EXES - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance Novel

by Aria Hawthorne

  “I received it from Milan van Stein’s widow herself—Miriam van Stein.”

  Madame van der Meer paused to allow the significance of her answer to be absorbed by Alma. “You see...I was born and raised in Amsterdam where my father was a well-known art dealer, and Milan and my father were very good friends. And very smart men. They both realized that Hitler posed a grave threat to not just our country, but all of Europe. For this reason, when I was just a little girl, my father arranged for my mother and me to leave for America, along with as many works of priceless art and jewelry from his shop as we could carry. Milan convinced his wife to travel with us. During our trip, she smuggled all twelve of her wristwatches out of Amsterdam. Years later, she passed them onto me. She said she always considered me the daughter she never had.”

  Alma stared at Madame van der Meer, barely able to formulate her thoughts into words. “Then they are truly priceless pieces of history and artistry, and I can’t even begin to place a value on it…something likely north of—”

  “No, please—” Madame van der Meer’s fragile hand rested onto Alma’s arm to silence her, as if a declaration of its monetary value would sully the work itself. “I simply would prefer to have the assurance that it is the right gift to give to my future daughter-in-law. She’s not your average woman, impressed by royal jewels and wealth. But I hope if I tell her the story of Milan and his wife, and ask her to care for it on my behalf, perhaps she will accept it.”

  Alma peered down at the watch one last time, considering all the years of love and adoration its maker had symbolized with its beauty. “I’m sure she will be honored to receive it from you. It’s a very generous gesture.”

  Madame nodded in appreciation. “Thank you for your time. I shall call you next week to arrange an appointment to appraise the rest of the watch collection. I would like to see them passed onto a private collector or museum curator who will do something more with them than I have.”

  “It would be our pleasure,” Alma’s father insisted, pushing past Alma to the shop door and opening it for Madame van der Meer.

  Madame van der Meer took up the jewelry roll and deposited it in her black, hand-beaded clutch before bidding Alma and her father farewell with a nod of her aquiline profile. This time, Alma resisted the urge to curtsy—but just barely.

  As she watched Madame van der Meer pass out of her father’s shop, Alma marveled at the realization that she likely was one of only a handful of antiques experts who had actually seen an authentic Milan van Stein wristwatch.

  “Please let’s encourage her to keep them,” Alma petitioned her father. While most antique dealers would push to publicly catalogue the entire collection in preparation for selling them at auction, Alma felt the need to protect their existence like a secret.

  Enrique Castillo raised his eyebrow at the urgency in his daughter’s voice. “Within the local community, Madame van der Meer is a great patron of the arts. She has donated the majority of her Impressionist paintings to the Art Institute and her Royal Jewelry collection is the main tourist attraction within the lobby of the Old Main Post Office. If she chooses to make the collection available to the public—either for sale or for donation—we should be prepared to assist her with the appraisal.”

  The thought of Milan’s watches—private gifts to his wife—being sold at a public auction broke her heart.

  Enrique Castillo reached out and cupped his daughter’s chin, reading the distinct frown on her face. “You’re a romantic at heart, Alma, and it is admirable. But the reality is that nothing remains hidden forever. Even our deepest fears or our most intimate secrets must always be eventually confronted or confessed. Sooner or later, everything concealed in the darkness comes into the light. And for beautiful, priceless works of art, there has never been an exception.”

  He nodded over to her rescued Tiffany windowsill, knowing that it proved his point.

  “There is one exception,” she muttered, turning away from him.

  Her father smirked and placed his hands on his hips, just above his meticulously polished black leather belt. “Ah, claro que sí…your favorite art history legend—the whereabouts of Tiffany’s Eternal Love.”

  “It still hasn’t been found,” Alma sassed back.

  “Well, there’s a perfectly valid explanation for that,” he mused, as if he was enjoying her childish belief in a myth. “Because it does not exist.” His sharp Argentinian accent punctuated his skepticism.

