EXES - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance Novel

by Aria Hawthorne

  “Are you really that angry at me?” he asked, his voice simmering with emotion beneath its low, steady tone. “Or are you angry at yourself for falling in love with me again?”

  “I have SO not fallen in love with you again.”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that, Contessa?”

  He braced her tighter—tighter than he ever had before—and waited for her to surrender to the almost forgotten sensation of their bodies melding into one.

  “Yes, I’m certain because you lied to me.”

  “No, I didn’t lie,” he flung back, wanting to believe it. “I didn’t know we’d been texting each other until the night at The Vault when we were having drinks at the bar. And then, once I realized it was you, everything just spiraled out of control and—” his breath lingered over her lips, seeking out a fleeting moment when she might be convinced not to hate him into oblivion, “—and into one of the best nights of my life.”

  “Exactly. So instead of telling me the truth, you fucked me.”

  His mouth twisted into an awkward schoolboy smile. “Fucked is a strong word, Alma. Although you did climax twice, and I don’t remember you complaining much about it at the time.”

  “Uggggggghhhh!” she grunted in disgust. Shoving herself away from him, she slipped off her heel and chucked it at his big! fat! inflated! billionaire! head!

  He successfully ducked.

  “Asshole!” She flicked off her other heel, winding up her next pitch.

  “Alma—” He warned her, taking cover behind a display case showcasing a ninety-carat ruby and diamond necklace. “Stop and think about how impaling my forehead with your heel isn’t going to change the fact that you clearly still have feelings for me.”

  “Feelings for you?” she raged. “You mean, feelings like misguided infatuation? No, I don’t, Harvey. I had those feelings for another man who wasn’t supposed to be you!”

  She launched her other heel, but overshot his head, missing him and the gleaming perfection of his slick, sculpted hair.

  “Which is why I gave you the fantasy that you wanted. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Alma freaked. “I wanted someone else, Harvey! Someone else. That’s not called a fantasy. That’s called moving on!”

  “Well, maybe I wasn’t ready to let you move on. I’m still not ready.”

  Throwing her hands up into the air, she paced barefoot across the hardwood floors. “Are you actually listening to yourself? You, you, you, y-o-u… Well, newsflash, Monsieur Asshole. The nights we spent together? Our sex-lationship? They weren’t all just about you. The whole success and failure of our marriage? It was never just about you and what you want. And it was never just about your money or your properties or your business deals or even about the demolition of the train depot and its windows. It was never all just about you. It’s about respect, Harvey. Respect and dignity and integrity and trust. Trust, Harvey. T-r-u-s-t!”

  Harvey blinked, noting the rabid spittle flying out of her mouth. “I didn’t think you’d take it this badly.”

  “UGH!” she shrieked.

  He tracked her erratic movements around the display case containing a pearl bigger than the size of his frown.

  “Okay, message received. I screwed up—again. But you can’t blame me for wanting you back.”

  “Wanting me back? How about earning me back?”

  He blinked again, this time, the truth of her words sunk in his expressive face. “I never planned for any of this to happen.”

  She stared at him. He stared at her. It was their typical, gut-wrenching deadlock.

  “So what happens now?”

  “This…” she whispered. Unclasping the diamond choker from her neck, she slapped it into his hands along with the antique wristwatch that he had bought for her.

  Then she gathered up her shoes, determined to leave him—and everything she hated about their relationship—behind her. But he stepped in front of her, refusing to accept the bitter finality of their split.

  “So that’s it? I’m supposed to just skulk back into the shadows and let you…move on?”

  “I had already moved on, Harvey. The moment I filed for divorce. The only difference now is…I have even more regrets.”

  She attempted to push past him again, but he thrust his arm across the doorway, blocking her path.

  “Well, I don’t have any regrets, Alma,” he stressed, his chin lowering to meet her gaze, ensuring that his words rang true. “And I’m not sorry about the fact that you thought you had moved on with some other man when really…you just proved how easy and natural everything can be between us when we’re not trying to tear each other’s hearts apart. So no. I’m not sorry about that at all. I’m not sorry one bit.”

