The Billionaire's Bridal Bid (3 page)

She looked up when he followed her through the swing door into the back kitchen.

“Hello, Claire.”

“Whatever it is you want to say, you’ll have to talk while I work.” She stood with some kind of paintbrush in one hand and a frown on her pretty face. “The doughnuts have to be iced within a few minutes of coming out of the fryer or the icing won’t set.”

Her words caught him off guard. He’d expected a little groveling. Instead, her tone was brusque and impersonal. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like that?” she parroted back in apparent disbelief. “How am I supposed to be?”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk last night.”

“So you came by here now? You thought we could catch up for old time’s sake? At five in the morning?”

Since that sounded both less creepy and less pathetic than,
I felt compelled to stop and watch you work,
he nodded. “Sure.”

“Fine.” But her acquiescence seemed forced, her tone pleasant, but overly so. She dipped the paintbrush into a bowl of milky white sauce and slapped some of it onto of the first row of doughnuts. “So how you been? Your millions treating you well?”

“What?”

“I guess that’s rude to ask about your money.” She dipped the brush again and moved on to the next row, leaving a messy trail of sugary goo in the wake of her brush. “Okay, how about this? So how’s the weather out
there in the Bay Area? I hear the summers are brutally cold.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Again she dipped and slopped.

“This. Talking about the weather. I didn’t come here for small talk.”

Instantly, the brush stopped, midswipe. Her head dropped forward and for a moment she was completely still. When she looked up, a mixture of chagrin and annoyance flickered across her face. Shaking her head she said, “Well, Matt, I don’t think we’re anywhere near ready for a big talk, so the small talk is all that’s left.”

“You’re angry,” he observed.

Studying her, he realized most people probably wouldn’t realize she was angry right now. She kept it well hidden, but he knew her too well for her to hide it from him. How unsettling was that? He wasn’t supposed to know her moods.

Claire just glared at him. “Ya think?”

“Maybe I’m missing something here.” He shoved his hands deep in his pocket. “The way I see it, you don’t have anything to be angry about.”

“That’s probably understandable. You’ve dated
a lot
of women over the years. You probably don’t even remember me.” Her voice was overly solicitous, like she was talking to an Alzheimer’s patient or something. Only the slight emphasis on the words
a lot
hinted at her anger. “Let me jog your memory. I’m Claire.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “You and I dated for six weeks in college. It was 1998. I know that’s short even by your standards but—”

“Yeah, Claire, I remember,” he interrupted, his harsh tone revealing far more of his emotions than he wanted.

“Oh, good. Because after last night when you didn’t even seem to recognize that you were bidding on me, I wasn’t sure.”

Finally, her attitude pushed him over the edge. He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Stop acting like the victim here, Claire. You dumped me.”

Her eyes blazed with anger as fierce as his own. “Yeah, I dumped you. But I—”

Abruptly, she broke off, her voice cracking as she dropped the brush and covered her face with her hands. He heard her breath catch and for a second he wondered if she was crying.

But then she lowered her hands and her eyes were dry, her expression almost rueful. “You’re right. I’m not angry about what happened in college. I have no reason to be, right?” She gave a strangled sound that might have been laughter. “Is that what last night was about? Revenge for me dumping you?”

“Revenge? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the smart one. You figure it out.” And just like that, she returned her attention to the doughnuts.

Was that really what she thought? He’d been so distraught over being dumped by her that all these years later he was still holding a grudge? Yeah, that was just what he wanted.

He moved around the worktable so he stood opposite her. When she said nothing, he reached a hand out and wrapped it around her wrist, halting her motions. “Bidding on your date wasn’t revenge. I was doing you a favor.” He smiled. To prove just how little she mattered to him.

But she wasn’t looking at his smile. Her attention was glued to her wrist where his fingers rested against her
skin. Suddenly, he was aware of her pulse thundering under his touch. Of the silken skin of the underside of her wrist. He sucked in a deep breath and got hit with the powerful blast of her scent. The aroma of freshly baked doughnuts and warm sugar mingled with the spice that was uniquely Claire.

