Acquiring Ainsley

by Sara Celi

  “What can I say? She swept me off my feet.”

  And then, as if on cue, my arm slipped around Ainsley’s narrow waist. It seemed like such a natural thing to do in the moment, that I didn’t realize until a half-breath later the enormity of what I’d done. Apart from the proposal in the restaurant, this was the first time I’d really touched her, the first time I’d felt her slip into the gray area we’d been steadily building for the last few weeks.

  She didn’t flinch. She didn’t stiffen. And she didn’t pull away.

  “You’ll have to come to the engagement party.” Ainsley kept her attention on Sylvia, but she leaned in closer to me. “We’re having it at the Flagler Museum.”

  Sylvia let out a gasp of approval. “So soon? If I didn’t know you better, dear, I’d wonder if this was a shotgun wedding.”

  Ainsley laughed. “Can you imagine what my mother would think about that? To say nothing of my brother.”

  “I do hope he’ll make it down a few times this year. I know it can be so hard, running a company the size of his. And with that, I must go. Have to circulate.” Sylvia kissed Ainsley on one cheek again. “God forbid I miss the chance to talk with any of the major donors.” Sylvia said this as if another season of endless galas in South Florida had already made her bored.

  Once she was out of earshot, Ainsley turned to me. “So, you’re on the hook for that party now. Or, should I say, we are.”

  I nodded. “Good thing I’m willing to play along. Is this something you just dreamed up?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been dying to throw a party recently, so this seems as good a moment as any. And since we’ve told Sylvia about it, there’s no getting out of it now.”

  “I see.” I laughed. “You’re going to find a way to get what you want out of this no matter what, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.” Her attention turned away from me and toward the rest of the crowd at the party. “And speaking of Sylvia, I wouldn’t put it past her to put us in her column about this event. She loves weddings even more than she loves gossip.”

  “Fine with me.” Then I glanced down at my left arm, which still circled her tiny frame. I dropped my hold around her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, it’s okay.” Ainsley put her hand on my arm. “I don’t mind. You’re my fiancé, after all, right?” She smiled. “People have to believe it’s real.”

  I stared at her for a long moment. Something had changed between us, and the thrill of it shimmered upward from my toes to my hair.

  “I still can’t believe we won the trip to Italy,” I said as we sped away from the Phillips Estate a few hours later. The night was crisp and still felt young, and if I wanted to be honest, I didn’t want it to end with a gift bag from Tiffany’s and a parting shot at my door. I’d had a good time with Trevor, more fun than I would have expected if I’d told myself two months ago that this was where I would be.

  “It’s the Amalfi Coast.” He grinned. “You’re the one who said it’s amazing.”

  “Still. Fifty thousand for a weeklong villa rental?” I let out a low whistle. “For a price like that, it better have champagne in the pool.”

  “I’m sure it does.” He pulled the car to a stop at the light about a half mile from the Palm Beach Towers. “And I’m surprised to hear a woman like you worrying so much about money.”

  “It’s a new look for me, but what can I say?” A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have considered fifty grand that much money, but considering what I knew now about my family’s finances, it carried a lot more weight. “People change, right?”

  “They do,” he murmured.

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Trevor McNamara seemed to get more handsome with every moment that we spent together. I couldn’t figure out what it was that attracted me the most, but it lay somewhere in the combination of his dark eyes, the small crease in the bridge of his nose, and the faint smirk that always lurked underneath every expression he made. Trevor was cocky for sure, but I liked cocky.

  Plus, I’d noticed a change in his mannerisms since that conversation with Sylvia. He was warmer to me, and not nearly as forceful.

  Is he starting to genuinely like me? I shook the thought from my head. Why in the world do I care?

  “Thanks for tonight,” I said when he slid the car into the visitor parking lot. I hooked my fingers around the door handle. “It felt nice to have a glimpse of my old life for a few hours. Since nothing about the last few weeks has been normal.”

  His gaze caught mine. “I’ll agree with that. I meant to tell you earlier that it looks like the merger and the sale are going well. Ashton says the first round of paperwork should be at my office by next week. And after that…” He snapped his fingers. “I’m not worried about it. Things will go smoothly. I’ll make sure of that.”

  I bit my bottom lip as my thoughts turned again to the other reality of this situation: the fact that once Ashton sold the company, we’d have no control over it, even if I was Trevor’s wife. For the first time since its founding, Ross Publishing wouldn’t be mine. It wouldn’t be our family’s.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “With what?”

  “The company,” I whispered. “Do you have plans for it? What are you going to do with the assets?”

  He blinked at me. “What I told you. I’m going to make Ross Publishing profitable again.”

  “That sounds like a bad campaign slogan.”

  “But it’s also the truth, and I hope you and Ashton are part of that work.”

  “What I mean is—” I broke off and looked out the front windshield. “You say that, but it’s really up to you, isn’t it? You can do whatever you want with it.” I braced my elbow on the armrest and rubbed my forehead with my right hand. “No matter what you think now… we won’t be able to stop you from selling off the pieces, if that’s what you want. You can literally do anything—”

  He caught my shoulder. “Ainsley, where is this coming from?”

