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Violet shook her head in mystification. She couldn’t decide whether her interrogator was simply a little misguided or a raging loony. She turned to the bookstore clerk, hoping she’d take matters into hand now as she had with the overly enthusiastic crowd earlier. But the young woman was staring at the dark-haired man in openmouthed silence, evidently even more overwhelmed by him than Violet.
So Violet turned back to her, ah, reader, still not sure what to say. Maybe if she played along with him for a minute, disregarding, for now, whether the book was a work of fiction or nonfiction, she could talk him down from whatever ledge he was standing on.
Cautiously, she ventured, “Um, a lot of men wear paisley silk boxers, Mr….”
Still, he didn’t give her the name she’d not-so-subtly requested. Instead, he shook the scrap of silk at her and replied, “Not imported from an exclusive, little-known shop in Alsace for whom this design is completely unique.”
Oh, really? Violet thought. Well, she’d read about the place in Esquire magazine—guess it wasn’t as little known as he realized—and how they employed their own weavers and designers, and probably even their own worms, so that their garments were each utterly luxurious and completely one-of-a-kind. And also outrageously expensive, which was why she’d written that Ethan wore them.
Violet sighed with resignation. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say. Ethan is a character in my novel. The story is fiction. Roxanne isn’t real. Ethan isn’t real. If I described him in a way that resembles someone who actually exists, I assure you it was nothing more than serendipity. There are a lot of men out there who work and play and live the way the characters in my book do.”
“You and your publisher may be marketing the book as a novel, but there’s no question in anyone’s mind that the work is based—and in no way loosely—on your actual experiences as a call girl.”
“What?” Violet exclaimed. “That’s not true! I’ve never—”
“There’s also no question in anyone’s mind about Ethan. You’ve described the man so explicitly and perfectly that everyone in Chicago knows who he is.”
Violet spared a moment to be proud of herself for writing such great prose that she’d brought a character to life—almost literally—for so many of her readers. Then she remembered that this guy had just accused her of being a prostitute, and she got mad all over again. Unfortunately, before she could express that outrage, her assailant spewed more of his own.
“And if you don’t print a retraction to this … this …” He thumped the book contemptuously. “This piece of trash—”
“Hey!” Violet objected. “It’s not trash! It got a starred review in Publishers Weekly!”
“—then I assure you that Ethan is going to sue you for every nickel you receive from its sales.”
“It’s fiction!” she said again. “No one can sue me for anything.”
“Not only that, but Ethan will make certain you never make another nickel in your life, because he will sue you for so much money, your great-grandchildren will be paying his.”
Okay, that did it. When people started threatening her nonexistent family, Violet really got mad. She stood with enough force to make the bookstore clerk squeak like a mouse. Then she straightened to her full five-foot-eight, which was made nearly six feet in the three-inch heels she was wearing. Then she leaned forward and crowded the man’s space as much as she could, narrowing her eyes at him menacingly.
Even at that, however, Mr. Paisley Pants still towered over her. And he looked way more menacingly back at her.
“Oh, and what are you? Ethan’s fictional lawyer?”
He slapped down a business card on the table beside the book, but Violet didn’t bother to look at it. She didn’t care who he was. She wasn’t about to print a retraction for something that wasn’t even real.
“No,” the man said. “I’m not Ethan’s lawyer. I’m Ethan. And I have never had to pay a woman—especially one like you, Ms. French—for sex.”
Two
By the time Gavin Mason slammed the door of his Michigan Avenue office behind himself, his anger had diminished not at all. It hadn’t helped that, barely halfway through the seven-block walk from the bookstore, the sky had opened up and dumped sheets of cold October rain on him. Thankfully, since it was Saturday, there was no one around to see him looking so disheveled. Or to see him hurl the copy of High Heels and Champagne and Sex, Oh, My! across the room with all his might. The hardcover slammed against the wall opposite with enough force to rattle a trio of framed degrees hanging there. Then it toppled onto a pair of hand-blown, and not inexpensive, vases when it fell onto the credenza beneath.
He’d hoped his walk—either to the bookstore or back—would purge some of the rage he’d been harboring for the past week, ever since catching wind of the gossip that had been circling in both professional and social circles of Chicago. And he’d hoped he might find satisfaction in meeting face to face with that … that … that lying, scheming harridan whose blistering potboiler was burning up the bestseller list faster than it was shooting his life down in flames. Seizing control of the situation was the way Gavin handled every situation. He always took matters into his own hands, and he didn’t let go until he felt like it.
But neither the walk nor his confrontation with Raven French had dispelled even the smallest iota of his anger. In fact, seeing her at the book signing, looking so carefree and confident and beautiful—dammit—had only compounded his resentment. Who the hell did she think she was, bolstering herself through the defamation of others? How could she be benefiting financially and enjoying herself by destroying other people’s lives?
