The Bravo Billionaire

“Don’t even tell me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t take any money from you.”

“Of course you can take money from me.”

“No, I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Blythe was my friend. I can’t take money to betray my friend.”

“This is no betrayal.”

“To me it would be. I’m sorry. I won’t take your money.”

“It seems to me, Ms. Hewitt, that if there has been any betrayal in this situation, it’s already occurred.”

“Pardon me?”

“The way I see it, my mother betrayed all of us. You. Me. And Mandy, too.”

“Your mama did not betray anybody.” There was indignation in her voice now. Indignation with a Texas twang.

Jonas rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache between his eyes. “All right. Perhaps I’ve used the wrong word. How about tricked? Is that better? Or maybe just plain old screwed.”

“Blythe Bravo did not—”

“She screwed us, Ms. Hewitt. Or at least, she screwed me. And my sister.”

“That is not true. Your mama absolutely without a doubt wanted only the best for you. And for your sister.”

“The best. That would be you?”

There was silence on the line again. Finally, the dog groomer said softly, “Well, I guess your mama thought so, now didn’t she?”

Jonas picked up his palm planner and then set it down. He looked at the spines of the books on a shelf about ten feet from where he sat—all gold-tooled leather, beautifully bound. A number of harsh remarks were passing through his brain, things to the effect that he did not consider a woman who’d been raised in a trailer in some place called Alta Lobo, Texas, to be the best thing for him.

He wisely did not let those remarks get out of his mouth.

“So what do we do now, Ms. Hewitt?”

“Well, I don’t know yet.”

“Ms. Hewitt, you are trying my patience.”

“You know, I got that. I got that loud and clear.”

“I could make you a very rich woman.”

“Well, that is real nice. But no thanks. I mean it. I truly do. I will call you, as soon as I can make up my mind what to do.”

Right then, he heard one short, sharp bark. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. For a minute, he thought she was talking to him. But then she did talk to him, and he realized the difference. “That was Ted. He says hi.”

Damn her. She had the dogs. She wasn’t getting him or his sister.

“You have yourself a nice night now,” she said.

“Ms. Hewitt—”

“’Bye…” The line went dead.

Jonas pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the thing. She had hung up on him.

Nobody hung up on him.

Except, apparently, for Emma Lynn Hewitt.

He called again the next night. She told him that no, she had not made up her mind yet.

He hung up on her that time, because he knew if he didn’t that he would end up raising his voice. Jonas Bravo was not a man who ever needed to raise his voice.

After that, he gave up on phone calls. For two entire days he did nothing about the problem, though it seemed to him that the whole time a clock ticked away relentlessly inside his head, counting down the seconds, the minutes, the hours, moving him closer to the date by which he had to be married to Emma Lynn Hewitt—or possibly lose Mandy.

By the time those two days had passed, it was Thursday night, ten days since Blythe’s death, eleven days before the deadline set out in the will. And three days since the meeting at McAllister, Quinn and Associates.

Three days. If that wasn’t a damn few, he didn’t know what was.

And he’d come up with another angle, another offer he could make her.

Friday, he spent almost three hours closeted with his top corporate attorneys, getting the whole thing in order, lining out exactly what he was willing to do and how it would be accomplished. One of his secretaries typed the thing up.

By then, it was after four. He put the finished prospectus in his briefcase and called for the limousine. A half an hour later, his driver pulled up in front of Emma Hewitt’s place of business in Beverly Hills. The driver got out and opened Jonas’s door for him.

Jonas paused on the sidewalk to reluctantly approve the clean, simple lines of the building. The large plaque on the wall by the big glass door gave the establishment’s name: PetRitz. And a brief description of the services provided: Grooming, Boarding, Animal Care. Not a billboard or a tacky picture of a pink poodle in sight. He gave Ms. Hewitt no credit for this clear display of good taste. In Beverly Hills, tackiness was not permitted, at least not when it came to places of business. No billboards, no neon, no cheesy advertising art of any kind.

Jonas knew that it was his mother’s money and influence that had landed the dog groomer in such a prime location. And it was Blythe’s connections with wealthy animal owners all over the Southland that had brought the Hewitt woman a huge clientele right from the first.