The combination was as potent as a drug. Not that he’d ever done drugs. No, he had only two vices: pride and Claire. But he imagined this was just how a junkie felt. Twelve years, he’d been clean. One hundred percent Claire-free. He wasn’t about to jump off the wagon now.

But damn he wanted another hit of her. Especially when she looked up at him with her green eyes wide and her chest rising and falling rapidly. He dropped her hand at the same instant she jerked it away from him.

“A favor is watching someone’s dog when they’re out of town.” She rubbed her wrist against her shirt like she was scrubbing away his touch. “Or picking up some chicken soup at the grocery when they’re sick. In what universe would bidding twenty thousand dollars for a date be a favor? What were you thinking?”

He propped his hands on his hips. His hand still burned from her touch, but he wasn’t about to let her see that she’d rattled him. “What was I thinking? I was thinking the library could use the money and I could use the tax deduction. And, hell, I figured you would probably thank me. I remember that you haven’t liked my brother ever since he cornered you during a football game your freshman year in high school and tried to cop a feel. I assumed you wouldn’t want to go on a date with him and thought I’d help you out.”

Her gaze narrowed as she wielded the brush like a sword. “Hey, I’ve been handling jerks like him since I
turned thirteen and developed C-cups overnight. I could have handled your brother.”

In that instant, he saw straight through her bristling anger to the fear beneath. He rocked back on his heels, unable to repress a cocky smile that he just knew would piss her off. “But what you can’t handle is a single date with me?”

She blinked, brush hanging in midair. Her gaze met his, her eyes wide as she swallowed her surprise. Then she let loose a bark of laughter that sounded more nervous than amused. “Dating all those simpering models has clearly warped your brain. Obviously, they spend a little too much time stroking your ego while trying to get into your wallet. Don’t forget, I knew you back before you were worth a gazillion dollars.” She planted her hands on the counter and leaned in, issuing a challenge with her actions as well as her words. “So trust me. I can handle a date with you just fine. What I don’t want to handle is the six months of gossip about you I’ll have to listen to every day after you leave. I’m not worried about the date itself being anything more than an inconvenience.”

He felt his smile slipping, but managed to keep it in place. Claire always had had a knack for twisting the knife. “The good news is, you can put your mind to rest. I don’t plan on actually taking you on a date.”

The brush slipped from her fingers to clatter to the counter. “Are you kidding me?”

“Don’t worry. The library will get their money. I’ve already written the check. Obviously, neither of us wants to spend an evening in one another’s company. There’s no reason why we should.”

“Oh, that is perfect.” She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “After all these years, you show up in my life only
to drag me into this pissing contest with your brother. You stir up all this gossip. And now you’re trying to back out of the date? What is wrong with you?”

What was wrong with him? Christ, her logic was so twisted it made his head ache just trying to follow her train of thought. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want to go on a date with me.”

“Yeah. I don’t
want
to. But I sure as hell would go, if you would—” She broke off, frowning. “No. You know what? Forget it. You
are
going to take me on this date. You dragged me into the mess, the least you can do is have the decency to follow through with it.”

“You said you didn’t want any gossip.”

“I don’t want gossip. But I don’t want pity, either. Thanks to last night, everyone in town thinks you bid on my date just because of the legendary Ballard sibling rivalry. If you don’t bother to even take me out, it’ll be worse than if no one had bid on me at all.”

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” he said. “First you ream me for having the audacity to bid on you in the first place, then you give me hell for the kind of women I date, and now you’re insisting I take you out despite that? Just how crazy have you gotten in the past twelve years?”

Her gaze narrowed slightly and he could all but see her figuring out which of his buttons to push. “Just crazy enough.”

“Crazy enough to what?”

“To hunt you down and make you sorry if you don’t hold up your end of this stupid bargain.” Then she started ticking items off on her fingers. “I want it simple and to the point. Something low-key but highly visible. I want half the town to see us on our date. I want no romance and no drama.”

He grinned wickedly. “Sounds like the perfect date.”

Too bad he wasn’t going to give it to her. He’d had enough of her calling the shots. He didn’t know what kind of men she was used to dating here in Palo Verde, but he didn’t take dictates from anyone.

Now that he had her list of do’s and don’ts, he knew exactly how to piss her off. She was in for the most romantic night of her life.

