Beauty and the Billionaire Beast (Destination Billionaire Romance Book 6)

by Maria Hoagland

  “I’m going with outhouse,” her boyfriend suggested.

  “You got it,” Theo said to the man, not allowing himself to be disappointed. It probably took a kid to come up with something creative.

  By that time they’d walked to the center of the garden, where a bronze cherub held a sundial burnished with a beautiful patina. Theo slowed, allowing the patrons to wander through the chest-high, maze-like hedges that were easily the home’s best feature.

  “Will we get a chance to go inside and upstairs?” the pretty woman asked, her eyes big behind stylish frames.

  Theo had never been so attracted to someone who gave off the nerd vibe before. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice his stare as she took in the two-story main house from the back. He didn’t follow her gaze, choosing instead to look at her.

  “I’d love to see the overall composition of the garden from above,” she said. “I bet it’s breathtaking.”

  Breathtaking. That she was.

  But if she thought the gardens at Indigo Pointe were good, she must have never seen any of the iconic European ones. The English, French, Italian, and Greeks all boasted much more impressive offerings than this modest piece of land in Louisiana. While it was nothing compared to his other holdings sprinkled around the world, when he’d heard of this opportunity to collect the last piece of his family’s puzzle, Theo didn’t even need to think twice. To purchase the last holdout of the Indigo Pointe Plantation, the plot that included the historic buildings, had been on his bucket list since he started in real estate.

  “Of course, Miss …” He loved being able to use Southern manners to get beautiful women’s names.

  “Emma.” She stuck out her hand to shake, and he grasped her hand lightly, noticing rough calluses on her hand. He gave a slight squeeze as she followed up with “Emma Treager.”

  He dropped her hand. Treager. The name that was spat like a swear word in his home growing up. Treagers, his grandmother had said anytime they’d come to Indigo Pointe. Never trust them, Theo. Someday they’ll come slinking around, ready to steal back everything, you mark my word!

  His heart jumped into overdrive. Was that why she was here?

  She looked innocent enough, and if she could play it cool, so could he, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep an eye on her.

  “Yes, I’ll make sure you get a chance to see the gardens from above, Miss Emma Treager,” he spoke softly just to her, but then turned to include the lovesick couple who lagged behind. “Over here to our left is the detached kitchen.”

  He walked them through one set of double doors and then opened the other to demonstrate how the cook would attempt to diffuse the stifling heat from the huge fireplace and brick oven. Other than a sink and a couple of large tables, the room didn’t hold much else. Theo explained how the building would have been used and who would have worked here. After fielding a few questions, mostly from the lovely and suspicious Emma, he took the group outside again, winding them along brick paths, explaining the purposes of the other small buildings that flanked the courtyard.

  Other than the main house and kitchen, none of the other buildings were open on the tour. The two garçonnières had been modernized, one of which was his home away from home when he didn’t want to drive to his home in the French Quarter. The other bachelor cottage, situated next to the outdoor kitchen, was where a caretaker could live as soon as he hired one.

  Other buildings on the property were way too run-down for tourists. The church that Grae had pointed out would be an asset to the tour, but there was no way he could let anyone inside. After an old fire who knows how long ago followed by a badly botched remodel only half a century ago, subsequent decades of neglect had it on the cusp of crumbling. The one gothic rose window that survived was worth renovating the building for. The colors of the stained glass were subtle at the moment, but when backlit by the morning light through the building, it was phenomenal.

  Theo felt lucky that the core buildings at least had been maintained enough to keep them from falling into complete ruins. The place was an embarrassment. He was flabbergasted that it had passed safety inspections and wondered if it was truly safe for the public. Overall, it made him feel itchy, like wearing wet wool on a hot day. He was used to the things around him being impeccable, stylish, and tasteful; right now the place said lazy, backward, and slow. But it wouldn’t always; he would turn things around.

  About to explain how the pigeonniers were little more than status symbols housing pigeons for family dinners, Theo turned to face his entourage only to realize Emma was no longer with them. He paused in his speech, twirling on his heel to find her in the shadow of the church, her hands in the soil under one of the rosebushes.

  A flash of anger swelled. Of all the things the woman could get into, why was she meddling with the one he cared most about? This rare variant had always been a favorite of his mother’s. On the verge of dying, its once champagne-colored blossoms now looked almost colorless, and if she killed it by messing around, he’d sue.

  “Miss Emma?” He growled loudly to be heard over the distance.

  She looked up from her crouched position, allowing the dirt to sift through her fingers in clumps, and then stood, brushing her hands together. “You can drop the ‘Miss.’ Plain Emma is just fine.”

  She was anything but plain, even with the smudge of mud on her wrists and her hair getting caught on the rose thorns, but he had very little tolerance for meddlers. “Okay, ma’am.” Satisfaction swelled in his chest at the scowl crossing her delicate features. He’d known ma’am would be worse than calling her miss. “The tour does not include tampering with the plants. Stick with the group, if you don’t mind.”

  She walked toward the group, still clapping her hands together, but there was no way the dirt was going to come off without soap and water. As far as he knew, the water in the cookhouse where they’d just been wasn’t functional, but his eyes halted on a small bucket at the corner of the house. It probably had collected rainwater over the past couple of days.

