The Billionaire Gets His Way Read Online Free PDF Page A

he could ensure she would have to endure legal expenses she couldn’t afford—although her book was selling well, that was money she wouldn’t collect until she received her first royalty statement next year, and until then, she had to subsist on her modest advance. Not to mention this was the sort of thing that could drag on for a very long time, something that could potentially drain everything she made anyway.
    And at worst, Mr. Paisley Silk Shorts could conceivably find a judge who was sympathetic enough about his charges to put a halt to the presses and book promotion until the legal battle could be settled. And considering the capriciousness of the reading public—out of sight, out of mind and all that—such a freeze of sales could spell the death knell of her career just when it was starting to take off. What publisher was going to want to stay with a writer who landed herself in legal trouble the first time out of the gate?
    Now, as she stood across the street from a steel-and-glass Michigan Avenue high-rise, Violet withdrew the business card from the pocket of her most recently rented designer duds—a crimson-colored Ellen Tracy suit over an ivory shell that, together, retailed for more than a family of five consumed in groceries for a month. Already the man was costing her money she hadn’t planned—nor could afford—to spend by necessitating another visit to Talk of the Town for clothing rental. Had she shown up here wearing something of her own, she never could have convinced him she was the successful novelist she was struggling to be—with no help from him, thankyouverymuch. No, had she shown up in something of her own, the only thing she would have convinced him of was that she was struggling, period.
    Gavin Mason, she read from the heavy vellum business card. That was I’m-Not-Ethan’s name. The only otherbit of information on the card had to do with something called GMT, Inc., followed by the posh Michigan Avenue address directly across the street. Evidently, Gavin Mason was somebody so important at the company that he didn’t need to include his position or email address on his business card.
    Gee, Violet was going to go out on a limb and bet that GMT didn’t stand for Greenwich Mean Time in this case, and probably stood for Gavin Mason Something-that-starts-with-a- T . Training her gaze up, up, up the massive building—since the address on the card indicated GMT, Inc. was on the thirty-third floor—she flipped the scrap of paper back and forth and back again. Technologies? she wondered. Telecommunications? Transnational?
    Trouble, she finally decided. Definitely with a capital T. And that rhymed with P. And that stood for—
    â€œPooh,” she said softly under her breath, forcing her feet to move her in the direction of the crosswalk. Gavin Mason wasn’t trouble. Not with any kind of case on the T . She’d faced worse problems than him in her life. No way would she let a man like that deter her from achieving her dreams. Let him try to charge the unchargeable and prove the unproveable. Hell, the publicity would only boost sales of her book even more.
    Ka-ching.
    Unless, you know, he did manage to tie her up in legalities indefinitely. Which, she supposed, was why she was currently crossing the street toward his office.
    Okay, okay, she relented. So maybe Gavin Mason really was Trouble with a capital T, but it rhymed with C, and that stood for—
    â€œCrap,” she muttered under her breath as she reached his side of the street and her feet began to slow. “Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.”
    She wadded up the business card and tossed it into a nearby trash can. Take that, trouble/Trouble. Hmpf. And she tried not to think about how, by hedging on the capitalization thing, she had just assigned Gavin Mason the distinction of double-trouble.
    She took a deep, fortifying breath and exhaled it slowly. She could do this.