  He locked his eyes on hers, searching for the woman he had loved, honored, and cherished so many years ago. But when she coldly, silently rejected him, he shifted away from her defiant glare and withdrew his arm, allowing her to abandon him—forever.

  She hurried down the staircase, cradling her shoes in her arms, desperately trying hard not to cry. No, she would not cry—damn it.

  As she rounded the corner and passed into the main floor of the grand hall, she wiped her eyes and focused on the one visceral feeling coursing through her body—she needed to escape. Squinting beyond the flaring lights swirling floral patterns of green and purple across the white walls, she scanned the unfamiliar faces within the crowd near the auctioneer’s podium. She searched out the distinct black hair and moustache of her father. He was nowhere in sight. She fretted and searched again. She needed to let her father know she was taking a taxi home, and then it would be safe to breakdown. But it was in that moment that she halted in her tracks, unexpectedly spotting something on the center stage beneath the halo of spotlights, something so hauntingly beautiful that it drew gasps from the audience and captivated them into collective silence.

  Alma dug her fingernails into her wrist. It wasn’t a dream. It was the stunning stained-glass window from the balcony of Harvey’s rundown building.

  “Here we have a rare, exquisitely preserved example of opalescent stained glass with a mother and child in a field of lilacs, circa 1890s, in excellent condition,” the auctioneer said, introducing the window. “It is part of a collection of eleven stained-glass windows, all from the same riverfront building slated for sale. All the works within this lot are unsigned and unattributed, but skillfully exhibit the trademark design of influential American glassmakers of the time such as Louis Comfort Tiffany and John La Farge. For this reason, we shall start the bidding at one million dollars.”

  One million dollars? A flurry of panic raided Alma’s soul. That was a bargain for an entire lot of late nineteenth-century opalescent stained-glass windows. If they were authentic works of Tiffany or La Farge, each window could easily fetch a million dollars or more, and everyone in that room was savvy enough to know it. A million dollars for the whole collection was just a tease. Every major museum director at the gala could afford to take a million dollar risk that an eleven window lot of stained-glass windows would turn into a ten million dollar Tiffany or La Farge jackpot. But few museum directors could compete with the flurry of bids from individual collectors and fortune hunters who drove the price up to three million dollars within a matter of minutes.

  “I never thought it would work, but Harvey was certain they’d take the bait.”

  The woman’s sultry voice snaked over Alma’s bare neck and shoulders, sending shivers down her spine. She glanced behind her, knowing exactly who she would find there—Harvey’s beast witch real estate lawyer. What was her name again? Nicotine? The stale scent of cigarettes wafted from her breath. Nicolette.

  In the background, the auctioneer called out the bids in rapid-fire succession. Bidding paddles bobbed up and down. “Three and a quarter million. Yes, there, number 48. Do I have three and a half million? Yes, there, number 12. Do I have three and three quarters million? Yes, there…I have three and three quarter millio
n. Do I have four million dollars?”

  Alma incredulously glanced up at the stained-glass window, meticulously cleaned and illuminated in its full glory. “I don’t understand. I heard he had demolished it. Everything.”

  “That’s what was supposed to have happened,” Nicolette laughed, flipping back her shiny black locks over her bare shoulders. The long strand of golden South Sea pearls jiggled down through the center of her green velvet evening gown, the sweetheart bodice boosting her cleavage like two perfect cantaloupes ready to be plucked off the vine. “I told him to just bulldoze the whole thing and be done with it. But apparently, he said he got it from your expert authority that the windows might be valuable.”

