The Billionaire Bid

The woman was trying to kill him, Dez decided. She hadn’t managed to choke him to death with coffee, so she’d opted to try stopping his heart with astonishment.

“How much is it worth to you?” Gina repeated. “Because for—say—ten thousand dollars, I’d consider it.”

“Ten thousand—” He cleared his throat and tried again. “You have an inflated idea of what an evening of your time is worth.”

He could almost hear ice cubes tinkling in her voice. “And let’s make it quite clear that my time is absolutely all I’m talking about.”

“No hanky-panky in the hot tub,” he agreed smoothly.

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The Forbidden Marriage

by Rebecca Winters (#3768)

The Billionaire Bid

Leigh Michaels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN Gina reached the restaurant, she was relieved to see that she was a few minutes early. Not only would it be bad manners to keep a guest waiting, but in this case it would be purely stupid. She had one shot at this presentation. If she couldn’t pull it off today, the plan wouldn’t fly at all. So she’d take advantage of the extra few minutes to go over her mental notes once more.

The maître d’ looked her over doubtfully. “Would you like to wait in the bar, Ms. Haskell? Or at your table?”

“The table, I believe. My companion will be arriving within a few minutes. You do know Mrs. Garrett, don’t you? Anne Garrett?”

The man’s expression didn’t so much as flicker, but his voice was cool. “Certainly I know the publisher of the local newspaper, Ms. Haskell.” He didn’t show her to the table; he snapped his fingers and a subordinate arrived to escort her instead.

Dumb question, Gina thought philosophically. If she’d tried, she couldn’t have made it clearer that she was moving outside her normal circles. Next time, why don’t you just ask him if the fish is fresh? He couldn’t be any more insulted by that.

If there ever was a next time, of course. There weren’t many occasions for Gina to go to a really first-class restaurant.

In fact, though she’d lived in Lakemont much of her life, Gina had never been inside The Maple Tree before. As the waiter seated her, she took a quick—and, she hoped, unobtrusive—glance at her surroundings. The dining room was large, but because the tables were set far apart there weren’t as many of them as she would have expected. Though she could hear the murmur of voices from the ones nearest to hers, she couldn’t have eavesdropped even if she’d tried. Not only the distance between tables but the soft tinkle of ragtime music in the background prevented it.

The decorating scheme seemed to have been adopted from the restaurant’s name; as if to make the point, on one wall was a grouping of arty photographs of trees and individual leaves. The walls and carpet were the soft green of new leaves, while the table linens were a splash of autumn colors—red napkins against pale gold tablecloths. Unusual though it was, Gina thought the effect was stunning.

At the far end of the room sat a glossy grand piano next to a small dance floor, and along one side of the dining room was a bar. Its wood surface—no doubt it was maple to fit the theme, Gina thought—was so highly polished that it gleamed nearly as brightly as the brass that accented it.

For an upscale restaurant at lunchtime, she thought, the bar seemed strangely quiet. In fact, there was only one man sitting there, occupying the tall stool at the end nearest to Gina’s table. He thumped his index finger against his glass, and the bartender moved toward him and picked up the glass. The man turned toward the room and with no warning whatsoever looked directly into Gina’s eyes.

She felt herself turning pink. It was one of the hazards of being a redhead—though in this case it was perfectly ridiculous to feel the slightest embarrassment. It wasn’t as if she’d been watching him—it was pure coincidence that she had happened to be facing his direction when he’d turned.

No matter what he might think, he hadn’t caught her doing anything rude—which was more than she could say for him at the moment. A gentleman would have made momentary eye contact and then looked away. But this man…

He tipped his head back a fraction of an inch. His eyes narrowed. He settled an elbow on the bar as if to brace himself while he looked her over to his satisfaction.

Gina felt like walking over to him and making it absolutely clear that she hadn’t been staring at him—or indeed at anything. But to do that would only call more attention to an episode which had already gotten far bigger than it had any reason to. She’d merely been looking around the room, appreciating the ambience and the decor. It certainly wasn’t her fault he’d happened to be in the way, blocking her view.

She opened the menu the waiter had left. But the words inside looked strangely blurry, as if once she’d focused her gaze on the man at the bar she couldn’t get her eyes to adjust to a different distance. She unfolded her napkin and fussed with laying it out just right on her lap. She reminded herself that these last few minutes of quiet would be better used to review the presentation she would be making over lunch.

None of it worked. Her senses were still on high alert, because he was still watching her. Even without looking up, she knew it.

Fine, Gina told herself irritably. Two can play that game. What’s good for the goose…

She pushed the menu aside. This time she didn’t bother with a survey of the room; he’d only interpret that as coyness anyway. She put both elbows on the edge of the table, rested her chin on her fingertips, and stared back at him.

