Exes (Billionaire Romance #3)

by Aria Hawthorne

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It had been a long, long time since she had been in their house.

  Too long, she thought, turning her head toward Harvey, awakened by his subtle snore of slumber while he cradled her in his arms.

  She smiled and relaxed her head against his chest. Even his whistling snore she had missed—more than a little.

  It had been hard for her to be away and even harder to force herself to stay away. Home had always been more than a physical location to her—more than just a house in the city. It was the place she had shared her life with the man she loved, the place where they had shared all the simplest, happiest moments—together.

  The rim of the inflatable mattress jiggled with every drawn-out exhale of Harvey’s wheezes. She realized she had even missed the inflatable mattress where she had slept—more often than not—in the last weeks of their marriage. Maybe it was the familiar scent of the sheets that brought back all the nostalgic memories or maybe it was the way Harvey made love to her again with such tenderness after their bath that filled her with nothing but fondness for everything around her. Yes, it was good to be home. Home was wherever she could sleep in his arms, roused awake by his distinct snore. Yes, this was home.

  For the next twenty minutes, she gazed at the mystical stained-glass window Harvey had rescued from the balcony of the old train depot. It stood upright, bolstered by an intricately engineered wooden frame that Harvey had clearly constructed himself, and was strategically positioned near the railing of the duplex master bedroom, where the unfiltered rays of morning sun poured in through the glass ceiling and illuminated the image. The mother and child glowed like iridescent angels while the lilacs shimmered in a rippling sea of lavender. Both times Alma had been in the building, she had felt pressure to evaluate the window under scant, inferior light. Now, as she lay awake in his arms, feeling his warm breath against her cheek, she took the time to gaze at the details of the window’s artistry—the distinct shades of purple, ivory, and green melded within the opalescent glass as well as the balanced composition of each leadline. She had never been certain about the artist’s identity, but now, as she surveyed the piece again under ample light, she was convinced it had been constructed by someone as masterful as Louis Comfort Tiffany.

  “Are you thinking about how nice it is to wake up next to a fifteen-million-dollar piece of art? Or is that just me?”

  His teasing voice suggested he had been awake longer than she thought.

  “You caught me,” she replied, rolling over and stroking the soft stubble along his prominent jawline. “And then I couldn’t help but wonder…” but her words faded as she considered whether or not the discussion was worth the risk of disrupting the serenity of the moment.

  “Wondering what?” he encouraged, shifting over top of her and nestling every firm muscle of his body into every soft crevice of hers. “Why we didn’t make love on this cushy thing before?” He jiggled the inflatable mattress, letting the curve of her pelvis conveniently bob up and down against his erection. He lowered his mouth between her breasts and feathered her skin with his lips. “If I had known how much you enjoyed bouncy sex, I would have installed inflatable pads all over the house.”

  “Like an insane asylum,” she sassed, running her fingers through his hair, layered on top, faded on each side.

  “When have we ever pretended to be sane?” He nipped at the tip of her chin before settling his mouth over hers for a lustful kiss. She indulged in it until the stunning beauty of the stained-glass window swirled carnival patterns across his face. Harvey pulled away and held up his hand like he was catching droplets of rainbow rain. “Especially when the mother of my unborn child gets more aroused by staring at my stained-glass window than staring at my—”

  She placed her hand over his mouth. He didn’t need to say it, even though there might have been a hint of truth to it.

  “I like all your body parts just fine,” she said, trying to keep the peace. “But it’s hard not to admire the window without thinking about what it might be trying to tell us.”

  Her gaze turned downwards as a shifting ray of sunlight cast the familiar illusion of the keyhole onto Harvey’s washboard stomach.

  “Shhhh…I think it’s trying to say—” He stopped, pretending to listen to the secret message coming from the shadow. Squeezing together the skin around his belly button like a puppet, he murmured, “Ma-rrrrrr-yyyy meeeeee.”

