The Tycoon's Seductive Revenge by Kristi Avalon Read Free Book Online Page B

about their find. Entering the Great Room, Carter went behind the empty hotel bar and helped himself to two glasses. Lifting the lid of the cooler, he scooped ice cubes into their cut-glass challises. Light golden liquid splashed over the ice.
    “Drink it straight?” he asked.
    She nodded. “Why ruin a good thing?”
    Carter reached over the bar and pulled her lips to his, sucking and tasting her, nibbling on her lower lip. “You are more than any man could ask for.”
    Ellie’s stomach flipped. She licked her lips then held up her glass. “To old times.”
    “To old times,” he echoed. He sent her a sultry stare over the rim of his glass as he drank, draining the entire thing in one gulp.
    Ellie didn’t fare so well. She managed two swigs before she choked and coughed. A trail of fire went from her throat to her gut. She made a horrible face and spat the remainder back into her glass. “I think I’ll take some cola with my rum,” she wheezed.
    “Good call.” He picked up the beverage gun and splashed dark soda into her glass, adding a dash to his own. Then he came out from behind the bar and pulled a stool right next to hers. He set his foot on her stool’s bottom rung, enclosing her between his muscular leg and the gleaming oak bar. “So what do you plan to do with your new-found loot?”
    She drew her lips to one side, considering the possibilities. “Well, it would be a great way to attract tourists, like you mentioned,” she said brightly.
    He peered at her. “You can do a lot more than that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Sell it, would be my recommendation.”
    “All of it?”
    “Keep the hotel stocked with a six-month supply, to get people’s attention. But with a stash like that, you’re better off auctioning it to the highest bidder.”
    Running a hand through her hair, she admitted, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
    Carter dug out his wallet. “I know this broker who might be able to help you. At least he’d be helping somebody,” he muttered like an afterthought.
    Withdrawing a stack of cards that could rival a Fortune 500 CEO’s rolodex, he sifted through them. Ellie noted the discard pile contained plenty of high-profile people in the hotel industry. “Don’t you have someone to keep track of your communications?”
    He continued sorting. “Sure, Mirella is great handling my day-to-day contacts and phone calls. But I’m a hands-on kind of guy.”
    Mirella? How many women did he interact with on a daily basis? She watched him discard several other business cards that had phone numbers scribbled on them, undeniably in female handwriting. How many girls passed him their numbers every night? How many women was he dating?
    Ellie exhaled, appalled with herself. What did it matter? She wasn’t his keeper. He could talk to any woman he wanted.
    “Here we go.” Carter slid a business card across the bar, pocketing the rest. “Call Neville. He’ll get the connection to big-name auction houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s.” He sipped his drink, while she accepted the broker’s business card. “Tell him you won’t accept less than one million.”
    “Dollars?” Ellie nearly choked. That amount covered all her father’s debts and back-taxes, putting the hotel in the clear. But it wouldn’t include the renovations necessary to bring to hotel back to half of its former glory. “You really think the liquor and wine is worth that much?”
    “Collectors can be rabid when it comes to their obsession. The stash could go for even more.”
    She took a sip of her rum, this one more palatable than the first, and wondered, “Carter, how did you know the secret room was there?”
    “I went down to the basement earlier to inspect the pipes and boilers. At one point I was following this series of pipes along the ceiling when I noticed one pipe separated from the others and disappeared overhead. I didn’t remember a room there. Curious, I dug a space around the pipe since the wood was