Actually, she had to admit, he wasn’t a bad addition to either the ambience or the decor. He was tall; she could tell that much from the way he was half sitting on the high stool with one foot hooked easily onto the rung and the other still planted on the floor. And he was good-looking in a hard-edged fashion, with blue-black hair, a strong jaw, and a proud nose. Of course, she’d never been much interested in the dark, predatory type.

What, she wondered, had made him bore in on her? Surely he didn’t stare at every woman who glanced at him as Gina had done—or even every woman who took a long hard second look. For one thing, if he did he’d have no time left to do anything else, because there must be plenty of women who—unlike Gina—would find that package attractive enough to inspect at length.

Without taking his gaze off Gina, the man at the bar stretched out a hand unerringly for his replenished glass and held it up, as if offering a toast to her.

Well, Haskell, that didn’t exactly turn out the way you planned. Now what?

The man shifted on the bar stool as if he was about to rise. Gina tensed. If he comes over here…

Beside her, the maître d’ cleared his throat loudly.

Startled, Gina jumped up. Her chair rocked, coming dangerously close to upsetting. Her napkin trailed off her lap onto the floor, and the edge of her suit jacket snagged on the corner of the menu and flipped it off the table. Gina felt color flood her face. The man at the bar, she thought, must be enjoying this show immensely. Fortunately, because of the way the table was angled, he couldn’t see her face now. Even better, she couldn’t see him anymore.

The maître d’, looking as if he were suffering from a sudden cramp, waved a busboy over to retrieve the menu and bring a fresh napkin while he pulled out a chair for her guest. “Mrs. Garrett,” he said, enunciating very carefully.

As if he felt it necessary to introduce us, Gina thought irritably.

Anne Garrett stretched a hand across the table. “Hello, Gina. It’s nice to see you again.” She glanced up at the maître d’ and added dryly, “Thank you, Bruce. I believe I can handle it from here.”

The maître d’ looked skeptical, but he retreated.

“Sorry,” Gina said, feeling breathless. “I’m not usually quite so clumsy.” I will not look at the bar, she told herself. Seeing amusement in those deep-set eyes would not help matters.

I wonder what color his eyes are, anyway.

“Bruce’s evil stare would make Saint Peter feel guilty,” Anne murmured. “I’ve always wondered how many of the waiters he hires last a full week without having a nervous breakdown.” She opened her menu. “I’m sorry to say I only have an hour before I have to be back at the newspaper for one of those ghastly endless meetings. So let’s order first, if you don’t mind, and then you can tell me what’s going on.”

Gina’s throat tightened as time seemed to compress around her. An hour wasn’t nearly long enough…Though, on the other hand, if she couldn’t convince Anne Garrett of the value of her plan in an hour, then she probably couldn’t do it in a week either. And if she couldn’t convince Anne Garrett…

What a cheerful thought that is.

Gina ordered a salad almost at random, sipped her iced tea, and began. “First I want to thank you for meeting with me. I appreciate being able to get your advice, since where Lakemont is concerned, you’re an expert.”

Anne paused with the cream pitcher suspended above her coffee cup. “I wouldn’t go quite that far. I’m a native, but so are you—aren’t you?”

“Not quite. And I don’t have nearly the contacts you do.”

Anne set the cream down and picked up her spoon. “So tell me what it is you want from my contacts.”

Gina wanted to choke herself. That hadn’t been very neatly done at all. “It’s the museum,” she said, and sighed. “Oh, that sounded foolish, didn’t it? Of course it’s the museum. You were gracious enough to show an interest in it when you visited a couple of weeks ago.”

“Of course I’m interested. It’s a nice little museum, full of history.”

“And that’s the point.” Gina ran a hand over the nape of her neck. It felt just a little itchy; the man at the bar must still be watching her. “Lakemont and Kerrigan County deserve more than just a nice little museum, one that’s so short of space it’s crammed full with no place to turn around. Just last week we were offered the stained-glass windows from St. Francis Church. It’s probably going to be torn down before long, you know. But we don’t have a shed big enough to store the windows in, much less a place to display them.”

The waiter returned with their salads. When he was finished arranging the table, Anne drizzled dressing over the crabmeat which topped her salad and said, “So you’re asking for a donation for…what? To remodel a room for the windows?”

“Not exactly.” Gina took a deep breath and plunged. “That would be a start, but I want to reconstruct the entire museum.”

Anne Garrett’s eyebrows climbed. “Put up a new building, you mean?”

“No—oh, no.” The thought was like a knife to Gina’s heart. “A new building for a museum of history? It would be anachronous.”

“The house you’re in now must be a hundred and fifty years old.”

