EXES - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance Novel

by Aria Hawthorne

  “His temporary insanity,” she fired back.

  “Well…” Nicolette mused. “I can see there’s no reason here to worry that it will be permanent.”

  Harvey stepped in front of Alma, interjecting an introduction, but only because he sensed that Alma might punch her. “This is Nicolette Mead. My commercial real estate lawyer.”

  “Real estate lawyer—by day,” Nicolette scolded him. “But by night, I’m usually the only woman able to keep up with Harvey at the bar and on the dance floor.”

  “That reminds me,” Harvey said, pulling out his phone and checking his calendar. “We’ve got the Anderson Gala this Sunday.”

  “Oh, darling…I don’t need the reminder,” Nicolette cried out with her crystalline voice. “I’ve already picked out my gown and ordered you a matching tie.”

  Darling? A matching tie? Alma had to control the gag swelling up from her throat. That used to her job, attending high-class functions with Harvey when he began acquiring upscale commercial buildings in favor of run-down properties with historical value. She was even planning on attending the same gala—just not with him this year. But now, as she stared at Nicolette—with her glinting jewelry and elaborate hair extensions—she accepted the fact that she had been officially replaced by a woman who perhaps would be better suited for Harvey than she had ever been.

  Like a whisper of relief, her phone hummed inside the deep pockets of her overalls.

  Tell me where we’re meeting tonight…

  Alma sighed. Her mystery suitor. It was a welcomed distraction from Harvey’s moody game-playing. She rushed into a far corner of the train depot to ensure her privacy.

  But when she re-read his text again, she reeled from the implications of his proposition. A real-life physical encounter?

  She caught Harvey’s gaze, tracking her from the opposite side of the depot’s lobby, scrolling through his own phone, impatiently expecting her to return to the battlefield. Ugh, the battlefield. The last thing she felt like engaging in was a war with an ex-lover, especially a man who seemed intent on punishing her for initiating their separation.

  Like an escape, she slipped into the sassy persona that he had come to expect from her and she pinged him back. You can’t even wait twenty-four hours before you need more of me?

  I definitely need more…he replied without a beat. I made you a promise last night, and there’s one thing I hope you’ve learned about me by now—I never break my promises.

  Alma’s hands trembled. More than once.

  That was his promise to her last night at the end of their phone call—to meet her in-person and make her come more than once. She glanced up, staring straight ahead at the only other man who had ever given her that pleasure. Harvey was ignoring her, consumed by his own phone messages—and his own life that had moved on without her.

  Since you’re the one making all the promises, you name the place, she texted back, feeling him out. If he offered some suburban address in a dingy apartment, she knew it was time to bail.

  Then, before he had the chance to reply, she gave herself an out. And I’ll warn you now…proposing to meet is setting yourself up for a dangerous challenge. If you don’t impress me within the first seconds of hello, then you risk making it good-bye forever.

  She paused, watching her screen shadow over when he failed to answer back.

  After an eternity, he zinged his final message: The Peoria. Bar lounge on the 66th floor. 8pm tonight. And don’t worry, Contessa. The only danger is that I’ll succeed in making you want to stay until the morning.

  Alma had about ten seconds to indulge in the fantasy of waking up with him the next morning before Harvey slipped his own phone in his rear jeans pocket and squared off against her.

  The battlefield.

  “Well, I can certainly see why you’d want to demolish this building,” Nicolette declared with a shiver. “It feels like a tomb in here with all this cold, white marble and dark windows.”

  With the sun rising from the east, only the grand gothic-shaped window in the balcony was fully illuminated. The remaining windows were dark and unimpressive, their normally resplendent glass appearing dreary and opaque without direct sunlight.

  “Yeah, and I’m not in the business of preserving tombs,” Harvey said dryly, gathering up his shirt and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll have my crew spend the rest of the day removing as many of these windows as they can before sunset, but then after that, it’s over,” he warned Alma. “There’s no reason to keep fighting me over an old train depot that offers nothing but the false promise of something more.”