  “I never said no,” she offered as her answer. “And a proposal from your belly button makes it very tempting.”

  “Then say yes,” his belly button encouraged her.

  But she hesitated again. She wasn’t ready to commit to it again—at least, not yet.

  Diverting the subject away from marriage, she traced the keyhole symbol on his stomach and pondered its significance. “So, what do you think it is about that photograph that would make someone put it in a vault and hide the key?”

  He lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “If I figure it out, will you agree to marry me?”

  “I doubt you want to make that wager. It doesn’t seem very likely we’ll ever figure it out.”

  “Tsk,” he clucked and unexpectedly slipped out of the bed. “Now, you’re starting to sound like a boring cynical realist billionaire. And for the sake of our baby, we can’t have two parents who don’t believe in dreams and treasure hunts and fairy dust and happily ever afters,” he asserted, waving his hand like a magician, intending to make her wish come true. Then, disappearing into the master bedroom closet, he came back with his favorite pair of worn-out jeans.

  Alma sat up from the mattress. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re going to go back to your place to get the photograph and figure out what it all means, so I can get you to say yes to marrying me.” He disappeared again, then returned, pulling a black T-shirt over his bare chest.

  “Well, that’s very valiant of you, but you don’t need to go anyway because I think I have it here with me.”

  Harvey eyed her naked body. “That would be some sexy trick.”

  “No, I mean…in my overalls.”

  “I knew there was a reason why I loved those overalls. Efficiency.” He nudged her for a kiss before charging down the staircase. “Got it!” he quickly announced, racing back up to the bedroom and digging in the bib’s pocket to retrieve the photograph and the skeleton key. After smoothing the photograph against his thigh, he held it up and inspected it, as if he actually knew what they should be looking for. “So, you really think these two men with Santa Claus beards could be Louis Comfort Tiffany and Marshall Field?”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen pictures of them both and it’s not completely unreasonable.”

  “And you think they’re looking at something important in front of them, reflected in the mirror?” He squinted harder. “Some kind of painting or tapestry?”

  “Or stained-glass window.” She eagerly nodded, peering over his shoulder as he sank down on the edge of the mattress.

  “But I can’t tell exactly what,” she confirmed. “I’ve tried looking at it a hundred times under my loupe, but I can’t make out anything more than the faint reflection of a woman’s face. And I haven’t been able to figure out the meaning of the inscription on the back either.”

  “What inscription on the back?” He flipped over the photograph.

  Alma recited it aloud, knowing it by heart. “It says, 1892 – In eternal gratitude to M.F. Conway III.”

  “M.F. Conway, the Third?” Harvey snorted. “Boy, that guy sounds like a barrel of laughs. Let me guess…he’s another fan of Santa Claus beards.”

  “I have no idea. It’s a foreign name to me. I’ve never heard of it in all my research of Chicago’s history. And yet, it seems like he was someone important enough to thank and then hide away the photograph under lock and key.”

  “On my riverfront property,” he added. “With all your unsigned Tiffany windows.”

  Her tone soured. “I just don’t know what
it all could mean anymore.”

  Sensing her surrender, Harvey changed their approach. “Okay, let’s step back and remember all the clues: the tin box with the inscription, the skeleton key, the Tiffany wallpaper…what do they all have in common?”

  “Marshall Field,” she answered quietly.

  “Okay, good. And where do all the clues lead us, even Tiffany’s stained-glass window of the Guiding Angel at Navy Pier?”

  “Back to your riverfront parcel.”

  “And what did we find at my riverfront property?”

  “Maybe almost a dozen Tiffany windows,” she answered, following his game. “And this photograph, locked up in a vault with a skeleton key.”

  “So, let’s forget the reflection in the mirror for a minute, and let’s look at the rest of the room in the photograph. What do we see?”

