The Billionaire Gets His Way(6)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Not that there weren’t a host of other names he could call her. Not that there weren’t a host of other names he had already called her….

Gavin expelled a long, irritated breath. He grabbed his perfectly knotted necktie with both fists and wrestled out the perfect Windsor knot he’d completed effortlessly that morning. He shrugged off his jacket, unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and the cuffs of his sleeves, and rolled the latter to his elbows.

Work. That was what he needed. To work and to sue the pants off Raven French. Not that that was what it took to get Raven French out of her pants. Hell, she’d do that for anyone. Provided the price was right.

Inescapably, his mind wandered to the book signing, and he was reminded of how surprised he’d been when he first saw her. He had expected her to be brash and harsh, both in looks and demeanor, with too much makeup and too stylized hair and a voice strained by too many cigarettes, too much drink and too many late nights working. But except for the clingy clothes and mile-high heels, she hadn’t looked like a call girl at all. In fact, she’d looked kind of…pretty. Kind of…sweet. Kind of…wholesome. And her eyes. She’d had the most extraordinary eyes he’d ever seen. Not just the color, but the clarity. The expression. The…

Damn. There was no other word for it. The honesty. Raven French had honest eyes.

All a part of the act, he told himself. Like the wholesome, sweet prettiness. It made sense that a woman who looked like that would be able to make a killing as a hooker. There were plenty of men who would pay top dollar for a woman who looked like the homecoming queen when the lights were on and performed like the class bad girl when the lights were off. Not that Gavin was one of those men. He liked women who performed and looked like the class bad girl. Women who had big hair and full lips and enormous br**sts spilling from their too-small confinement.

Women who were a lot like call girls, now that he thought about it. Hmm. Evidently, irony went by more than one name.

He pushed the thought away. In fact, he pushed all thoughts of Raven French away. For now. He’d thrown down the gauntlet along with his card at the bookstore. And if his intentions hadn’t been made clear enough to Ms. French then, they’d become crystal clear on Monday when his attorney contacted her publisher. Really, Gavin hadn’t needed to go to the book signing this afternoon. In fact, his legal department had cautioned him not to. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d wanted to look Raven French in the eye. He’d wanted to see his adversary up close. He’d wanted to make it personal. Because it was personal. Which made the battle different from Gavin’s usual conflicts, and his adversary different from his usual nemeses. What Raven French had done to him and his reputation was reprehensible and indefensible. It was bad enough that she’d painted him as a man who would flout both the law and morality—never mind that he’d done both of those things on more than one occasion; he’d never been caught doing them. But, worse, she’d revealed things about him that he’d never told anyone. That he’d never intended to tell anyone. How she knew those things about him when she’d never met him before was beyond him. But now everyone else knew them, too.

He pushed the thought away again. He’d come into the office to work, something guaranteed to take his mind off Raven French and her expletive-deleted book. And off her extraordinary eyes. And her surprisingly sweet smile. And the way her black hair had tossed back bits of silver under the lights of the bookstore….

By Monday afternoon, Violet’s anger was still sizzling, in spite of the passage of nearly two days since I’m-not-Ethan’s-lawyer-I’m-Ethan had slapped down his business card and whipped up her resentment. They were two days she’d spent trying to brush off his threat of a lawsuit as ludicrous and unfounded—which it was—and trying to brush him off as ridiculous and harmless—which he was not.

And that, she supposed, was the problem. Her editor Gracie had called Violet that very morning to tell her his attorneys had been in touch with the publisher’s attorneys, and they’d made thinly veiled threats about the material presented in the final chapter of her book. They hadn’t sent anything on paper—yet—or even in email—yet—but they’d made clear they were revving up for the possibility if Rockcastle didn’t do something quickly to address the defamation and slander contained therein.

Clearly, even if Not-Ethan’s lawsuit was frivolous, the man himself wasn’t. Even if the outcome of any legal proceedings would leave Violet cleared of wrongdoing, he could still proceed with his threat to sue her and her publisher. At best, he could ensure she would have to endure legal expenses she couldn’t afford—although her book was selling well, that was money she wouldn’t collect until she received her first royalty statement next year, and until then, she had to subsist on her modest advance. Not to mention this was the sort of thing that could drag on for a very long time, something that could potentially drain everything she made anyway.

And at worst, Mr. Paisley Silk Shorts could conceivably find a judge who was sympathetic enough about his charges to put a halt to the presses and book promotion until the legal battle could be settled. And considering the capriciousness of the reading public—out of sight, out of mind and all that—such a freeze of sales could spell the death knell of her career just when it was starting to take off. What publisher was going to want to stay with a writer who landed herself in legal trouble the first time out of the gate?

Now, as she stood across the street from a steel-and-glass Michigan Avenue high-rise, Violet withdrew the business card from the pocket of her most recently rented designer duds—a crimson-colored Ellen Tracy suit over an ivory shell that, together, retailed for more than a family of five consumed in groceries for a month. Already the man was costing her money she hadn’t planned—nor could afford—to spend by necessitating another visit to Talk of the Town for clothing rental. Had she shown up here wearing something of her own, she never could have convinced him she was the successful novelist she was struggling to be—with no help from him, thankyouverymuch. No, had she shown up in something of her own, the only thing she would have convinced him of was that she was struggling, period.

Gavin Mason, she read from the heavy vellum business card. That was I’m-Not-Ethan’s name. The only other bit of information on the card had to do with something called GMT, Inc., followed by the posh Michigan Avenue address directly across the street. Evidently, Gavin Mason was somebody so important at the company that he didn’t need to include his position or email address on his business card.