Table of Contents
Title Page
Bonus Book
Publisher’s Notes
CHAPTER 1 – The Artist and the Earl
CHAPTER 2 - Exhibition
CHAPTER 3 – Delicious Luxury
CHAPTER 4 – Two Purple Lines
CHAPTER 5 - Facade
CHAPTER 6 – Lady Amelia
CHAPTER 7 - Luck
CHAPTER 8 – The Social Ladder
CHAPTER 9 - Awakening
About The Author
THE BRITISH BILLIONAIRE'S BABY
By Cristina Grenier
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Publisher’s Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Monster Media LLC
CHAPTER 1 – The Artist and the Earl
It was perfect.
Unable to keep herself from smiling widely, Gabrielle Arnold gazed at the paint-streaked canvases before her with no small amount of pride. She’d been working on this piece for months and to finally see the culmination of her efforts was, as always, something worth waiting for.
The canvases sat before her, a three foot by five foot stretch that she had used her bare hands to cover in a myriad of colors and streaks. Though the piece seemed abstract by nature, Gabrielle had put thought into every detail, resulting in a well-balanced work that brought together several of her favorite themes: Freedom, passion, and diversity.
She herself was covered in the paint she liked to use from head to toe. Though she had specific clothes she was supposed to wear while she painted- old, used garments – she wasn’t beyond working in whatever she was wearing when inspiration struck her. This evening, she had ruined an old college t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans perhaps eight years old.
It was well worth it.
Clothes could be replaced – but the feeling that came from seeing her creativity personified – that was priceless.
“Oh, darling, that’s spectacular.”
She turned to see her long-time friend Tristan as he stepped into the room from the landing. As always, she was struck by the figure he cut – over six feet tall, clad impeccably in a black tailored suit with a red tie, his long dark hair plaited down his back and tied with a ribbon. The way he dressed was a bit archaic, but Tristan could afford not to give one whit what people thought of him. The successful interior designer had long made a name for himself and did as he pleased – in the most flamboyant of fashions.
In his hands he carried a wooden tray upon which sat a steaming muffin and a cup of coffee. It was around seven in the morning, and Gabrielle had been working all night. She, of course, hadn’t noticed the hours fly by. It was often like that when she lost herself in her work. “The lines are so crisp. And I like that you started with the epicenter here.”
Tristan set the tray down on a nearby table, fairly gliding over to the canvases to take a closer look. Gabrielle grinned as she watched him, unable to keep from thinking that it wasn’t quite fair that a man a foot taller than her could move with such inherent grace. Then again, she was sure that Tristan’s legs would probably look better than hers in heels – if he didn’t strut his stuff with twice the efficiency.
Ah the trials and tribulations of having a companion who attracted more men than you did. Bending, over, Tristan peered at some of the smaller details of the piece, his honey-colored eyes approving. “I think I like this one better than the last one.”
“’Devoted’?” Gabrielle inquired, wiping her forehead with the back of a hand and thusly smearing paint all over the last part of her body not already covered in it. “But I love ‘Devoted’.”
“Of course you do. So do I. This one just has a certain something...special.” Turning, Tristian snorted at the sight of his paint-covered friend. “Oh dear, Gabrielle. You’re in desperate need of a shower.”
“Food first.” The young woman punctuated, drifting towards the table where Tristan had set her food. She did her best to wipe her hands off on her jeans before touching his precious hand-picked ceramic mug. Judging by the expression on his face, she had done well. At any rate, he didn’t break out into hysterics as she took her first sip of life- giving coffee. As she picked up her muffin as well, Tristan sank into a chair across from her – it had been thankfully covered with a drop cloth to save the expensive fabric from Gabrielle’s creativity.
“So is this one going into the selling lot then?”
Gabrielle rolled her eyes as she took another bite of her muffin, thanking God for lemon poppy seed. “They all go into the selling lot, Tristan, but you know good and well no one wants to buy them.”
“That’s not true, sweetheart. We just need to get your name out there. These things take time.”
“Right.” Gabrielle chuckled indulgently. “I think at this point we’ve both accepted that I’m going to be a starving artist for the foreseeable future.”
In fact, Gabby had gone through only a relatively short time under the impression that she might make any kind of fortune as an artist. When she’d gone to school, her father had warned her that majoring in something like pre-law or pre-med would be to her best interests. Art, he’d repeatedly told her even before they had lost contact, was no honest way to make a living.
Of course, at the time she’d been young and impulsive – too headstrong to take seriously the opinion of a man who’d only just started to try to get to know her after her mother’s untimely death. She’d majored in painting and never looked back.