  Like a silent act of defiance, Alma replaced her leather gloves over her hands and the bulky magnification loupe over her eyes and returned to her work. She knew Louis Comfort Tiffany’s history better than her father, and perhaps even better than any other antiques expert or art historian in Chicago, but still, she knew her father was right about one thing—there was no verified historical documentation of the existence of Tiffany’s most mythical stained-glass window. There was only her own hopeless romantic desire that it was out there, somewhere, still awaiting discovery.

  The startling ring of the vintage rotary phone ended their discussion. Enrique answered it while Alma replayed their conversation in her mind. It wasn’t until he hung up and addressed her again that she knew someone important had called.

  “Well, it looks like you might be right after all,” he teased, lifting his wool jacket and fedora from the nearby ornamental coat rack, as if he was preparing to depart the shop. “That was Jacques Blanc, calling for you.”

  Alma rolled her eyes. “Annnnnnd?” she drawled, feigning ignorance. She knew full well it was the fifth time Jacques had called her, and he still couldn’t get the hint that she was avoiding him.

  “This time, he says he has found something that will interest you.”

  Completely uninterested, Alma lowered her loupe and set about cleaning dirt from the corner of her windowsill. “Like what?”

  “The site of a few unclaimed Tiffany treasures.”

  Chapter Four

  Accelerating the throttle, Harvey Zale navigated his new speedboat like a racecar toward the narrow fork separating the North and South Branches of the Chicago River, as if he fully intended to crash into it. He gripped the steering wheel and endured the vibrations from the revving engine, barely clearing the curving wake of choppy, frothy waters churning behind him. That was how he liked to make his mark on the world and today was no different.

  Along the way, he had raced past at least five of his downtown properties. None of them were remarkable contributions to Chicago’s architectural history, nor were they memorable works of modern engineering like Miranda Towers or The Spire. But all of them were towering high-rises offering commercial space—fully leased and in the black. It was a simple mercenary business that made him a rich man without any obligations to the world other than his own goals to turn a bigger profit than his competition every time he bought and sold a property.

  He cruised past all the historic riverfront warehouse buildings that had since been converted into luxury condominiums with added balconies and manicured riverwalks. If he had owned those warehouses, he would have torn down all of them and modernized the area with skyscrapers, maximizing the profitability of every square foot. Sure, he would have been hated by the local community for standardizing the riverfront into a row of gaudy mirrored properties, severely lacking in historic charm or architectural merit. But then again, he was already hated by the local community for routinely bringing his brand of profitability to Chicago’s downtown—the bottom line above all else.

  Harvey reduced his speed and guided the boat’s hull up to the dock of his riverfront home, a mid-century modern haven with a series of Weese-inspired glass triangles, each rising higher than the next one in an eclectic series of sharp peaks and flaring angles. During the day, it looked like a surreal crystal garden, floating between industrial plants and converted warehouse condos. At night, it was a nautical prism of transparency and solitude, completely translucent to anyone who dared to view its interior. It was still one of the best kept s
ecrets, the fact that he routinely slept at his riverfront house. Almost everyone he knew assumed he resided at the top of the world in a lavish penthouse at the pinnacles of one of his downtown skyscrapers.

  Those who assumed they knew him were often wrong.

  And every time he hopped over the stainless-steel rails of his speedboat to moor it, the rough sensation of the braided rope against his palms invigorated him—living on the edge of the water was like living on the edge of life. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  His phone rang.

  Swaggering along the glinting metallic slats of the pier, he fished out his phone from the jacket of his black leather coat, which protected him from the vicious March wind. He had just come from a business deal where he’d finalized the terms of the contract that would allow him to construct the tallest buildings in the world—the Li Long Towers in Shanghai. He was waiting to hear from his real estate lawyer that everything was moving forward with the sale of the property that would ensure he could finance it. He’d already bought and flipped plenty of buildings for twice what he bought them for, but the sale of his riverfront parcel—an irregular swath of overgrown prairie land along the river’s North Branch bought nearly two decades ago—promised to turn him a fortune. Back then, nobody wanted to build on the polluted river behind the city, except for opportunistic men like Harvey Zale who took pride in owning a piece of Chicago’s blighted history—and the dirtier, the better.