Gina nodded. “And the museum has been there from its beginning. You see, there wouldn’t be a museum at all if it hadn’t been for Essie Kerrigan. She not only started the Kerrigan County Historical Society, but she kept it going almost single-handed for years. Her possessions formed the nucleus of the collection, her money filled the gaps whenever there was a shortfall in the budget, and her house has provided a roof to shelter it. She devoted her entire life to creating and nurturing it.”

“But Essie’s gone now, and you’re the director. So you can do whatever you think best.”

Gina smiled wryly. “I still wouldn’t consider a modern building. For one thing, Essie would haunt it—and if she were to be surrounded by wallboard and cheap pine moldings, she would not be a happy ghost. Besides, there’s the problem of where to put a new building. A museum of history needs to be in the historical area, not the suburbs—and that means near downtown.”

“Near the lakefront, where land is scarce and expensive.”

“Exactly.”

“So if it’s not a new building you want, what do you have in mind? My kids and I had a very pleasant afternoon at the museum, you know—so I’m having trouble seeing what could possibly need to be changed.”

“A pleasant afternoon.” Gina put down her fork and leaned forward. “I’m glad you enjoyed your visit, but would you come back again? No, don’t answer right away—that’s a serious question. In a couple of hours you saw everything we have room to display. Unless we can create more space, room for changing exhibits, there’s no reason for anyone to visit more than once. And unless we have repeat traffic—regular visitors—then the museum can’t possibly support itself. So let me ask again. Would you come back for another visit?”

Anne sighed. “Probably not anytime soon.”

“That’s precisely my point. The museum is now at the stage where it needs to grow, or else it’s going to die.” Gina stabbed a tomato chunk.

“What sort of growth are you talking about?” Anne Garrett sounded doubtful.

Gina felt herself wavering. Maybe it would be wise to pull back a bit? Sometimes people who asked for the moon ended by getting nothing at all.

No, she thought. It was true, of course, that if she aimed too high, she might miss altogether. But if she aimed too low, she’d always wonder if she could have done better. And it would be the museum that would suffer. Essie Kerrigan’s precious museum. Gina couldn’t let that happen.

“I want to renovate the entire building,” she said firmly. “It’s been years since there has been any more than make-do maintenance—for instance, we’ve patched the roof, but it really needs to be replaced. Then I want to restructure the interior to provide real galleries instead of cramped spaces that will hardly hold a display cabinet.”

“I can’t imagine Essie would like seeing you do that to her house.”

“She wouldn’t be thrilled,” Gina admitted. “But she understood the need. She said herself that it was a shame we couldn’t have more wide-open space, and better lighting. And security, of course—you have no idea how difficult it is now to keep an eye on every visitor.”

Anne smiled wryly. “I thought it was lovely to have a private tour guide showing us around. Eleanor—was that her name? I never considered that she was really a guard, making sure we didn’t walk off with anything.”

Gina winced at her own lack of tact. “We don’t like to think of our volunteers as guards. But security is a problem, because we never have enough people on hand. I’d also like to build a couple of new wings for additional gallery space.”

“Where?” Anne sounded incredulous. “You don’t have room to build on wings.”

“Well, we don’t need a backyard. Or a driveway, for that matter.” Gina moved a slice of black olive to the side of her salad. “I want to make it clear, by the way, that I’m not asking you for the money.”

“That’s a relief,” Anne murmured.

“But it’s going to take some major fund-raising, and I hoped you might have some ideas.”

“And you’d like the support of the newspaper when you start your campaign, I suppose.”

Gina admitted, “That, too.” If the Chronicle were to endorse the idea of a museum expansion, the publicity would make raising the money much easier.

Anne stirred her lettuce with an abstracted air. “And I thought perhaps you’d asked me to lunch merely to invite me to join the board,” she mused.

Gina sat still, almost afraid to breathe. Afraid to interrupt.

As the silence drew out, her neck started to feel itchy again. The sensation of being watched had never quite gone away, though she’d tried her best to suppress the feeling so she could concentrate on the museum. She’d caught herself several times running a hand over the nape of her neck, as if to brush away an insect—or a bothersome stare.

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to look. If he was still sitting there staring at her…

But the stool at the end of the bar was empty. He was gone. Her feeling of being watched must have been merely a shadow, an impression which had lingered on because of the intensity of his gaze.

How foolish, she told herself, to feel just a little let down. She’d wanted him to stop looking and go away. Hadn’t she?

She gave up on her unfinished salad—the lettuce seemed to have kept growing even after it was arranged on her plate—and glanced around the room while she waited for Anne to gather her thoughts. Her gaze came to rest on a pair of men at a nearby table.

He hadn’t left after all. He’d only moved.

And of course, the instant she spotted him, he turned his head and looked directly at her, as if her gaze had acted like a magnet.

She couldn’t stand it an instant longer. Gina said abruptly, “The man at the third table over. In front of the fireplace. Who is he?”

Anne looked puzzled. “There are two men at that table,” she pointed out. “Which one are you asking about?”