  Alma took the photograph into her own hands. “Two men with white beards shaking hands in a late-nineteenth century parlor room. And, specifically, a parlor room within a wealthy residence because there’s a rosewood piano for entertaining, a mahogany fireplace mantel, a Victorian settee, a walnut sideboard, a grandfather clock and lighted chandeliers.”

  “You mean chandeliers that look like they should be in Count Dracula’s mansion?” Harvey wisecracked.

  Alma gazed at the chandeliers, then slowly constricted her hand around his wrist. “Oh my God, Harvey. “In eternal gratitude to M.F…”

  “Are you suddenly remembering that M.F. Conway, the Third, was some kind of famous antique collector?”

  “Yes,” she answered, certain all the blood was draining out of her face. “Because M.F. is Marshall Field. That’s Marshall Field’s parlor room, in his private residence at 1905 S. Prairie Avenue.”

  He arched a skeptical eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because of those…”

  “The Count Dracula chandeliers?”

  Alma nodded. “Exactly. Because this photograph is dated 1892 and electricity on a broad scale didn’t exist in Chicago until years after the 1893 World’s Fair, when one hundred thousand incandescent street lamps were unveiled as a grand novelty. It’s the reason why Chicago was dubbed the ‘The White City’—because it was the first time patrons ever saw an entire city illuminated at night. Before 1893, there were only a handful of private residences in Chicago featuring electric lights and—”

  “Oh golly gee, let me guess,” Harvey interrupted. “Marshall Field’s mansion was one of them.”

  “Yes, one of the first.” She nodded with certainty. “M. F. must stand for Marshall Field.”

  “God, woman…why do you have to be so wickedly smart? It makes my cock hard just thinking about your IQ.” He drew her into his lap and licked each tit until she pushed him away.

  “Okay,” he relented, attempting to refocus onto the photograph. “So, let’s assume that you’re Marshall Field—the richest man in Chicago at the end of the nineteenth century—and you’re an early investor in Tiffany’s glass studio, and you want to help protect one of his most beloved stained-glass windows created as a private memorial to his dead wife. Your own private mansion would be just as good as any place. So, we’ll just have to go visit the parlor room of Marshall Field’s mansion and see if there’s another clue there somewhere. But only after I make love to you again.” He sprawled her body across the inflatable mattress and unzipped his jeans.

  “No, we can’t, Harvey,” she said, propping herself up onto her elbows. “The Field’s mansion was torn down in the ’50s by building developers.”

  “Ugh,” he sighed, rolling off of her. “Damn greedy real estate billionaires.”

  “Yes, it is a shame. The George Pullman House, The Palmer Potter Castle, the Cyrus McCormick mansion, the Marshall Field House—they were all some of the richest, most influential figures in Chicago’s history and none of their residences were saved. So that means the photograph is just another dead end.”

  The moment Alma said the words aloud, they reminded her of the last time they had come to a dead end. Pulling away from Harvey, she slipped off the mattress and went into his closet, searching for a fresh T-shirt she knew was neatly arranged in his third dresser drawer.

  “It can’t be a complete dead end yet,” he called after her. “We still don’t know who Mr. Conway, the Third is?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” she called back, pulling the oversized white undershirt over her body, remembering how all his shirts fit like dresses. “If Tiffany’s Eternal Love was being kept in Marshall Field’s mansion, it was likely destroyed when it was torn down. Which makes it pretty much a complete dead end.”

  “Unless it was moved somewhere else before that?” Harvey proposed.

  Alma emerged from the closet and leaned against the doorway. “Doubtful.”

  “Unless there are other buildings in the city that fit this key?” He stared at the key, pondering all the possibilities and re-reading the inscription. “In eternal gratitude to M.F. Conway III.” Then a devilish smirk spread across his face. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re going to have to say yes to marrying me again.”

  Skeptical, Alma crossed her arms. “And why’s that?”

  “Because I have a hunch that Conway, the Third, isn’t a person after all.” He withheld the punchline, just to taunt her.