  The false promise of something more…the words rang in her head as she studied his cold, confrontational gaze. Years ago, he had been willing to stand by her to search out priceless artifacts abandoned by a superficial world that no longer valued them. Now, she was still holding onto the glimmer of hope that he wasn’t really a part of that world, but instead, a part of her world that aimed to protect precious things that had long since been forgotten. But she was wrong and he was right. She was still clinging onto the false promise of something more; the false promise that perhaps he could still change back into the same man she once knew; the false promise that he could still change back into the same man she had once loved.

  “And as Harvey’s lawyer,” Nicolette squawked like his pet parrot, “I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that no one prevents him from selling it whenever and however he chooses.” Alma heard her, but pretended that she didn’t.

  “I’ll go call the buyers now, Harvey, and let them know that everything is moving forward as planned.” Nicolette withdrew her phone from her bubblegum pink designer handbag and flicked her fake eyelashes around the room with a condescending sneer. “One hundred million dollars is a lot of money—much more money than anything on this property could possibly be worth.”

  When Amazon Woman was safely out of earshot, Alma gave in to Harvey.

  “Fine. Whatever you salvage can be sent to my father’s antique shop. He’ll send you the paperwork about representing them at auction and make sure the compensation will be worth your time and effort. But you’re right. The rest of the fighting isn’t worth it…not anymore.”

  They held each other’s gaze. It had been a year of heartache and misplaced blame. And yet, cutting into scars from the past seemed more painful than moving forward into the future, bleeding and alone.

  She stared at him, staring back at her, noticing the light in his eyes soften from anger into a strange mixture of bewilderment. She had simply spoken the truth—nothing more, nothing less. She hadn’t intended to wound him—ever. It was simply the result of two people who knew each other’s strengths, but only focused on each other’s weaknesses.

  When his eyes settled uncomfortably onto her chest, she glanced down and noted the shadowy silhouette of a keyhole, patterned against the bib of her overalls.

  Harvey pushed forward, inspecting the mysterious shape. “Tell me something,” he said, low and cautious. “How is it that you—and your witchy ways—always seem to make magical things like that happen?” With the tip of his finger, he traced the keyhole silhouette over the denim of her overalls, just to be certain it was real. The sensation of his touch between her breasts made her want to slap him, if it hadn’t already made her yearn for more.

  “I don’t know,” Alma whispered, lowering her chin to inspect the curious illusion herself. “But this witch doesn’t feel like being burned at the stake anymore by billionaire Harvey Zale, so it’s probably better not to find out.”

  With his firm knuckles, he nudged her aside, allowing the silhouette to drop onto the white marble floor and cast a shadow onto a square panel of stone directly in front of them.

  Turning his attention above them, he shielded his eyes from the direct ray of sunlight passing through the lantern in the mother’s hand of the stained-glass window in the balcony.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty certain it would be better,” Harvey agreed, taking in th
e source of the enigmatic symbol. “Too bad you never manage to bring out the reserved side in me.”

  Without warning, he took up the sledgehammer from a side bench into his hands and slammed it right into the shadow of the keyhole, obliterating the marble beneath it with one violent stroke.

  Alma covered her ears as a choking cloud of dust wafted through the air, obscuring the pile of rubble left behind in its wake. Harvey moved forward and picked through it, discarding shards of marble like a man intent on proving himself wrong. He wasn’t wrong, Alma thought, the moment he lifted a metallic tin box from beneath the shattered stone and presented it to her. He rarely was wrong. It was still the one thing she loved and hated about him.

  “You do the honors, Miss Castillo. It’s your treasure hunt.”

  Their eyes locked again. This time, his adventurous blue eyes filled her with a familiar sensation—allegiance.

  With a shivering creak, she peeled open the lid of the dusty tin box and said, “Unfortunately, it probably opens something on this property.” Like an omen, she displayed the antique skeleton key in the palm of her hand. “I doubt you’ll be interested in playing Indiana Jones much longer if it means delaying your closing.”