  Nicolette glared down at Alma. She was a least a foot taller, maybe even two feet with her chunky heeled pumps, especially with Alma completely on the defense without any footwear. “Harvey was certain collectors would recognize their worth if we included them in the auction. He said it would raise the value of the riverfront parcel because word would spread through the real estate community about the auction—”

  “But I thought that was exactly what he didn’t want,” Alma interjected. “It just gives Jacques another reason to attempt to pass a preservation summons through City Hall.”

  “Not if the windows are gone, sold off to someone else,” Nicolette replied, as if she was revealing a trade secret. “He’s using tonight’s auction not only to profit from the sale of the windows, but to also market the property. We’re collecting back up offers in case our current buyer attempts to renegotiate the price or wants to back out of the deal completely.”

  Both women fell silent when a voice rose from the crowd.

  “Five million dollars,” the salt and pepper-haired bidder definitively announced.

  The auctioneer acknowledged his bid with a nod. “I have five million dollars. Do I have five and a quarter million?”

  Nicolette eyed the man, her black penciled eyebrow arching into a perfect curve. “That’s the owner of the Centennial building along South Wacker. He tried to put in an offer on the riverfront parcel in the first round, but he dropped out when the price soared above eighty million. Maybe now he’ll be more willing to cough up the cash if he thinks there’s more art treasures to be found.” She released a dramatic sigh through her red lava lipstick. “I should have known better. Harvey is always right about how to make the most amount of money from the worst parcels of real estate. That man has the biggest knack for flipping garbage into gold. It might even be the sexiest things about him. Well, almost the sexiest…if you know what I mean.”

  Alma gazed at Nicolette’s sophisticated curves and flawless cinnamon complexion, wondering if it could possibly be true that she had already slept with him.

  At that moment, Harvey descended the staircase. Nicolette rudely abandoned Alma and rushed up to him with a delirious smile. Greeting him with a kiss, she smeared her glossy territorial mark across his sculpted cheek. He was self-assured and stylish in his fitted modern tuxedo and she was buxom and exotic in her green ivy gown. Their presence together attracted conspicuous glances from the crowd.

  They were the perfect couple, Alma thought, as the clap of the auctioneer’s gavel rang out across the grand hall. They deserved each other.

  “Sold to paddle 187 for nine and half million dollars,” the auctioneer finally pronounced, calling out the successful bid. Applause erupted throughout the grand hall.

  Alma pushed through the crowd and rushed toward her father. Spotting the bidder holding paddle 187, she cried out frantically. “It’s a private collector, Papi. Not a museum director or representative of a public arts foundation.”

  “Yes, Alma. I think you are right.”

  Her lips trembled as she controlled her urge to weep. “But he’ll decorate his mansion or office building with them, and no one will ever see those windows again. How can we let that happen?”

  “Alma, it is done. There is nothing we can do.”

  The fatalism of her father’s words rung in her ears. She covered her face with her hands, overwhelmed by the helplessness and meaninglessness of everything in her life. What good was her expertise of nineteenth-century fine arts if it simply helped rich, mercenary men purchase art to display like trophies for their own private enjoyment? What good were all her attempts to salvage the wreckage of historical buildings when property owners like Harvey Zale could sell them off for pure monetary gain?

  Gala guests swarmed to Harvey and Nicolette like they were celebrities. Several men in tuxedos slapped Harvey’s shoulder and offered their handshakes and congratulations. Nicolette reacted to their jokes with giddy, animated laughter. They were the beautiful, rich, powerful patrons of the auction and their elite circle of jovial banter and air of untouchable prominence fueled her despondency. But it was also the possessive way that Harvey wrapped his hand around Nicolette’s voluptuous hip, drawing her to his side, that ultimately made Alma want to flee.

  What good had come from all those years she had been together with Harvey if none of it mattered to him now? How had he changed so completely from the man she had once admired and loved to the man she now loathe and despised? Alma murmured her good-bye to her father and turned to leave before he had a chance to respond. She hurried up the staircase, forgetting to retrieve her coat, and exited into a relentless blast of wind that constricted her gown around her body like a choking hand.

