Billionaire With a Twist 2

by Lila Monroe

  “Oh, honey, no, no, no,” Martha said immediately.

  My face fell.

  “The A-line is a good cut for you!” she added quickly. “Really emphasizes your good points. And the silk? Thailand-sourced, top notch, points for that. It’s just the color. Saffron yellow? Who do you think you are, Viola Davis?”

  I looked in the mirror again and conceded that she had a point. The yellow made my skin look like I was a jaundice victim.

  “How do you know all this stuff?” I asked, retreating back into the changing room.

  Martha snorted. “What, I can’t know things?”

  “Of course you can,” I said, slightly muffled as I pulled the dress over my head. “I just expect you to know, like, car stuff, and secret tips for getting a few dozen guys mooning over you.”

  “Oh, I got that too.” I could hear the grin in her voice. “But just ‘cause I go with the comfortable and sexually intimidating wardrobe of tank tops, dungarees, and combat boots these days doesn’t mean I didn’t have a fashionista past.”

  “Did you?” I asked, trying for the life of me to picture it.

  “No,” she admitted. “But hey, you don’t have to eat a pie to know how to roll the crust.”

  I pulled on Dress #2, one I’d picked for the ethereal ruffles cascading down the skirt.

  “So how come there’s all this big fire for a new dress?” Martha asked. “I mean, don’t you have any nice outfits you could ship from home?” Her voice turned teasing. “Or has Hunter seen those already?”

  Hunter had seen a lot more of me than my dresses, but I wasn’t in the mood for Hunter-related banter. “I can actually make decisions without thinking about Hunter’s reaction, thanks.”

  I slammed the door open harder than it probably warranted.

  Martha considered my outfit for a few seconds, then shook her head regretfully. “The color’s better, and you almost make those ruffles work, but damn girl, we need to leave the mermaids back in the eighties with all the other mistakes of that decade.”

  I snorted. “If there’s any room.”

  I clomped back into the dressing room and pulled the bolt, before mournfully contemplating my remaining options. There were a lot of them, and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to keep getting shot down. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

  “Hey, though,” Martha said in a voice that was clearly meant to be cheering me up. “At least the bimbo he’s dating now looks like you. Shows how hung-up on you he is.”

  “That bimbo is my sister,” I said.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Martha cleared her throat. “Oh.”

  I halfway expected her to jump into an impassioned defense of her hero, but she stayed silent. I guess she knew there were some things you just couldn’t defend.

  I was weirdly…disappointed?...about it, though. Like I had maybe thought that Martha would have some perfect excuse for Hunter, and then I could stop being so angry at him and maybe even stop yearning for him and maybe, finally, have a normal client-advertiser relationship without all this Romeo and Juliet bullshit.

  Yeah, and pigs would fly over the moon.

  I made some last minute adjustments to the criss-crossing shoulder-straps of Dress #3 and braced myself for another round of fashion scorn.

  I came out, and Martha’s mouth fell open.

  “That bad?” I said, wincing.

  Martha shook her head, eyes as wide as a goldfish. “Girl, I am seriously considering switching teams.”

  “That good?”

  “Daaaay-um. First of all, classic black. Second of all, construction: look at that plunging neckline that still manages to keep you covered, and the way the back hugs your ass without being trashy. Third of all, have you seen that hand-stitching? No, you have not, because it is perfect and not calling attention to itself.”

  I spun slowly, admiring myself in the mirror, running my hands over the smooth ebony satin, watching the way the cloth rippled in an artistically asymmetrical line around my knees. “You’re sure it works?”

  “Any guy would be lucky to have your fine self,” Martha asserted.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, my curls falling on my bare shoulders, my calves caressed by soft fabric. My eyes glowing with delight in myself.

  She was damn right.