By destroying his life?
As he folded himself into the big, leather executive chair behind his big, mahogany executive desk, Gavin noted a light flashing on his personal office line. He had two messages. Although he was fairly certain he already knew what they were about—since virtually every call he’d received on his personal line this week had been about the same thing—he punched the button to replay them anyway.
Beep. “Darling,” a familiar voice greeted him. But where the voice, which belonged to a woman named Desiree, was usually scorching with sexual promise, on the recording it was cold enough to chill magma. “I suddenly find myself facing a dilemma about tonight. I can either attend the Bellamys’ party with you, which would mean sipping champagne and nibbling foie gras and rubbing shoulders with Gold Coast glitterati, or I can babysit my sister’s horrible twins and spend the evening being kicked in the shins, picking food from my hair and being called a poopyhead. Guess which one I’d rather do?”
Under normal circumstances, that would have been an easy one for Gavin. Considering the way his life had been the past week, however, he wasn’t going to go out on any limbs. Sure enough, it was about then that the rest of Desiree’s message kicked in, making things crystal clear. She started with a particularly ripe expletive, segued into a thinly veiled threat of a lawsuit because her health may have been compromised by his consorting with prostitutes, and ended with several suggestions about what he should do with a number of his body parts, at least ninety percent of which were anatomically impossible. That message was followed by another, this time from a woman named Marta, with whom he was supposed to attend a pretty major fundraiser the following Friday night. Suffice it to say that she was cancelling, too, but her reason for doing so made Desiree’s tirade sound like a children’s recital of Mother Goose rhymes.
Gavin debated briefly whether or not he should call both women to reassure Desiree that her health couldn’t have possibly been compromised—well, not her physical health anyway—because he’d always practiced safe sex, and, oh, yeah, he’d never been with a prostitute, and to tell Marta that the thing she’d said about his family jewels had really been uncalled for. Then he decided that doing that would probably only exacerbate an already volatile situation.
He bit back another oath as he deleted both messages and tried not to think about what he’d become in Chicago thanks to everyone’s assumption that he was chapter twenty-eight in a call girl’s memoir. He was a mockery in society, a pariah among women and a joke at work—and it wasn’t good for the CEO of his own import-export company to be a joke. Although each condition posed its own set of problems, it was that last, of course, that bothered Gavin the most. He’d never much cared about his social standing—unless it affected his ability to do business, and being a mockery certainly wasn’t good for that. As for women, he wasn’t picky and could always find more to replace the ones who disappeared.
At least, he had been able to do that before. Now that rumors were circulating that he’d been using the services of a prostitute, and now that he was being ridiculed at every opportunity, the normally teeming pool of willing women was emptying fast. And, hell, he hadn’t even been using the services of a prostitute. Of course, now that the pool of willing women was emptying, he might very well be reduced to such a practice.
Irony, thy name is Raven French.
Not that there weren’t a host of other names he could call her. Not that there weren’t a host of other names he had already called her….
Gavin expelled a long, irritated breath. He grabbed his perfectly knotted necktie with both fists and wrestled out the perfect Windsor knot he’d completed effortlessly that morning. He shrugged off his jacket, unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and the cuffs of his sleeves, and rolled the latter to his elbows.
Work. That was what he needed. To work and to sue the pants off Raven French. Not that that was what it took to get Raven French out of her pants. Hell, she’d do that for anyone. Provided the price was right.
Inescapably, his mind wandered to the book signing, and he was reminded of how surprised he’d been when he first saw her. He had expected her to be brash and harsh, both in looks and demeanor, with too much makeup and too stylized hair and a voice strained by too many cigarettes, too much drink and too many late nights working. But except for the clingy clothes and mile-high heels, she hadn’t looked like a call girl at all. In fact, she’d looked kind of … pretty. Kind of … sweet. Kind of … wholesome. And her eyes. She’d had the most extraordinary eyes he’d ever seen. Not just the color, but the clarity. The expression. The …
Damn. There was no other word for it. The honesty. Raven French had honest eyes.
All a part of the act, he told himself. Like the wholesome, sweet prettiness. It made sense that a woman who looked like that would be able to make a killing as a hooker. There were plenty of men who would pay top dollar for a woman who looked like the homecoming queen when the lights were on and performed like the class bad girl when the lights were off. Not that Gavin was one of those men. He liked women who performed and looked like the class bad girl. Women who had big hair and full lips and enormous breasts spilling from their too-small confinement.
Women who were a lot like call girls, now that he thought about it. Hmm. Evidently, irony went by more than one name.