  “There’s a bucket, if you’d like to wash.” The offering was almost an insult, and his voice was too gruff, but she responded with a smile. His heart skipped again. This was crazy. How could she be so frustrating and so intriguing at the same time?

  While she washed, Theo tapped out a quick text to Zoe. See what you can find out about Emma Treager.

  Will do, boss. If she’s the one on your tour, she told me she knows about plants. Is that what you’re looking for?

  Hmm. That made sense. And anything else, including the Treager part. That should be enough for Zoe to get what he was asking.

  Theo led them around to the front lawn, where they could take in the mansion’s true grandeur for the first time. It was rather odd to do this back-door tour when a gorgeous wrought iron gate stood covered up at the street. One of his main goals was to improve the grounds with a suitable grand entrance, throw open the gate, and welcome visitors the proper way.

  While his family’s connection with the plantation was a complex one, Theo had been reared to covet the place. Indigo Pointe was the one that got away, the one always just out of the Lamberts’ grasp, and Theo had finally attained it. He bought it, not necessarily to add to his collection of homes, but rather to preserve his family heritage. Keeping it open to the public was an additional obligation and passion of his as well. As problematic as the history was, antebellum tourist sites played a key role in achieving civil rights and racial reconciliation. While it might be more comfortable to allow reminders of slavery to quietly crumble away, reclaimed by time, all history needed to be preserved, even if it was painful. Especially if it was painful.

  The ironic part was that when the community at large discovered he was the owner, they assumed he was a descendant of slave owners, and therefore worthy of their disrespect. That was probably what rankled him the most: people making assumptions about him and his family.

  “Watch your step,” he called out as his guests trekked acr
oss the spotty grass to capture the entire building in one camera shot. This was exactly why he needed to add a driveway of some sort—so women’s heels didn’t sink into the Louisiana mud and come back dragging a crawdad or two.

  In front of them, the house rose, its pedimented portico in the center anchoring two semi-circular staircases to the upper, main floor. Around the front and sides were twelve massive Doric columns, so thick he didn’t think two people could hold hands around the base.

  The four of them traipsed up the concrete and metal stairs, which were in decent repair but still held the overall wear of time. Theo found himself taking inventory, the ever-expanding punch list for Zoe growing like a weed.

  “The big house was originally built in the late 1790s and remodeled less than forty years later in the early 1830s.” He’d already told them some of this, but had left out crucial details. His eyes drifted to Emma, and he found himself struggling to get back on script. The woman was confusing. If she was there as a Treager, checking up on Indigo Pointe, why was she so focused on the plants? It made no sense. “The staircases and columns were added at that time. I find it interesting that the columns are actually plastered brick.”

  “Brick?” Tate didn’t sound like he believed Theo, but led right into what Theo had wanted to say about them, so he smiled.

  “Yes, pie-shaped bricks. We have one of the original molds back at the office museum, if you want to take a look. Placed in a circle, the wedge bricks were then covered in a coat of thick lime with a lime wash over top.”

  While he loved history, this tour guide gig was never supposed to be his job. Two days ago, he wouldn’t have been the one pointing out the bow tie pieces of wood that held together the pine planks, or the Haint Blue ceilings on the gallery porch to ward off evil spirits. He tried not to care that his firing Don would surely get back to the kid’s university history department, adding to his beastly reputation. Fine. There were plenty of other universities in the New Orleans area; surely someone would want a job running tours.

  Theo racked his brain to remember what came next. He’d studied it over the past couple of weeks so he would be prepared just in case, and eventually that Oxford education of his had to amount for something, didn’t it? It would be easier, perhaps, if Emma hadn’t already sidetracked him with insightful questions about the structures and the history. At the same time, she seemed much more interested in the plants and grounds. Her motives were baffling, and she left his head spinning.

  “When the owner remodeled the exterior of the home, it was all in an attempt to make the plantation look more prosperous and the family more prestigious than they actually were—an ironic facade covering up the truth. The family, and the plantation, never fully recovered from the investment, and it led to their … eventual … financial ruin about a century later.”

  He found himself struggling, not over the content this time, but in anticipation of Emma’s reaction about her family history. But she didn’t even seem to be listening. Maybe she wasn’t checking up on him. Maybe she didn’t know.

  He should quit stressing himself out second-guessing her motives and take the opportunity fate had given him. If he hadn’t been doing this tour, he never would have run into Emma again after this morning. There had to be some way he could get her number, ask her out, some way to make sure he would see her again. If she was checking up on him, he wanted to know why. If she wasn’t, he wanted to know her.

  “As we go inside,” he said, opening the side doors into one of the second story’s three main rooms, “I must insist that photography of the interior is completely off limits. It’s one of the few requests we make here at Indigo Pointe.”

  Emma looked crestfallen and swung the camera strap over her neck, a complicit acquiescence. She stepped through, pausing to lift a hand to the eighteen-inch-thick brick stuccoed walls. The woman noticed everything. Was she making a list for a lawsuit? Inventorying what she believed was somehow rightfully hers?