  FIVE

  The Kadiatu Suites was a swank, modern hotel, all polished white marble and champagne silk drapes. The lush carpet swallowed all sound until the noise of the crowd was barely a genteel murmur and the light clink of glasses. Oil paintings from European countries with names I couldn’t pronounce shared space on the walls with classic African tribal art, and waiters in tuxedos that most doctors couldn’t afford swanned elegantly through all the salons and lounges with their high-vaulted ceilings, offering chocolate-dipped strawberries, ladyfingers, miniature cups of tiramisu, and tiny custard tarts topped with blueberries, blackberries, and a butterscotch drizzle. It was all a welcome change from the gorgeous but admittedly rustic beauty of Hunter Knox’s plantation, and under normal circumstances, I would have been busy soaking up all the glamour like a leafy tree in the sun.

  But somehow, none of this could make up for the company I was having to keep.

  “It is lovely, isn’t it?” Chuck said at my shoulder. “I could almost believe we’re someplace civilized. How soon ‘til you think someone pulls out a rifle and shoots the chandelier?”

  I smiled as pleasantly as I could and changed the subject. “What a nice tuxedo you have. Tell me, do you and Hunter have the same tailor?”

  “Clothes, clothes, clothes,” Chad said with an eye-roll, lounging against the nearby table with the rest of his Douchebro posse. Unbelievably, they had all decided that it was completely kosher to keep their collars popped at a formal event. “Ladies be shoppin’, am I right, Chuck?”

  Chuck gave a little derisive laugh. “Oh, gentlemen, let’s let the lady have her fun.” He turned his patronizing gaze on me. “Why don’t you tell us all about your little outfit? Was it very expensive? Or was it a gift from…a special friend?”

  The Douchebros snickered. My smile was starting to get painful. By the end of the night I might need to have it surgically removed with a chisel.

  I was doing my best to stay on Chuck’s good side, at least until the results from my ad campaign were in, and that meant doing my best to smile at his jokes and ignore the Douchebros. I only had to make nice until they were distracted by some passing starlet’s tits, and then I could get back to my main mission: Operation Charm. Target? The members of the board.

  I’d already chatted to Mrs. Aaronovitch about her dog-breeding program, promised to speak to a Yale admissions officer for Mr. Stiefvater’s son with the low grades but promising extracurricular set, and chatted about volunteering for one of Ms. McGuire’s pet causes, alligator conservation.

  And then I had carefully guided the all those conversations toward the wonderful job I thought Hunter was doing with the company, and the exciting future of Knox Liquors once my ads had hit the world. And if you think it’s easy to guide a conversation from the rate of dental decay in captive alligators gathered from the Everglades, to the future of a bourbon company, you are sadly mistaken.

  But it would all be worth it, once I had proven myself.

  I surveyed the crowd for my next target and spotted Ben Minister, a portly gentleman of fifty with a walrus mustache, a spotless silver suit, and twinkly green eyes. I quickly reviewed my knowledge of him: used to breed Greyhounds, tended to vote moderate candidates, had spearheaded a clean-up of the local pond after two small children caught sicknesses swimming there.

  “Mr. Minister!” I flashed him the winning smile that had disposed teachers kindly toward me since kindergarten. “Will you join us? I was hoping to get some news from the horse’s mouth on how the Margaret Lake clean-up is progressing.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” he said, his voice like a finely oiled piece of old mahogany that had only just begun to crack and creak in th
e humid Southern air. “You’re that young lady down from D.C., aren’t you? What do you think of us barbarians down here in the jungle?”

  “I think it’s beautiful down here,” I insisted passionately, and I wasn’t even acting. I couldn’t have lied about something like this. “The forests, the hills—even the light over the swamps. Sometimes I watch the sun going down over the lake at Hunter’s plantation—”

  “Bet that’s not the only thing ‘going down’ at Hunter’s plantation,” one of the Douchebros muttered. The rest of the posse snickered and high-fived him.

  “Excuse me?” Mr. Minister said in a tone that could have formed frost on palm leaves. “What did you just say?”

  That’s right, boys. Never impugn a lady’s honor in front of an old-fashioned Southern gentleman.