  “A taxi, please,” she uttered to the parking attendant who blew his whistle, signaling over the first available cab.

  What good had come from taking a risk all these weeks, involving herself with a stranger with whom she was convinced she had a deep, mysterious connection, only to find out that it had all been a complete lie?

  “Nothing,” she whispered, as if saying the word finally made the pain real—real enough to acknowledge that it had all been a wasteful dream. “Nothing,” she repeated through bitter tears, extinguishing any desire to ever dream again.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Harvey shoved the loaded hot dog into his mouth, savoring the juicy, greasy, gluttonous pleasure. Stretching out his legs, he relaxed against the hard plastic of the ballpark seats.

  This was the only thing he needed in life—junk food and baseball.

  A concessions vendor jogged up and down the concrete center staircase, hollering out Slurpee flavors. “Wild cherry, blue raspberry, mango pineapple! Icy, cold, fresh!”

  Harvey held up his hand and signaled for two before passing a five-dollar bill to the stranger next to him. The bill rippled through the hands of the fans in the row until it made its way down to the vendor who exchanged it for two bright neon frozen drinks. Harvey smiled, admiring the synchronization of everyone in his row passing the two drinks back to him.

  Sure, he could easily afford box seats behind home base or swanky private clubhouse seats. But it had been their tradition for years, hanging out at the game together in the outfield with the other die-hard, blue-collar White Sox fans who never made you feel alone, even when their boys lost a home game.

  “Are you feeling better yet?” Enrique asked, eyeing Harvey as he sucked down half the red slushy before coming up for air.

  “The world is no longer spinning like I’m on the inside of a washing machine,” he replied. “But I still feel like a teamster steamrolled over my head.”

  Enrique nodded like it was a certainty. “You were very inebriated last night.”

  “Yeah…and unfortunately, I still remember most of it.” Resigning himself to the full effect of the sugar rush, brain freeze, Harvey slouched into his seat, watching the pitcher’s windup and trying hard not to think off all the ways he had been an asshole last night.

  “Thanks for giving me a ride home, Enrique. And sorry about spewing vomit all over your front seat.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll have it cleaned and send you the bill,” Enrique quipped.

  “Just pick out a new car and I’ll buy it for you.”

  “Really, it’s oka
y, Harvey. I like my old car just fine.” Enrique slapped Harvey on the shoulder—a gesture to let the point go. “Besides, it’s just a car. Better than what happened to your lawyer’s shoes.”

  “I did try to aim low to avoid her gown,” Harvey added as a consolation.

  “I don’t think she appreciated the effort.”

  “Yeah, probably not.” Harvey focused on how the first baseman fumble the ball. “It’s not like I can offer to buy her new feet.”

  With the roar of the crowd, both men suddenly jumped from their seats and cursed as the fumble turned into a double for the rival team.

  “No, money can’t always solve everything,” Enrique answered, shaking his head at the defeat. “And sometimes, it just makes things worse.”

  “Yeah, like ruining a marriage.”

  “I don’t think Alma is upset with you about your money, Harvey.”

  “I know. She’s upset that I care more about making it than she does.”

  “Yes, that’s probably closer to the truth.”

  “And she’s back to hating my guts for selling off those windows.”

  “That was a surprise to us both.”

  “But it worked like a charm,” Harvey replied. “We got three backup offers this morning on the sale of the property and all of them for more money than the original offer. It forced the buyer to agree to move forward.” Harvey glanced down at his wristwatch. “We close in five hours. And then I can move onto my Shanghai project.”

  Enrique nodded. “Then you have done what you have needed to do. Alma will recover. There are many other priceless works of art in attics and basements yet to be discovered.”

  Harvey remembered their hunt for the Eternal Love and the mysterious photograph they found together in the basement of the train depot.

  “She will move on with her life and you will move on with yours,” Enrique continued. “And you both will learn that all this time fighting each other wasn’t worth the year that you spent on it.”