  He answered the call. “Tell me the good news, darlin’.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re in a good mood,” the woman’s gravelly voice teased through his phone, “because I don’t think you’re going feel like celebrating after what I have to tell you.”

  Harvey stopped outside the gate of his house and frowned.

  “They’ve stopped the demolition over at the prairie,” she continued. “Jacques is there now.”

  “We’re closing in a week, Nicolette…” Harvey paused, feeling his blood pressure rise. “The parcel needs to be cleared before then.”

  “Yes, Harvey, dear…I know. But word has gotten out that you’re tearing down an old historic train depot without a permit and The City of Chicago intends to stop you.”

  “The City? Or Jacques Blanc?”

  “What do you think?” she replied, her voice growing huskier after a long indulgent drag.

  “Here’s what I think,” he answered. “One hour. I’ll be at the property in one hour, and if I have to, I’ll gladly be the one who operates the bulldozer, especially if Jacques attempts to stand in my way.”

  It wasn’t a veiled threat. Harvey had paid his way through college by joining the union and working weekends on the demolition crew for developers who were re-gentrifying the South Side. In that moment, he had every intention of plowing down Jacques Blanc.

  “Harvey, dear,” Nicolette said, attempting to rein him in. “I don’t like our little French friend—and his preservation crusade—any more than you do. But Harvey…there’s a lot of money at stake here and we can’t afford for you to go off the rails, making this personal.”

  “Don’t worry, Nicolette. It’s not personal,” Harvey fumed. “It’s war.”

  Chapter Five

  When Harvey arrived outside the run-down train depot, his only emotion was fury. The bulldozer was completely idle and the main wooden structure was still fully intact.

  He expected to see an army of picketers surrounding the perimeter of the building, cursing his name and waving protest signs with slogans like CAPITALIST PIG and CHOOSE PRESERVATION, NOT PROFIT.”

  But as he trudged over the wrought iron railroad tracks, sunken into the ground and hidden by brush and weeds, he noted only silence as the wind rustled the overgrown prairie grass. An eerie disquiet, he thought, like a cemetery without headstones, only unmarked abandoned graves.

  “Somebody better have a really good reason for not following orders,” he announced from outside the train depot, knowing his booming voice would carry through the cracked panes of the ornamental stained-glass windows that decorated the exterior of the building. Why anyone would bother to spruce up an industrial train depot with colorful stained glass and imported teakwood shutters was beyond his comprehension, but he certainly didn’t have any qualms about destroying the whole damn thing now.

  “A reason très excellent!” The French accent called back like a bad punchline.

  “Tray ex-sell-ont,” Harvey exaggerated with a grumble, repeating the effusive French phrase with disgust.

  Wading through a maze of brush and ivy that camouflaged the front entrance, he emerged through the heavy wooden doors with grass in his hair and flecks of bark in his mouth.

  “Bonjour, Harvey. So glad that you could finally make it.” Jacques’ pearly smile flashed like a camera bulb, putting Harvey on edge, making him want to punch the man who spoke like he should be serving him a fine steak, not thwarting the hundred million dollar sale of his property.

  “Boner, Jacques,” Harvey repeated back, intentionally butchering Jacques’ chipper French accent with his less elegant, Chicago-inspired one. “I got the call that you and your entourage were trespassing on private property and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to throw you off my land with my very own two hands.”

  Jacques gleefully turned to Harvey and squared off in front of him. “That won’t be necessary,” Jacques retorted, slapping the official summons into Harvey’s hands. “I’m entitled to be here on behalf of the City of Chicago. You are in violation of Section A398, which states that you must have a permit to demolish this structure.”