  “Oh, I dunno. Does the gig comes with a cool Fedora hat?”

  “Unlikely. It wouldn’t exactly match the cowboy boots.” Her eyes drifted down to his favorite footwear, remembering the exact moment she had picked them out for him during their honeymoon in Vegas. Black ostrich leather. Somehow the wild, daring spirit of a cowboy fit the South Side Chicago boy she had loved.

  “Well, then…I guess I’ll just have to settle for the whip.” His smile twinkled at her. In that moment, they were newlyweds again.

  Passing her thumb over the handle of the key, Alma curiously noted the inscription. Squinting hard at the tiny cursive engraving, she read aloud from the engraving. “In my darkest hour, the only peace I doth keep is—” But she struggled to make out the final phrase.

  Harvey took the key away from her to inspect it himself. “—the promise of our eternal love,” he said, finishing the sentence before breaking into unexpected laughter. He glanced up at the stained-glass window in the balcony, then back down at the keyhole silhouette that had almost disappeared with the change of light. Then he ran his hand through his hair and muted his bemused smile, as if he was trying determine why the universe had bestowed this hoax upon him.

  “Harvey—” Alma pleaded for something she could only articulate with her eyes.

  He held up his hand to silence her. “That key could open any door in the city. Hundreds of thousands of doors. And you know it.”

  “Yes, I know,” she answered, acknowledging the improbability of finding its match.

  “It could take years,” he insisted. “Or more likely…never.”

  “I know,” she nodded, closing her eyes in surrender, preparing to endure the sting of his rejection—again.

  Sighing with frustration, he lifted the tin canister and wiped its lid clean before handing it off to Alma. “There’s another inscription etched into the tin of the canister’s lid.”

  Alma furrowed her brow, wondering how she had missed it. “What does it say?”

  “Give the lady what she wants,” he read aloud.

  For a moment, she thought he was joking. But the foreboding tone in his voice told her otherwise. Perplexed, Alma gazed down at it. “That’s the Marshall Fields’ slogan.”

  “Yep,” Harvey replied, like he didn’t need convincing.

  “Harvey…” Alma chose her words carefully. “Field was a huge benefactor of Tiffany’s glass artwork at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. It’s one of the reasons why the Field’s building has two Tiffany mosaic glass ceiling domes.”

  “Give the lady what she wants,” Harvey repeated dryly, as if he couldn’t believe the irony of the situation. Slipping on his blue denim shirt and buttoning it up over his undershirt, he peered at her, sidelong. “Looks like it’s going to be my slogan now.”

  A flash of adrenaline coursed through Alma’s heart as her false promise of something more just became true.

  Just then, Nicolette clopped back into the building like a Clydesdale and announced her victory. “Everything is taken care of…” Her high-pitched voice resonated into the rafters, disturbing a pair of mourning doves.

  Gathering up his worn canvas messenger bag and slinging it sideways across his chest, he turned to Nicolette, commanding her attention. “Good. Because we’re delaying the closing.”

  “What?” Nicolette choked on her own disbelief. “But Harvey, that’s impossible. We have to close—”

  “And we will,” he said cavalierly. “But for now, tell the buyers that my ex-wife has just laid claim to the property. So we’ll need another day to clear the title.”

  Nicolette glanced at Alma, then back at Harvey. With her bracelets rattling like her voice, she sputtered out her exasperation. “No, Harvey, no. We absolutely cannot!”

  “Sure, we can, darlin’. Happens all the time,” he stressed with a smirk. “Being divorced is a real bitch.”

  Chapter Ten

  Give the lady what she wants…

  It was the first thing that flashed through Harvey’s mind when they entered the grand foyer of the iconic Marshall Field’s building.

  Makeup, purses, gloves, jewelry, lingerie, stockings…he surveyed all the luxurious women’s goods that lined the aisles and counters of the historical department store. His gaze drifted upwards to the vaulted ceiling, suspended five stories above them and decorated with an intricate mosaic of sparkling iridescent glass. Yep, Marshall Field knew what women wanted and he created a sanctuary for them to shop for it.