“I
heard he chartered a jet and is going to whisk you off to some exotic, foreign locale,” Olga said, her eyes lit with fervor.

Molly sighed. “So romantic!”

Claire barely suppressed her snort of derision. Molly and Olga, her two college-aged waitresses, were just so…young. So blissfully ignorant of the workings of the human male. Had she ever been this innocent? She didn’t think so, not even when she was a teenager, constantly under the thumb of her grandparents, struggling with bitter resentment.

But of course, she had been this young. Briefly. When she’d been with Matt. It had been the one time in her life when she’d been filled with hope and optimism. A time when she’d believed she could have everything she’d yearned for but never thought she was worthy of. For that brief blip of time she’d imagined anything was
possible. And it was the one time she’d felt as young as they seemed to her right now.

They stood huddled together, elbows propped on the counter, eyes gleaming as they talked.

“You know he’s probably just bringing me to Palo Alto for dinner.”

“Oh.” Olga’s gaze remained dreamy.

“Huh?” asked Molly. “Where?”

Olga answered before Claire had a chance. “Palo Alto. It’s near San Francisco, where Stanford University is located. It’s like the intellectual epicenter of California.”

“I’m sure all the people at Berkeley disagree,” Claire muttered, giving the counter a fierce swipe with her dishcloth.

Olga ignored her. “And it’s where FMJ’s headquarters are located.”

Molly crossed her arms over her chest, clearly annoyed at being lectured to by Olga. “Sounds kind of boring.”

“It’s not,” Olga assured her. “As far as Palos go, it’s way better than Palo Verde.”

Both the girls laughed, since everyone knew Palo Verde was just…unexciting. A smallish farming community halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, Palo Verde had little to distinguish itself other than the fact that it was the county seat and had some charming turn-of-the-century architecture. Molly and Olga were both attending the community college located on the outskirts of town. Though Palo Verde was slightly bigger than the nearby small towns they were from, it still offered few enticements for young women.

Which was probably why she didn’t put an end to their musings. She knew better than anyone the frustrations
of being young and trapped in a town smaller than your dreams.

So instead of reminding them that they were supposed to be rolling silverware, she took out a stack of bright pink cloth napkins and grabbed the tray of flatware herself.

“I bet he takes her to L.A. for dinner.”

“Or Mexico!”

“Remember that episode of
Friends
when Pete took Monica to Italy for pizza? I bet he does that!”

“He can’t do that,” Molly said. “She’d need her passport, right?”

“Duh, she’d need her passport for Mexico, too,” Olga pointed out.

They both looked at her. “Did he ask you to bring your passport?”

“No. He hasn’t told me anything about the date.”

In the week and a half since the bachelorette auction, she hadn’t had any contact from Matt at all. Yesterday, she’d gotten a call from Wendy somebody at FMJ to inform her that a limo would be picking her up for her date at six that Saturday evening and that a hotel room had been booked for her, so she should pack an overnight bag. Claire wanted to tell Matt exactly what he could do with her overnight bag. However, the helpful Wendy had refused to connect the call. Claire had hung up, called information, gotten the number for FMJ and tried to get a hold of Matt that way. Only to be reconnected with Wendy.

Gritting her teeth at the memory, she focused on the task at hand. Lay out the napkin, add in the knife, fork and spoon, tuck in the points, roll. Sometimes getting lost in the minutia of life kept her going. Don’t think about how your life didn’t turn out the way you planned.
Don’t think about the dreams you gave up on. Just focus on what’s in front of you. Napkin, knife, fork, spoon, tuck, roll.

“So all you know is that he’s flying you somewhere, overnight.”

Both of the girls sighed again.

“So romantic!”

“It’s not romantic!” Claire felt her general annoyance with the situation bubbling up. “Romance was Rick Blaine saying goodbye to Ilsa Lund on the tarmac outside of Casablanca with the Nazis bearing down on them. Him sending her away because it was the only way to keep their love alive. Romance was Harry running through New York City on New Year’s Eve because he’d realized he loved Sally and wanted the rest of his life to begin that night. Romance is not a guy with way too much money, spending too much money, just to show that he has the money. That’s not romance. That’s ego.”