But he also realized that it was the Hewitt woman herself who had somehow managed to keep all those fickle, demanding, big-spending pet lovers coming back. From the day it opened its doors, PetRitz had been a success. Everyone who was anyone took their precious pedigreed pooches to Emma Lynn Hewitt’s exclusive pet salon.

And Jonas had been standing on the sidewalk long enough.

He strode up to the glass door and went inside, where he was instantly bombarded with color and sound.

The waiting room boasted hibiscus-pink walls, lots of big, soft chairs and a skylight overhead that let in plenty of light. There were plants everywhere, palms and huge, trailing coleus, ficus trees, giant ferns and big-leaved begonias. Among the greenery, there were several fish tanks in which bright-colored tropical fish darted about and a couple of huge terrariums where large reptiles basked under glowing heat lamps. A few customers were waiting, sitting in the fat chairs, looking prosperous and contented, thumbing through copies of Pet Life and People. Their animals waited with them. A dignified Irish setter, patient on a leash. A Burmese cat hissing in a carrier. A parrot that kept whistling and asking, “What’s the matter, pretty baby?”

Music was playing. The Dixie Chicks, he thought. Which figured.

And he could also hear bird sounds—not including the parrot. Piped in or real? Had to be recorded. He didn’t see any birds perched among the greenery.

There was a reception counter opposite the door. Behind it, at a computer, sat a plus-sized young woman with hair the same color as the counter: jet-black. The young woman wore a smock the same screaming pink as the walls.

Jonas crossed the room and stood right in front of her. She punched up something on the keyboard, scowled at the screen, then looked up at him, ditching the scowl for a welcoming smile. “Hi there. Need some help?” She wore a rhinestone in her nose, three studs in her left ear and four in her right. On her ample pink bosom rode a black lacquer name tag with pink metallic lettering. Pixie, it read.

“Well, Pixie. I’d like to speak with Emma Lynn.”

The black brows inched closer together on the wide forehead. “Wadeaminute. I know who you are. Blythe’s son. The one they call the Bravo Billionaire.”

“Call me Jonas. Please.”

Pixie beamed in pleasure. “All right. I’ll do that. Jonas.”

“May I speak with Emma Lynn?”

Pixie heaved a huge sigh and her rather close-set eyes grew scarily moist. “I’m so sorry—about Blythe. She was the greatest.”

“Yes. There was no one quite like her. Now…would you get me Emma Lynn?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Pixie got up from her chair and went to a black door on her side of the counter. “I’ll tell her you’re here. Won’t be a sec.”

Pixie was gone for more than a sec.

Approximately two minutes after she disappeared, another woman in a pink smock came through the black door and took Pixie’s place behind the counter. Jonas continued to wait, moving to the side every time a client approached to pick up a pet or drop one off.

It occurred to him after he’d been standing there for about five minutes, listening to twittering birds and the Dixie Chicks and then after the Dixie Chicks, to Sheryl Crow, that he felt like a salesman. Someone in pet supplies, briefcase in hand, waiting for the owner to come out and grant him a few minutes of her precious time.

Waiting.

His least favorite activity.

And he’d been doing it a lot lately. Way too much.

Because Emma Lynn Hewitt wouldn’t make up her damn mind.

There was another black door on his side of the counter, on the same wall as the one behind it. A third woman in a pink smock came out of that door twice to take pets from the people at the counter. It didn’t take a Mensa candidate to figure out that the two doors led to the same hallway.

When the second hand on the big wall clock behind the counter had gone around for the seventh time since Pixie had left him, Jonas decided he’d had enough. He turned around and went through the door on his side of the counter.

“Uh. Excuse me,” the woman behind the counter called after him. “You can’t go back there….”

He ignored her and pushed the door shut behind him.

He was in a long, pink hallway, with three black doors on either side, and one at each end. Sheryl Crow and the birds continued to serenade him.

He stepped across the hall and pushed open a door. It was some kind of lounge, with counters and a refrigerator, a coffeemaker, a couple of couches against the wall, a round table and several chairs. Yet another pink-smocked woman sat at the table sipping coffee and reading a paperback novel. She looked up and frowned at him.