It was during one of her pre-requisite classes that she’d met Tristan. He’d been modeling for the Nudes course and while most of the girls in the class were busy drooling over the lean muscles of his physique, she’d been trying not to laugh at the obvious eyes he’d been making at their professor - a distinguished but still handsome man twenty years his senior.
They’d bonded over speculation on the professor’s type, and even after ultimately finding that he was married with children older than they, their friendship had continued. Tristan had been there through the phase when she’d been convinced that her paintings would make her a star and in the lull afterward when she’d realized that trying to make a living as an artist in Manhattan was easier said than done.
Tristan was everything she wasn’t – successful, moneyed, and completely, utterly flaming. Even meeting the love of his life – a brooding architect by the name of Phillip who followed his husband’s lead - hadn’t changed his addiction to nights out and a fast-paced lifestyle. Though he was a full five years older than Gabby, she was sure his heart was younger than her, which contributed to his being one of the most amazing people she’d ever known.
He was kind enough to let her make her studio in the yet undecorated attic of his duplex in midtown. Gabrielle lived out of a one bedroom in Harlem that was barely bigger than a closet and even that was jam packed with supplies she used for painting. Though she knew it might be cheaper to move to one of the outer boroughs, she couldn’t bri
ng herself to leave the intoxicating hustle and bustle of the city.
If that meant she had to pull a few shifts at a nearby café to make ends meet, then so be it. She had been born and raised here, and she was sure her mother would roll over in her grave if she gave up on her dream and left.
“You know, I’ve been talking to Phillip about this wine bar in SoHo. They’re looking for up and coming artists to put in their space.”
Gabby finished the last few crumbs of her muffin before draining the remainder of her coffee. Though the caffeine gave her a nice little jolt, she knew it wouldn’t be long before her body crashed after a long night of work. Rent was due soon and she was going to have to pull some late hours at the café to make sure she had the money.
“Well, as always, let me know if it works out, but you know I’m not expecting miracles.” Setting the mug back down on the tray, the young woman took another look at her finished piece. She already knew what she was going to call it. The Escape. Beyond the painting, an antique mirror that Tristan was in conflict over rested against the wall and her own image was reflected back at her.
He was right. She was in desperate need of a shower.
Her caramel hued skin was flecked all over with paint in every color of the rainbow. There were even spots in her long hair, pinned in a haphazard knot at the top of her head. Her t-shirt was, without a doubt, ruined beyond repair, and her jeans could perhaps be salvaged. Though she was on the cusp of thirty, Gabrielle had yet to see signs of the wrinkles that her doctor and lawyer peers complained about. Her unique gray colored eyes were one of her mother’s lasting legacies and, thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about an expanding figure when most of her money went to rent.
Her small waist was set off by a chest that had begun to develop far too early for her comfort but had stopped before it had become completely ridiculous at a reasonable C cup, and though she would have loved to squeeze into the size four that Manhattan socialites seemed obsessed with, she had to settle for the eight that her hips dictated.
She wasn’t a woman who obsessed over manicures, pedicures, or the latest blowout. Gabby was happy if her copious tresses cooperated with her at all and she might own one bottle of dried out nail polish in an indistinguishable color. In short, her work consumed her, and despite Tristan’s efforts to take her to a spa and give her reprieve, Gabby would much rather wallow in oil paints and forget to do her laundry. She was, as Tristan had quoted many times, a hopeless case.
Which didn’t bother her in the least.
Unlike her companion, she wasn’t out to charm everything with a Y chromosome. Any man that Gabby dated very rapidly found that her only true lover was the canvases that haunted her dreams. Though she’d had a few affairs, none had lasted very long, and all of them had left her partners scratching their heads in confusion.
She was her own woman – a strange enigma that even other artists had a hard time understanding – and she liked it that way.
“Are you working today?”
Tristan chuckled at her inquiry. “Every day. My first appointment is at two this afternoon.”
“Isn’t Phillip coming back from Belfast this evening?”
“You remembered, for once.” Standing, the man crossed the room to her, searching for a clean place on her forehead before planting a fond kiss there. “Are you coming to dinner tonight then?”
Gabrielle frowned. “End of the month’s coming. I told Teddy I’d work at the café tonight.”
If anything, Tristan’s scowl was even deeper than her own. “You know I don’t like you working there. Theodore is a degenerate and they don’t even serve coffee, for the love of God.” Sticking her tongue out at him, Gabby merely shook her head. “A Paycheck is a paycheck.”
“Darling, you know you don’t have to do this. If you need a loan – a few month’s worth just while we work on getting your name out-”
A single warning look from the young woman stopped him in his tracks as Tristan swallowed the offer. It seemed like every week he was trying to get her to take his money in an effort to keep her from burning the candle at both ends. However, Gabby’s mother had taught her to depend on no one but herself, and as much as she adored Tristan, she wasn’t going to let him support her. He was already doing enough. “I’m going to go get that shower.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Let me know where you guys go for drinks after dinner. Maybe I can catch you for dinner.”
