The Billionaire Gets His Way(36)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

She expelled a weary sound and, with clear reluctance, placed her hand in his. Gavin folded his fingers over hers gently, then tugged her to standing, putting just enough effort into it to pull her body flush with his. Immediately, he dropped his hands to her h*ps and dipped his head to hers. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to kiss her—as much as might want to.

And he did want to. Very much.

For a long moment, she only gazed at him, her fingers curled gently against his chest, as if she were making a not-very-serious attempt to keep him at bay. Her scent enveloped him, something flowery and sweet and utterly appropriate for her. Something he found very hard to resist.

Once again, he began to lower his head to hers and, for one hopeful, infinitesimal moment, she started to tip hers back for him. Then something darted across her expression, something shadowy and forlorn, and he made himself stop.

Stop and say, “To your left, we have the Hancock Tower, the tallest building in Chicago.”

Violet studied him in silence for a second, then blinked a couple of times, as if she’d awakened from an enchanted slumber. “The Hancock Tower?”

He nodded, making himself pull away, and point out the window at a building in the distance that looked, in the nighttime, to be constructed of ebony and diamonds. “And over there,” he said, pointing at an illuminated ribbon to the right of the Hancock Tower, “is Michigan Avenue’s celebrated Miracle Mile.”

Instead of looking out the window toward where he was pointing, she continued to gaze at him in confusion. So Gavin gripped her h*ps more resolutely and turned her entire body around, so that she was facing away from him and out at the sparkling city sprawl beyond the window. He didn’t let her get far, however. In fact, when he moved to stand behind her, he made sure he was even closer than he’d been before.

He dropped his head until his mouth was right beside her ear, then murmured softly, “And down there is Navy Pier. Surely you’ve visited that a time or two.”

He felt, more than saw, her nod. “Only once, actually,” she said softly. “When I was ten. For about three months, I lived with a couple who had taken in six of us. It was the best place I lived back then. They were genuinely good people who honestly loved the kids they cared for. They took all of us to Navy Pier one day, and we stuffed ourselves with corn dogs and cotton candy and rode all the rides.”

“Even the Ferris wheel?”

She nodded again. “The Ferris wheel was my favorite.”

“Then you should go back and ride it again.”

Still in her dreamy voice, she said, “Yes. I should.”

Very tentatively, Gavin added, “In fact, you should go back and ride it with me sometime.”

Had he not been standing so close to her, he wouldn’t have been able to tell she stiffened the way she did at his comment. Unmistakable, though, was the way she pulled her head to the side, away from his.

“That would work well for you, wouldn’t it?” she said, her voice considerably cooler than it had been before.

Both her behavior and her question confused him. “What do you mean?”

When she turned to look at him, he saw that her sadness had fled. Unfortunately, instead of being replaced by the happiness he’d sought to instill in her, what she seemed to be feeling now was anger.

“Navy Pier would be someplace your friends would never see you with me, wouldn’t it?” she said, her words clipped. “I don’t imagine too many Gold Coast folks find their way to places like that. And on the Ferris wheel, it would just be the two of us. A piece of cake for you to hide me from your friends.”

It was the last reaction he had expected from her. He’d spent the entire day doing exactly the opposite. Trying to invite Violet into his world. Trying to help her see it through his eyes. Trying to make her understand what it was like to be a part of it and why he wanted so desperately to protect his position in it.

“Violet, that’s not what I—”

“Isn’t it?” she asked. “Why did you drive up to Evanston today, Gavin? Really?”

There was no reason to sidestep the truth. They both already knew the answer to that. “I came to see you,” he said. Hell, he’d told her that when she’d asked him the first time.

“But why Evanston?” she asked. “You could have easily picked up the phone and met me somewhere here in town.”

“I didn’t think you’d talk to me if I tried to call. Not after the way we—” He didn’t bother to finish the statement. Neither of them could have forgotten that night. So he only said, “I’m glad you gave me a second chance today.”

Her expression went dark again at that. “Yeah, well, I’d kind of hoped earlier that maybe today would be different from the last time. But it’s ending exactly the same way, isn’t it?”

His confusion compounded. “What do you mean?”

“That night, you made clear your disdain for people who come from the same background you do, and tonight—and today, too—you made clear you haven’t changed your mind at all. You could have tried to see me anywhere in the city, but you chose to wait until I was miles away.”

Because all the places in the city hadn’t been the kind of places he’d wanted her to see. Not until bringing her to his place to finish the day off. “Evanston offered a good opportunity to—”

“To see me again without risk of your friends seeing me with you.”

It finally dawned on him, what she was trying to say. “You think I’m ashamed to be seen with you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course not. I spent practically the entire day with you.”

“Yeah, at places where no one you knew would be present.”

“That isn’t true,” he said, his own defensiveness rising. “Chatsworth Whitehall is an old friend who—”

“Wasn’t home,” she finished for him. “And you didn’t counter his housekeeper’s assumption that I was one of your associates.”

That was because he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her by trying to define what her role in his life was. Not to mention he didn’t exactly know what her role in his life was. He’d been hoping maybe today would make that clear. But he had no idea how to tell her that.

When he said nothing, she asked, “Why did you invite me to your place tonight?”

Gavin was really reluctant to answer that one. He would sound shallow if he told her it was because he wanted her to see what a great place he had—and, okay, maybe that was shallow, but he had hoped to make a point. And considering the direction this conversation had taken, there was no way would he would admit he’d been hoping to seduce her.