  Our gazes locked once more. “I’ve just been worried,” I said. “We’re giving up a lot. I’m giving up a lot. You have the power here, not us.”

  “What did I tell you and Ashton the first time that I made this offer?” He held my arm tighter. “I want to fix the company, not sell it off into smaller pieces. Making a quick buck off your family’s downfall isn’t my main goal.”

  “It isn’t? What is your main goal, then? I thought this was about becoming ‘someone’ in society.”

  “It is, but—”

  “But what?”

  He shook his head. “To be honest, this is really about something else.” He faltered, paused. “I haven’t wanted to admit this, but it’s probably time to tell you the truth. I screwed up all those years ago. Royally. I burned a bridge with your father right after my own father died. We had a chance to mend fences, a chance to repair the relationship between our two families, and I didn’t let it happen. I’ve regretted that ever since.”

  Trevor leaned a little closer to me, and the musky, rich smell of his cologne filled my nostrils. Once again, the familiar spark of attraction ignited in my stomach, and I wanted more of it—the delicious feeling of being on the edge of something, on the perimeter of a reality that I’d never expected to consider with a man I’d never thought I’d see again.

  “So, I’m the one who needs this, Ainsley,” he murmured. “More than you realize.”

  I didn’t reply; the moment didn’t call for it. Instead, we stared at each other for a long time. Implication wrapped around us; it sank into every nook and cranny of the car interior.

  Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to?

  Oh, god, I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but yes, I do…

  “You’re a fun date,” he finally said. “I had a great time.”

  “Me too.” I glanced down at the envelope on the console between us, which held all the details about the Romanov crystal bowl Trevor had also recklessly bought during the mi
ddle of the live auction. He’d been in a bidding war, and as I watched, he’d driven the price higher and higher, determined to win and to make an impression on the rest of the moneyed crowd at the tables. “You’ll have to figure out where to display this bowl, too.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “We will.”

  I sucked in a breath. We. We will. There it was again. Something had changed—I was almost sure of it. I waited for a moment, wondering if he’d take this second opportunity to kiss me.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he said, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon so that we can look at what we want to put on the registry. Goodnight, Ainsley.”

  The following afternoon found us in front of a long array of glass bowls, vases, candlesticks, and serving trays at the Chez Julian boutique in the middle of Worth Avenue. When we walked in, I wondered if the sales associate could smell my money; she got a look on her face that told me she expected to make her next sale off us, and she expected to make a big one. As fast as she could, she whipped out trays of heavy serving ware, then proceeded to tell us why each larger one was better than the last.

  “Whichever one you want,” I told Ainsley, who held a pink crystal candlestick in one hand, and a turquoise one rimmed with gold in the other. “They are both wonderful. Register for each of them, if you like.”

  She cocked her head. “You’ve said that same thing about every piece we’ve looked at this morning.”

  I shrugged. “I want you to have whatever you desire.”

  The sales associate tittered. “How wonderful.” She had a clipped accent that sounded Eastern European. “Don’t we all wish we could have a man like you in our lives?”

  Ainsley knitted her eyebrows together and I wondered if she was getting annoyed with this woman, too. “Be careful. Don’t stroke his ego too hard.”

  A pulse traveled through my core when she said those two seductive words, stroke and hard. I wanted her. I did. I’d wanted her for quite some time, and I knew it. Why else would I be going to all this trouble? Why else would I have gone out of my way to impress her? Ainsley intrigued me in ways no woman had in years.

  She turned back to the sales associate. “These are all beautiful, but I have something else in mind, to be honest. I’d like something simpler.”

  The sales associate lifted her thick, exaggerated eyebrow. “Something simpler? Surely you don’t think—”

  Ainsley placed the candlesticks on the velvet tray. “No, I’m quite sure. These are too large, and ultimately, that’s not my style.” She pointed at the first tray on the counter, the one she’d asked to see just after we’d arrived at the store. “I prefer these for the registry”

  She meant an artistic red vase with a matching serving tray and four candlesticks.

  The sales associate nodded, though an expression of slight disgust seemed to cross her face for the briefest of moment. “Of course. That’s the prefect choice. It will make a beautiful addition to any home.”

  We added those and formal china place settings for twelve to the list, then tossed in a few random pieces of art that I doubted any of our guests would purchase for us. About fifteen minutes later, when we stepped outside the store and back onto Worth Avenue, Ainsley’s body language had changed.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  She shook her head, but her attention wasn’t on me anymore, it was on something else, something in the distance, something that I couldn’t touch. “What are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?”

  “Nothing.” I glanced at my watch. “Sunday funday, right? I’m free until six thirty, when I have to be at the airport to board the jet.”

  My private plane left on my schedule, but I needed to get back to New York. The work week would come quickly, and that meant back-to-back meetings as Ashton and I moved forward on the deal. Even staying until six thirty in Palm Beach felt like pushing it.

  Ainsley focused on me once again. “Good. We still have a few hours.”