Molly and Olga just looked at her like she’d sprouted antlers. Finally Olga cocked her head to the side and said, “He’s trying to impress you.
That’s
why it’s romantic.”

“He’s not trying to impress me,” she assured them. He knew she wanted a low-key date. Something that wouldn’t attract a lot of attention. Instead, he was giving her this. He wasn’t trying to impress her. He was trying to torment her. What a jerk.

Molly shook her head and said in a half whisper, “What does she know? How long has it been since she’s even been on a date?”

“Too long,” Olga agreed. “Since before I’ve known her, at least.”

Claire ignored them. Napkin, knife, fork, spoon, tuck, roll.

Though it was a good point, not that she would admit it to them. After all, her one and only serious relationship had been with Matt and look how
that
had turned out. So what if she had zip practical experience with romance? She still had standards. She had the
idea
of romance.

“I can guarantee this.” She flicked out another napkin. “Whatever this date is, he didn’t plan it to be romantic.” She dropped down a knife. “He’s just showing off his wealth.” She slammed down the fork. “Throwing around his money because he can. Matt Ballard is no different from any of the other Ballards in this town. They think they can get away with whatever they want, just because they’re rich and influential.” Drawing in a slow breath, she carefully centered the spoon, tucked in the corners with precision and rolled up the bundle. “There’s nothing romantic about that.”

Molly just shook her head. “Claire, you do not get out enough.”

“Absolutely!” Olga agreed. “If some rich guy wants to spend a fortune on you, why not just enjoy it?” Hmm…why not?

She set aside the last of the pink bundles and eyed the nearly empty silverware tray. One lonely fork remained. She pulled it out and ran her fingers along the rough spot on the handle as she eyed its bent tine. Like most things in the diner, this fork was worn and overused. It was always the last utensil left in the tray. Someone else might have just thrown it away, but not Claire. She held on to things. Still, it looked so sad, alone in the tray, she couldn’t bear to put it back. Instead, she tucked it into the front pocket of her apron.

So why not just enjoy the date? Because Matt Ballard
was the devil himself. That’s why. Because he was a lying scoundrel. Because he had no regard for all the things she cared about: hard work, doing the right thing, family. Holding on to the things that mattered.

Since this was obviously an argument she couldn’t win, she poured herself a cup of coffee, adding a splash of cream and dash of sugar. Then she pulled the bent fork from her apron pocket and used it to stir her coffee. Sometimes, things served a purpose, even if it wasn’t what they were intended for.

Satisfied, she sat on the corner stool and sipped her coffee, and she didn’t look up again until the door swung open, the chime on the hinge signaling the end of their conversation as effectively as any argument she could have made.

Claire ordered Molly and Olga back to work as she delivered menus to the table herself, despite the fact that the Walsteads were regulars and knew every dish on the menu.

“Hey, Steve, Shelby.” Claire greeted the two adults as she placed the silverware on the table. Then she ruffled the brown hair of the boy who sat beside his mother. “Hey, sport, how ya doing?”

He wiggled away from her touch with a playful grimace. “Fine.”

“I know, I know,” Claire groaned. “You’re too old for that kind of thing.”

Shelby smiled up at her. “I can’t get used to it, either.” Then she reached out and tickled her adopted son in the ribs.

“What can I get you to drink?” Claire asked, a warmth settling over her at the gentle interplay between Kyle and his parents.

Steve and Shelby ordered sodas and agreed when Kyle asked if he could order a shake.

She jotted down the order. “I’ll get this right out.”

Kyle’s smiled beamed. Maybe as a way of apologizing for dodging her touch earlier.

Not that she minded. She remembered eleven all too well. That awkward stage where you desperately wanted to be an independent teenager and still longed for the comforts of childhood.

Watching Kyle with his parents, she felt a calm seep over her that she hadn’t felt since Matt had returned to her life. No, she was not as young and hopeful as she had once been. But she was content with her life and the choices she’d made. Kyle had parents who loved him. He had happiness and security. She couldn’t ask for more. She had sacrificed her relationship with Matt so that Kyle could have all of that.