  Theo almost felt bad about not allowing photography, but he had his reasons. And he allowed so much other freedom. He couldn’t think of many historical sites that allowed tourists access to almost every room in the house without pushing them through a cordoned-off cattle chute. Not that there was much to see. The rooms, while technically furnished in antique period pieces, were dark and small. The paintings were dull. Whether caked with dirt and dust, or the result of faded paints, he was tempted to replace them.

  He led the group quickly through the room into a better-lit hallway at the back of the house. Here sunlight streamed through plentiful windows, the light bouncing off of the gleaming hardwood floors. “Feel free to photograph the back gardens through the upstairs window.” There was Emma’s smile that he’d been hoping for, making his concession worth every ounce of control it cost him.

  “Wait.” Grae stopped, looking around her as if she missed something. “That’s it? One room deep?”

  Theo appreciated both Grae’s observation and Emma’s enthusiastic reaction. Already at the window, Emma didn’t hesitate to start snapping pictures of the garden. From this vantage point, the design of the hedges was striking.

  He turned to Grae. “That’s something about this house that surprises many. With its grandiose front, the mansion gives the impression that it is massive, when really it is just one room deep and three rooms across. You’d never guess from the outside, would you?”

  Grae and Tate shook their heads.

  Emma had turned her sharp eye from admiring the view to scanning the room, seeming to try to memorize everything, paying particular attention to the paintings, the books on the shelves, and even papers lying on the desk. It was almost as if she were looking for something specific. A flutter of unease hit his stomach, but he pushed it away. The place was legally his, and she couldn’t do anything about it, even if her last name was Treager.

  “This hallway used to be the back porch.” Theo ignored Emma, a challenge for him at the moment, to continue with the tour. “Which was often used as a sleeping porch as well. With no center hallway between the home’s rooms, the only way to go from one to the other was by stepping through the doors at the front or rear of the room and out onto one of the porches. Opening both sides was their early air conditioning system.”

  This time, when his eyes flicked back to Emma as they always did, he found her with camera in hand, finger working the shutter. Was she actually taking a snapshot of a doorknob and the swinging lock cover over its keyhole? Annoyance surged again. He’d had one rule. Was she hard of hearing, forgetful, or merely feeling entitled?

  Just when he thought he liked her.

  Theo stalked up behind Emma and whispered over her shoulder, barely able to restrain his frustration. “I have asked—” He felt a cruel satisfaction when she jumped. “And quite nicely, I might add, that you refrain from interior photography.”

  She turned to face him, her hands shaking. As they should be. Why should she break the rules? She was a guest in someone else’s house. His.

  “Sorry.” She put the camera and her trembling hands, behind her back and stepped away, joining Grae and Tate at a bank of portraits.

  With a sliver of guilt at his outburst, he let Emma pass by. He took a step closer to the door to examine for himself what she’d been photographing. He’d always assumed all of the rooms in the house had the same antique brass fittings. They were ornate compared to today’s standards, but little more than rectangles with fluting and keyhole covers shaped like tassels.

  Emma had found an exception. Four ivy leaves spiraled around the doorknob, with more along the sides of the knob plate, hinges, and striker plate. The most unique part was the leaf-shaped keyhole cover.

  The coloring and shapes of the two patterns were so similar, they tended to blend together. Why had they stood out to Emma? It was, after all, just a doorknob.

  Emma, Grae, and Tate were examining the portraits, pointing out family traits like wide, almond-shaped eyes and an intellectual air, when Theo st
epped over to join them. He wanted to smooth things over but wasn’t sure how, especially since his gut told him he needed to get her to erase the photos.

  “So has this always been a family-owned plantation, then?” Emma asked, startling him this time. She really didn’t know?

  She seemed unaware there was blood between them. Bad blood. While his family and hers weren’t exactly related, their histories were entwined in the largest real-life feud he’d ever heard of.

  “Not exactly. Indigo Pointe was established by one of the families who settled what later became known as the German Coast. In fact, the next plantation over” —Theo pointed east to where his family’s plantation had once stood— “was settled by a good family friend around the same time. Eventually the two families had a bit of a falling out because one opposed slaveholding while the other was swept along with the status quo.”

  A bit of a falling out was understating it. They hated each other, as far as he knew.

  “Was it possible for a plantation owner to oppose slaveholding at the time?” Emma seemed surprised, yet pleased by the idea. “Wasn’t that the key to making any kind of profit?”

  Theo tugged at his collar, wishing he’d brought along a bottle of water. Getting into sticky family history wasn’t what he’d planned, and he needed to find a way out as smoothly as possible.

  “Holding slaves really was the only way for a plantation to get ahead financially, which was probably why the owners here did it. The family I mentioned that didn’t have slaves” —his, he neglected to add— “didn’t end up faring well at the time. They were barely able to keep their family fed. They never had the funds to expand until well after the War and plantation economics changed.”

  That was also the beginning of the end of the Treager family’s reign at Indigo Pointe.

  Purposely omitting the founding owner’s surname made his speech less official-sounding, but then he wasn’t about to mention Emeric Treager. If Emma didn’t already know she had the last name of Indigo Pointe’s one-time owners, he didn’t want to tell her.