  Harvey peered down at the summons. Then, he glared at Jacques’ silk patterned neck scarf and matching pocket square tucked neatly beneath the lapels of his double-breasted cocoa brown twill coat. He sniffed the air, expecting to catch a whiff of women’s perfume mixed with…manure. That was always his experience when interacting with Jacques—odeur de toillete.

  “It’s private property, Frenchy. Pr-iiii-vaaaaaate,” Harvey stressed. “Do you need a direct translation of private? It means: none of your business. Kinda like all those naked selfies you send to your mother every night is none of my business. Revolting, for sure. But none of my business.”

  Rodrigo, Harvey’s silent hulking foreman, snorted out his laughter. He’d been standing in the corner with his sledgehammer since Harvey’s arrival, just waiting for his boss to give the order. Harvey smirked, appreciating the audience.

  A satisfied smile crossed Jacques’ face, as if he enjoyed the insult because it gave him the chance to prove he had the upper hand.

  “It is my business, Monsieur Zale, because we believe that it is a historic building, one of the last historic train depots along the North Branch line. And just because you are planning to destroy it and sell the parcel to someone else does not mean the rest of the world should permit you to do it.”

  Harvey shifted his gaze to Rodrigo, who wrung the handle of the sledgehammer with his massive hands. He and his crew had already plowed a gaping hole through the exterior brick wall on the south end of the train depot, and were impatiently waiting to finish the job. Harvey knew Rodrigo had four kids and a wife who expected him to be home by five-thirty sharp every night for a home-cooked dinner. It was five minutes to five; the clock was ticking. They could easily smash down the rest of the wall in ten minutes flat the moment that Harvey nodded his command.

  Instead, Harvey drew the last straw of grass out of his hair and inserted it between his teeth, chewing on it like a cowboy. “I’m surprised you’re even bothering to pay attention to what I’m doing these days, Jack.” Crumpling the summons into a little ball, he dumped it back into Jacques’ palm. “It kinda flattering to know you’re my stalker.”

  “I do not need to be your stalker, Harvey.” Jacques smoothed out the summons and flattened it out like a victory flag. “You have made such an infamous reputation for yourself that it is easy to assume that every time you are selling a property, you are also most likely to be de
stroying something valuable in the process. The girls at City Hall keep me well-informed. Let’s just say that I take care of them and they take care of me.”

  Jacques swept his gaze across the train depot’s duplex interior before tacking the summons through an exposed nail, just above the narrow staircase leading up to the balcony.

  “You mean you send them your naked selfies, too?” Harvey quipped. “And they actually like it?”

  Rodrigo snorted again. Harvey chewed on the wad of the grass and spit a ball of it dangerously close to Jacques’ Italian leather shoes. The clock was ticking, but Harvey knew his crew didn’t expect him to surrender—especially not to a Frenchman wearing a neck scarf.

  “They were the same girls who issued me the summons,” Jacques countered, stepping forward to challenge him. “You would be surprised how much flowers, chocolates, and fine wine wins over a woman’s heart. That’s how I was able to woo your ex-wife. Let’s just say she was a bit starved for some…romantic attention.” He casually circled away, scanning the open rafters like he was inspecting his new home.

  Harvey locked eyes with Jacques. It had been all business until that moment—when Jacques clearly intended to make it personal in order to fucking piss him off. And it worked.

  “Yeah, romantic has never been my strong suit. I usually just focus on making a woman come—more than once. That usually does the trick.” Harvey kept his gun metal blue eyes fixed on Jacques. Extending out his hand to Rodrigo, he said, “Give me the keys to the bulldozer.”

  “Don’t—” Jacques held up his hand like a traffic cop and thrust himself forward, awkwardly sliding on the white marble floor, glazed with years of undisturbed dust. “Don’t be a showman, Harvey.”