The decision may have been hard at the time, but in retrospect, she was glad she’d done it. Since that fateful day she left Matt, she’d realized one important thing. The Matt Ballard she’d fallen in love with didn’t really exist. He was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

No, she could never love a man who willfully ignored a sweet and wonderful boy like Kyle just because it wasn’t convenient to acknowledge him. But that was exactly what the real Matt Ballard did.

On the night of their date, she couldn’t let herself forget that. No matter how much money he threw around, she’d never forget what a jerk he really was.

As Claire set the shake down in front of Kyle, she felt the slightest pang of regret, because he gazed up at her with eyes that looked so much like Matt’s.

No, not regret. Sadness. Giving birth to him when
she was only sixteen had nearly ruined Courtney’s life. When Claire had found out her younger sister was pregnant, she’d dropped out of college to help her. She’d left Matt to protect her sister and the child she’d carried. In the end her sacrifice had saved her sister’s future, but not their relationship. Courtney hadn’t contacted Claire in years. She’d never been able to make peace with the fact that Claire wanted a relationship with Kyle and his family. But the way Claire saw it, she was lucky the Walsteads were open to having Kyle’s birth aunt in his life.

As strange as it seemed, Claire was far closer to the Walsteads than she was to her own sister. She supposed she could understand why Courtney didn’t want anything to do with the Walsteads. Maybe for her, it was just too painful to see the child she’d never wanted and chosen not to keep. But more confusing for Claire was the way the Ballards treated Kyle and his parents. Vic looked enough like Kyle that anyone could see they were father and son. They all simply ignored it.

Of course, Claire had always known Vic was a jerk. Vic had been twenty when he’d gotten Courtney pregnant. His actions were reprehensible. Not to mention criminal—not that he’d ever been held accountable for them. Palo Alto was still a very small town and the Ballards were wealthy enough to keep the closet that held their skeletons firmly padlocked.

Still, Kyle was happy and that was what mattered. She couldn’t have loved Kyle more if he had been her own child. But every once in while, he did make her yearn for the children she would never have. And she sometimes wondered if they would have looked like Kyle, with Matt’s eyes and her light brown hair.

She flashed a smile that she hoped hid her more melancholy emotions.

Kyle smiled back. “Thanks, Aunt Claire!”

By the time the night of their date rolled around, she still knew nothing. She had no idea what to expect on their date. Other than the plane, of course. But then again, everyone in town had known within about twenty minutes of Matt scheduling the flight at the nearby airstrip.

She’d once read in a magazine—years ago when she still followed news about Matt—that he owned a Cessna. So she’d expected him to fly her somewhere in that. But instead, the plane waiting for her on the tarmac was no mere single engine aircraft, but a veritable jet, sleek and long and reeking of wealth and privilege.

Of course, filthy rich, debonair Matt would own his own jet. She was still making payments on her decade-old car.

When she climbed out of the limo, Matt was standing there waiting for her, looking vaguely like James Bond, what with the tailored charcoal-gray suit, his perfectly styled hair, the snazzy sunglasses and the plane.

When he saw her, he slowly removed the sunglasses to study her. If he was disappointed in her appearance, it didn’t show in his expression.

She owned exactly three dresses, all of which were nearly as old as her car. She’d borrowed this outfit—which consisted of wide-legged silk pants and a beaded vest with a matching shawl, all in a warm chocolate-brown—from Olga.

The limo driver took her bag out of the back and delivered it into the cabin of the plane. She’d debated for hours whether or not to actually bring a bag. She
certainly didn’t want Matt thinking she condoned being ordered around. Or worse that she was going to sleep with him. At the last minute, she’d dug an ancient duffel out of the back of her closet and thrown in a few things. She tried not to read too much into the fact that it was one of the bags she’d packed when she’d left him.

Now, the proprietary gleam in Matt’s eyes as he looked at her made her feel vaguely queasy. She resisted the urge to rub her palms on her pants—after all they weren’t hers.

“I didn’t know what to wear,” she explained, immediately regretting how insecure she sounded. The last thing she wanted was him imagining her stressing out over preparing for this date, though of course she had. “You didn’t say what we were doing.”