  But Chuck pulled together a fairly innocent look, and let his down-home accent that he usually worked so hard to conceal seep back into his voice. “Oh, nothing, sir. We were just hoping that Ally here was about to share what she’s been working on all this time at the Knox place. She’s been spending so much time on it, and we purely hope it’s something we can help her out on.”

  Help yourself to the credit for, you mean, I thought.

  “Yeah, Ally,” one of newest Douchebros, Seth, piped up. “Let’s hear all about this great new rebrand.”

  Ben Minister raised his brows. “I admit I am rather intrigued myself. Hunter has been playing things quite close to his vest.”

  “Well, I don’t want to spoil the big reveal for him,” I hedged. “He’s put so much work into unveiling it at the anniversary party; I couldn’t go and steal his thunder like that.”

  “Understandable, completely understandable,” Mr. Minister agreed. “But surely you could give us a few hints…?”

  And damn, I couldn’t refuse, not without looking like a flake who hadn’t been doing any real work. I had to tell him something at least a little bit concrete, even though I could see the Douchebros practically salivating, eager to get their grimy paws on my concepts.

  “Well,” I began hesitantly, “it’s focusing on a lot of the history of the product. We’ve been collecting some oral histories from local sources—”

  “Booo-ring!” Chad said with an eye roll that made me concerned for the strain on his facial muscles. “The only oral sources the American public wants are a hot blonde in a—”

  Chuck discreetly elbowed him in the ribs.

  “I think what my colleague is saying,” he went on smoothly, “is that while Miss Bartlett’s plan is certainly noble, it is also untried. Whereas his own marketing strategy has been the basis for every successful ad campaign since the advent of behaviorism and Dr. Skinner. New ideas are enticing, of course, but a man of your commitments—so noble, by the way, I was so pleased to see someone standing up for his community—a man of your sizeable commitments can hardly afford to take on such a risk when a tried and true method presents itself as an alternative.”

  Minister looked back and forth between Chad and Chuck, filled with distaste for the former, and wavering towards the reasonable-sounding words of the latter. He had almost forgotten I existed. Now would be the perfect time to remind him.

  “If by ‘tried and true,’ you mean ‘tired,’ then sure. Strategies don’t work perfectly forever. The numbers already show the American public is getting tired of being talked down to. In fact—”

  And then I saw Hunter and Paige, and I forgot what words were.

  Paige was looking evanescently beautiful in a gauzy princess gown of pale peach pink, her tresses swept up into something out of a Cinderella storybook. Her smile lit the room.

  And Hunter…

  A black tuxedo hugged every muscled inch of his body, a deep red tie and pocket square flashing like blood against it. His shirt was golden in a way that brought out the feral energy of his eyes. That barely contained energy was in his movements too, quick, sharp, a predator on the prowl. A grin lifted his lips, the light glinting off his teeth.

  His hand was resting possessively, as if its placement were perfectly natural, on the small of my sister’s back.

  “Excuse me?” Ben Minister’s voice intruded through my haze. “Miss Bartlett? Are you quite all right?”

  “Well, she was trying to do math,” Chad said, “probably strained something. You know lady brains can’t handle that stuff.”

  Mr. Minister’s lips thinned, and Chuck looked as though he would murder his current ally if there were fewer witnesses. It was probably easier to be business partners with sexist pieces of shit when they were less obvious, but Chuck had the tools he had.

  “Sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew for a minute there,” I said with a bright smile, forcing my attention back onto the battle at hand. And at least this was a battle that I knew could be won. “I think you’ll find I know my mathematics quite well. In fact, if we look at sales figures for liquor companies for the past three decades—”

  I very determinedly kept my eyes on the board member, and not on the rest of the party, as I resumed my attack on the Douchebros’ allegations. I very determinedly resisted scanning the crowd, or listening for the sound of familiar footsteps.

  I may have lost a lot of things recently, but I was not going to lose this man’s vote.

  #

  “Ah, Ally, there you are! We’ve been looking all over for you!”