He pushed the thought away. In fact, he pushed all thoughts of Raven French away. For now. He’d thrown down the gauntlet along with his card at the bookstore. And if his intentions hadn’t been made clear enough to Ms. French then, they’d become crystal clear on Monday when his attorney contacted her publisher. Really, Gavin hadn’t needed to go to the book signing this afternoon. In fact, his legal department had cautioned him not to. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d wanted to look Raven French in the eye. He’d wanted to see his adversary up close. He’d wanted to make it personal.
Because it was personal. Which made the battle different from Gavin’s usual conflicts, and his adversary different from his usual nemeses. What Raven French had done to him and his reputation was reprehensible and indefensible. It was bad enough that she’d painted him as a man who would flout both the law and morality—never mind that he’d done both of those things on more than one occasion; he’d never been caught doing them. But, worse, she’d revealed things about him that he’d never told anyone. That he’d never intended to tell anyone. How she knew those things about him when she’d never met him before was beyond him. But now everyone else knew them, too.
He pushed the thought away again. He’d come into the office to work, something guaranteed to take his mind off Raven French and her expletive-deleted book. And off her extraordinary eyes. And her surprisingly sweet smile. And the way her black hair had tossed back bits of silver under the lights of the bookstore….
By Monday afternoon, Violet’s anger was still sizzling, in spite of the passage of nearly two days since I’m-not-Ethan’s-lawyer-I’m-Ethan had slapped down his business card and whipped up her resentment. They were two days she’d spent trying to brush off his threat of a lawsuit as ludicrous and unfounded—which it was—and trying to brush him off as ridiculous and harmless—which he was not.
And that, she supposed, was the problem. Her editor Gracie had called Violet that very morning to tell her his attorneys had been in touch with the publisher’s attorneys, and they’d made thinly veiled threats about the material presented in the final chapter of her book. They hadn’t sent anything on paper—yet—or even in email—yet—but they’d made clear they were revving up for the possibility if Rockcastle didn’t do something quickly to address the defamation and slander contained therein.
Clearly, even if Not-Ethan’s lawsuit was frivolous, the man himself wasn’t. Even if the outcome of any legal proceedings would leave Violet cleared of wrongdoing, he could still proceed with his threat to sue her and her publisher. At best, 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 other bit 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—
“Pooh,” 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—
“Crap,” 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. She could go to Gavin Mason’s office and speak civilly to him about this matter. He’d had two days to cool off, as had she, and now they could both be reasonable. She could explain to him how she’d come to write her novel, and make him understand that it was a work of fiction. By the end of their meeting, they’d doubtless both be laughing about it.
Okay, maybe not laughing, she amended as she entered the skyscraper that housed GMT, Inc. Because the building didn’t lend itself to levity, and it reeked of serious big business. The steel and glass of the outside was replicated inside, then made even colder and more solemn by the addition of a black granite floor and fixtures. The elevators were stainless steel outside and more black inside, and Violet rode shoulder to shoulder with people dressed in more black and gray.
It dawned on her then, the appropriateness of Gavin Mason’s name. Seriousness and stone. Like everything else here. The utter opposite of someone named Candy Tandy and then further nicknamed Violet. She suddenly felt even more out of place in her rented duds. Not because of the suit’s chicness and expense this time, but because of its hue. She usually liked bright colors and wore them well. But in this environment, wearing red made her feel as if she were standing in the middle of the bullfighting ring, waving the cape to taunt the biggest, baddest of them all.
The offices of GMT, Inc. were in keeping with the rest of the building, but somehow seemed even more severe. A lone receptionist—another study in gray from her clothing to her hair—sat behind a big black desk, with big black letters identifying the company looming on the white wall behind her. The other walls were bare, Violet noted, and the waiting area held only a quartet of empty and uncomfortable-looking chairs. There was no reading material to peruse for anyone who might be waiting. No music to listen to. Not so much as a charcoal print to ponder. Clearly, Gavin Mason didn’t concern himself with creature comforts.
Then she remembered his paisley silk boxers. Well, not for other people, anyway.
She’d been worried that showing up without an appointment might cause a problem, but seeing the place so empty reassured her. After speaking with her editor this morning, Violet had deliberately decided to come just after lunchtime, hoping to catch the man sated and slowed with a full belly and before he got too tied up for the rest of his day. She hadn’t worried that he wouldn’t be here. He was obviously the kind of man who took his work seriously enough to never leave it. Hell, Violet wouldn’t have been surprised if he lived in the building, too. It suited him, all cold and impersonal as it was.
Now, now,she admonished herself.Don’t go in with that attitude. You’re here to make things better, not worse.
As if cued by the thought, the receptionist glanced up from her computer screen. She apologized for not seeing Violet right away in a voice that sounded in no way apologetic, then asked what she could do for her.
“Hello,” Violet said in as chipper a voice as she could manage. “I was wondering if it might be possible to steal a few moments with Mr. Mason. Gavin Mason,” she quickly clarified. As if that needed clarification.
