A Beauty For The Billionaire. Elizabeth Bevarly

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      “I would never pry into anyone’s personal information on the internet or anywhere else,” Chloe said, sounding genuinely stung that he would think otherwise.

      “Then how—”

      “Anabel told me all that about you after I gave her my two weeks’ notice. I didn’t ask,” she hastened to clarify. “But when she found out it was you who hired me, and when she realized she couldn’t afford to pay me more than you offered me, she became a little...perturbed.”

      Hogan grinned. He remembered Anabel perturbed. She never liked it much when she didn’t get her way. “And she thought she could talk you out of coming to work for me by telling you what a mook I am, right?” he asked.

      Chloe looked confused. “Mook?”

      He chuckled. “Never mind.”

      Instead of being offended by what Anabel had told Chloe, Hogan was actually heartened by it, because it meant she remembered him well. It didn’t surprise him she had said what she did. Anabel had never made a secret of her opinion that social divisions existed for a reason and should never be crossed—even if she had crossed them dozens of times to be with him when they were young. It was what she had been raised to believe and was as ingrained a part of her as Hogan’s love for muscle cars was ingrained in him. Her parents, especially her father, had been adamant she would marry a man who was her social and financial equal, to the point that they’d sworn to cut her off socially and financially if she didn’t. The Carlisle money was just that old and sacred. It was the only thing that could come between Hogan and Anabel. She’d made that clear, too. And when she went off to college and started dating a senator’s son, well... Hogan had known it was over between them without her even having to tell him.

      Except that she never actually told him it was over between them, and they’d still enjoyed the occasional hookup when she was home from school, in spite of the senator’s son. Over the next few years, though, they finally did drift apart.

      But Anabel never told him it was over.

      That was why, even after she’d married the senator’s son, Hogan had never stopped hoping that someday things would be different for them. And now his hope had paid off. Literally. The senator’s son was gone, and there was no social or financial divide between him and Anabel anymore. The blood he was born with was just as blue as hers, and the money he’d inherited was just as old and moldy. Maybe he was still feeling his way in a world that was new to him, but he wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore. Hell, he’d just drunk beer from a glass instead of a longneck. That was a major development for him. It wouldn’t be long before he—

      “Hang on,” he said. “How does Anabel know I only drink domestic beer? I wasn’t old enough to drink when I was with her.”

      “That part I figured out myself,” Chloe said.

      “There are some damned fine domestic beers being brewed these days, you know.”

      “There are. But what you had tonight was Belgian. Nice, wasn’t it?”

      Yeah, okay, it was. He would still be bringing home his Sam Adams on the weekends. So there, Chloe Merlin.

      “Is everything you cook French?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why he was prolonging a conversation neither of them seemed to want to have.

      “Still angling for that taco meatloaf, are we?” she asked.

      “I like pizza, too.”

      She flinched, but said nothing.

      “And chicken pot pie,” he threw in for good measure.

      She expelled another one of those impatient sighs. “Fine. I can alter my menus. Some,” she added meaningfully.

      Hogan smiled. Upper hand. He had it. He wondered how long he could keep it.

      “But yes, all of what I cook is French.” She looked like she would add more to the comment, but she didn’t.

      So he tried a new tack. “Are you a native New Yorker?” Then he remembered she couldn’t be a native New Yorker. She didn’t know what a mook was.

      “I was born and raised in New Albany, Indiana,” she told him. Then, because she must have realized he was going to press her for more, she added, with clear reluctance, “I was raised by my grandmother because my parents...um...weren’t able to raise me themselves. Mémée came here as a war bride after World War Two—her parents owned a bistro in Cherbourg—and she was the one who taught me to cook. I got my degree in Culinary Arts from Sullivan University in Louisville, which is a cool city, but the restaurant scene there is hugely competitive, and I wanted to open my own place.”

      “So you came to New York, where there’s no competition for that kind of thing at all, huh?” He smiled, but Chloe didn’t smile back.

      He waited for her to explain how she had ended up in New York cooking for the One Percent instead of opening her own restaurant, but she must have thought she had come to the end of her story, because she didn’t say anything else. For Hogan, though, her conclusion only jump-started a bunch of new questions in his brain. “So you wanted to open your own place, but you’ve been cooking for one person at a time for...how long?”

      She met his gaze levelly. “For five years,” she said.

      He wondered if that was why she charged so much for her services and insisted on living on-site. Because she was saving up to open her own restaurant.

      “Why no restaurant of your own by now?” he asked.

      She hesitated for a short, but telling, moment. “I changed my mind.” She stood and picked up his plate. “I need to see to your dessert.”

      He wanted to ask her more about herself, but her posture made clear she was finished sharing. So instead, he asked, “What am I having?”

      “Glissade.”

      “Which is? To me?” he added before she could.

      “Chocolate pudding.”

      And then she was gone. He turned in his chair to watch her leave and saw her crossing the gallery to the kitchen, her red plastic shoes whispering over the marble floor. He waited to see if she would look back, or even to one side. But she kept her gaze trained on the kitchen door, her step never slowing or faltering.

      She was a focused one, Chloe Merlin. He wondered why. And he found himself wondering, too, if there was anything else—or anyone else—in her life besides cooking.

Two

      The day after she began working for Hogan Dempsey, Chloe returned from her early-afternoon grocery shopping to find him in the gallery between the kitchen and dining room. He was dressed in a different pair of battered jeans from the day before, and a different sweater, this one the color of a ripe avocado. He must not have heard her as she topped the last stair because he was gazing intently at one photograph in particular. It was possible that if she continued to not make a sound, he wouldn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen. Because she’d really appreciate it if Hogan didn’t see her as she slipped into the kitchen.

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