  Damn, damn, and triple damn. After all my efforts to avoid them all evening, ducking and dodging and assiduously avoiding eye contact so that we ended up on opposite sides of the room, my sister and her boyfriend/my hook-up/my client had still managed to track me down like a pair of socially awkward bloodhounds.

  Dammit, if only I didn’t have to stump so hard for Hunter and my plan tonight. I could have hidden in the kitchen, drowning my sorrows in champagne and savory canapés.

  I gave what I hoped was a convincing imitation of a smile. “Ah, hey guys. How’s it going?”

  Hunter made some noises that were probably words saying that it was going great, or poorly, or that everything had exploded. I couldn’t tell, because my eyes were too busy watching the way his arm curled possessively around Paige’s waist, pulling her as close as physically possible, the way Paige was leaning into him, two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly…

  “—and that’s basically the long and the short of it,” he finished.

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s interesting.”

  Paige’s face was concerned. “Are you all right, Ally? You’ve been on your feet for hours now, are you sure you’re not getting tired? You look a bit pale.”

  “I’m fine!” I said, tossing off a laugh to prove just how fine I was. “Just need to refuel.”

  I snagged a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and tossed it back, barely tasting the cloying, bubbly sweetness I usually hated.

  Hunter snagged a couple of glasses as well, and offered one of them to Paige.

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not a fan. The bubbles go right up my nose.”

  Hunter gave her a dazed little grin and bopped her on the nose with his finger. “That is just too adorable.”

  Paige giggled.

  Meanwhile, I felt like I might explode. Did I say might? Would. Definitely would. Explosion imminent, self-destructing countdown commencing, and I was powerless to stop it.

  “Well,” Hunter said, still wearing that stupid love-struck smile, “let’s go find something that won’t bubble up that little button nose of yours. I think I saw a nice Merlot earlier…”

  “My favorite!” Paige said happily. She turned to me. “Ally, I wouldn’t abandon you but I know you’ll do your work so much better without us around to chat with you. We’ll catch you later, and try not to work too hard, okay? Have a little fun!”

  “Sure, sure,” I said, waving them off. The second they were out of sight, I grabbed another champagne from a passing waiter who looked so fancy that anywhere else he’d have people waiting on him like royalty.

  I was stil
l seething and unbalanced, but I forced myself to sip this glass a little more slowly. I had to be smart about this. I couldn’t get drunk tonight. So I had to make this one last. See, I was feeling calmer and more in control already.

  I’d just sip this champagne until I felt like I could head back out into the fray, and then—

  “Was that Hunter Knox?”

  The cultured voice, vowels sliding from Virginia nobility straight into British aristocracy, was so close that for a second I thought the woman was speaking to me, but then I realized that I was close enough to a circle of wealthy society women to overhear their conversation. Maybe there would be an in for me to chat up the company?

  I turned my back to them while subtly edging closer, pretending to be interested solely in the contents of my glass and the handsome oil painting to my right.

  “Indeed it is,” another voice, sounding equally made of money, responded. A mischievous tone crept in. “And isn’t he looking handsome! Why, if I were forty years younger…”

  This was met with a series of polite chuckles and murmurs. “Oh, behave yourself, Ethel!”

  There was a sigh, presumably from Ethel. “Well, if I had to lose out to the younger generation, at least it’s to a nice young girl like that. Who’s her family?”

  My heart started, and I edged still closer, my dress almost brushing against the tuxedo of the waiter serving them miniature crab cakes.

  Some hushed conversation that I couldn’t quite make out followed, and then, “the Bartletts, I believe…”

  “Haven’t heard of them,” said yet another voice, one full of the creaking iron of an old battleship. Her tone turned musing. “Still, seems they’ve raised her right. I asked after her earlier and she’s so polite, so feminine, not like those young hussies you get nowadays.”

  This was greeted with general sounds of agreement, then the original speaker’s voice rose over the others loud and clear. “Yes, those modern girls can intrigue a man for a time, catch his eye with their wild ways, but if a man of the world like Hunter Knox decides to settle down, you can bet it’ll be with a sweet old-fashioned girl like that one.”