  My heart beat a little faster at the prospect of spending even more time with her. This weekend had gone better than I’d expected—much better. “We do.”

  “Let’s go, then. I want to show you something.” A smile crept across her face. “Something that means a lot to me.”

  I knew the kind of reputation that I had. What people thought of me. The perception they had when I made a first impression. Hell, I had even cultivated it over the years. Reveled in it. Most people thought of me as a pampered, spoiled, lazy socialite with little inside her head besides shoe trends and anecdotes about the latest society parties.

  It wasn’t the best thing in life to be, and for the last few weeks I’d been realizing it. For most of my life, I’d never had to worry about where I’d get my next meal, if I’d get into college, or what to do if my home went into foreclosure—which would never have happened in the first place. I didn’t have those kinds of concerns.

  But that had also meant that I spent most of my life searching for something.

  “Just stay on this road,” I told Trevor when he drove his car across the Southern Bridge from Palm Beach into West Palm. “It’s about a forty-minute drive.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I sank into the soft leather seat and watched the city streets fade into large swaths of farmland that made up the central section of the county. It was one of the more beautiful parts of the area, and I liked the reassuring flatness that made up the western half of the place I called home.

  “Ever been out this way?” I asked as we crossed into the open country.

  “Nope.” Trevor glanced at me. “First time for everything.”

  We fell silent for a few moments, and after a while, he turned on the radio in the center console of the car. A distinctive wail and a backbeat amplified by saxophones and synthesizers floated through the speakers.

  “Oh, my god.” I laughed. “Are you listening to yacht rock? Is this Michael McDonald?” I widened my eyes. “It is!”

  A smile pulled at the corner of Trevor’s mouth, but he kept his focus on driving. “So what? Who cares if it is?”

  “Yacht rock?” I straightened in the seat and turned to face him full on. “Come on. This is beyond parody.”

  “I happen to like it.” He tapped the volume button on the steering wheel and the wails of Michael McDonald pushed through the speakers, then faded into the smooth stylings of Christopher Cross. “It’s relaxing.”

  I threw my head back and let out a laugh. “I’ve never heard anyone describe this kind of music that way. Cheesy? Yes. But relaxing? No.”

  He braced his left hand on the wheel and leaned cross the seat, his gaze fixed on me. “Give it a chance,” he said softly. “You might like it.”

  “I certainly know all the words. God, they always play this kind of music at Colony Hotel pool.”

  “Because they know what’s good for them. This is like the anthem of Palm Beach, isn’t it? Easy-listening, adult contemporary for the champagne and caviar social set.”

  Smiling, I shook my head. “Nice description."

  As Christopher Cross wished for a better life on the water, Trevor lip-synched the words, too, making exaggerated movements and snapping his fingers. It was the 1980s all over again, minus the bad hair; after a moment, I gave in and sang what I remembered of the lyrics, too. Christopher Cross faded into Phil Collins, then Fleetwood Mac, and finally Lionel Richie. By then, we were both belting the songs as we pushed farther away from the island that sometimes stifled me.

  “That was nice,” I said when he turned down the music after the fifth song we’d sung together. “I can’t remember the last time that I let myself unwind like that.”

  “Me either.” He tapped out the beat of the next song on the leather steering wheel. “I don’t relax very much. Not my style.”

  “Why am I not surprised? It’s all about the next acquisition, isn’t it? The next thing.”

  He nodded. “I’ve spent t
he last decade climbing the ladder as fast as I can. Not going to stop now.”

  We were getting close to our destination, so I turned my focus back to the directions that I needed to give him. “Turn here,” I said when we reached the outskirts of Belle Glade. “And take another left at the first light.”

  Another five minutes, and we arrived at the two-year-old building with the words, Ross Recreation Center stamped across the front. I’d invested in it with the money I’d syphoned off my trust fund and some of the money Ashton had provided me, and now, admiring the large, blue, one-story building, sudden pride washed through me, strumming along my heartstrings. We parked in the visitor parking outside, and when we got out of the vehicle, Trevor had wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.

  “I had no idea.”

  “No one does.” I shut the car door. “And I like keeping it that way. Better to be anonymous. Well, as anonymous as having your name on a building can be.”

  I joined Trevor at the front of the car, and we strode to the door of the facility. It wasn’t the largest rec center ever built, but my chest still swelled with pride when we entered it. Over the course of about eighteen months, I’d managed to pull this off, and to cobble together enough money to create a facility that housed an after-school program for 150 Belle Glade elementary school students, a gymnasium, game room, tutoring program, and playground.

  When we walked through the front doors, Elizabeth, the assistant director, sprang up from behind the long reception desk. “Ainsley—we didn’t expect you today.” Elizabeth rushed around the desk and pulled me into a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too,” I said into her fluffy, festive sweater, which featured outlandish embroidery and more than one stain. After we broke the hug, she smoothed it over her protruding stomach and blushed.

  “We’d have made more of a fuss if we knew you were coming.”

  “Nonsense.” I waved my hand. “Surprise visits are more fun, anyway.”

  Elizabeth’s attention turned to Trevor, and she cocked her head as she regarded him. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”