the fashions to the workers who pieced them together. Eventually, there would even be Brenner Moss retail outlets. And CEO Ava was chomping at the bit to get it all underway.

Miss Helen moved two sugar cubes to her cup and stirred gently. “Now, remember. You all promised to come back in October for homecoming.”

Miss Dorothy nodded. “Helen and I are staunch Ole Miss alumnae. It’s a very big deal around here.”

“Oh, you bet,” Peyton promised. “And you’ll both be coming to Chicago for the wedding in September, right?”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

For now, Peyton and Ava would be dividing their time between Chicago and San Francisco, but eventually they would merge everything together on the West Coast. She wanted to include Talk of the Town under the Brenner Moss umbrella and open a chain of stores nationwide, but for now had turned the management of the Chicago shop over to her former sales associate, Lucy Mulligan. However, she was grooming Lucy to become her assistant at Brenner Moss once things took off there.

Funny, how Peyton had returned to Chicago for the single-minded purpose of enlarging his business and making money and had ended up enlarging his business and making money…and gaining so much that was way more important—and way more valuable—than any of that.

Who needed high society when everything he’d ever wanted was wherever Ava happened to be?

“By the way,” Ava said, darting her attention from one Montgomery to the other, “thank you both so much for the homemade preserves.”

“And the socks,” Peyton added.

“Well, we know how cold those northern nights can be,” Miss Helen said. “We went to Kentucky once. In the fall. It must have gotten down to fifty degrees!”

“In Chicago, it gets down in the teens during the winter,” Peyton said. “But I promise it will be nice when you’re there in September.”

Miss Dorothy shivered, even though here in Mississippi, in July, it was a soggy ninety-five degrees in the shade. “Honestly, how do you people survive up there?”

Peyton and Ava exchanged glances, his dropping momentarily to her white gloves before reconnecting with hers—only to see her eyes spark. “Oh, we find ways to keep the fires going.”

Hell, their fires never went out. He could barely remember what his life had been like before reconnecting with Ava. Just days of endless work and nights of endless networking. And yeah, there would still be plenty of that in the future, but he wouldn’t be doing it alone, and it wouldn’t be endless. It would only be until he and Ava had time to themselves again.

“You two are the perfect power couple, I must say,” Miss Dorothy declared. “Intelligent and hardworking and obviously of very good breeding.” With a smile, she added, “Why, you remind me of Helen and myself. You were obviously brought up right.”

True enough, Peyton thought. They’d just had to wait until they were adults so they could bring each other up right. Still, in a lot of ways, Ava made him feel like a kid again. But the good parts about being a kid. Not the rest of it. The parts with the stolen glances, the secret smiles, the breathless wanting and the nights when everything came together exactly the way it was meant to be. He’d never be too old for any of that.

“When your new business gets going,” Miss Helen said, “you two will be the talk of the town.”

“That’s our plan, Miss Helen,” Ava agreed with a grin. But she was looking at Peyton when she said it. “Well, that and living happily ever after, of course.”

Peyton grinned, too. Maybe some people thought living well was the best revenge. But he was more of the opinion that living well was the best reward. And it didn’t matter where or how he and Ava lived that made it worthwhile. It only mattered that they were together. Talk of the town? Ha. He was happy just being the apple of Ava’s eye.