“Of course, darling.”
It was a better compromise this way anyway. She wouldn’t have been able to afford much for dinner as her funds stood now.
**
New York. It never changed.
He visited the city at least once a year for business and everyone was always in a rush to go nowhere, so wrapped up in their own little worlds that any attempts to distract them usually resorted in some kind of animosity.
Or perhaps that was just the New York State of Mind.
From the back of the limo, Sebastian watched the city through discreetly tinted windows. He’d gotten in mere hours ago and gone into a business meeting straight from the airport. As a result, he was jetlagged and hungrier than a horse. His usual room at the Ritz Carlton awaited him – and if he was lucky, he might just manage to duck his retainers and get a few hours of rest.
At that moment, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
Sebastian extracted the slim device to see who was calling and immediately groaned. Of course, it would be his mother. She never relented. Reluctantly, he answered.
“Hello, mother.”
“How are things going darling? Business strong?” The duchess of Raithwithe’s voice was cultured with the tones of British high society. Though Sebastian knew she had been born and bred to marry into a life in the spotlight, he sometimes couldn’t help thinking that his mother’s over the top speech was mostly just for show.
“It’s fine. I should be back in a few weeks.”
“Oh, but Sebastian, the Queen’s Ball is next Thursday.”
He scowled. Of course. The bloody ball. He’d specifically planned this trip so he could avoid attending the damn thing and here his mother was expecting him to return to Britain in a mere week at her whim. He’d be damned if he’d scurry back across the pond just to give her a few extra hours to brag about him as she attempted to set him up with eligible women who bored him out of his mind.
“I’ll have to miss it mother.”
“You wound me. I’ve told several mothers of wonderful ladies that you’d speak with their daughters. Bright, beautiful girls, all of them.”
“Mother, leaving New York in less than two weeks would be utterly impossible. I told you I was going to be gone for a month and so I shall be gone for a month.”
“Oh, can’t you make it three weeks, love? For me?”
Sebastian ground his teeth, praying for temperance. His mother knew exactly how to whittle him down. It was a caveat of being a part of British nobility that one could never escape one’s family. And Sebastian’s family was particularly torturous.
“I’ll see what I can do, mother.”
“Wonderful, sweet.” Now he would be expected to cut a month off of his business trip just to please her. He had a lot of rearranging to do. “Have a nice trip.”
“Of course.”
Once he’d hung up with her, he slumped back against the seat, in a black mood. In the ten minutes it took him to reach his hotel, he called ahead to have a bottle of whiskey with ice sent up to his room and he broke it open the moment he entered the suite.
As usual, three immense men clad impeccably in all black swept the room for danger as he poured himself a drink. Each of them was roughly the same size as he himself, picked for their forms and their ability to intimidate. Of course, each of them had also served a predetermined amount of time with the British Secret Service and were never to leave his side.
Personally, Sebastian found them a bit of an insult. He himself had had extensive hand-to -hand combat training and was we
ll versed in the use of a select few guns and knives. The experience had come from his own mandatory seven year stint in the British army. It had, oddly enough, been one of the most liberating experiences he’d had. Being in the armed forces had given him one of the only opportunities he’d ever had to escape his parents influence. Of course, their names and prestige had followed him, but in the service, he’d been able to build his own reputation, and he’d worked hard at it – earning not one, but two medals of valor during his service.
He’d been teased by his compatriots about his size – at almost six and a half feet tall and close to three hundred pounds of pure brawn, he was certainly no poncy, pencil-necked coward. Despite his parents’ protests, he’d chosen assignments in which he’d seen action in Middle East Ireland, and was better-rounded for it. It meant that he had a hard time making pleasantries with his cousins during social functions. While they had military titles as well, they were the kind earned from sitting around doing nothing while one’s parents pulled strings.
He tended to make people look twice wherever he went, and it wasn’t only because of his family name. According to his female relations, he supposedly cut quite the dashing figure. Tall, with pale skin, striking blue eyes and the thick, untamable locks signature of his family that fell to his shoulders in raven waves, more than a few women had swooned over him.
Batting close to forty, he had yet to marry.
Sebastian simply didn’t have the patience to deal with the plethora of women who came after him. Certainly, he’d had a token few encounters with them – but he’d learned well to hide his identity when it came to the casual lay. If he didn’t, then his partners would scramble after him, grabbing for money or making ridiculous claims.
And he didn’t dare lie with any of the nobility that his mother was so eager for him to hob knob with. Not after the fiasco in which one young duchess had lied about his seducing her in an attempt to wrangle him into marrying her.
She’d been all of nineteen years old.
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