MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online Page A

Henry Higginses and millionaire matchmakers while you were in town.”
    He grinned halfheartedly and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Both actions were probably intended to make him look comfortable, but neither really did.
    “Yeah... Well... Actually...” He took a breath, released it slowly and tried again. “Actually, that’s kind of why I’m here.”
    He gestured toward the only other chair in the office and asked, “Mind if I sit down?”
    “Of course not,” she replied. Even though she did kind of mind, because doing that would bring him closer, and then she would be the one trying to look comfortable when she felt anything but.
    He folded himself into the other chair and continued to look uneasy. She waited for him to say something, but he only looked around the office, his gaze falling first on the Year in Fashion calendar on the wall—for April, it was Pierre Cardin—then on the fat issues of Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire that lined the top shelf of her desk, then lower, on the stack of catalogs sitting next to the employee schedule she’d been working on, and then—
    Oh, dear. The employee schedule, which had her name and hours prominently at the top. Hastily, she scooped up the catalogs and laid them atop the schedule, tossing her pencil onto both.
    He finally returned his gaze to her face. “The Henry Higgins didn’t work out.”
    “What happened?”
    His gaze skittered away again. “He told me I had to stop swearing and clean up my language.”
    Ava bit her lip to keep from smiling, since, to Peyton, this was clearly an insurmountable problem. “Well, if you’re going to be dealing with two sweet little old ladies from Mississippi who are in their eighties and wear hats and white gloves, that’s probably good advice.”
    “Yeah, but the Montgomery sisters are like five states away. They can’t hear me swearing in Chicago.”
    “But if it’s a habit, now is a good time to start breaking it, since—”
    “Dammit, Ava, I can stop swearing anytime I want to.”
    “Oh, really?” she said mildly.
    “Hell, yes.”
    “I see.”
    “And you should have seen the suits he tried to put me into,” Peyton added.
    “Well, suits are part and parcel for businesspeople,” Ava pointed out, “especially those in your position. You were wearing a suit at Basilio’s the other night. What’s the sudden problem with suits?”
    “The problem wasn’t suits. It was the suits this guy wanted to put me into.”
    She waited for him to explain, and when he didn’t, asked, “Could you be a little more specific?”
    He frowned. “One was purple. Oh, excuse me,” he quickly corrected himself. “I mean eggplant. The other was the same color green the guys on the team used to spew after getting bodychecked too hard.”
    Ava thought for a minute, then said, “Loden, I think, is the color you’re looking for.”
    “Yeah. That’s it.”
    “Those are both very fashionable colors,” she said. “Especially for younger guys like you. Sounds to me like Henry knew his stuff.”
    Peyton shook his head. “Suits should never be anything except gray, brown or black. Not slate, not espresso, not ebony,” he added in a voice that indicated he’d already had this conversation with Henry Higgins. “Gray. Brown. Black. Maybe, in certain situations, navy blue. Not midnight,” he said when she opened her mouth to comment. “Navy blue. They sure as hell shouldn’t be purple or puke-green.”
    Ava closed her mouth.
    “And don’t get me started on the etiquette lessons the guy said I had to take,” Peyton continued. “Or all that crap about comportment. Whatever the hell that is. He even tried to tell me what I can and can’t eat in a restaurant.”
    “Peyton, all of those things are important when it comes to dealing with people in professional situations. Especially when you’re conducting business with people who do it old school, the way it sounds like the Montgomery sisters do.”
    He