  “And why’s that?” she repeated, coaxing him to spill it.

  “Because it’s a place—a place with a Beaux Arts exterior that was on the verge of being torn down and sold when you and I were first exploring all the historical skyscrapers in Chicago.”

  “The Burnham Center,” Alma slowly replied, making the connection.

  “Formerly known as the Conway Building.” Harvey grinned.

  “Oh my…” Alma fell silent, at a loss for words. She joined Harvey on the air mattress to inspect the key. “And it was built with money from Marshall Field’s estate, right after his death.”

  “Which is why Conway, the Third is really Conway 111…” Harvey paused, as if it was the set-up to a rhetorical game show question. “It’s 111 West Washington Ave.”

  The tingling magic of believing in fairy tales and romantic happily ever afters suddenly seeped back into Alma’s heart. “Do you really think…?” she whispered, needing his validation to help make the leap.

  He drew her closer and kissed her deeply, sensually, and enduringly, as if they had just been pronounced as man and wife. “M.F. Conway, the Third. He’s going to help fund our extravagant honeymoon.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Whatever happened, he was going to get her back…

  That was the only thought driving him through the revolving doors of the Burnham Center.

  Even in the middle of the afternoon, its dramatic two-story, white marble lobby was starkly empty, a serene tomb that had protected secrets for decades.

  Until now, Harvey vowed, determined to unearth its last precious secret.

  “So should we just take the stairs up to the first floor and ransack it inch by inch, or should we ride the elevator all the way to the twenty-second floor and start at the top?”

  She frowned at his suggestion. “They’re all private offices, Harvey. We can’t just barge in like tourists looking to snapchat the best view of Chicago’s skyline.”

  “Sure, we can. It’s called bravado.”

  Alma looked at him like he had lost his mind. But he was dead serious. He would spend the entire day there, investigating every closet of every office if it meant finding something else that might lead them towards another clue and closer to their wedding.

  “Well, you can conserve your bravado because I don’t think we’re going to find anything.” There was a doom and gloom in her voice that he recognized and it haunted him.

  “C’mon now. Don’t get Debbie Downer on me. We’ve come this far. We’ve got a photograph and a skeleton key and M.F. Conway, the Third. Now, we just need to find the window.”

  “I doubt ther
e’s any chance of that,” she replied, circling the lobby as her eyes lifted to its coffered ceiling.

  “Why the heck not?” he asked, infusing as much bravado into his tone as he could muster. “We’ve got the smartest sexiest antique hunter in the city and her valiant billionaire boy toy who’s willing to bribe every front desk receptionist with a few Benjamins and barge into a few corner offices if that’s what it takes.” Pulling out his wallet, he whipped out a handful of hundred dollar bills, just to prove he was willing and able to serve his woman and her cause.

  But, like always, Alma was significantly unimpressed by his money. “Boy toy?”

  Harvey spread out his hands. “WIT—whatever it takes.”

  “Well, unfortunately, even my valiant billionaire boy toy and all his Benjamins can’t undo modernization.”

  Harvey followed her gaze up to the ceiling, recognizing the modern-day materials of renovation. “You mean some greedy opportunistic billionaire bastard has already screwed things up for us?”

  Alma nodded her head. “This building was Daniel Burnham’s final skyscraper before he died. Burnham is known for his lofty glass atria like the ones in the Rookery Building and the Field’s Building. Burnham’s designs are all about light and space reaching up into the air as far as possible. But this atrium has clearly been closed up and sealed. And if the atrium has been modernized without regard for Burnham’s original Beaux-Arts design, then there’s not much hope that anything else of historical or artist merit has been saved within the building—”

  “Well, she’s certainly got that right.”

  They both turned toward the security guard, sitting in an isolated chair in the corner of the lobby. “Even the billionaire bastard part,” he confirmed.

  Harvey studied the old man in the shabby uniform as he slowly rose from his seat and hobbled over to them.