  Too bad for Harvey, his woman didn’t want to shop for blue eyeshadow or a leather handbag. His woman wanted priceless Louis Comfort Tiffany art.

  Lucky fucking him.

  He contemplated the absurdity of his situation as he followed his ex-wife through the modern department store, as if she knew exactly where she intended to find a nineteenth-century mythical treasure.

  “Okay, Mr. Tiffany,” Harvey hollered up at the vaulted dome. “Just tell us where you’ve hidden your hundred million dollar window and we’ll be on our merry way.”

  Oblivious to the mosaic masterpiece that arched above their heads, casual shoppers bustled around him, browsing through the merchandise that lined the glass countertops.

  Yes, he was mocking her. He was mocking them. He was mocking the entire situation because it was ridiculous. But that’s what she always inspired in him—insanity.

  Turning a cold shoulder on him, she peered up at the dome, as if she could actually decipher some hidden message encrypted within the millions of pieces of shimmering mosaic glass.

  He noted the sewn holes on the back pockets of her overalls. Those damn overalls. And she considered herself low-maintenance, despite dragging him here to chase century-old myths. He scoffed. The noise made Alma glance back at him.

  “Heartburn.” He feigned chest pain.

  “Because you’re worrying about losing your one hundred-million-dollar deal?” she asked, almost as if she actually cared about thwarting one of the biggest real estate deals of his career.

  “No, I just ate too many onions with that hotdog.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. I even thought about warning you. You had a stomach ulcer even when we were married.”

  “You mean because we were married?”

  “You can blame me all you want, but I’m not the one who scarfed down an entire pile of onion rings and cheese fries.”

  “I’ll only blame you if you make me kiss you with bad breath. That’s never pleasant for anyone.”

  He wanted to see just how far he could push it. Not very far.

  “You won’t have to worry about that.”

  Her certainty invigorated him.

  “No?” He exhaled into his cupped hands and took a whiff, just to be as juvenile as possible. “It’s pretty bad.”

  But,
of course, she ignored him and kept walking through the aisles of the department store.

  “Anyway…let’s wait and see, Miss Castillo. You’re auto-programmed to doubt me, but I’ve got a knack for proving you wrong. So let’s just admit there’s a chance you’ll end up changing your mind when my key fits into your keyhole.”

  He held up the key and brushed past her to assume the lead.

  “When?” she repeated, calling him out on his arrogance. “I’m pretty sure you told me it could take years…or never. Sounds like spending time with me is turning you into an optimist.”

  “Optimistic that you’re actually enjoying it,” he wise-cracked.

  “Enjoying is an overstatement. Tolerating is closer to the truth.”

  “Negative attention is better than no attention.” Harvey passed by a rack of furry snow bunny earmuffs and slipped a pair over his head like oversized headphones. “That’s part of my game plan. The more time you spend with me, the more ways you’ll likely behave in ways you know you shouldn’t.” He flashed her a flirtatious smile.

  “Like kissing a man with onion breath wearing earmuffs?”

  He suddenly stopped, letting her bump into him—intentionally—and grinned. “Exactly.”

  He enjoyed the way she gripped his bicep as she faltered, attempting to regain her balance. Still clumsy as ever, he thought, as she peered up at him with a frown, expecting an explanation. He considered kissing her. Would that be a good enough explanation?

  “Did you forget to put one foot in front of the other?”

  He took the liberty to adjust her crooked glasses. “I forgot you’re the one who knows where the hell we’re supposed to be going.”

  Realizing he was right, she traded places with him, leading the charge with a brisker pace, leaving him behind in her wake. She was proving she didn’t need him—her favorite thing to do these days—which was exactly why he couldn’t resist attempting to lure her back to him.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” The sweet voice came from the young sales clerk at the jewelry counter.