My Fair Billionaire(7)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

He nodded. “Of course you eat there a lot. Why cook for yourself when you can pay someone else do it?”

Ava ignored the comment. Peyton really was going to believe whatever he wanted about her. It didn’t occur to him that sixteen years could mature a person and make her less shallow and more compassionate. Sixteen years evidently hadn’t matured him, if he was still so ready to think the worst of her.

“Anyway,” she continued, “you took exception to Dennis’s suggestion that you’d had too much to drink—and you had had too much to drink, Peyton—and you got a little…belligerent.”

“Belligerent?” he snapped. “I never get belligerent.”

Somehow Ava refrained from comment.

He seemed to realize what she was thinking, because he amended, “Anymore. It’s been a long time since I was belligerent with anyone.”

Yeah, probably about sixteen years. Once he graduated from Emerson, all the targets of his belligerence—especially Ava Brenner—would have been out of his life.

“Basilio was going to throw you out, but I…I mean, when I realized you were someone I knew…I…” She expelled a restless sound. “I told him you and I are… That we were—” Somehow, she managed not to choke on the words. “Old friends. And I offered to drive you home.”

“And he let you?” Peyton asked. “He let you leave with some belligerent guy he didn’t know from Adam? Wow. I guess he really didn’t want to offend the regular cash cow.”

Bristling, Ava told him, “He let me because you calmed down a lot after you recognized me. By the time Marcus and I got you into the car, you were actually being kind of nice. I know—hard to believe.”

There. Take that, Mr. Belligerent Cow-Caller.

“But once you were in the car,” she hurried on before he could comment, “you passed out. I didn’t have any choice but to bring you here. I roused you enough to get you into the apartment, but while I was setting up the coffee, you found your way to the bedroom and went out like a light again. I thought maybe you’d sleep it off in a few hours, but… Well. That didn’t happen.”

“I’ve been working a lot the last few weeks,” he said shortly, “on a demanding project. I haven’t gotten much sleep.”

“You were also blotto,” she reminded him. Mostly because the cow comment still stung.

In spite of that, she wondered what kind of work he did and how he’d spent his life since they graduated. How long had he been in San Francisco? Was he married? Did he have children? Even as Ava told herself it didn’t matter, she was helpless not to glance at his left hand. No ring. No indentation or tan line to suggest one had ever been there. Not that that was any definer of status. Even if he wasn’t married, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a woman who was important in his life.

Not that Ava cared about any of that. She didn’t. Really. All she cared about was getting him out of her hair. Getting him out of her apartment. Getting him out of her life.

In spite of that, she heard herself ask, “So why are you back in Chicago?”

He hesitated, as if he were trying to figure out how to reply. Finally, he said, “I’m here because my board of directors made me come.”

Board of directors? she thought incredulously. He had a board of directors? “Board of directors?” she asked. “You have a board of directors?”

The question sounded even worse coming out of her mouth than it had sitting in her head, where it had sounded pretty bad.

Before she had a chance to apologize, Peyton told her—with a glare that could have boiled an ice cube, “Yeah, Ava. I have a board of directors. They’re part of the multimillion-dollar corporation of which I am chief shareholder, not to mention CEO. A company that’s named after me. On account of, in case I didn’t mention it, I own it.”

Ava grew more astonished with every word he spoke. But her surprise wasn’t from the discovery that he was an enormous success—she’d always known Peyton could do or be whatever he wanted. She just hadn’t pegged him for becoming the corporate type. On the contrary, he’d always scorned the corporate world. He’d scorned anyone who strove to make lots of money. He’d despised people like the ones in Ava’s social circle. And now he was one of them?

This time, however, she kept her astonishment to herself.

At least, she thought she did, until he added, “You don’t have to look so shocked. I did have one or two redeeming qualities back in high school, not the least of which was a work ethic.”

“Peyton, I didn’t mean—”

“The hell you didn’t.” Before she could continue, he added, “In fact, Moss Holdings Incorporated is close to becoming a billion-dollar corporation. The only thing standing between me and those extra zeroes after my net worth is a little company in Mississippi called Montgomery and Sons. Except that it’s not owned by Montgomery or his sons anymore. They all died more than a century ago. It’s now owned by the Montgomery sons’ granddaughters. Who are both in their eighties.”

Ava had no idea what to say. Not that he seemed to expect a response from her, because he suddenly became agitated and rose from the chair to pace the room.

He sounded agitated, too, when he continued, “Helen and Dorothy Montgomery. They’re sweet little old Southern ladies who wear hats and white gloves to corporate meetings and send holiday baskets to everyone every year filled with preserves and socks they make themselves. They’re kind of legendary in the business and financial communities.”

He stopped pacing, looking at something near the front door that Ava couldn’t see. At something he probably couldn’t see, either, since whatever it was must have existed far away from the apartment.

“Yeah, everybody loves the Montgomery sisters,” he muttered. “They’re so sweet and little and old and Southern. So I’m going to look like a bully and a jerk when I go after their company with my usual…how did the Financial Times put it?” He hesitated, feigning thought. “Oh, yeah. Now I remember. With my usual ‘coldhearted, mind-numbing ruthlessness.’ And no one will ever want to do business with me again.”

Now he looked at Ava. Actually, he glared at Ava, as if all of this—whatever this was—was her fault. “Not that there are many in the business and financial communities who like me much now. But at least they do business with me. If they know what’s good for them.”