“Excuse me,” he said, and pulled the door shut again.

He tried the door next to it.

An office, with a desk and a big pink swivel chair. Lots of plants, just as in the reception room. Pictures on the bookcases—one of his mother, his sister and the Yorkies out by the pool at Angel’s Crest.

Her office, he thought. But where the hell was she? He ducked out of that room and shut that door, too.

Before he could open another one, Pixie emerged from the door at the far end of the hall.

She frowned at him reproachfully. “Jonas. I said I’d be right back.”

He walked toward her. “Where is she, Pixie?”

Pixie stopped looking reproachful and started looking nervous. She backed up against the door she’d just come through. “Uh. I’m sorry. Right now, she can’t be disturbed.”

“She can’t.”

“No.”

Jonas halted about two feet from where Pixie stood blocking the door at the end of the hall. “Why not?”

“She, uh, she’s working with an especially sensitive client at the moment. She told me to tell you she’ll be getting in touch with you real soon.”

“Real soon?”

“That’s right.”

Jonas flexed his fingers around the handle of his briefcase. “Pixie.”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“I want you to move away from that door.”

Pixie’s plump chin quivered and the rhinestone in her nose seemed to be blinking at him. “No, I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. And I think you should.” He took the three steps that were necessary to bring him right up close to her.

She looked at him and he looked at her.

“I’m not a very nice man, Pixie. Do you understand?”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Get out of my way.”

Pixie maintained the stare-down for another ten seconds. That was all she could take. Then, with a small moan, she sidled to the right.

“Thank you.” Jonas opened the door.

Beyond it, the walls were cobalt blue with white trim and the floor was black-and-white linoleum, a classic checkerboard pattern. A pink-smocked Emma Lynn Hewitt stood by a metal-topped table with some sort of adjustable pole attached to it, a noose at the end of the pole. On the table, below the dangling noose, sat a dog. A very small dog—perhaps seven inches tall and six pounds, max. The dog had long, soft-looking caramel-colored fur and bright, slightly bulging eyes.

Jonas registered these details in the first second or two after he entered the room, right before the dog attacked him.

Chapter 4

The dog leapt at him, yapping.

Emma Lynn Hewitt came after it, emitting firm and totally ineffective commands. “Hitchcock, stay! Hitchcock, sit!”

Jonas lifted his briefcase, positioning it as a makeshift shield. The little dog slammed against it and dropped to the floor, where it lay stunned for perhaps a count of three.

And then it was up again, grabbing onto the end of Jonas’s left trouser leg with its sharp, white teeth.

“Oh, please don’t kick him,” begged Emma.

The dog growled and wriggled and ripped at his pant leg. Jonas stood absolutely still. “Then I’d suggest you get him away from me. Now.”

“Hitch. Here, Hitch…”

The dog paused, blinked, and then picked up where it had left off, nails clicking fiercely on the linoleum as it yanked backwards, making a rag of the fine lightweight wool.

Emma knelt. “Hitchcock. Front.”

The dog froze. Growled.

“Front, Hitch. Front.”

The dog gave another growl, then let go.

She scooped the animal into her arms, stood, and backed up. “Good boy. Such a very, very good boy.” The dog whined and licked her chin. She glanced at Jonas. So did the dog, which immediately started growling again. “Wait outside in the hall. I’ll be right there.”

Jonas advised, “Don’t disappoint me, Emma.”

“I won’t. I promise. I’ll be right out.”

He turned for the door.

“Send Pixie in,” she said, as he opened the door.

Since Pixie was standing on the other side wearing the guilty expression of someone caught eavesdropping, there was no need to relay the message. Pixie went in as soon as he got out.

For once, the dog groomer didn’t make him wait.

In under a minute, she came out of the blue room, closing the door and then slumping against it, pale head bowed. She was wearing leopard-skin patterned pants beneath the pink smock, the kind that fit like a second skin and came to just below her knees. There were black platform thongs on her feet. Her toenails were metallic gold. Right then, she reminded him of a very young, very vulnerable Marilyn Monroe.

