MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t deserve it. But a person liked to have a little warning before she found herself in a situation like that. A person needed a little time to put on her protective armor. Especially a person who knew what a formidable force Peyton Moss could be.
    “There’s no one waiting for me at home,” she said softly in response to his question.
    Or anywhere else, for that matter. No one in her former circle of friends had wanted anything to do with her once she started living below the poverty line, and she’d stepped on too many toes outside that circle for anyone there to ever want to speak to her. Peyton would be no exception.
    When she looked up again, he was studying her with a scrutiny that made her uncomfortable. But all he said was, “So what did happen last night?”
    “You were in Basilio’s when I got there. I heard shouting in the bar and saw Dennis—he’s the bartender,” she added parenthetically, “talking to you. He suggested, um, that you might want a cup of coffee instead of another drink.”
    Instead of asking about the conversation, Peyton asked, “You know the bartender by name?”
    “Sure. And Basilio, the owner, and Marcus, the waiter who helped me get you to the car. I eat at that restaurant a lot.” It was the only one in the neighborhood she could afford when it came to entertaining potential clients and vendors. Not that she would admit that to Peyton.
    He nodded. “Of course you eat there a lot. Why cook for yourself when you can pay someone else do it?”
    Ava ignored the comment. Peyton really was going to believe whatever he wanted about her. It didn’t occur to him that sixteen years could mature a person and make her less shallow and more compassionate. Sixteen years evidently hadn’t matured him, if he was still so ready to think the worst of her.
    “Anyway,” she continued, “you took exception to Dennis’s suggestion that you’d had too much to drink—and you had had too much to drink, Peyton—and you got a little...belligerent.”
    “Belligerent?” he snapped. “I never get belligerent.”
    Somehow Ava refrained from comment.
    He seemed to realize what she was thinking, because he amended, “Anymore. It’s been a long time since I was belligerent with anyone.”
    Yeah, probably about sixteen years. Once he graduated from Emerson, all the targets of his belligerence—especially Ava Brenner—would have been out of his life.
    “Basilio was going to throw you out, but I...I mean, when I realized you were someone I knew...I...” She expelled a restless sound. “I told him you and I are... That we were—” Somehow, she managed not to choke on the words. “Old friends. And I offered to drive you home.”
    “And he let you?” Peyton asked. “He let you leave with some belligerent guy he didn’t know from Adam? Wow. I guess he really didn’t want to offend the regular cash cow.”
    Bristling, Ava told him, “He let me because you calmed down a lot after you recognized me. By the time Marcus and I got you into the car, you were actually being kind of nice. I know—hard to believe.”
    There. Take that, Mr. Belligerent Cow-Caller.
    “But once you were in the car,” she hurried on before he could comment, “you passed out. I didn’t have any choice but to bring you here. I roused you enough to get you into the apartment, but while I was setting up the coffee, you found your way to the bedroom and went out like a light again. I thought maybe you’d sleep it off in a few hours, but... Well. That didn’t happen.”
    “I’ve been working a lot the last few weeks,” he said shortly, “on a demanding project. I haven’t gotten much sleep.”
    “You were also blotto,” she reminded him. Mostly because the cow comment still stung.
    In spite of that, she wondered what kind of work he did and how he’d spent his life since they graduated. How long had he been in San Francisco? Was he married? Did he have children? Even as Ava told herself it didn’t matter,