“The one who looks like an eagle.”

“Looks like a what?”

“You know,” Gina said impatiently. “Proud and stern and looking for prey.”

Anne’s eyebrows lifted. “Well, that’s not a bad description. Especially the part about prey. I thought you’d know him, since he’s some kind of cousin or nephew of Essie’s. His name’s Dez Kerrigan.”

Gina knew the name, of course. Essie had been just as devoted to genealogy as to every other sort of history, and so Gina had heard a lot about the various branches of the Kerrigans. But she’d never met him; he obviously hadn’t been as interested in the family as Essie had been, or he’d have come ’round once in a while to visit his aunt or cousin or whatever Essie was to him.

And there was something else she should remember about him—something Essie had said. The memory nagged at the back of Gina’s brain, but it wouldn’t come out in the open. She clearly remembered Essie making the comment, because it had verged on sounding catty, and that wasn’t like Essie. But she couldn’t remember for the life of her what Essie had said.

“Now that’s interesting,” Anne murmured. “Why do you want to know?”

Sanity returned just in time. You’re an idiot, Gina thought, to call attention to yourself like that. Making a journalist wonder why you’re fascinated by a particular man…

“Just wondering.” Gina tried to keep her voice casual. “And what’s so interesting? That Essie’s nephew is having lunch here?”

“No. Who he’s having lunch with.” Anne put her napkin down. “I’m sorry, Gina. I must get back to the office.”

Gina put out a hand. “I understand that you may not want to commit yourself in any way just now. But—”

“But you want to hear my instant opinion anyway. All right. For what it’s worth, I believe you’re thinking on much too small a scale.”

“Too small?” Gina asked blankly.

Anne nodded. She pulled out a business card and scrawled something on the back of it. “By the way, I’m having a cocktail party Sunday night. You can meet some of your potential donors on neutral territory and size them up before you officially start asking for money. Here’s the address. And now I really need to run—but be sure you read the newspaper in the morning.”

Before Gina could ask what tomorrow’s Lakemont Chronicle could possibly have to do with anything, she was gone.

Gina was habitually an early riser, a habit ingrained from her upbringing. But on the following morning she was awake well before dawn, waiting to hear the distinctive off-key whine of the newspaper carrier’s car engine idling down the street while he tossed bundles onto front porches.

She’d never felt anything but safe here, even though the neighborhood, once an exclusive enclave, was now hemmed in on all sides by commercial and industrial development. She’d lived in a lot of places that were worse. Still, she couldn’t blame a parent for not allowing a kid on a bike to deliver the morning newspaper.

Which brought her squarely back to the question of what was supposed to be so special about this morning’s newspaper. Or was that simply Anne Garrett’s way of saying goodbye—taking every opportunity to promote the newspaper she published? Surely not.

Gina made herself a cup of instant coffee and sat down by the window in her living room, which overlooked the front door of the brown-brick row house. Once the building had housed a single family, along with their servants, but years ago it had been split into rental units. Gina’s apartment had originally been the family’s bedrooms.

She liked being up high, even though hauling everything upstairs got to be a pain after a while. And she liked the feeling of space that the tall ceilings of an old house offered. Besides, her apartment was close to work; the Kerrigan County Historical Museum was only three blocks down the street and around a corner, so Gina didn’t need to keep a car. A good thing, too, since there was no place for her to park it except in the museum’s driveway—a driveway that, with any luck, would soon disappear under a new gallery.

You’re thinking on much too small a scale, Anne Garrett had told her. Well, that was easy for Anne to say, with the resources of the Chronicle behind her.

It was true, Gina admitted, that the long, narrow strip of concrete next to Essie Kerrigan’s house was not large enough for the spacious, airy galleries she’d like to have. But if they pushed out the back of the house as well, essentially roofing in the entire garden…

There still wouldn’t be room for things like the windows from St. Francis Church, regrettable though the loss would be. But Gina had to work with the raw material she’d been given, as sensitively as it was possible to do.

Of course, they’d leave the front facade just as it had been constructed by Essie’s grandfather Desmond Kerrigan—at least as far as they could. It would be criminal to destroy that wide, spacious open porch and corner tower. So long as the addition on the driveway side was stepped back so it didn’t overwhelm the front of the building, it would still look all right.

Desmond Kerrigan hadn’t been the first of his name to come to Lakemont, and he wasn’t the Kerrigan that the county had been named for. But he had been the first of the family to consistently turn small investments into large ones, so when he’d built his home in what was then the most exclusive section of Lakemont, he hadn’t pinched pennies. He’d built solid and strong—but even so, a century and a half had taken a toll on the house as well as on the neighborhood. The red brick had long ago been darkened by city smoke and fumes. Hailstorms through the years had left behind cracked and broken roof slates.