“I am sorry,” she said, still looking down. “Hitch hates the noose, so I don’t use it. After a little conversation and a lot of praise, he’s usually real good for me. But you surprised him, bursting in the room like that. Pomeranians don’t like surprises.”

“No kidding.”

One of the pink-smocked women—this one skinny as a rail with short, spiky red hair—came out of a door at the opposite end of the hall, leading a fine-looking collie on a leash. The woman paused. “Em? You okay?”

Emma looked over, forced a smile. “I’m fine, Deirdre.”

Deirdre took the collie through the door to the waiting room.

Emma turned her gaze on him then, her expression wistful. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Armani, right?”

He realized she was referring to his tattered trousers. “Vincent Nicolosi.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

“Someone so exclusive, I’ve never heard of him, huh?”

He shrugged.

“You just send me the bill, all right?”

As far as Jonas was concerned, they’d talked enough about his trousers. “I have something important to discuss with you.”

“Jonas, I really don’t have time right now to—”

He was already striding back down the hall. He stopped at the door that led to the office room. “In here.”

“Jonas, I can’t—”

“In here. Now.”

Amazingly, she did what he’d told her to do, platform thongs clipping smartly as she came toward him. She opened the door. “After you.”

He went in.

She followed, gestured at the two pink Naugahyde chairs opposite the desk. “Have a seat.”

He didn’t sit. He laid his briefcase on her desk, opened it, and took out the prospectus. “Here.” He held it out to her.

“What’s that?”

“A plan I’ve put together.”

She folded her arms below those ripe-looking breasts.

“What kind of a plan?”

“A damn good one.” Since she wouldn’t take it, he dropped the prospectus on the desk. “We’re going to expand this business of yours. You’ll open five new PetRitz locations—in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia and New York City. One a year, starting next year. I will take all the risks, and put up all the money. The majority of the profit from this venture will be yours.”

“It will?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly do I have to do to get so lucky?”

“You’ll contribute your time. Lots of it. And also your…expertise.”

“I heard that.” Her eyes were moss green, or maybe hazel. They kept changing color. And they seemed to be twinkling with humor right then. That little mole above her lip tucked itself into the shadow of her cheek as she grinned.

“Heard what?” he demanded.

“The way you hesitated before you said ‘expertise,’ like you didn’t really mean it.”

“I assure you. I did mean it.”

She tipped her head to the side. “Sure you did. And a Texas summer never gets all that hot.”

“Emma, I am very well aware that you’ve done a fine job here. PetRitz, by any standard, is a success. And my mother realized an excellent profit on her investment.”

“You bet she did.”

“So now, I’m going to help you expand.”

She kept her arms wrapped around her. “In exchange for what?”

“In exchange for—”

She put up a hand. “No. Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” She fluttered her eyelashes, which were curly and dark around those almost-green eyes. “I know. You want me to agree to give up any claim to Mandy.”

He sought the most diplomatic way to say yes.

Before he found it, she prompted, “Am I right?”

“Emma—”

“Just answer the question.”

“All right. Yes. You’ll give up all claim to custody of Mandy.”

“No.”

He glared at her. “Just read the damn thing, will you?”

“I’m not going to give up my claim to custody of your sister. Or at least, if I do, it’s not gonna be because you have paid me off. Oh, Jonas.” She raked both hands back through that white-gold hair and she groaned at the ceiling. “Haven’t we been through this already, more than once?”

“No. This is all new. This is a great opportunity for you to build on what you’ve got here.”

“Well, fine. It’s a great opportunity and I’m passin’ it up—considering that to take it would mean I’d have to turn my back on the dyin’ wish of the second most wonderful woman I have ever known.”

He must have frowned.

Because she explained, “The first most wonderful bein’ my aunt Cass. You know all about my aunt Cass, now, don’t you? Blythe told me how you sicced your detectives on all of her friends. How you keep files on folks, how you never, ever trust anyone.”

“Excuse me. There are people whom I trust.”

“Oh, sure. Maybe. After you’ve had your detectives on them, keepin’ track of their every move for ten or twenty years.”

