MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE Read Online Free PDF Page B

meant to be a part of this conversation, she asked, “Then why are you going after the Montgomerys’ company? With ruthlessness or otherwise?”
    Peyton sat down again, still looking agitated. “Because that’s what Moss Holdings does. It’s what I do. I go after failing companies and acquire them for a fraction of what they’re worth, then make them profitable again. Mostly by shedding what’s unnecessary, like people and benefits. Then I sell those companies to someone else for a huge profit. Or else I dismantle them and sell off their parts to the highest bidder for a pile of cash. Either way, I’m not the kind of guy people like to see coming. Because it means the end of jobs, traditions and a way of life.”
    In other words, she translated, what he did led to the dissolution of careers and income, plunging people into the sort of environment he’d had to claw his way out of when he was a teenager.
    “Then why do you do it?” she asked.
    His answer was swift and to the point. “Because it makes me huge profits and piles of cash.”
    She would have asked him why making money was so important that he would destroy jobs and alienate people, but she already knew the answer. People who grew up poor and underprivileged often made making money their highest priority. Many thought if they just had enough money, it would make everything in their life all right and expurgate feelings of want and need. Some were driven enough to become tremendous successes—at making money, anyway. As far as making everything in their life right and expurgating feelings of want and need, well...that was a bit trickier.
    Funnily, it was often people like Ava, who had grown up with money and been afforded every privilege, who realized how wrong such a belief was. Money didn’t make everything all right, and it didn’t expurgate feelings of anything. Sure, it could ease a lot of life’s problems. But it didn’t change who a person was at her core. It didn’t magically chase away bad feelings or alleviate stresses. It didn’t make other people respect or admire or love you. At least not for the right reasons. And it didn’t bring with it the promise of...well, anything.
    “And jeez, why am I even telling you all this?” Peyton said with exasperation.
    Although she was pretty sure he didn’t expect an answer for that, either, Ava told him, “I don’t know. Maybe because you need to vent? Although why would you need to vent about a business deal, seeing as you make them all the time? Unless there’s something about this particular business deal that’s making you feel like...how did you put it? A bully and a jerk.”
    “Anyway,” he said, ignoring the analysis, “for the sake of good PR and potential future projects, my board of directors thought it would be better to not go after the Montgomery sisters the way I usually go after a company—by yanking it out from under its unsuspecting owners. They think I should try to—” he made a restless gesture “—to...finesse it out from under them with my charm and geniality.”
    Somehow, the words finesse and Peyton Moss just didn’t fit, never mind the charm and genialitystuff. Ava did manage to keep her mouth shut this time. But he seemed to need to talk about what had brought him back here, and for some reason, she hesitated to stop him.
    “The BoD think it will be easier to fend off lawsuits and union problems if I can charm the company away from the Montgomerys instead of grabbing it from them. So they sent me back here to, and I quote, ‘exorcise your street demons, Peyton, and learn to be a gentleman.’ They’ve even set me up with some Henry Higgins type who’s supposed to whip me into shape. Then, when I’m all nice and polished, they’ll let me come back to San Francisco and go after Montgomery and Sons. But nicely, ” he added wryly. “That way, my tarnished reputation will stay only tarnished and not firebombed into oblivion.”
    Now he looked at Ava as if