Obviously, it didn’t, since the moment she’d uttered the first Mason, the receptionist had started shaking her head. “I’m afraid Mr. Mason has a very full schedule today. I’m sorry.”
“I realize he’s a busy man,” Violet said, “and I promise not to take any more of his time than necessary. Truly, just a few minutes would be all I’d need.”
The receptionist smiled mechanically, then dropped her gaze to the computer screen and pushed a few buttons on her keyboard. “Perhaps if you can tell me what this is about, I can make an appointment for you later in the week.”
Which would mean Violet had spent money on her rental clothing for nothing and would have to spend more later in the week. Not to mention stew over Gavin Mason’s threats for another few days.
“Today would be much better,” she said firmly. “I mean, I’m here now, and—” she threw a meaningful look over her shoulder at the waiting area “—and no one else is, and, as I said, it won’t take long.”
“Mr. Mason has a very full schedule today,” the receptionist repeated crisply. “Perhaps if you can tell me what this is about, I can fit you in—”
“Later in the week,” Violet chorused with her, then added politely, “doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.”
“Well, perhaps if you’d made an appointment …”
Violet tried again. “Maybe if you told Mr. Mason I’m here, he would—”
“Mr. Mason has a very full schedule today.”
“He might—”
“Perhaps if you can tell me what this is about, I can fit you in later in the week.”
There was no way Violet was going to tell this woman she was here because Gavin Mason suspected her of being a call girl who’d written about him in a memoir that was really a novel. But if the only way she was going to see the man was later in the week, then she’d have to settle for that.
“Fine,” she said. “I’d like to make an appointment with Gavin Mason later in the week.”
The receptionist smiled, this time with great satisfaction, lifting her perfectly manicured hands to the keyboard before her. “And your meeting is in regard to …?”
“Public relations,” Violet said off the top of her head.
The receptionist narrowed her eyes. “Can you be more specific?”
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes some more but didn’t push the issue. Instead, she studied her computer screen for a moment and said, “Come back at four-fifty-five on Friday. He can see you for five minutes.”
Violet gaped at that, but didn’t object. How could she? She was the one who had said it would only take a few minutes. A foot in the door, she reminded herself. That was all she needed.
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Your name?”
She started to reply with her real name, then realized Gavin Mason wouldn’t recognize it. “Raven French.”
She might as well have yelled that the receptionist’s hair was on fire, so massive was the woman’s reaction. Her hands faltered on the keyboard, she bolted backward in her chair, and when she jerked up her head to look at Violet again, her eyes were wide with horror.
“Raven French,” she echoed. With no small amount of melodrama, too, Violet couldn’t help thinking. Honestly, the woman might as well have been summoning some kind of B-movie hell spawn.
“Ye-es,” Violet said cautiously.
Now it was the receptionist who gaped. But she didn’t say anything, either. Her gaze never leaving Violet’s, she rose unsteadily from her chair and began to back away, bumping into the wall behind herself before flattening her palms against it and sidling to the right.
“Stay right there,” she finally said, her voice going even more Norma Desmond than before. “I think maybe Mr. Mason has a moment right now.”
And with that, the woman disappeared behind the wall. Violet heard the clatter of something tumbling over, followed by a thump and the crash of breaking glass, and a not-so-quietly muttered—nor in any way professional—oath. Then there was the quick rapping of knuckles on a door and an even less-quiet—and even less professional—screech of “Oh my God, Mr. Mason, that horrible woman is here to see you. Here. In your office. Can you imagine the nerve?”
The screeching was then replaced by another clatter and thump, only this time it sounded more like something being thrown than being dropped, and the oaths that followed were the likes of which Violet hadn’t heard since accidentally downloading Scarface from Netflix one night instead of Sense and Sensibility, which she had been so certain was next in her queue.
Then, suddenly, there was silence. And somehow, that was even scarier than Say hello to my little friend!
The receptionist suddenly reappeared from behind the wall. After a few delicate ahems, she said, “Mr. Mason will see you now.”
“Um, thank you,” Violet said.
But she didn’t feel particularly grateful. In fact, by the time she moved around the wall and saw the door to Gavin Mason’s office, her insides were taut with anxiety. As demanding as she’d been to see him, she halted at the threshold, now reluctant to enter. Bending at the waist, she peeked inside, looking left, then right, then left again.
But the room was empty. It was also nowhere near as sterile as the rest of the building, filled with massive, dark wood furnishings scattered atop an immense Persian rug that was woven in rich, jewel-tone colors. The paintings on the walls, too, were colossal, brutally executed abstracts in colors that were even denser than the rug. Clearly whoever inhabited the office was as bold and dynamic and larger-than-life as his possessions, but he hadn’t come to work yet. Thinking she must have approached the wrong door, Violet straightened and began to take a step in retreat.