He felt that urge again, to wrap his hands around her pretty neck and squeeze. He spoke more quietly than ever. “You have no idea the kind of precautions a man in my position has to take.”

“You don’t have to take precautions, Jonas. You just do. I mean, all those guards you have out there at that mansion of yours…”

He did not have guards. Not exactly. He employed a skilled and discreet security force to patrol the grounds at Angel’s Crest.

The woman was smirking. “Bel Air is a gated community, with security guards checking out anybody who tries to get in. And then you’ve got that big stone fence around your property. And did I mention that other locked gate smack in the middle of that high stone fence, that gate with the camera that zooms in on anyone who rings to be let in? And is that all? Oh, no. There is more. Because you’ve also got those guys straight out of Men in Black sneakin’ around in the jacaranda trees, talkin’ to each other on their walkie-talkies. I mean, pardon me, Jonas, but you are kind of paranoid.”

“No.” He spoke with extreme patience. “I am not paranoid. I am careful.”

“You are too careful. And I keep thinkin’ that, no matter how much you love Mandy—and I do know that you love her, Jonas—but no matter how much you care for her, she can’t help but be affected by the way you are, by the way you keep people away from you, the way you are so afraid to trust anybody.”

“I am not afraid.” He spoke more forcefully than he meant to.

She actually had the temerity to roll those just-about-green eyes.

Clearly, they were getting nowhere. He said, very quietly, “I want you to take a good, long look at that offer.” He turned to leave.

She spoke to his back. “Jonas, this is pointless. I am not goin’ to—”

“I’ll call you tonight.” He shut the door on her before she could finish whatever it was she had started to say.

He called her at midnight. She answered the phone on the first ring. “What?”

“Did you read it?”

“I did. All the way through to the part about how I give up all claim to custody of Mandy. And then I stopped reading.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not takin’ this offer—which I already told you this afternoon. If you’d only bothered to listen, you could have saved yourself a phone call tonight.”

At that moment, Jonas realized he was truly and completely fed up with this woman. So fed up that he said exactly what he was thinking. “I could ruin you, Emma Lynn Hewitt.”

She gasped. He found the small, shocked sound inordinately satisfying. “I guess that was a threat, huh?”

“Let’s call it a warning.”

“Call it what you want. It won’t work.” There was steel beneath the twang. “A person’s got to stand for somethin’ or she’ll fall for anything. My aunt Cass used to say that.”

Terrific. Now she was going to beat him over the head with clever little sayings from country-western songs. “I could care less what your aunt Cass used to say.”

“Well, all right. Then listen to this. This is what I say. You are not bullyin’ me into doing things your way.”

The problem, Jonas realized then, was that she meant exactly what she said. Damn her.

This couldn’t be happening to him. But it was.

Everyone had a price—except, apparently, Emma Lynn Hewitt. For Emma Lynn Hewitt, no amount would be high enough.

He could break her, financially, and she knew it. Yet even the threat of losing everything she’d worked for wouldn’t make her give in and see things his way. The woman had values. And she was determined to stick by them. She would come to her own decision, in her own time. And whatever that decision was, he was going to have to live with it.

“Oh, Jonas.” Her tone, all at once, had become insultingly gentle. “I do understand why you are how you are. Blythe told me all about it. And it’s no secret anyway. I know it was all over the newspapers back then. Such an awful, terrible thing. I am so sorry, that ugly things like that can happen, that sometimes evil never gets made right. And Blythe, well, you probably know that she blamed herself. She said that her breakdown took her away from you just when you needed her most.”

Jonas put the phone below his chin and sat back in his chair. He looked up at the intricately carved crown moldings overhead.

Emma Hewitt blathered on. “When she was better, she tried to reach out to you. But she said, by then, you’d spent so much time feelin’ all alone that you were used to it. You wouldn’t open up to her. You wouldn’t open up to anyone, you wouldn’t—”

Jonas had heard enough. Very quietly, while she was still talking, he hung up the phone.

After that, Jonas waited. He had finally understood that he had no other choice. He did not call Emma Hewitt or try in any way to contact her again.

Three more days went by. During that time, he found he was coming to grips with the fact that there would be a long court battle.